The French Ideology? Louis Dumont and the German Conception of the Nation

Abstract. This article examines the contribution of Louis Dumont to the study of German national ideology. In a series of essays over a ten-year period in the 1980s Dumont aimed at providing a selective intellectual history of modern Germany, which in the final resort would account for the emergence of Nazi Germany. By focusing on factors such as the predominance of holism, the idea of universal sovereignty and the introverted individualism of the Reformation, Dumont believes that it is possible to uncover the dynamics of modernity in Germany. This development he contrasted with that of France, in which a non-cultural definition of the nation prevailed and where holism was non-dominant. The article concludes with a critique of Dumont's narrow version of intellectual history and with the suggestion that only a proper historical sociology of modern Germany can explain Nazism.     

The 1444–5 expedition of the Dauphin Louis to the Upper Rhine in geopolitical perspective

In summer 1444 the Dauphin Louis, son of Charles VII of France, appeared on the Upper Rhine with a large army. The purpose of his expedition was to reconquer the territories of his future brother-in-law, Sigismund of Austria-Tyrol, from the Swiss Confederates and their allies. However, after achieving just one victory, on 26 August, the Dauphin suddenly agreed to a series of truces and then a peace treaty with the Confederates, even though this made it impossible for him to fulfil his original objective. This article reassesses the contradictory course of the Dauphin's expedition in light of the geopolitical forces that shaped it in the political world of the Upper Rhine. It first analyses the political configuration of the region and the place of the ecclesiastical Council of Basel within it, and then demonstrates that these circumstances combined to force the Dauphin radically to alter his plans in late August 1444. The article also points to the wider implications of the episode for our understanding of later-medieval European politics. Highlighting the inadequacy of national or state-oriented paradigms, it suggests that a new vocabulary is needed to make full sense of the aspects of fifteenth-century political life manifested by the Dauphin's expedition.     

Rights to the rescue? The promotion of Indigenous women's political-electoral rights and the rise of the Mexican security state

This article demonstrates how the promotion of Indigenous women's political-electoral rights in Mexico has furthered a conservative agenda of state securitization. To do so, it presents a discourse analysis of national media reports focused on the story of Eufrosina Cruz, a Zapotec woman who became the figurehead for state-led initiatives to promote Indigenous women's rights. It argues that a colonial rescue narrative constructed through Cruz's figure helped generate new hegemonic discourses of gendered indigeneity that portrayed Indigenous peoples' alternative political practices and spaces as anti-democratic and illegal. In an era where advancements in party democracy were linked to processes of state securitization, these categorizations helped justify new forms of state intervention into Indigenous peoples' lives. By exploring how rights initiatives were discursively constructed through racialized, spatialized and gendered constructions of indigeneity, this article contributes to a critical geography of indigeneity within political geography.     

How much heterogeneity can the welfare state endure? The influence of heterogeneity on attitudes to the welfare state

Cultural and economic heterogeneity is often seen as a major threat to modern welfare states. This article contributes to the discussion of how much heterogeneity the welfare state can endure by theoretically and empirically focusing on the relationship between different levels of national identity and the support for welfare state policies. We analyse the effect of different types of national identity on attitudes towards taxation and redistribution. We show that it is the subjective aspect of national identity, or social cohesion, that in fact matters for predicting attitudes to the welfare state. In comparison, more objective measures of heterogeneity like the inequality of income distribution, language fractionalisation or the percentage of foreign‐born individuals do not have any effect on attitudes to the welfare state.     

“The churchwardens have not used to meddle with anie seate”: seating plans and parochial resistance to Laudianism in 1630s Somerset

This article considers the impact of the Laudian Reformation upon the spatial organisation of early modern English parish churches, drawing upon the Somerset churchwardens’ accounts and court depositions of the 1620s and 1630s. An explosion of scholarly literature on early modern church seating plans and pew disputes has increased our understanding of how early moderns used the parish floor space to represent and reinforce social hierarchies and relationships. This paper investigates the significance of pewing practices to understanding parochial receptions of Laudianism, which required an overhaul of church interiors and which impacted seating arrangements in turn. It proposes that Laudian attempts to enforce a radical restructuring of churches, and to co-opt the churchwardens in pursuit of their policies, ran against established and hotly defended practices for the organisation of the parochial space.     

The dawn of the secular state? Heritage and identity in Swedish church and state debates 1920–1939

This article provides a study of political positions concerning the role of religion in modern society in Sweden between 1920 and 1939. It aims to increase understanding of the Swedish secularization path, with special emphasis on issues related to heritage and national identity, by comparing the dominant perspectives on these issues in the Church of Sweden and in the Social Democratic Party during that period. It addresses how these positions have influenced policies during the period, as well as some of their implications for later path dependence. It explores relations between religious issues and the concept of national heritage, as well as how the fact that both were at that time commonly seen as legitimate tasks of the state came to influence the development of Swedish church-and-state relations and heritage policies. Special attention is given to the positions of the Young Church Movement, a movement within the Church emphasizing its role as a national church with a central position in national identity, as well as to the views of Arthur Engberg, the anti-clerical Social Democratic government minister responsible for church, education, and culture in the 1930s.     

