scholarly journals Recent geohistorical research on boundary‐making. Challenging conventional narratives on borders and modern state‐building

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paloma Puente‐Lozano ◽  
Jacobo García‐Álvarez
2019 ◽  
pp. 17-36
Author(s):  
Ana-Teodora Kurkina

State Boundaries in the Minds of Men: Bulgarian Intellectuals Dividing the Balkans in the mid-19th CenturyThe correlation between the political imagination of intellectuals and their social ties is rarely linked to the state-building projects they produce. In most cases, political and social realities in regions do not coincide with the state boundaries sketched by intellectuals. Nevertheless, they do reflect the ideas of a narrow stratum of interconnected individuals that are easy to target and follow.The current text introduces and analyses the individual ties that laid the foundation for state-building creativity in the context of the mid-19th century empires. It suggests that elites occupy a different place in the social hierarchy of the forming nations, creating their preliminary state boundaries mostly based on their own interconnections and personal considerations. While their plans do not necessarily succeed, they usually reflect the nature of the debates and concerns of a relatively small group that conceives them.The case of the Bulgarian public actors in the mid-19th century offers a concentrated picture of a predominantly mobile intellectual elite engaged in the division of the Balkans. That elite included not only revolutionary thinkers like Georgi Rakovski, but also poets and journalists like his younger contemporaries, Hristo Botev and Lyuben Karavelov. Following their writings, one can produce a picture illustrating the correlation between state boundary-making and the imagination of intellectuals. While the Bulgarian example is easy to follow, it is not unique. The hypothesis can be transferred to other cases and other elites engaged in state-building debates, especially those isolated from the reality of their target group due to their position in the social hierarchy, emigrant status or conflicting affiliations. Государственные границы в сознании людей: деление Балканов болгарскими интеллектуалами в середине 19 века Корреляция между политическим воображением интеллектуалов и их социальными связями редко ассоциируется с проектами по конструированию государства, которые они создают. В большинстве случаев, политические и социальные реалии в различных регионах не совпадают с государственными границами, начертанными полити- ческими активистами. Они отражают идеи узкой прослойки контак- тирующих индивидумов, чьи действия легко увидеть и проследить.Данный текст рассматривает и анализирует личные связи политических активистов, которые заложили основы проектов по конструированию государства в контексте империй середины 19 века. Автор утверждает, что интеллектуальные элиты занимали особое место в социальной иерархии формирующихся наций, создавая предварительные государственные границы, базируя их на своих личных связях и идеях. Их планы не венчались успехом во всех случаях, однако, они отражали природу дебатов и интересов маленькой группы, которая их выражала, но никак не всего населения.Случай болгарских политических активистов середины 19 века представляет собой пример преимущественно мобильной элиты, вовлеченной в раздел Балканского полуострова. Эта элита включала в себя не только революционных мыслителей как Георгий Раковский, но также поэтов и публицистов как его младшие современники Христо Ботев и Любен Каравелов. Анализируя оставленные ими письменные документы, можно воспроизвести модель, иллюстрирующую корреляцию между конструированием государственных границ и политическим воображением интеллектуалов. Болгарский пример предлагает достаточное количество материала для проведения исследования, однако, он далеко не уникален. Данная система может буть перенесена на другие случаи, в которых фигурируют элиты, причастные к конструированию государственных границ. Наиболее подробно данная модель иллюстрирует деятельность представителей элиты, которые находятся в изоляции от своей целевой группы из-за своего положения в социальной иерархии, статуса эмигранта или противоречивых идентичностей. Granice państwowe w umysłach ludzkich: dzielenie Bałkanów przez bułgarskich intelektualistów w połowie XIX wiekuKorelacja między polityczną wyobraźnią intelektualistów a ich więziami społecznymi rzadko jest kojarzona z tworzonymi przez nich projektami budowy państwa. W większości przypadków regionalne realia polityczne nie pokrywają się z granicami państwowymi wyznaczonymi przez działaczy politycznych. Odzwierciedlają one idee wąskiej warstwy wzajemnie powiązanych jednostek, których działania można łatwo dostrzec i prześledzić.Niniejszy tekst analizuje osobiste powiązania aktywistów politycznych, którzy stworzyli podstawy dla projektów budowy państw w epoce imperiów połowy XIX wieku. Autorka twierdzi, że elity intelektualne zajmowały szczególne miejsce w społecznej hierarchii formujących się narodów, tworząc wstępne granice państwowe w oparciu o osobiste więzi i idee. Ich plany nie we wszystkich przypadkach były zwieńczone sukcesem, lecz odzwierciedlały specyfikę debat i interesów małej grupy, która je wyrażała, a nie całej ludności.Przypadek bułgarskich aktywistów politycznych połowy XIX wieku stanowi przykład mobilnej elity zaangażowanej w podział Półwyspu Bałkańskiego. W skład tej elity weszli nie tylko rewolucyjni myśliciele jak Georgi Rakovski, ale także poeci i publicyści jak Christo Botev i Luben Karavelov. Analizując pisane przez nich dokumenty, można odtworzyć model ilustrujący korelację pomiędzy konstruowaniem granic, a polityczną wyobraźnią intelektualistów. Bułgarski przykład oferuje wystarczającą ilość materiału do badania, lecz jest daleki od bycia wyjątkowym. Model ten może być przeniesiony do innych przypadków, w których biorą udział elity zaangażowane w konstruowanie granic państwowych, jednocześnie znakomicie ilustruje działalność przedstawicieli elit, którzy są odizolowani od grupy docelowej ze względu na sprzeczną z nią tożsamość, status emigranta lub pozycję w hierarchii społecznej.


