Structuring the State: The Formation of Italy and Germany and the Puzzle of Federalism - Softcover

Ziblatt, Daniel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0691136491 ISBN 13: 9780691136493

Verlag: Princeton University Press, 2008

Inhaltsangabe

Germany's and Italy's belated national unifications continue to loom large in contemporary debates. Often regarded as Europe's paradigmatic instances of failed modernization, the two countries form the basis of many of our most prized theories of social science. Structuring the State undertakes one of the first systematic comparisons of the two cases, putting the origins of these nation-states and the nature of European political development in new light. Daniel Ziblatt begins his analysis with a striking puzzle: Upon national unification, why was Germany formed as a federal nation-state and Italy as a unitary nation-state? He traces the diplomatic maneuverings and high political drama of national unification in nineteenth-century Germany and Italy to refute the widely accepted notion that the two states' structure stemmed exclusively from Machiavellian farsightedness on the part of militarily powerful political leaders. Instead, he demonstrates that Germany's and Italy's "founding fathers" were constrained by two very different pre-unification patterns of institutional development. In Germany, a legacy of well-developed sub-national institutions provided the key building blocks of federalism. In Italy, these institutions' absence doomed federalism. This crucial difference in the organization of local power still shapes debates about federalism in Italy and Germany today. By exposing the source of this enduring contrast, Structuring the State offers a broader theory of federalism's origins that will interest scholars and students of comparative politics, state-building, international relations, and European political history.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Daniel Ziblatt is associate professor of government and social studies at Harvard University, where he is also faculty associate at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies.

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"This is the most important book on state-building to appear in recent years. In addition to offering the definitive account of Italy's and Germany's creation, Ziblatt's work also sets the agenda for future scholarship on the comparative study of federalism. Rich narrative combined with theoretical sophistication bring new life to a very important set of debates about the origins of federalism and nation-states more broadly. This work should be read by specialists of Italian and German political development and comparative politics and by students of political institutions more broadly."--Sergio Fabbrini, Political Science, University of Trento, editor of Italian Journal of Political Science

"With calm, knowledgeable precision, Daniel Ziblatt wades into the adjacent swamps of federalism and nineteenth-century European history, emerging with hands full of gems. Beneath the tangle of great statesmen and national culture he discovers conflicting regional political interests, sharp regional variations in political capacity, fearful defenses against excessive democracy, coercive conquest of weak states, and unintended consequences galore. Read, think, and learn."--Charles Tilly, Columbia University

"A work of the highest quality and significance, Structuring the State represents an original contribution to both political science and macrohistorical sociology for three reasons. First, it applies a variety of quantitative methods to the kind of comparative historical problem that is usually approached in an entirely qualitative way. Second, it overcomes the old division between society- and state-centered explanations for Italian and German unification by integrating them in a creative manner, while also pointing to other factors often overlooked in standard accounts. Finally, it challenges directly the dominant rational choice model of federalism by refuting the contention that politicians at the center are always power maximizers."--Thomas Ertman, New York University, author of Birth of the Leviathan: Building States and Regimes in Medieval and Early Modern Europe

"In Structuring the State, Daniel Ziblatt contends that previous scholarship in political science has overlooked a key determinant of state structure, namely the pre-existing administrative and institutional capacity in newly absorbed states. Well-organized, well written, and employing the most advanced methods of comparative-historical research in a sophisticated and clear fashion, the book moves forward with clarity and grace. Political scientists, sociologists, and historians working on the development of modern organizations--and indeed policy makers interested in building state capacity--will all learn from this timely volume."--Andrew C. Gould, University of Notre Dame, author of The Origins of Liberal Dominance: State, Church, and Party in Nineteenth-Century Europe

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Structuring the State

The Formation of Italy and Germany and the Puzzle of FederalismBy Daniel Ziblatt

Princeton University Press

Copyright © 2006 Princeton University Press
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-13649-3

Chapter One

INTRODUCTION: HOW NATION-STATES ARE MADE

The concurrence of the German and Italian revolutions will one day represent one of the most fruitful of parallels for the philosophy of history. -HEINRICH TREITSCHKE

FOR OVER THE PAST 130 years, Heinrich Treitschke's invitation to scholars to compare the German and Italian national revolutions has gone largely unanswered. Despite the turbulent parallels between nineteenth- and twentieth-century German and Italian political development, the two cases remain an underutilized comparison for the study of state formation, nationalism, and federalism. This study takes up Treitschke's appeal to compare the two great episodes of nineteenth-century European nation-state formation in order to address a puzzle: how are nation-states made, and what determines whether nation-state formation leads to the creation of federal or unitary patterns of governance?