The law,the citizen,and the state in nineteenth‐century Australia

The Invisible State: The Formation of the Australian State 1788–1901 by Alastair Davidson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Pp. xviii + 329. £40.00 (hardback). ISBN 0–521–36658–5.

The Rule of Law in a Penal Colony: Law and Power in Early New South Wales by David Neal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Pp. xiv + 266. £30.00 (hardback). ISBN 0–521–37264‐X.

Criminal Law and Colonial Subject: New South Wales, 1810–1830 by Paula J. Byrne. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Pp. xiv + 301. £37.50 (hardback). ISBN 0–521–40379–0.     

The “Philosophical Bible” and the Secular State

Almost all scholars of the Enlightenment consider Hobbes, Spinoza, and Locke as the founding theorists of the “secular modern state.” In contrast to the widely held view of the modern state, I argue that far from being “secular” it was the product of the sacralization of politics, which resulted from the way these philosophers interpreted the Scriptures as part of their philosophical inquiries. The analysis of the “linguistic turn” in their biblical interpretations reveals how they tried to undermine the power of the Church to claim greater freedoms for the state. Their philosophical inquiries initiated the secularization of the Christian religion and the sacralization of politics as two correlative developments, rather than the secularization of the state per se, as is usually supposed. The philosophical arguments proposed by Hobbes, Spinoza, and Locke helped to resolve the religious battles of Europe’s many confessions in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but are still pertinent to our current very different historical context.     

The new refugees and the “old ethnicity”

Haines, David W., ed. Refugees in the United States: A Reference Handbook. Westport, Connecticut: Westport Press, 1985. viii + 243 pp. including chapter references, annotated literature guide, and index. $39.95 cloth.     

The Frankish tradition and new perceptions of the monarchy: Louis XV—the new pharamond?

During the last century of the ancien régime in France, perceived notions of history, the rediscovery of the past, and the recourse to tradition were closely linked to each other as well as to political considerations or implications. Notions about the past and interpretations of tradition had relevance and meaning for the political élites, enabling them to explain the origins of the monarchy as well as its nature. The purpose here is to explore these links and to show how, in one particular instance, they came to affect the artistic representation of the monarch himself.     

The dossettiani and the concept of the secular state in the constitutional debates: 1946–7

It is now generally accepted that the members of the Constituent Assembly who were charged with drafting the Constitution concentrated their efforts on formulating the ideals to be expressed in it at the expense of the institutional arrangements of the new Republic. This has generally been viewed as resulting from a combination of two factors: their weak grasp of the liberal principles underpinning liberal parliamentary democracy, and a concomitant error of judgement in assuming that sufficient stress on the ideals of the Constitution would guarantee the basis of a healthy democracy. This article sets out to examine the input of the most influential Catholic group, the dossettiani, and argues, against the error of judgement thesis, that in fact their rejection of the concept of the secular state was a more fundamental denial of important principles of a pluralist democracy than has usually been supposed. The article also places their contribution within the context of the Church's aim to create a ‘Christian civilization’, and further suggests that the model of Catholic Action which inspired its collateral vision of Catholic forces was corrosive of a pluralist vision of correct institutional arrangements. The article ends by suggesting that these factors may have weighed more heavily on subsequent distortions of Italian democracy than has so far been supposed.     

The political will and the administrative won't? Mathieu Thomassin and his dauphins (Charles III and Louis II)

The delphinal counsellor Mathieu Thomassin composed a Breviere des anciens droys … du Dauphiné de Viennoys (c.1453) after a career of 30 years in the service of Charles III (the French king Charles VII) and Louis II (the future Louis XI). This was his first major historical text in French, but has been overshadowed by his better-known Registre delphinal, commissioned by Louis II in 1456. This article analyses the historical culture and the conception of history revealed in the Breviere. It notes how Thomassin's careful definitions of frontiers in the past and present reflect his experience of territorial disputes. History and geography are imbued with polemic, however, allowing Thomassin to override competing claims to territory or autonomy by delphinal opponents within and outside the Dauphiné. The principles set out in the Breviere were refined and extended in the Registre. However, it is unlikely that either work was ever intended for wide circulation; rather, they were written to provide ‘authentic’ texts which could be consulted primarily by other delphinal officers. As such, they reflect on occasion the divergence of views between a proto-professional administrator, with a concern for the long-term, and his preoccupied (if not dilettante) prince, much more subject to the requirements of realpolitik.