The State and Practice of American Political History at the Millennium: The Nineteenth Century as a Test Case

1999 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joel H. Silbey
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
American History ◽  
Political History ◽  
Dominant Role ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Test Case ◽  
Historical Knowledge ◽  
Hard Times ◽  
Traditional Work

These are very hard times for students of American political history. Not so long ago they were a peppy and optimistic bunch and believed that they had every reason to be. For those scholars who focused their attention on nineteenth-century politics in particular, the avalanche of revisionist work from the quantitatively and behaviorally oriented “new” political historians, beginning in the late 1950s, as well as the constant outpouring of more traditional work in the genre, had expanded the reach, and deepened the understanding, of American political life after 1800. Much the same was true for politics in other chronological eras as well. The energy and example displayed by the generation of political historians active into the 1980s underscored their major, even dominant role in the study of American history. And there were few signs that anything would check the impressive growth and increasing sophistication of their contributions to historical knowledge.

1. Introduction to Africa and its politics

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Ian Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Political History ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
The Core ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Core Questions ◽  
The Impact

Africa is a continent of over a billion people, yet questions of underdevelopment, malgovernance, and a form of political life based upon patronage are characteristic of many African states. ‘Introduction to Africa and its politics’ explains that the core questions underpinning this VSI centre on how politics is typically practised on the continent; the nature of the state in Africa; and what accounts for Africa’s underdevelopment. This VSI aims to appraise sub-Saharan Africa’s recent political history, examining post-colonial political structures, the impact of colonialism, and the form and nature of post-colonial states. The type of politics practised in many African states continues to be hostile to genuine nation building and broad-based, sustainable development.

scholarly journals Discussion Forum: The Vanishing Nineteenth Century in European History?

2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 611-695
Author(s):  
Karen Hagemann ◽  
Simone Lässig
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Discussion Forum ◽  
European History ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Multiple Perspectives ◽  
Historical Knowledge ◽  
Regional Comparison

This forum explores from multiple perspectives the often stated impression that the nineteenth century is “vanishing” from German and European history. It asks how one can explain this trend, what consequences it has for the development of historiography and public historical knowledge, if and why the nineteenth century matters for the present, and what the future of nineteenth-century history might be. Fourteen experts on different regions and historiographical approaches to European history from the United States and Germany discuss these questions. We sought contributors from these two countries in order to illuminate differences in the historical profession on either side of the Atlantic, and are sure that a broader regional comparison would point to more varieties in the state of historical research on the nineteenth century.

Concepts of Public Opinion

1933 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 371-391 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis G. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Political History ◽  
The State ◽  
Scientific Study ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Human History ◽  
John Of Salisbury ◽  
Early Use ◽  
The Way

Public opinion in democracies should be the final element in political life which gives significance to the activity of the state and the fact of membership in it. The recognition of the force of opinion implies that in the overflowing of the individual's will to his neighbor's will, in the desire to administer the things common to wills, we have perhaps one of the most basic psychological foundations of the state. While one may contend that the problems of the nature of the state or of jurisprudence are more than adequately conceptualized, this certainly cannot be said of public opinion. Yet since the very early use of the term by John of Salisbury in 1159, its significance in human history has not been less than that of justice, liberty, or law. It is suggested that a statement of the elements which appear to be universal is the proper first step in the scientific study of public opinion. The method here proposed may seem barren of immediate results, but it is necessary to clarify reasoning on public opinion as force-ideas in political history. Commonly understood abstractions are necessary to pave the way for organized thinking and action.

The Role of Public Opinion in the “Jackson Era” in the USA

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Татьяна Алентьева ◽  
Tat'yana Alent'eva
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Political History ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The South ◽  
The North ◽  
The Usa ◽  
First Time

The monograph first explores American public opinion as the most important factor in social and political life in the "Jackson era." Of particular value is the study of the struggle of opinions within the bipartisan system, both in the South and in the North. Against the background of a broad canvas of socio-economic and political history, the first analysis of the state and development of public opinion in the USA is given, successively from the presidential election of 1824 to the defeat of the Democrats in the presidential election of 1840, when their opponents, the Whigs, came to power for the first time.

Unmasking the ‘personality’ of the state—Max Weber, Staatsrechtslehre, and the modern state

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duncan Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Conceptual Understanding ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Legal Positivist ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Comparative Manner

This chapter examines Max Weber's rejection of an idea central to nineteenth-century Staatsrechtslehre. This is the notion that the state itself is a ‘personality’. After outlining some of the main tenets of this tradition, the chapter seeks to show how Weber, borrowing from the work of Georg Jellinek in particular, retains a conceptual understanding of the state that stresses its position at the apex of political life. He nevertheless rejected the formalism of Jellinek's modified legal-positivist argument, which had resulted in his famous two-sided (one legal, the other political-sociological) account of the state. Weber insisted that the state could only be properly discussed as a relationship of domination, and in an empirical-sociological and comparative manner at that.

