Bringing the People Back In

State Building from Below in the Nordic Countries ca. 1500-1800

Knut Dørum, Mats Hallenberg, Kimmo Katajala, Knut Dørum, Mats Hallenberg, Kimmo Katajala

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000351590
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Historia
• Categoría: Historia del mundo

The formation of states in early modern Europe has long been an important topic for historical analysis. Traditionally, the political and military struggles of kings and rulers were the favoured object of study for academic historians. This book highlights new historical research from Europe's northern frontier, bringing 'the people' back into the discussion of state politics, presenting alternative views of political and social relations in the Nordic countries before industrialisation. The early modern period was a time that witnessed initiatives from people from many groups formally excluded from political influence, operating outside the structures of central government, and this book returns to the subject of contentious politics and state building from below.

Part I

Bringing the people back in

1 Repertoires of state building from below in the Nordic countries, c. 1500–1800

Knut Dørum, Mats Hallenberg & Kimmo Katajala

The formation of states in early modern Europe has long been an important topic for historical analysis. Traditionally, the political and military struggles of kings and rulers were the favoured object of study for academic historians. From the late 20th century, the case of popular contention and participation from below came increasingly into focus. In the 21st century, however, historians have shifted their interest away from politics and the state in favour of cultural and discursive analysis.

We believe the time has come to return to the subject of contentious politics and state building from below. The early modern period was a time that witnessed initiatives by the people from a number groups formally excluded from political influence, operating outside the structures of central government. Some 30 years ago, Theda Skocpol argued for bringing the state back into historical analysis.¹ In this volume, we seek to bring the people back in to the discussion of state politics, highlighting the impact of ordinary people as well as various elite groups. We do this by focusing on four important themes:

1. The Nordic perspective: This book highlights new historical research from Europe's Northern frontier, presenting an alternative view of early modern politics.
2. State building from below: The authors investigate the struggle for recognition by individuals and groups outside of the established political arenas. This not only includes the local, peripheral, and the marginalised but also elites seeking alternative ways to gain political recognition. Their actions and strategies were their own but they ultimately effected and changed the government of the state.
3. Early modern kingdoms, realms, and states: This book discusses the concepts of state and state building/state formation used by scholars as more complex and multifaceted than the more tradition views, and how different ‘state’ and similar concepts such as kingdom, realm, and nation were perceived in the early modern period compared to the definition of the state and nation merging in the 1900s and 2000s.
4. Historical agency: The essays address political practices, power relations as well as the mobilisation of social resources. A common goal is to identify different repertoires for collective action.²

In this chapter, we argue that the concept of state building from below may be used as an analytical tool for better understanding of political and social relations in the era before industrialisation. We start by presenting an outline of the international historiography of the state and its adaptation in Nordic research. Then we point to some of the major challenges to the classic paradigm of state building raised by recent research. After that we introduce the key concepts of this volume and discuss how they may be applied in the Nordic context.

Classic historiography has interpreted the growth of powerful states as a process directed from above, where regional and local societies were considered objects for rules, organisations, and increasing taxation. However, since the late 20th century historians have analysed state building as an interactive process where the government constantly bargained with its subjects over resources. New rules or demands introduced by the state had to be adapted to traditional local institutions in order to function properly. Even open expressions of contention had a lasting impact on government decisions. It is this perspective we start from when we discuss ‘state building from below.’

While state formation is a perspective more often focusing on the organic, unintended, and accidental attempts of the making of states, the term ‘state building’ accentuates the interests that various groups and persons had in attempting to shape the state in their own way and becoming a shareholder or participant in the state. The agency of local people lies at the heart of our analysis. That is why we prefer the concept of state building, focusing on active participation and contention rather than the eventual result, i.e. state formation. We want to clarify the role of peasants and burghers, servants and even members of the elites in this process. How and in what ways did they manage to negotiate and influence the formation of political and administrative institutions? What goals were they trying to achieve and to what effect did they succeed in promoting them? The state provided social resources which could be utilised to promote particular interests as well as government policies (Table 1.1). Local officials representing the king as well as the parish clergy had important roles in implementing the crown's orders. Importantly, these local representatives lived in rural and urban settings and therefore were dependent on the cooperation of locals. In this way, they became mediators between the local societies and the central authorities.