In an age when the issues of state building and federalism have returned to the center stage of politics in discussions of the European Union and nation building more broadly, a comparative analysis of nineteenth-century European nation-state formation offers a fruitful way to investigate questions that are once again concerns for scholars and policymakers: What are the conditions under which a new political entity is created? What determines the institutional form of that entity? What are the conditions under which federalism can be created? In moments of institutional founding, how much impact do political leaders actually have in designing political institutions? Can political leaders who seek federalism simply adopt a constitution that guarantees federalism? Can a federal constitution be violently imposed? Or must it emerge "bottom up" from a collection of symmetrically powerful subunits negotiating themselves into existence?

This study focuses on Europe during the nineteenth century because it is a period that casts new light on these issues. Though the rise of nationalism is normally attributed to the French Revolution, it was in fact during a decisive period between 1830 and 1880 in Europe, North America, and South America that many contemporary nation-states were created through the dual processes of imperial disintegration and national integration. Left standing in Europe were the new modern creations of Greece, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Bulgaria, and Romania. This period that I call the "national moment" transformed the political map of Europe, North America, and South America. The political systems that emerged out of this set of nearly simultaneous experiences of nation-state formation were marked by a wide array of institutional forms that provide a diverse set of empirical cases for contemporary scholars of political development.

In particular, in one area of nation-state structure-the institutionalized territorial distribution of power between national and subnational governments-the new nation-states of the late nineteenth century displayed an institutional diversity that raises the question of how nation-states are formed and how the relationship between national and subnational governments comes to be established. While some newly formed polities such as Germany and Canada became explicitly federal political systems, others such as Italy and Belgium became classically unitary systems. In federal systems, like Germany and Canada, regional states were absorbed but remained intact as constitutionally sovereign parts in the larger "national" political framework: regional governments had formal access to the national government, discretion over public finance (i.e., taxing and spending), and administrative autonomy. By contrast, in states such as Italy and Belgium, any existing regional governments were erased from the map as sovereign entities and left without formal access to the new national governments, without public finance discretion, and without formal administrative autonomy. While experiencing a similar timing in their formation, the new nation-states of the nineteenth century experienced divergent institutional political arrangements of territorial governance after national unification. That both federal and unitary systems were the products of these institution-building experiments raises a deeper theoretical paradox of federalism's origins that is the central question of this book: How can a state-building political core that seeks to integrate its neighbors be strong enough to form a larger nation-state, but also not be too strong to entirely absorb and erase existing units, thereby creating a unitary nation-state? If the core is too unyielding, will not a unitary system result? If too accommodating, will not a union be impossible to forge in the first place?

In brief, I argue that to explain why federal and unitary nation-states form, we must answer two analytically separate questions: why do nation-states form? Why do nation-states take on unitary or federal structures? The first part of this study answers the first question. The second answers the second question to argue that once a process of national unification is under way, the way out of the paradox of federalism's origins for political leaders with federal aspirations is for the political core to absorb states with high levels of what I call "infrastructural capacity"-the ability to tax, maintain order, regulate society, and generally govern their societies. If a political core absorbs these types of states, then the potentially contentious relationship of a political core and its subunits that makes federations so difficult to construct can be overcome. With highly infrastructural states in place, a process of primarily negotiated nation-state formation is possible in which authority is conceded to the subunits. Why? Only subunits with high levels of infrastructural capacity can deliver the gains to the core and the subunits that were sought with the project of national unification the first place. If, by contrast, a political core-whether militarily strong or weak-begins the process of absorbing states that do not have this infrastructural capacity, then a more difficult relationship between core and subunits emerges. Since absorbed states are perceived as not able to deliver the benefits of national unification, they are viewed simply as an impediment to unification. This makes negotiation less likely, resulting in a path of nation-state formation through conquest, and the creation of a unitary political system. In order to explain whether nation-state makers adopt federal or unitary structures of governance, a central ironic lesson of this book emerges: If state makers seek federalism but absorb infrastructurally underdeveloped states, they may find themselves constrained by the domestic governance structures of the very states they incorporate in the project of national unification.

FEDERALISM'S ORIGINS, INSTITUTION BUILDING, AND EUROPEAN NATION-STATE FORMATION

The study of federalism's origins is particularly important for at least two reasons. First, in recent years, federalism has been increasingly viewed as an institutional solution to a broad range of problems. Some scholars such as Barry Weingast have highlighted the positive impact of federalism on the creation and sustaining of free markets. Others, such as Jonathan Rodden and Erik Wibbels, have pointed to the potential...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Princeton University Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2008
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0691136491
• ISBN 13: 9780691136493
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 238
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland