Before the State : Systemic Political Change in the West From the Greeks to the French Revolution

"The idea that society, or civilization, is predicated on the "state" is a projection of present-day political ideology into the past. Nothing akin to what we call the "state" existed before the 19th century: it is a recent invention and the assumption that it is timeless, necessary for society, is simply part of its legitimating myth. The development, over the past three millennia, of the political structures of western civilization is shown here to have been a succession of individual, unrepeatable stages: what links them is not that every period re-enacts the "state" in a different guise - - that is, re-enacts the same basic pattern - -but that one period-specific pattern evolves into the next in a path-dependent process. Treating western civilization as a single political system, the book charts systemic structural change from the origins of western civilization in the pre-Christian Greek world to about 1800, when the onset of industrialization began to create the conditions in which the state as we know it could function. It explains structural change in terms of both the political ideas of each period and in terms of the material constraints and opportunities (e.g. ecological and technological factors) that impacted on those ideas and which constitute a major cause of change. However, although material factors are important, ultimately it is the ideas that count - and indeed the words with which they were communicated when they were current: since political structures only exist in people's heads, to understand past political structures it is imperative to deal with them literally on their own terms, to take those terms seriously. Relabelling or redefining political units (for example by calling them "states" or equating them with "states") when those who lived (in) them thought of them as something else entirely imposes a false uniformity on the past. The dead will not object because they cannot: this book tries to make their voices heard again, through the texts that they left but whose political terminology, and often whose finer points, are commonly ignored in an unconscious effort to make the past fit our standard state-centric political paradigm"--Book cover Contents......Page 8 Acknowledgements......Page 12 Greek transliteration table......Page 14 Comments on Greek transliteration......Page 16 The treatment of Greek proper names......Page 18 Other points regarding spelling and nomenclature......Page 20 Abbreviations......Page 22 1.1 History as popular myth in IR and elsewhere......Page 24 1.2 The ‘state’ a timeless marker of civilization? ‘State’ and language......Page 27 1.3 ‘State’ and discourse of eternity in historiography and social science. The notion of ‘bounded entities’......Page 33 1.4 The method of this study......Page 40 1.5 Key concepts......Page 48 2.1.1 Agriculture......Page 56 2.1.2 Craftsmen, traders, and bankers......Page 58 2.1.3 Limited economic role of warfare: the case of Corinth......Page 62 2.2.1 The Greek world until the conquest of the Persian empire......Page 65 2.2.2 The Greek world in the post-Persian era......Page 107 2.2.3 Imperium Romanum......Page 117 2.3.1 The absence of domestic sovereignty in the pólis and in the Roman citizenry......Page 133 2.3.2 Supralocal rule......Page 137 2.3.3 Community and ideology in the Greek and Roman empires......Page 141 2.3.4 Roma aeterna......Page 146 2.4 The relations between autonomous actors and communities in Greek and Roman political thought......Page 150 2.5 Thukydídês......Page 162 3.1.1 The crisis of the Roman empire after 235......Page 188 3.1.2 The dissolution of the western empire......Page 194 3.1.3 Constantinople and the Germanic world......Page 198 3.1.4 The Roman empire of Constantinople: shrinkage and stabilization......Page 211 3.1.5 The restoration of the imperial dignity in the west......Page 214 3.2.1 De-urbanization......Page 223 3.2.2 Particularism and universalism in the west......Page 244 3.3 Discourse of eternity and collective identities in christendom......Page 251 3.3.1 The empire of Constantinople......Page 252 3.3.2 Latin christendom......Page 259 3.4.1 The Roman empire lives on, ‘albeit as a fiction’......Page 291 3.4.2 The empire in christian theology and eschatology......Page 293 3.4.3 The political organization of christendom in the thinking of the scholastics......Page 305 3.4.4 Henry VII......Page 308 3.4.5 Engelbert of Admont......Page 319 3.4.6 Dante Alighieri......Page 335 3.4.7 Pierre Dubois......Page 347 4.1 A new, more dynamic era......Page 364 4.1.1 Economic renewal: the millennium of mills......Page 365 4.1.2 Monetization......Page 382 4.2 Kingship in Latin christendom......Page 391 4.2.1 The foil: first-millennium warrior kingship......Page 392 4.2.2 The lord’s anointed......Page 394 4.2.3 Kingship as a structural factor in the politics of ancien régime Europe: the case of Plantagenet expansionism......Page 401 4.2.4 The fiction of the efficient ruler: Thomas Aquinas and Giles of Rome......Page 417 4.2.5 The imperial office as an archetype of monarchical rule: Nicholas of Kues and Enea Silvio Piccolomini......Page 426 4.2.6 The crown as an imagined central power......Page 442 4.3.1 The nature of the period, and what to call it......Page 444 4.3.2 The heightened profile of princely governance in post-Reformation Europe......Page 445 4.3.3 Post-Reformation theorists of princely