Continuities in Ottoman Centre–Periphery Relations, 1787–1915

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
FREDERICK ANSCOMBE
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Political History ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Mutual Support ◽  
History Of

In the political history of the Ottoman Empire, the long nineteenth century (1789–1915) stands out as a period of far-reaching, rapid change in the nature of the state. While the persistence of old practices should not be assumed along all frontiers of the empire, where it was applied the mutual support arrangement worked reasonably well at both ends of the nineteenth century. The two cases examined in this chapter illustrate this in a surprising fashion. The parallels are unexpected because among the notables involved, Tepedelenli Ali Pasha (1787–1820) in Epirus (Greece and Albania) and the Al Sabah and Al Thani shaykhs (1870–1915) in eastern Arabia carry reputations as unwilling subjects who rebelled against the sultan. It was largely due to the centre's failure to continue to uphold its part of the mutual support arrangement.

Trade, accumulation and the state in Asante in the nineteenth century

Africa ◽  
1990 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 524-537 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kwame Arhin
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political History ◽  
The State ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphThis article examines well-known facts about Asante trade in the nineteenth century with a view to defining the contribution of trade to accumulation. The question of accumulation becomes significant when considered in relation to recent directions in Asante economic, social and political history. These have featured the role of the precolonial Asante state in the development of its economy (Wilks, 1967; 1975; McCaskie, 1980), stratification (Wilks, 1975; McCaskie, 1980; 1983; 1986; Arhin, 1983a; 1983b; 1986a), and what may be called the paradox of colonial rule, that it liberalised accumulative forces in order to enhance its exploitative opportunities (Arhin, 1974; 1975).

scholarly journals First experience of participation in post-Soviet parliamentary elections in Nizhny Novgorod region: pages of political history

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 37-41
Author(s):  
Ya. S. Zanozina ◽  
◽  
V. M. Plitkina ◽  
A. A. Fomenkov ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Political History ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
The Political ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
The North ◽  
History Of ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
Nizhny Novgorod Region

The article is devoted to an important event in the political history of post-Soviet Russia, namely the first parliamentary elections in its history. The aim of the work was to determine the specifics of the results of the first elections of deputies of the Russian Parliament after the collapse of the USSR in the Nizhny Novgorod region. The tasks of the work are related to the study of the elections of deputies of the State Duma (both by single-mandate districts and by party lists), and the Federation Council. A number of conclusions are drawn regarding the political sympathies of residents of different administrative-territorial units of the Nizhny Novgorod region in the first half of the last decade. A kind of Nizhny Novgorod «red belt» is defined geographically, consisting of the southern districts of the region, as well as several districts of the north and east of the region, where voters mostly supported the left. It is revealed that the level of political activity in the elections is quite high, which is not surprising in view of the intense political life during the perestroika period in Gorky, and then in Nizhny Novgorod

Recasting Urban Political History: Gender, the Public, the Household, and Political Participation in Boston and San Francisco during the Progressive Era

1992 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 301-331 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip J. Ethington
Keyword(s):  
San Francisco ◽  
Political History ◽  
Policy Formation ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Scientific Goal ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Primary Base

Thanks to recent innovations in theories and methods of political history, an enormous task lies before those wishing to approach the social-scientific goal recently desribed as “total political history.” Research and theorizing on the subjects of political culture, the autonomy of the state, language and discourse, the public sphere, and the importance of gender to political life promise to displace a long-standing interest among political historians in locating the social groups that presumably composed the “base” of historical regime and policy formation. The understanding of past politics as the epiphenomenal superstructure to an ontologically primary base of past society has been radically revised by scholarship presenting evidence of the relative autonomy of the state and of cultural structures within which both society and politics operate (Kousser 1982,1990; Skocpol 1985; McDonald 1986; Tropea 1989; Hunt 1986; Reddy 1987; Palmer 1990).

scholarly journals HISTÓRIA E POLÍTICA

2002 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rafael Sêga
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Political History ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Emile Durkheim ◽  
Henri Berr

O presente artigo pretende ver como a História Política tradicional, ao definir temas, objetos, princípios e métodos tomando como base a visão centralizada e institucionalizada do poder, preponderou por mais de dois mil anos. Pretende ver também como a mesma, ao final do século XIX, acabou sucumbindo aos ataques feitos pela sociologia de Émile Durkheim, de François Simiand e pela renovação metodológica proposta por Henri Berr e, mais tarde, pelos Annales. Contudo, a partir da década de 60, surgiram importantes iniciativas na busca de uma “Nova História Política”, no intuito de resgatar o papel e importância do político sem recair, no entanto, na História Política factual. Foi observado que essa nova forma de escrever sobre o poder na história se apropriou de outros ramos das Ciências Sociais, como a Ciência Política, a Sociologia e a Antropologia, entendendo a vida política como um complexo de ações, convicções e sensibilidades. Abstract The present article intends to verify how the traditional political history when defining themes, objects, principles and methods grounded on the institutionalized and centered vision of power, prevailed for over two thousand years. And also, how it, by the end of the nineteenth century, came to its end due to the attacks under the Émile Durkheim and François Simiand’s sociology and the methodological renovation proposed by Henri Berr and later on by the Annales. However, since the 60s important initiatives have arisen in search of a “New Political History”, with the intention of rescuing the role and importance of politicians with no recurrence, nevertheless, to factual political history. It was observed that this new way of writing about power in history has permeated other fields concerning social sciences, such as political science, sociology and anthropology, and has perceived political life as a conjunction of actions, convictions and sensibility.

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