Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T10:34:40.782Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Politics of Backwardness in Continental Europe, 1780–1945

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Andrew C. Janos
Andrew C. Janos
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkely
Get access

Abstract

Between the late eighteenth century and 1945, the economic and political differentiation of the European continent has followed a neatly regressive geographical pattern. The origin of this pattern goes back to the agricultural revolutions of the early modern age, and to the diffusion of agricultural technology along the Northwest-Southeast axis. It was subsequently reproduced by both market and political forces operating within the context of material aspirations, themselves the product of the economic revolutions of the Northwest. The experience suggests a potential model for peripheral societies in the Third World, though the relevance of the historical analogy may be limited by currently unfolding changes in the nature of technology and in the terms of exchange between core and peripheral regions in the contemporary world.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 41 , Issue 3 , April 1989 , pp. 325 - 358
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1989

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See, among others, Wallerstein, Immanuel, The Modern World System New York: Academic Press, 1974)Google Scholar; Skocpol, Theda, States and Social Revolutions Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Anderson, Perry, Lineages of the Absolutist State London: New Lefl Books, 1974)Google Scholar.

2 See especially, Frank, André Gunder, “The Development of Underdevelopment,” and “Economic Dependence, Class Structure, and Underdevelopment Policy,” in Cockroft, James D., Frank, Andre Gunder, and Johnson, Dale J., eds., Dependence and Underdevelopmeni New York: Doubleday, 1972), 3–46 and Wallerstein (fn. 1), 302Google Scholar.

3 Myrdal, Gunnar, Rich Lands and Poor New York: Harper, 1958), 23–38Google Scholar; Hirschman, Albert, The Strategy of Economic Development New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962), 183–98Google Scholar.

4 Hirschman (fn. 3), 187.

5 Myrdal (fn. 3), 23.

6 Fichte, Johann-Gottlieb, “Der geschlossene Handelsstaat” [The closed trading state] in Fichte, Ausgewählte Werke [Selected works], Vol. III (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1964), 417–544Google Scholar; List, Friedrich, The National System of Political Economy, trans. Lloyd, Sampson S. (London: Longmans, 1916)Google Scholar; Gerschenkron, Alexander, Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962), 5–30Google Scholar.

7 This hypothesis is implicit for Perry Anderson, who relates the rise of absolutist states in Europe to “accelerated pressures” for military spending by great powers under conditions of economic backwardness. See Anderson (fn. 1), esp. 494.

8 This formula appears in Platteau, Jean-Philippe, “Das Paradoxon des Staates in wirtschaftlich rückständigen Ländern” [The paradox of the state in economically backward countries], Oesterreichische Zeitschrift fur Soziologie 9, No. 4 (1984), 63–87Google Scholar, esp. 70–74, where the author generously attributes the idea to me.

9 Veblen, Thorstein, Imperial Germany and the Industrial Revolution, 3d ed. (New York: Viking, 1954), 147Google Scholar. For Veblen's thought and the concept of the demonstration effect, see Janos, Andrew C., Politics and Paradigms: The Changing Theories of Change in Social Science Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1986), 84–92Google Scholar.

10 Runciman, W. G., Relati ve Deprivation and Social justice Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966), 12Google Scholar.

11 For this dimension of the IDE, see Gurr, Ted Robert, Why Men Rebel Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), 100–101Google Scholar. One may also refer to Jose Ortega y Gasset's notion that the dual evils of the modern world are egalitarianism and technicism. See The Revolt of the Masses New York: Norton, 1957), 56–57Google Scholar.

12 Veblen (fn. 9), 208.

13 Braudel, Fernand, Capitalism and Material Life, 1400–1800 New York: Norton, 1976), 80–82Google Scholar; Habakkuk, H. J. and Postan, M., eds., Cambridge Economic History of Europe, Vol. VI (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965), 85Google Scholar.

