John Deak

Forging a Multinational State

State Making in Imperial Austria from the Enlightenment to the First World War

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Forging a Multinational State provides a much-needed history of state-building in central Europe during the long nineteenth century.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Stanford University Press
• Seitenzahl: 376
• Erscheinungstermin: 23. September 2015
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 236mm x 156mm x 27mm
• Gewicht: 641g
• ISBN-13: 9780804795579
• ISBN-10: 0804795576
• Artikelnr.: 42800555

Autorenporträt

John Deak is Assistant Professor of European History at the University of Notre Dame.

Inhaltsangabe

Contents and Abstracts
Introduction
chapter abstract
The introduction discusses the Habsburg monarchy in the context of European
history and the themes of state building and state making. State building
as a concept has been seen largely through the histories of nation states
and nation-state development. This concept stems from the philosophy of
history and progress outlined by G.F.W. Hegel in his Lectures on the
Philosophy of History, first posthumously published in 1837. Such a view,
however, leaves out or unfairly judges much of non-western Europe and,
importantly, alternatives to the nation state in history. This introduction
puts the history of the Habsburg Empire squarely in the center of European
state building and its accompanying social and political transformations.
1The Dynamics of Austrian Governance, 1780-1848
chapter abstract
Chapter 1 presents the dialectic of Austrian rule: the tradition of reform
and the desire for inertia. The reform emperor, Joseph II, bequeathed a
spirit and attitude that made the state a good in itself. Importantly, he
worked to instill this attitude in growing cadres of bureaucrats. But
Joseph II died in 1790. Joseph's twenty-four-year-old nephew, Francis,
assumed the head of the House of Habsburg in 1792. Francis came to
represent the defender of the old regime. He made peace with the nobles and
the Church, the very institutions that had come under relentless pressure
by Joseph II's state-building project. The transformation of society that
Joseph envisioned went into a state of hibernation as Francis ruled for
more than forty years. The bureaucracy that Joseph refined languished under
low pay, scant possibilities for advancement, and a state policy that lost
its will to evolve.
2The Madness of Count Stadion, or Austria Between Revolution and Reaction
chapter abstract
In March 1848, revolution came to the Habsburg lands driving the forces of
reaction underground. Revolution might have forced the government to act,
but the empire's officials responded with more than barricades and gunshot.
With revolution came constitutions, land reform, press freedoms, local and
state-wide elections, and parliamentary life. Over the course of 1848, the
old regime melted away as Austria's parliamentarians and governments passed
and decreed new laws. One official in particular, Count Franz von Stadion,
wrote a constitution for Austria that would never be enacted, but would
serve as a model for integrating bureaucratic authority and representative
institutions. Stadion's ideas proved to be of great value, but the tide of
events forced his ideas to be put on hold. It would take a generation
before they would return.
3The Reforging of the Habsburg State, 1849-1859
chapter abstract
In the 1850s, the Austrian bureaucracy was reconstituted and the structures
of the state were rebuilt to lead Austria into a new age. This era has been
widely criticized for a spirit of repression, but in many ways it opened an
era of reform. Austria emerged from the revolutions of 1848 on a much
different trajectory than before. In fact, it is possible to say that it
returned to the Josephinian idea, a strong central state and powerful and
interventionist bureaucratic apparatus. In many ways, the central state was
an essential, if unintentional, product of the revolutionary program.
4State Building on a New Track: Austria in the 1860s
chapter abstract
This chapter discusses the era of reform into the 1860s. Government by
bureaucrats is an expensive prospect. Austria could not solve its financial
difficulties and secure necessary loans without parliamentary assistance
and institutions of self-government. The Austrian state experimented with
federalism, the development of local institutions of self-government, and
parliamentary government during the 1860s, never fully replacing one system
with the other. By the time Hungary had become its own constitutional
entity and the Habsburg monarchy became the Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy
in 1867, the Austrian side of the monarchy had developed institutions of
federalism, centralism, local government, and a strong, interventionist
bureaucracy. A key feature of Austria's political development, and one
which made the state all the more complicated, was that Austria had become
a multinational state, with representative institutions, a monarch who
continued to wear the military uniform, and a largely independent
bureaucracy.
5The Years of Procedure, 1868-1900
chapter abstract
Chapter 5 turns to the roughly thirty years following the establishment of
the December Constitution in imperial Austria, what the book calls "the
years of procedure." The chapter describes how the unique Austrian
constitutional system had to be worked out amongst representatives of the
provinces, the towns and communes, and the empire's bureaucratic apparatus.
In the process, the multilayered structure of the monarchy gave an
opportunity for political groups of all persuasions to attach themselves to
various levels of the state. German liberals defended the rights of the
towns; clerical parties and emerging national parties defended provincial
institutions; while the bureaucracy maintained the rights of the central
state. Expanding representation and suffrage reform brought more and more
groups into parliamentary bodies. These bodies legislated new laws and an
expanding role of the state in social welfare, which in turn made the
administration grow.
6Bureaucracy and Democracy in the Final Decades of the Monarchy, 1890-1914
chapter abstract
Chapter 6 covers the period between 1895 and the year 1914, which was
marked by parliamentary crises, political stalemates, and the start of the
First World War. The important role of the bureaucracy in the political
system of the empire meant that the administration could exert a calming
influence in politics and keep political parties involved in governance
behind closed doors. In the meantime, high-ranking officials searched for
structural solutions to the monarchy's political problems. The search for
solutions actually dominated the last twenty years of peace in the
monarchy, culminating in an Imperial Commission for Administrative Reform.
The work of the commission was cut short by the outbreak of the First World
War, but not before it indicated a snapshot of what imperial Austria might
have looked like had it continued to evolve under bureaucratic and
parliamentary leadership.
Epilogue: The State of Exception: Austria's Descent into the Twentieth
Century
chapter abstract
This chapter serves as an epilogue to the book. In the first few weeks of
the First World War, a state of emergency permanently derailed Austria's
150-year state-building project. Military necessity became the order of the
day, implementing new draconian laws and leaving the administration of
justice to local military commanders and over-zealous gendarmes.
Mobilization depleted the ranks of local bureaucrats in the center of the
monarchy while invading Russian armies expelled administrators from Galicia
and the Bukovina to far corners of the monarchy. The state that had evolved
over the past 150 years had become a multinational polity and was in a
continual process of renewal and reform. That process came abruptly to an
end.