Author(s):  
A. C. S. Peacock

Peacock’s chapter examines the circulation of Seventeenth-century Sufi scholars to the ‘contested peripheries’ of the Indian Ocean. He argues that notable Muslim Sufi shaykhs did not travel to maritime kingdoms such as Banten, Aceh, and the Maldives to learn from locals, but rather to propagate ‘shariʿa-minded piety’ focused on ‘commanding the right and forbidding the wrong’. Peacock describes how the ambitions of religious scholars like the Syrian Qādirī preacher Muḥammad Shams al-Dīn intersected with early modern state-building in the Indian Ocean world. This chapter chronicles how Shams al-Dīn not only gained great political influence in Aceh, but was even made the actual ruler of the Maldives after his followers overthrew the sultan there. Peacock concludes that the cosmopolitanism of Sufi itinerants relied less on the fusion of pre-Islamic and Islamic practices than on universalist agendas of social transformation founded upon prophetic Sunna and enacted through the mechanisms of political coercion.


Author(s):  
Novak William J

This chapter examines the idea of the Continental State in a common-law context, by focusing in particular on the American state. Building on some very recent historical and theoretical work on the American state, the chapter explores the conscious effort of the United States to create a modern state based loosely on the Continental model. It argues that American ideas and institutions were not created in isolation. Rather, from the beginning, American intellectuals, jurists, and state reformers engaged in an extended trans-Atlantic dialogue concerning matters of politics, law, and statecraft. This was especially true of the period that experienced the most extensive transformations in American governance and statecraft — the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Accordingly, this chapter takes a close look at the American tradition of law and state building in this formative era — from 1866 to 1932.


2020 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 65-93
Author(s):  
Mariano Sánchez-Talanquer

ABSTRACTTheories of the rise of the modern state hold that central rulers make land property “legible” to extract revenue, leading landholders to oppose state registration. This study revises this logic and argues that when land ownership is disputed, landholders use inscription into state records to secure legal property rights. To minimize resulting tax liabilities, propertied interests may exploit opportunities to manipulate land valuations, which determine the tax burden. The argument is substantiated using historical tax and cadastral records from Colombia. Difference-in-differences analyses of two critical attempts at land reform, led by the Liberal Party, show that land property registration spiked disproportionately in threatened Conservative municipalities, where tax revenues lagged behind nonetheless, due to systematic undervaluation of property. The study concludes that landholders’ selective subversion of state building may disrupt the assumed link between legibility and taxation and spawn territorially uneven patterns of state capacity that mirror domestic conflict lines.