14 For cereal yields in Europe before 1820, see Braudel (fn. 13), 81; Rich, E. E. and Wilson, C. H., eds., Cambridge Economic History of Europe, Vol. V (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 81CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for the nineteenth century, see Milward, Alan S. and Saul, S. B., The Development of the Economies of Continental Europe Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977), 234, 349, 379Google Scholar. For the twentieth century, see League of Nations, Agrarian Production in Continental Europe Geneva, 1943), esp. 86–91Google Scholar. See also Table 3, below.

15 Braudel (fn. 13), 282–83 Habakkuk and Postan (fn. 13), 274–75.

16 Habakkuk and Postan (fn. 13), 313.

17 McKendrick, Neil, Brewer, John, and Plumb, J. H., Birth of a Consumer Society. The Commercialization of Eighteenth Century England Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982), 29Google Scholar.

18 Ibid.

19 Ibid.

20 Ibid., 51.

21 Faujas de St. Fond, Voyage en Angleterre [Travels in England], Vol. I, 112, quoted in McKendrick et al. (fn. 17), 137.

22 Colson, Felix F., De I'etat present de Moldavie et de la Valachie [The present state of Moldavia and Wallachia], Vol. I Paris: Paulin, 1841), 210Google Scholar. See also Janos (fn. 9), 88.

23 von Csaplovits, Johann, Eine Gemalde von Ungarn [A portrait of Hungary], Vol. I Pest: Hartleben, 1829), 254Google Scholar.

24 Trouton, Routh, Peasant Renaissance in Yugoslavia, igoo-1950 London: Routledge, 1952)Google Scholar.

25 Veliz, Claudio, The Centralist Tradition of Latin America Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), 168, 172Google Scholar.

26 Glade, William P., The Latin American Economies: A Study of Their Institutional Evolution New York: American Books, 1969), 205Google Scholar.

27 Anderson, Charles, Politics and Economic Change in Latin America Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand, 1967), 22Google Scholar.

28 McKendrick et al. (fn. 17), 24.

29 There is considerable scholarly debate as to whether such price movements did, or did not, actually take place, and whether higher demand for manufactures, or disproportionate increases in primary production, were responsible. According to several sources though, the relative price of primary products on the world export market fell from 100 in 1872–76 to 68.2 in 1900, and rose again to 79.4 by 1913. See Milward and Saul (fn. 14), 485–87. For the argument concerning a secular decline of primary products, see League of Nations, Critique of Industrialization and Foreign Trade Geneva, 1945Google Scholar) and United Nations, The Relative Price of Exports and Imports of Underdeveloped Countries New York, 1949)Google Scholar. For a refutation of the argument, see Bairoch, Paul, The Economic Development of the Third World Since 1910, trans. Cynthia Postan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), 111Google Scholar.

30 For Latin America, see Veliz (fn. 25), 26, 120–24. Spain, F°r, Herr, Richard, The Eighteenth Century Revolution in Spain Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1958), 120, 146–47Google Scholar. For Eastern Europe, see Tomasevich, Jozo, Peasants, Politics, and Economic Change in Yugoslavia Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1955), 63Google Scholar. For Eastern Europe, see Janos, Andrew C., The Politics of Backwardness in Hungary, 1825-1945 Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), 36–37Google Scholar; Seton-Watson, Robert, History of the Roumanians Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1934), 211Google Scholar; Zeletin, Stefan, Burghezia romana: origina şi rolul ei istoric [The Romanian bourgeoisie: Its origins and role in history] (Bucharest: Editura Cultura Najionala, 1925), 47Google Scholar.

31 Furtado, Celso, The Economic Growth of Brazil Berkeley: University of California Press, 1963), 97–98Google Scholar.

32 These patterns apparently prevailed in the German lands between the Weser and Elbe, and in Austria, Tuscany, and central France, among other regions of the Continent. See Weber, Max, “Die Verhaltnisse der Landarbeiter im ostelbischen Deutschland” [The condition of agricultural laborers in Germany east of the Elbe], Schriften des Vereins fiir Sozialpolitik 55 (1892), 795–99Google Scholar. See also Wallerstein (fn. 1), esp. 103–7.

