Governance and Improvement. State, Society and Legitimacy from the Renaissance through the Enlightenment
Level:
Master's CEU credits:
4 ECTS credits:
4 Academic year:
2009/2010 Academic year:
2010/2011 Semester:
Fall Start and end dates:
8 Aug 2009 Co-hosting Unit(s) [if applicable]:
Department of History Stream/Track/Specialization/Core Area:
Culture, Religion and Intellectual History in a Comparative Perspective CEU Instructor(s):
Laszlo Kontler Additional information:
First and foremost, we shall revisit the stereotype of the “emergence of the modern state” in European history in general. This inevitably implies a consideration of the phenomenon of the composite state and the kinds of challenges peculiar to such states. We shall examine the essentially negotiated character of policy making even in the most “absolutistic” of early-modern states, especially in Central Europe, with respect to both the efficient exercise of political authority and management of resources, and the legal, institutional, bureaucratic and other devices employed to ensure “good government”. The course will in particular explore the situations in which, and the extent to which, these imperatives were regarded as combined and mutually dependent. Further, it will inquire into the conceptual tools (theories of reason of state, natural law, cameralism, statistics etc.) that underpinned administrative measures and policies, and into the means whereby governments communicated their ends to their subjects (and the other way round). By providing an up-to-date understanding of such processes, the course seeks to go beyond the stereotypical presentation of the political and institutional history of Central Europe in the early-modern period in terms of centralisation/absolutism versus estates politics, and the transition to a truncated version of liberalism thereafter. Learning Outcomes:
The course aims to develop a comprehensive and critical understanding of a crucial period in, and crucial aspects of, European state formation in a fresh perspective, based on familiarity with recent as well as classical literature. Students will be able to contextualize the relevant regional processes againt broader spatial and temporal structures. Assessment :
- at least one “position paper” (a prepared, formal comment on the readings for the week, in ca. 15 minutes, identifying central themes and attempting to set an agenda for discussion) – 10% of the grade
- regular participation in class discussion (with comments whose precision and relevance demonstrates a careful reading of the texts for the week and a careful listening to the flow of discussion) – 40% of the grade
- one written essay (ca. 3,000-4,000 words or 12-15 pages, topic and material to be discussed with the instructor, evaluated on the basis of its ability to address and answer key questions this course has been designed to raise) – 50% of the grade
Full description:
Schedule and readings
Note: the average weekly reading load is c. 120 pages per week. It is, however, unevenly distributed: the load is heavier during the first third of the course, so as to allow us to draw on more extensive experience later on. Whenever the readings contain primary texts as well as secondary literature, always start with the former category!
1. Introduction: the early-modern state
This introductory survey will address basic conceptual issues in regard of the early-modern polity, including the very notion of “the state” and the relevant terminology, as well as the myth of “the rise of the modern state”.
Sir John Fortescue, On the Laws and Governance of England, ed. by Shelley Lockwood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 48-53, 83-93, 109-111. [
pdf]
Jean Bodin, On Sovereignty (Cambridge, 1992), 1-24, 128-131 [notes]. [pdf]
H.G. Koenigsberger, “Dominium Regale or Dominium Politicum et Regale: Monarchies and Parliaments in Early Modern Europe” in idem., Politicians and Virtuosi. Essays in Early Modern History (Hambledon Press: London, 1986), 1-25. [pdf]
Ian Green, The Development of Monarchies in Western Europe, c. 1500-1800”, in Richard Butterwick (ed.), The Polish-Lithuanian Monarchy in European Context, c. 1500-1795 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001), 39-57. [pdf]
Karin J. MacHardy, War, Religion and Court Patronage in Habsburg Austria. The Social and Political Dimensions of Political Interaction, 1521-1622 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001), 21-46, 223-230 (notes) [pdf]
Michel Foucault, “Governmentality”, in Michel Foucault, Power, ed. James D. Faubion (New York: The New Press, 2000), 201-222. [pdf]
2-3. Rulership and legitimacy: reason of state, constitutionalism, divine right, representation
These two class meetings will be devoted to the discussion of ideologies, disseminated by texts and words as well as images, symbols and actions, meant to underpin the authority of the state and its representatives in sixteenth and seventeenth century Europe.
Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, Chs. I-III, VI-VII, XVII-XVIII, XXIV-XXV (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 5-14, 19-29, 58-63, 83-87. [pdf]
Niccolò Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, Book I.4, 6, 9 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 16-17, 20-23, 28-30. [pdf]
Giovanni Botero, The Reason of State, Book I.1, 8, 12-15; Book II.1-10; Book III.1; Book VII.11-12; Book VIII.1-2, 14 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1956), 3, 12-3, 16-21, 34-53, 73-75, 143-153, 165. [pdf]
Justus Lipsius, Sixe Bookes of Politickes or Civil Doctrine, Book I.1; Book II.1, 6, 11, 14; Book III.1; Book IV.1-5, 11, 13 (Amsterdam and New York: Da Capo Press, 1970), 1-2, 16-17, 22-23, 29-30, 34-35, 41-42, 59-70, 93-108, 115-123. [pdf]
King James VI and I, The Trew Law of Free Monarchies, in Political Writings, ed. Johann P. Sommerville (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 62-84. [pdf]
Peter Burke, “Tacitism, scepticism, and reason of state”, in J.H. Burns (ed.), The Cambridge History of Political Thought 1450-1700 (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1991), 479-498. [pdf]
Gerhard Oestreich, Neostoicism and the early modern state (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1982), 155-186. [pdf]
H.G. Koenigsberger, “Republicanism, monarchism and liberty”, in Robert Oresko, G.C. Gibbs and H.M. Scott (eds.) Royal and Republican Sovereignty in Early Modern Europe. Essays in memory of Ragnhild Hatton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1997), 43-74. [pdf]
Paul Kléber Monod, The Power of Kings. Monarchy and Religion in Europe, 1589-1715 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1999), 1-32. [pdf]
Tim Blanning, The Culture of Power and the Power of Culture. Old Regime Europe 1660-1789 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 29-77. [pdf]
4-5. Political thought in the Holy Roman Empire, Poland-Lithuania and Hungary, 1500-1700
The regional focus will be first developed with an inquiry into the characteristic patterns of conceptualizing politics and the polity in the major states of central Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The place of this inquiry in the course schedule implies that, instead of adopting a “structure-superstructure” approach, we study ideas in their reciprocal relationship with their contexts, both shaping and being shaped by them.
Martin Luther, On Secular Authority, parts 2-3, and Jean Calvin, Institutio Christianae Religionis, IV. 20. 1-4, 22-32. In: Luther and Calvin on Secular Authority (Cambridge, 1991), 22-43, 47-52, 74-84. [pdf]
Johannes Althusius, Politica, ed. Frederick S. Carney (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1995), 17-26, 66-78, 135-158. [pdf]
Samuel Pufendorf, On the Duty of Man and Citizen, ed. James Tully (Cambridge University Press, 1991), 17-38, 46-67, 132-134, 151-154. [pdf]
Robert von Friedeburg and Michael Seidler, “The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation”; [pdf] László Kontler and Balázs Trencsényi, “Hungary”; Karin Friedrich, “Poland”, in Howell Lloyd, Glenn Burgess and Simon Hodson (eds.), European Political Thought 1450-1700. Religion, Law and Philosophy (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007), 102-175, 176-207, 208-243. [pdf]
6-7. The Habsburgs in the Empire and in Central Europe, 1500-1700
At these two class meetings we shall discuss the different institutional arrangements, governmental strategies, hierarchical relations and degrees of reciprocity that marked the relationship of Habsburg rulers and their governments with the “hereditary provinces”, the territories of the German empire, and the lands of the Hungarian and the Bohemian crowns, obtained in the early 16th century.
R. J. W. Evans, The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy. An Interpretation (Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1979), ch. 5-8. 157-310. [pdf]
8. Poland-Lithuania unreformed
We shall carry out the same sort of investigations as in 6-7, this time in respect of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Richard Butterwick (ed.), The Polish-Lithuanian Monarchy in European Context, c. 1500-1795 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001),58-81, 132-171.[pdf], [pdf]
9. Enlightenment and improvement: continental and regional perspectives
In this session we revisit the famous question “What Is Enlightenment?” on the basis of authoritative contemporary statements and views expressed in recent historical scholarship.
Jean Le Rond D’Alembert, Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopedia of Diderot (University of Chicago Press, 1986), 60-105.[pdf]
Immanuel Kant, „An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?”,in James Schmidt (ed.), What Is Enlightenment? (Berkeley etc.: University of California Press, 1996), 58-64.[pdf]
John Robertson, The Case for the Enlightenment: Scotand and Naples 1680-1760 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 1-28. [pdf]
László Kontler, “Introduction: The Enlightenment in Central Europe?”, in Balázs Trencsényi and Michal Kopeček (eds.), Discourses of Collective Identity in Central and Southeast Europe. Vol. I: Late Enlightenment (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2006), 33-44.[pdf]
R. J. W. Evans, „The Origins of Enlighternment in the Habsburg Lands” and „Culture and Authority in Central Europe 1683-1806”, in idem., Austria, Hungary, and the Habsburgs. Essays on Central Europe, c. 1683-1867 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 36-74.[pdf]
Richard Butterwick, „What Is Enlightenment (Oswiecenie)? Some Polish Answers, 1765-1820”, Central Europe 3/1 (2005), 19-37.[pdf]
10. The rise of the state sciences
During the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, changing internal and international relations of European states, and the rise of modern natural law and empirical science, marked new developments in the modes of social and political thinking. This class meeting will survey some of the most important among these (political economy, physiocracy, cameralism, “Polizeywissenschaft”).
Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, ed. Anne M. Cohler, Basia Carolyn Miller and Harold Samuel Stone (Cambridge University Press, 1989), 10-30, 112-119, 124-126, 154-166, 187-188 [pdf]
Bernard Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees, ed. E. J. Hundert (Indianapolis: Hackett), 36-44.[pdf]
David Hume, „Of the First Principles of Government”, „Of the Origin of Government”, Of the Original Contract”, in Essays Moral, Political and Literary, ed. Eugene F. Miller (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1985), 32-41, 465-487.[pdf]
Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, ed. R..H. Campbell and A.S. Skinner (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1976), 13-30.[pdf]
Mark Goldie and Robert Wokler (eds.), The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 419-464, 525-546.[pdf]
Keith Tribe, Strategies of economic order. German economic discourse, 1750-1950 (Cambridge: Cambridge |University Press, 1995), 8-31.[pdf]
11-12. The Enlightenment pursuit of improvement through government and the heritage of the old regime in the Germanies, Poland and the Habsburg Monarchy
In the highly emulative eighteenth-century international domain, the managers of European states were keen on resorting on bureaucracies whose grasp over their subjects is enhanced by a solid intellectual foundation in contemporary state sciences, and whose legitimacy rests increasingly on their willingness and capacity to promote the public weal. The last two sessions will survey the successes and the failures of Central European states in this pursuit.
Maiken Umbach, Federalism and Enlightenment in Germany, 1740-1806 (London and Rio Grande: The Hambledon Press, 2000), 91-127 [pdf]
Joachim Whaley, “The transformation of the Aufklärung: from the idea of power to the power of ideas”, in Hamish Scott and Brendan Simms (eds.), Cultures of Power in Europe during the Long Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 158-179. [pdf]
H. M. Scott, Reform in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1740-1790”, in H. M. Scott (ed.), Enlightened Absolutism. Reform and Reformers in Later Eighteenth-Century Europe (London: Macmillan, 1990), 145-188.[pdf]
Grete Klingenstein, “Between Mercantilism and Physiocracy. Stages, Modes and Functions of Economic Theory in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1748-63”, in Charles W. Ingrao (ed.), State and Society in Early Modern Austria (West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 1994), 181-214. [pdf]
Ritchie Robertson, “Joseph Rohrer and the Bureaucratic Enlightenment”, in Ritchie Robertson and Edward Timms (eds.), The Austrian Enlightenment and its Aftermath (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1991), 22-42. [pdf]
Józef Andrzej Gierowski, “Reforms in Poland after the “Dumb Diet” (1717), in Samuel Fiszman (ed.), Constitution and Reform in Eighteenth-Century Poland. The Constitution of 3 May 1791 (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1997), 65-86. [pdf]
Butterwick (ed.), The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, 193-218 [pdf]
If you feel that you need more familiarity with the basic “narrative” of the history of the territories covered in this course during the early-modern period, you may find it useful to turn to the following surveys (not included in the reader, but available in the CEU Library):
Mary Fulbrook, A Concise History of Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 33-104.
Peter H. Wilson, From Reich to Revolution. German History, 1558-1806 (Basingstoke: Palgrave-MacMillan, 2004), 1-49, 103-342.
Jean Bérenger, The History of the Habsburg Empire 1273-1700 (London and New York: Longman, 1994), 123-355, and idem., The History of the Habsburg Empire 1700-1918 (London and New York: Longman, 1997), 1-137.
Anita J. Prazmowska, A History of Poland (Basingstoke: Palgrave-MacMillan, 2004), 67-129.
László Kontler, A History of Hungary (Basingstoke: Palgrave-MacMillan, 2002), 137-221.