Farr, J. (2005). Point: The Westphalia Legacy and the Modern Nation-interstate. International Social Science Review . Vol. 80, No. ¾. pp. 156-159
The war in Westphalia Europe took thirty years and ended in 1648, thus leading to great peace and modern nation-state sovereignty (Farr, 2005). According to the author, the end of the war in Westphalia resulted in an absolute collapse of the Habsburg Empire thus creating a great power balance in Europe. Moreover, the emergence of peace in Westphalia further weakened Papal dominance and authority. According to Farr (2005), the emergence of peace in Westphalia and entire Europe during the year 1648 led to the transition of the entire region from feudalism principalities into sovereign states. In this regard, various historians see the Westphalia system as the foundation of modern international relations within entire Europe. Moreover, the emergence of the Westphalia system marked the end of Empires in modern Europe because, previously, most states were ruled by Emperors.
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Further, the decline of papacy religious and political authority due emergence of peace in Westphalia and Westphalia system forced the wealthy aristocrats in the region to start engaging the newly formed secular leaders and monarchs (Farr, 2005). Most governments also started feeling the need for financing to help them provide security to their people. The 17 th and 18 th centuries became the verge of massive military technologies and states started to form alliances that would later help them conquer their enemies. The inchoate states also emerged as countries that were allied to aristocratic ones received huge funding, whereas countries that were not friendly to them suffered economically (Farr, 2005). Both the European monarchs and aristocrats saw the need for political and economic cooperation and they managed to solicit huge portions of wealth from other regions especially in Africa through colonialism.
Karaman K K & Pamuk S. (2013). Different paths to the modern state in Europe. The interaction between domestic political economy and interstate competition .
Karaman and Pamuk (2013) conducted an empirical analysis to determine the relationship between the two variables, H2 and H3. The variables represented the effects of competition and the interstate war on centralized fiscal capacity and the effect of a representative regime on centralized fiscal capacity in Europe respectively. According to the researchers, the competition and interstate war was found to have a positive impact on centralized fiscal capacity whereas a representative regime was found to have a negative impact on centralized fiscal capacity in Europe (Karaman and Pamuk, 2013). The researchers found that until the 19 th , politics was largely intra-elite and it only involved elites and rules but excluded the common masses and this consequently led to authoritative regimes. On the other hand, the emergence of representative regimes in the 19 th century which led to a formal and collective bargain between the elites and the rulers, and this provided an opportunity for sanction of the deviant members of the society, led to intra-elite mutual coordination and sharing of information within different states.
As opposed to the authoritarian regimes, the representative regimes resulted into the bargain for power between rulers and elites, and this made the elite to formulate good fiscal policies to strengthen their economies (Karaman and Pamuk, 2013). These policies helped to solve several collection action issues within different states in Europe. In contrast, power was bargained between the ruler and particular groups or elites within the authoritarian regimes thus led to an informal relationship between the ruler and people. This in turn, therefore, gave the ruler to reward particular people and play or punish elites with one another (Karaman and Pamuk, 2013). The contrast between a representative regime and authoritarian regimes has therefore brought two contrasting lines of arguments as others believe that authoritarian regimes were highly efficient and effective in collecting revues as compared to the representative regimes (Karaman and Pamuk, 2013). This line of argument has invoked experiences of continental European in modern Europe thus raising nodes of resistance against fiscal centralization as observed in Austrian Habsburgs, Poland-Lithuanian and Prussia.
References
Farr, J. (2005). Point: The Westphalla Legacy and the Modern Nation-interstate. International Social Science Review. Vol. 80, No. ¾. pp. 156-159
Karaman K K & Pamuk S. (2013). Different path to modern state in Europe. The interaction between domestic political economy and interstate competition . LSE ‘Europe in Question’ Discussion Paper Series
