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Empowering Interactions
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Empowering Interactions book
Empowering Interactions
DOI link for Empowering Interactions
Empowering Interactions book
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ABSTRACT
The emergence of the state in Europe is a topic that has engaged historians since the establishment of the discipline of history. Yet the primary focus of has nearly always been to take a top-down approach, whereby the formation and consolidation of public institutions is viewed as the outcome of activities by princes and other social elites. Yet, as the essays in this collection show, such an approach does not provide a complete picture. By investigating the importance of local and individual initiatives that contributed to state building from the late middle ages through to the nineteenth century, this volume shows how popular pressure could influence those in power to develop new institutional structures. By not privileging the role of warfare and of elite coercion for state building, it is possible to question the traditional top-down model and explore the degree to which central agencies might have been more important for state representation than for state practice. The studies included in this collection treat many parts of Europe and deal with different phases in the period between the late middle ages and the nineteenth century. Beginning with a critical review of state historiography, the introduction then sets out the concept of 'empowering interactions' which is then explored in the subsequent case studies and a number of historiographical, methodological and theoretical essays. Taken as a whole this collection provides a fascinating platform to reconsider the relationships between top-down and bottom-up processes in the history of the European state.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter |32 pages
Introduction: Empowering Interactions: Looking at Statebuilding from Below
part |2 pages
Part I SOUTHERN EUROPE
chapter 1|16 pages
The Construction of Local Political Identity in Lake and River Communities in North-West Italy, Twelfth to Fourteenth Centuries
chapter 2|14 pages
Models of Government ‘from Below’ in Fifteenth-Century Lombardy. The ‘Capitoli di Dedizione’ to Francesco Sforza, 1447−1450
chapter 3|14 pages
Local Conflicts and Political Authorities in the Papal State in the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century
chapter 4|12 pages
The Politics of Mercy: Village Petitions and a Noblewoman’s Justice in the Roman Countryside in the Eighteenth Century
chapter 5|8 pages
The Dynamics of Law Formation in Italian Legal Science during the Early Modern Period: the Function of Custom
part |2 pages
Part II CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
chapter 6|14 pages
Threats from Above on Request from Below: Dynamics of the Territorial Administration of Berne, 1420–1450
chapter 7|16 pages
Modes of Reading, Community Practice and the Constitution of Textual Authority in the Thurgau and Graubünden, 1520−1660
chapter 8|18 pages
‘God is high up, the Tsar is far away’. The Nature of Polity and Political Culture in Seventeenth-Century Russia. A Comparative View
chapter 9|14 pages
Communication between Authorities and Subjects in Bohemia, Hungary and the Holy German Empire, 1650−1800: A Comparison of Three Case Studies
chapter 10|10 pages
Corporate Property, Collective Resources and Statebuilding in Older Swiss History
chapter 11|14 pages
Local Demand for Order and Government Intervention: Social Group Conflicts as Statebuilding Factors in Villages of the Rhine Palatinate, c.1760−1810
chapter 12|16 pages
Joseph-Samuel Farinet and the ‘Modern’ State: Banditry, Patronage and Resistance in Nineteenth-Century Valais
part |2 pages
Part III NORTHERN AND WESTERN EUROPE − AND BEYOND
chapter 13|14 pages
Political Topos or Community Principle? Res Publica as a Source of Legitimacy in the French Peasants’ Revolts of the Late Middle Ages
chapter 14|16 pages
Statebuilding in Portugal during the Middle Ages: A Royal Endeavour in Partnership with the Local Powers?
chapter 15|18 pages
Informing the Council. Central Institutions and Local Knowledge in the Spanish Empire
chapter 16|14 pages
Peasants and Tax-farmers in Seventeenth-Century Sweden: Local Conflict and Institutional Change
chapter 17|12 pages
Statebuilding with the Participation of the Estates? East Frisia between Territorial Legislation and Communalist Ritual, 1611–1744
part |2 pages
Part IV HISTORIOGRAPHICAL AND CONCEPTUAL DEBATES