Definition

Levels of centralization were – and still are – not uniform across countries. Synthesizing different strands of macrohistory, Rokkan envisioned this map of Europe: at the center are the states located on the old trade-belt, stretching from Italy, crossing Switzerland, running along the Rhine toward the Low Countries, and then on to Scandinavia and the Hansean cities. The high density of cities characteristic of this area made it impossible for centralized states to take root. Major state building, instead, took place on either side of the trade-belt – Sweden, Austria, Prussia, and Russia in the East; Britain and France in the West. Spain, a seaward state with a strong periphery, was an exception. Over time, state building proved stronger in the West, where the greater surge of commercial activity made it possible for state builders to extract resources easily convertible into currency, than in the East, where the only alternative partners for state builders were the owners of land, and the only resources that they could offer – food and manpower – were non-monetary.

Meant for the eighteenth century, Rokkan's typology needs to be updated to the nineteenth. Political power remained decentralized in Switzerland and the United States. The French occupation of Spain and the Low Countries had a lasting centralizing effect, moving Belgium and the Netherlands into the same league as France and Britain. Its effect on Spain and Italy, however, was ambiguous. In both countries, centralization became associated with autocracy, and decentralization with republics and democracy.