Table 1.1 Repertoires of rule and political contestation

Government policies	Forms of rule	Local strategies
Repression, decrees, and top-down measures	Power state	Obedience, passivity, contestation, revolt
Negotiations, political representation, and official communication	Bargaining state	Bargaining, petitioning, and non-violent protest
Recognition of local privileges and institutions	Conglomerate state	Adapting local and provincial institutions to the government system
Delegation to peasant and urban communes	Peasant state Semi-feudal towns under family dynasties	Organised self-government, local or provincial uprisings

The role of personal agency in state formation has recently been explored by Finnish historians in a volume edited by Petri Karonen and Marko Hakanen. The essays focus on many of the intermediating groups that we are interested in: Provincial and local officials, clergymen, mayors, and burgomasters.³ We want to take this approach one step further by also incorporating the agency of peasants, townspeople, and even persons of rank, working outside central government institutions into the analysis. There is a need to expand and problematise the development of state institutions beyond the simple dichotomy of rulers and subjects.

We do not claim that the state building process was exclusively determined from below. State building was most often a top-down process; rules and regulations, bureaucracy and military organisation were implemented in urban and rural societies very much from ‘above.’ However, we do claim that the people ‘below’ developed effective means and strategies to affect the state building process throughout the early modern period. Subjects of the crown were not just passive objects of the growing ‘power state.’ On the contrary, they helped to shape the scope and character of state institutions in a variety of ways as demonstrated by this volume.

Neither do we claim that all political interactions were about state building from below. Early modern societies were permeated with power relations of different kinds and not all of them involved the state. We do claim, however, that in the early modern Nordic countries, the state provided an overreaching framework that both shaped and was shaped by various local conflicts. We also hold that local agents were quite aware of the significance of state institutions and quite adapt in utilising them for their own purposes. In doing so, they helped to transform the character of the state not only on the local, but sometimes on the central level also.

Our project focuses on European state building in general and Scandinavian development in particular. However, we do acknowledge the fact that recent research has demonstrated that state building was not exclusively a European project. Transnational or even global connections could have profound effect on local interactions in a way not appreciated by earlier research. While comparing differing local societies in the Nordic countries, we also recognise the transnational links. Ideas and concepts for mobilising political action were often communicated across borders but could gain new relevance in the local context.

The concept of state building

According to the classical definition of Max Weber, the state is an organisation claiming a monopoly of the legitimate use of force within a given territory.⁴ Therefore, ‘state formation’ can be understood as the process which resulted in a clearly defined state territory and a system with a central administration that exercised more or less legitimate power over the state territory and its subjects. Scholars have stressed that this process gained momentum in the early modern period, starting from renaissance in the 15th century and continuing into the 19th century.⁵

British sociologist Michael Mann has formulated an alternative definition of the state, stressing social relations and overlapping networks of agents operating at different levels in society. Mann's perspective on state building is highly relevant, because it focuses on the importance of extensive power networks, including some agents in local societies but excluding others.⁶ This line of reasoning has been further elaborated by historians such as Michael Braddick and Steve Hindle, who have demonstrated how the British state operated through local agents who exploited state institutions to promote their own social status.⁷ Importantly, the state could function as a social resource, a set of competences and resources that might be utilised by various agents and groups – not just the social elites – to gain status and legitimacy for their actions. Swiss scholar André Holenstein has named these practices ‘empowering interactions,’ through which local agents and groups could gain influence and better their position through contacts with the state.⁸

One dominant perspective has held that warfare, or preparation for war, was the prime mover for building centralised states in early modern Europe. This idea has been attributed to German historian Otto Hintze (1861–1940), a contemporary of Max Weber and one of the first historians who discussed the process of state building.⁹ American sociologist Charles Tilly (1929–2008) elaborated this argument in a series of influential publications. According to Tilly, the state building process was a struggle for resources: To survive military threats from neighbouring polities, the rulers had to intensify administrative control and the extraction of resources (taxation) from their subjects.¹⁰

This reasoning has inspired researchers to characterise the early modern state as a power state – a bureaucratic organisation controlling its subjects top-down. Recently, however, Tilly's focus on war and extraction has come under fire. Benno Teschke has argued that Tilly underestimated the importance of intra-state relations and that intensive warfare might just as well result in the disintegration of state structures. Others have pointed out that it was not the pursuit of war as such that promoted state building activities, but rather the need for effective administration and long-term planning.¹¹ Mark Dincecco holds that theories explaining the state put too much weight on internal and external conflict, underestimating the need for cooperation between social groups with different agendas. This perspective is in itself a strong argument for analysing interactions and mobilisation from below.¹²

Charles Tilly did in fact recognise that initiatives from local or regional groups could have profound effects on the state. When Tilly's theory about state building is described in the literature, his notion about the impact of the ‘below’ in the process is most often forgotten. In his own works, however, Tilly insisted that centralised states could only be formed ‘… at the cost of widespread resistance, extensive bargaining and the creation of rights and perquisites for citizens.’¹³

We want to expand upon this perspective, studying how this bargaining with various agents significantly shaped the states that emerged in Europe. State intervention also created political opportunity, providing some subjects with effective tools for strengthening their position while...