Author(s):  
Amin Tarzi

The modern state of Afghanistan came into being in the last two decades of the nineteenth century as a buffer between the British and Russian empires in Asia. While the concept of maintenance of a buffer-state was part of the British policy to protect India, the Afghan ruler ‘Abd al-Rahman Khan was not an inactive pawn in the imperial strategies. This chapter reviews the Afghan amir’s state-building efforts and his imposition of governance into hitherto independent or semi-independent tribal territories. He centralized his authority through a process justified by Islamization, namely by the dispensation of Islamic justice. The chapter briefly touches on the effects of the amir’s policies on various segments of the Afghan population such as religious minorities and women as well as on customary laws prevalent in the country.


Author(s):  
Nataliia M. Parkhomenko ◽  
Tetiana S. Podorozhna ◽  
Tetiana I. Tarakhonych ◽  
Liudmyla M. Andrusiv ◽  
Liudmyla M. Mozoliuk-Bodnar

The article examines the problems of legal science in the context of modern state-building processes in Ukraine through the prism of constitutional reform and ensuring the constitutional order. It is emphasised that one of the main causes of the socio-political crisis, economic unrest and social regress is imperfect legislation, which often does not meet the needs of Ukrainian society, European principles and international standards. On the other hand, it is obvious and historically confirmed that the adoption of a new Constitution or amendments to the current and improvement of legislation does not in itself mean a real law and order. For more than a quarter of a century, Ukraine has remained in a state of transition. It is noted that the assessment of the impact of constitutional legislation, which determines almost all reforms in the state, revealed the following priorities: the creation of favourable conditions for the formation of a new constitutional (state and social) system; determining the conditions for the formation of a new system of economic relations; consolidation of new principles of organisation and functioning of state and socio-political life; actual implementation of the provisions of the Basic Law; further constitutionalisation of all elements of the legal system; recognition of the authority of international law. Regarding the latter, it is stated that the legal ideas, norms and principles proclaimed in the Constitution of Ukraine, provisions on human and civil rights and freedoms must meet international standards, because by becoming a member of the Council of Europe, Ukraine has committed itself to implement European human rights standards, the supremacy of law and democracy. It is the amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine that should provide the foundation for democratic change and the construction of a European democracy that will allow building in Ukraine an independent European state, where every Ukrainian will feel dignified and protected. It was concluded that modern jurisprudence is characterised by a number of scientific methodological approaches, which allows a comprehensive approach to the study of law and legislation in different dimensions. This is objectively due to the constant complication of social relations, including international ones, and requires a deeper understanding of the content of this category and the prospects for its further development. This process will be effective only if it is carried out taking into account the specifics of law and, accordingly, the principles of its knowledge. There is also no doubt that only methodologically sound research of law will allow forming a holistic internally consistent theory of law, which can be applied in the theory of state and law, other areas of law, as well as in the course of state and legal development, including in Ukraine


Author(s):  
Carsten Herrmann-Pillath

This chapter approaches China’s sequence of transformations in the ‘short’ twentieth century between the collapse of empire 1911 and World Trade Organization entry in 2001 against the background of discussing the nature of the Imperial from which this arduous and violent process started out. During that period, immense political efforts were directed at tackling the perceived legacy of social and cultural impediments to economic modernization and building national strength, though with radically different means, such as switching from Maoism to reform policies in 1978. The chapter analyses core features of change such as the role of the rural sector, the weak penetration of society by formal bureaucratic institutions of the state, and the interaction between institutional change and transformation of social structure. After detailing major aspects of recent economic reforms, the key conclusion is that throughout the twentieth century until present times, economic transformation remains inextricably intertwined with the secular process of modern state building.


2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 267-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tuong Vu

This essay examines the revolutionary path of modern state formation in Vietnam under the Vietnamese Communist Party. I argue that the party’s radical ideology and practices shaped the path of state formation by creating particular opportunities and conundrums in five key aspects of state formation: legitimization, establishing sovereignty, territorialization, creating a centralized bureaucracy, and monopolizing violence. The revolutionary state left behind significant and adverse legacies that today’s Vietnam is still grappling with. In comparative perspective, the Vietnamese experience contributes to scholarship on revolutions, revolutionary state-building, and the role of revolutions in world politics.


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