ABSTRACT
Trust and fear are important components in the development of modern state building. Granted, being ‘soft’ components, they have received less attention than battles and revolutions. Nevertheless, they are important underlying currents, driving subjects and rulers to these very battles and revolutions often resulting in new forms of government. The content of most constitutions, beginning with that of the US and in Europe, after the French Revolution, can be viewed as codifications of distrust on the part of the citizens – usually the better-off – towards the state, personalized in the arbitrariness of the absolute monarchies of the anciens régimes. This applied particularly to the area of finances, taxation and the judiciary. The emerging liberal bourgeoisie preferred a state acting as a night watchman, but this aloof role did not last long, if it ever existed in its pure form (Mosse, 1974). Gradually the authorities were empowered to design laws to further societal aims and to protect the citizens against new threats to their acquired interests. Depending on the social and economic backgrounds, such interests concerned small landholders, as in France, the ‘Junker-estates’ in Prussia, the powerfully developed industrial entrepreneurs as in Britain or Belgium, or the staggering merchant classes in the Netherlands.