33 Weber (fn. 32), 797.

34 The term first appears in his Neo-iobagia [Neoserfdom] Bucharest: Minerva, 1912)Google Scholar.

35 Milward and Saul (fn. 14), 343–44.

36 See Bendix, Reinhard, Max Weber Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), 31–32Google Scholar.

37 The poet Mihai Eminescu, quoted in Zeletin (fn. 30), 142.

38 Anderson (fn. 27), 224.

39 For this term, see Riggs, Fred, Administration in Developing Countries Boston: Houghto Mifflin, 1966), 188–93Google Scholar.

40 See, among others, Spulber, Nicholas, The State and Economic Development in Eastern Ei rope New York: Random House, 1966)Google Scholar; Schuster, Hans, Die Judenfrage in Rumänien [Tŀ Jewish question in Romania] Leipzig: Felix Meiner, 1939)Google Scholar; Trouton (fn. 24), 53–54; Bol chev, S. S., “Commercial and Economic Groups,” in Warriner, Doreen, ed., Contrasts in Emergit Societies (Bloomington: Indiana University Press), 223, 227–28Google Scholar.

41 Popović, Dušan J., O Cincarima [About the Tsintsars] Belgrade: Gregorivić, 1937), 83–8Google Scholar 318–480.

42 Weber, Peter, Portugal: Raumliche Dimension und Abhängigkeit [Portugal: Spatial dimension and dependency] (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1982), 5Google Scholar.

43 Szekfũ, Gyula, A mai Széchenyi [Topical Széchenyi] Budapest: Magyar Szemle, 1934), 243Google Scholar.

44 Čubrilović, Vasa, Istorija političke misli u Srbiji XIX veka [History of nineteenth-century Serbian political thought] Belgrade: Prosveta, 1958), 288Google Scholar.

45 Payne, Stanley G., A History of Spain and Portugal, Vol. II Madison: University of Wis consin Press, 1973), 518Google Scholar; Roucek, Joseph, Balkan Politics Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1932), 58Google Scholar; and Temperley, W. H. Harold, History of Serbia London: Bell, 1917), 276Google Scholar.

46 Lampe, John R. and Jackson, Marvin R., Balkan Economic History Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982), 233, and Janos (fn. 30), 95Google Scholar.

47 In 1910, Portugal led the way with foreign indebtedness of 661.1 gold francs per capita. Next came Spain (498.6), Italy (368.5), Greece (328.0), Romania (299.6), Serbia (238.8), and Russia (186.8), in all of which per capita national income varied between 200 and 400 francs. By 1900, some 20 to 35 percent of budget revenue was used to service these debts, and new loans had to be contracted to pay the interest on the old. See Milward and Saul (fn. 14), 444; Stavrianos, L. S., The Balkans since 1453 New York: Holt, Reinhart & Winston, 1958), 419Google Scholar; Lampe and Jackson (fn. 46), 160, 232–35

48 Carr, Raymond, Spain, 1808–1939 Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), 211, 256Google Scholar.

49 Ibid., 256.

50 Ibid., esp. 210–56, 347–49.

51 Payne (fn. 45), 555.

52 de Olivera, A. H. Marques, History of Portugal (New York: Columbia University Press, 1972). 53Google Scholar.

53 Janos (fn. 30), 98–101, 212–13.

54 Seton-Watson (fn. 30), 354.

55 Zeletin (fn. 30), 77.

56 Nicolescu, G. D. and Hermely, A.Deputaţii noştri, 1895–99 [Our deputies, 1895–99] Bucharest: Muller, 1899)Google Scholar; Nicolescu, G. D., Parlamentul român [The Romanian parliament] Bucharest: Socec, 1903)Google Scholar; Petrescu, Corrin, Albumul corpurilor leguitoare [The almanac of the legislative bodies] Bucharest: Unirea, 1910)Google Scholar.