power: Bodin, Althusius, and Hobbes......Page 454 4.4 The reality of late ancien régime society......Page 473 4.4.1 Germany in the ancien régime......Page 474 4.4.2 France in the ancien régime......Page 490 4.4.3 Ancien régime kingdoms and comparable political units as precursors not prototypes of the modern state......Page 502 4.4.4 Autonomous political actors in the ancien régime......Page 508 5 Conclusion......Page 518 References......Page 534 A......Page 564 B......Page 566 C......Page 568 D......Page 570 E......Page 571 F......Page 572 H......Page 573 I......Page 574 J......Page 575 L......Page 576 M......Page 577 P......Page 579 R......Page 582 S......Page 583 T......Page 585 W......Page 586 Z......Page 587 The idea that society, or civilisation, is predicated on the'state'is a projection of present-day political ideology into the past. Nothing akin to what we call the'state'existed before the 19th century: it is a recent invention and the assumption that it is timeless, necessary for society, is simply part of its legitimating myth. The development, over the past three millennia, of the political structures of western civilisation is shown here to have been a succession of individual, unrepeatable stages: what links them is not that every period re-enacts the'state'in a different guise - that is, re-enacts the same basic pattern - but that one period-specific pattern evolves into the next in a path-dependent process. Treating western civilisation as a single political system, the book charts systemic structural change from the origins of western civilisation in the pre-christian Greek world to about 1800, when the onset of industrialisation began to create the conditions in which the state as we know it could function. It explains structural change in terms of both the political ideas of each period and in terms of the material constraints and opportunities (e.g. ecological and technological factors) that impacted on those ideas and which constitute a major cause of change. However, although material factors are important, ultimately it is the ideas that count - and indeed the words with which they were communicated when they were current: since political structures only exist in people ́s heads, to understand past political structures it is imperative to deal with them literally on their own terms, to take those terms seriously. Relabelling or redefining political units (for example by calling them'states'or equating them with'states') when those who lived (in) them thought of them as something else entirely imposes a false uniformity on the past. The dead will not object because they cannot: this book tries to make their voices heard again, through the texts that they left but whose political terminology, and often whose finer points, are commonly ignored in an unconscious effort to make the past fit our standard state-centric political paradigm. ## Abstract This book challenges the habit of conventional historiography of taking the ‘essential’ state – a ‘bounded entity’ equipped with a ‘sovereign’ central power — for granted in any period and of not taking period political terminology seriously. It refutes the idea, current both in historiography and in International Relations theory (in particular Realism), that the fundamental nature of ‘international’ politics is historically immutable. Nothing akin to what we call the ‘state’ existed before the 19th century: it is a recent invention and the assumption that it is timeless, necessary for society, is simply part of its legitimating myth. The development over the past three millennia of the political structures of western civilization is shown here to have been a succession of unrepeatable but path-dependent stages. In examining structural change, the book adopts a constructivist approach based on the analysis of period political discourse. This approach both reflects and illuminates the evolution of western political thought: on the one hand, political thought is a vehicle of the political discourse of its period. On the other hand, the assumption that political theory must in any age somehow be centred on the ‘state’ has forced our understanding of it into a straight-jacket: abandoning this assumption permits fresh and unexpected insights into the political thinking of earlier eras. Close attention, however, is also paid to the material constraints and opportunities (e.g., ecological and economic factors, or military technology) impacting on the evolution of society. The idea that society, or civilisation, is predicated on the ""state"" is a projection of present-day political ideology into the past. Nothing akin to what we call the ""state"" existed before the 19th century: it is a recent invention and the assumption that it is timeless, necessary for society, is simply part of its legitimating myth. The development, over the past three millennia, of the political structures of western civilisation is shown here to have been a succession ofindividual, unrepeatable stages: what links them is not that every period re-enacts the ""state"" in a different guis Charting Structural Political Change From The Origins Of Western Civilisation In The Pre-christian Greek World To C1800, This Ambitious Reassessment Of World Political Development Draws On A Wealth Of Historical Material And Seeks To Change The Way We Think About The Nature Of The State. Andreas Osiander. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 511-539) And Index.