Synopses

 

 

(I) Europe

 

Francois Crouzet (Paris):

Economic factors and the building of the French nation state

 

The building of the French state was a long-drawn and piecemeal process, and a nation-state only emerged in the 15th century. Up to 1789 it was not an economic unit. 17th and 18th centuries mercantilist policies were politically motivated and strengthened national consciousness. The French Revolution made France into a single economic unit, mainly for ideological reasons, but an effective national market only emerged during the railway age. In the 19th century protectionism was a factor of nationalism and centralization.

 

 

Gerd Hardach (Marburg):

Continuity and crises of the German nation state: the economic dimension

 

Germany was a late-comer in nation building. The empire of 1871 was an artificial construct. A compromise between Prussian politics and cultural traditions, the "Reich" excluded a large number of Germans in Austria, but included an equally large number of citizens of Polish culture and other minorities. It has been argued that economic integration paved the way for the nation state of 1871 (H. James, A. German identity 1770-1990, London 1989). Exploring this hypothesis, the paper examines the contribution of economic factors to the continuity of the "Reich", the core of which reappeard after the unification of 1990, and ist historical crises: the First World War, the Nazi regime and the Second World War, and the partition of 1945-90.

 

 

Göran B. Nilsson (Linköping):

The Harmony Liberal Era 1848-1879

 

From the February Revolution up to the outbreak of the Great Depression the political situation in Scandinavia was favourable to promoting a liberal programme, which saw economic growth as the fundamental prerequisite for producing general national welfare: political, social and moral. The successful implementation of infrastructural measures aiming especially at improved material and immaterial communication is elucidated through the prismas of six prominent politicians, three from each country.

 

 

Gabriel Tortella (Madrid) & Clara Eugenia Núnez (Madrid):

Economic development and the problems of the national state formation:
the case of Spain

 

Spain is one of the oldest nation states in Europe. Its geographical unity goes back to the late fifteenth century with the union of the kingdoms of Castile, Aragón, Navarre and Granada; real national identity, however, was longer to form. Jordi Pujol, the head of the government of Catalonia, Has said recently (December 1998) that Spain has never been a nation. A clear national Spanish conscience started developing during and after the Napoleonic invasion, but almost simultaneously economic centrifugal forces made themselves felt, first as a reaction against modernity (Basque and Catalan Carlism), later as uneven economic development and economic policy disputes used buddying nationalism as a political trump card. This, together with a weak educational system and a sluggish government administration, explains why the slow growth of the modern liberal state in Spain was paralleled by the development of increasingly vocal regional nationalisms.

 

 

(II) Europe

 

David F. Good (Minnesota, USA):

Economic development, state building, and the nation state
in Central and Eastern Europe

 

My paper examines how economic development has shaped the evolution of the nation-state in Central and Eastern Europe. Compared to the rest of Europe, nation-states are relatively recent arrivals in the lands between Germany and Russia and, as „1989" demonstrates, the borders and frontiers between them have been highly contested and subject to pronounced change. To understand the economic foundations of this, I devise a framework that links together recent work in economic history with the growing literature on state building and nation building in Europe. I illustrate the argument with evidence from several countries in the region (pre-1989 boundaries)-Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Yugoslavia during three distinct periods of the late nineteenth century, the interwar era, and the cold war years.

 

 

 

Roman Sandgruber (Linz) & Ernst Bruckmüller (Wien):

The concepts of economic integration in Austrian during the 20th century

 

The paper will discuss the efforts of the Habsburg Monarchy, in its last stages, to difuse the explosive force of (language)nationalism. It will further explore the concepts of the First and Second Austrian Republic to achieve a better economic integration as a basis for a possible national integration.

 

 

Václav Prucha (Prague):

The economy and the rise and fall of a small multinational state: Czechoslovakia 1918 - 1992

 

Problems related to Czechoslovak economy becoming independent after the disintegration
of Austria-Hungary. Striking economic, social and cultural difference in the standards of regions
settled by different nationalities. Expansion of the economy in the twenties and the causes of the extraordinary intensity of the crisis in the thirties. The consequences concerning the nationalities. Disintegration and re-integration of the economy in 1938-1945. Simplification of the pattern of nationalities in Czechoslovakia. The development tendencies in 1948-1989. The success of the process of Slovakia catching up economically with the Czech Lands. Non-economic causes prevailing in the division of Czechoslovakia in 1992.