57 Stokes, Gale, Legitimacy through Liberalism. Vladimir Jovanović and the Transformation of Serbian Politics Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1975), 221Google Scholar.

58 Hulme, Beaman A., Stambuloff London: Bliss, 1895), 63Google Scholar.

59 Stoianovich, Slobodan, “Social Foundations of Balkan Politics,” in Charles, and Jelavich, Barbara, eds., The Balkans in Transition Berkeley: University of California Press, 1963), 322Google Scholar.

60 Ibid., 322.

61 Zeletin, Stefan, Neo-liberalismul: studii asupra istorei si politicei burghezei romane [Neoliberalism: Studies in the history and politics of the Romanian bourgeoisie] Bucharest: Pagini agrare şi sociale, 1927), 10–12Google Scholar.

62 Milward and Saul (fn. 14), 227–29.

63 Habakkuk and Postan (fn. 13), 461.

64 Gerschenkron (fn. 6), 12–13.

65 Ibid.

66 Gerschenkron (fn. 6), 19–20.

67 Stearns, Peter N., Paths to Authority: The Middle Class and the Industrial Labor Force in France, 1820–1948 Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978), 54Google Scholar.

68 Maier, Charles S., Recasting Bourgeois Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975). 353–69Google Scholar.

69 It should be noted that the semiperiphery is primarily an economic concept, and that only a few of the continental governments presided over “pure” semiperipheral economies. The main culprit here was ethnic nationalism, the rise of which lumped together regions with different economic characters solely because their inhabitants spoke the same language. Thus the heartlands of both the German and the French economies were semiperipheral, but they coexisted uneasily with core-type economies in the Northwest, and peripheral-type economies in the South and East of the two countries respectively. In Italy, a semiperipheral North faced an undeveloped, peripheral South. In Czechoslovakia (after 1918), the more advanced, semiperipheral provinces were dominant, but had to coexist with the backward economy of Slovakia.

70 This dichotomy was first suggested, although in a different context, in Katzenstein, Peter J., Small States in World Markets: Industrial Policy in Europe Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985), 17–38Google Scholar.

71 Maier (fn. 68), 353.

72 See especially Deutsch, Karl, “Social Mobilization and Political Development,” American Political Science Review 55 (September 1961), 493–502CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

73 See Cole, G.D.H. and Postgate, Raymond, The British People, 1746–1946 New York: Knopf, 1957), 373Google Scholar.

74 After 1920, most governments of the European periphery extended suffrage to the rural population, although the electoral system in the villages remained as corrupt as before. At the same time, most governments made an attempt to appease the peasant populations by various land redistribution schemes. These reforms were, however, largely symbolic. The only exception was Romania, a country that experienced a radical land reform. Even there, the weak peasant economy continued to serve as a resource base for subsidizing the industrialization of the country. See Roberts, Henry, Rumania: Political Problems of an Agrarian State New Haven: Yale University Press, 1951)Google Scholar, esp. 22–88 also Zeletin (fn. 61).

75 See Burks, Richard V., The Dynamics of Communism in Eastern Europe Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1962), esp. 39–42Google Scholar.

76 Laky, Désiré, Statistiques des étudiants des universités en 1930 [Statistics of university students in 1930] Budapest: Patria, 1932), 12–14Google Scholar.

77 See also Janos (fn. 9); 92–93.

78 See “Comments” in Friedrich, Carl J., ed., Totalitarianism Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1954), 381CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

79 Cardoso, Fernando H. and Faletto, Enzo, Dependency and Development in Latin America trans. Urquidi, Marjory M.Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), 12Google Scholar.

80 Veblen (fn. 9), 163.

81 See Tilly, Charles, Big Structures, Large Processes, Huge Comparisons New York: Russi Sage Foundation, 1985)Google Scholar.