 

 

Michael Palairet (Edinburgh):

Autocracy, economic retardation, and the nation state
in the Balkans: Serbia, 1815-1914, and 1991-1998

 

The experience of Serbia, as a nation state, presents a paradox. At least in Southeastern Europe, the nation state has proved more viable politically than the multi-national alternative. On the other hand, the economic experience of Serbia as a nation state in 1815-1912 was disappointing and in 1991- present, disastrous. Economic failure may be traceable to the facility with which governments could foster and exploit a homogeneous national consciousness to suppress pluralism, and so pursue counter-developmental economic strategies which minimized competition for political power.

 

 

Boris Ananitch (St. Petersburg) & Peter Gatrell (Manchester):

National and non-national dimensions
of economic development in 19th and 20th century Russia

 

This paper offers both a broad set of reflections about the way in which theorists of nationalism, in particular the late Ernest Gellner, can speak to economic historians of Russia and the Soviet Union. In the specific case of Russian empire it is worth asking whether (and how) industrialism created the basis for nationalism and whether (and how) nationalism promoted industrialism. We shall pay particular attention to the way in which a new course of nationalist economic policy (as distinct from a policy designed to uphold the interests of the mulitnational empire) was being advocated by certain leading figures during the 1880s.

 

 

(III) Africa and the Middle East

 

Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch (Paris):

Economic and political dimensions of state building in Africa.
a comparative approach

 

The building of modern States began with the beginning of colonization. Colonizers created linear frontiers defining privileged and reserved areas. These were born from political devices, but more often for economic purposes. They, in turn, resulted in a new organization of production and economic networks. A federative system was often promoted. Independence did not stop the process, it fragmented it. Federal models failed ("balkanisation" of French territories, or failure of British attempts in Central and Southern Africa). Ironically, the States of today now appear as economic nonsense.

 

Ibrahima Thioub (Dakar-Fann, Senegal):

Strength and Weakness of the Economic Bases
of a state- nation under construction

 

In April 1960, like the majority of French African colonies, Senegal became independent. The political leaders who took the power resembled the coalition of the social forces having developed during the colonial period. Their objective was to build a nation within the frontiers of the territory they had inherited from colonialism. They expected to transform the people living within this territory, being made up by various „traditional terroirs" of colonial conquest, into a nation.
Very soon however, political tensions emerged from the diversity of positions about the regime´s orientation. The competition arose between the two main political groups belonging to the same party. The first one claimed to promote the popular option based on direct support of the rural middle class, the grassroots level. The second one got their main support from the brotherhood religious leaders (the marabouts) who were in strong control of the rural population. Despite the radical contrast of their options, it is remarkable that none of the ruling groups decied to change and break up the colonial economic heritage. Thus, the defeat of the popular option in the political crisis of December 1962, which revealed who actually had the stake of control of power and the possibility to define socio-economic orientation of the regime, brought about very little change in the regime´s economic policy. The efforts of development were mainly centred in the peanut region. The economic basis of the national project rested on the keeping up of the trade of peanuts, which had already its limits in the 1930s. While reinforcing its strong dependency on France, this economic model continued the marginalisation of the outer regions and the over use of natural and human resources of the part of the territory subjected to exploitation. The dynamic combination of all these factors led to a disarticulation of economic make up, prejudicial to the realisation of the project intended to soothe the disparities between the constitutive "terroirs" of national space to integrate.

 

 

Gad Gilbar (Haifa):

Want, wealth and the fate of Pan Arabism

 

From the early 1920s, when the institutional foundations of separate Arab nation-states in the Middle East were being laid, until the late 1970s, the Arab world existed in a state of tension between the conflicting pulls of Pan-Arabism and particularism. Several factors determined the course of events that unfolded between the creation of a single, unified Arab state on the one hand, and the consolidation of a number of territorial Arab states on the other. Two specific developments had a particular effect upon this development: The high rate of natural increase of the population and the influence of the substantial revenues generated by the export of crude oil.

 

 

Jacob Metzer (Jerusalem):

Economic dimensions of nationa building: The case of
the Jewish National Home (in Mandatory Palestine) and the state
of Israel a summary

 

The paper will be divided into three sections. In the first, introductory section, general questions
concerning the economics of nationalism and nation building will be discussed, providing a conceptual framework for the analysis of the Jewish-Israel case. In the second section, the economic dimensions of the Jewish National Home in Mandatory Palestine will be elaborated on, focusing on ist peculiarities and their implications for the Zionist „model" of economic nationalism. The third section will be devoted to the Israeli phase of the economics of nation building, concentration on attributes of continuity and change in the transition from Mandate to Statehood and in Israel over the last half century. In the first part this section, the transition to statehood and the formative years of the state of Israel prior to the war of 1967 will be taken up, and in the second, concluding part, the post 1967 period will be reviewed.

 

 

 

(IV) Asia

 

B.R. Tomlinson (Glasgow):

Economic change and the creation of the nation state in mainland South Asia

 

Historical interpretations of mainland South Asia in the twentieth century are dominated by critiques of the imperial and post-colonial nation state. This paper will establish the economic causes of the increased political and social conflict that led to decolonisation and partition in 1947, and that have hampered regional co-operation and development since then. The extent of market failure will be investigated to explain the extent of state intervention in economic activity, and the limits on social mobility and political identity that resulted.

 

 

Kent Deng (London):

State transformation, economic resources and performance in Post-Opium China

 

For long China had a quasi-nation for the Empire (22I B.C.. - 1911 A.D.). It was neither a development nor a predatory state in the modern context. The pillars of this quasi-nation state were the Imperial Examination System and Official Appointment System. After the Opium-War (1839-1841) state-rebuilding became an urgent task of the elite. While China was either under war lords, civil war or foreign invasions from 1911 to 1949 the central government pursued the approach of national capitalism. After 1949, following upon the communist takever the Soviet model of modernisation and industrialisation was adopted.Economic reforms began in the 1970s, however, without political reforms the Stalinist state has become increasingly predatory. China moved toward state capitalism. The paper will analyse and discuss the modern period.
Hidemasa Morikawa (Yokohama, Japan):

Unstable steps of Japan during her remarkable economic development from 1853 to 1998

The specific feature of modern Japan was conservatism. Stability was sought in every political and economic sphere. On the other hand, there appeared radicalism to overcome conservatism. As a result Japan´s historical course tended to be destabilised:

1) Tokugawa Conservatism vs Restoration interestes around 1868. The latter won and led the modernisation drive.
2) The old constitutional group which holds colonialism compatible with Western interests vs the military group seeking to occupy all East Asia from 1905 to 1931. The latter dominated Japan and led their destructive war. It was itself destroyed in 1945.
3) The Conservative Iron Triangle of bureaucrats (Especially MOF), LDP (conservative party) and big companies believed in the endless economic growth of Japan and Japan´s status in the world vs non-Marxist Reform Group. The former was drastically disintegrating since 1990.

 

 

(V) The Americas

 

 

Carlos Marichal (Mexico) & Steven Topik (Irvine, USA):

ecnonomic change and the building of the nation state in Latin America:
The cases of Brazil and Mexico.

 

This paper focuses on the reciprocal relationship of state building and economic modernization in Brazil and Mexico from roughly 1850 to 1930. We will argue that the economic transformation of both countries, brought on by a combination of export-led growth and expansion of internal markts, was forcefully impelled by active government spending and financial policies. Despite major contrasts in resource allocation, colonial heritage, ethnic composition, and political trajectories, both the Brazilian and Mexican states played major and converging roles in economic development and nation building. Demands of the international economy and of diverse domestic actors meant that even while ideologically committed to laissez faire liberalism, state actors in Brazil and Mexico almost despite themselves set the groundwork for the consolidation of the interventionist, populist state of subsequent decades.

 

Domingos A. Giroletti (Belo Horizonte, Brazil):

Building of the Brazilian nation state from colony to Globalization

 

The paper will focus on the following questions: was the Brazilian nation state built during the colonial period or after ist political independence? How was this process? Which were the relations among state, nation, society, market and economic development? And, externally, with other states? Which were the main periods of the Brazilian nation state building from colony to globalization?

 

Gavin Wright (Stanford, USA):

The role of nationhood in the economic development of the USA

 

This significance of political independence from Great Britain is generelly neglected in interpretations of 19th century economic growth in the USA. The paper considers the role of nationhood in facilitating institutional developments that were essential for the distinctive American economic path. A contrasting example is the Southern region within the USA; the paper considers the implications of the absence of nationhood for development in the US South.

 

 

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