Ten Years That Shook the World? The United Provinces as First Hegemonic State

In world-systems analysis, the United Provinces are interpreted as one of only three hegemonic states in the history of the capitalist world-economy. Unlike the subsequent hegemons Britain and the United States, the United Provinces only became an independent country just before its rise to hegemony in the early seventeenth century. This essay explores how this new small state became the first hegemon of the modern world-system. Two questions are asked: why did the area of northern Netherlands became a state, and why did this state became a hegemon? Using Mann's sources of social power, it is shown how a promiscuous combination of ideological, military, political, and economic power produced a unique state combining the economic policies of city-states with the protective capacity of territorial states. It is concluded that the Dutch promotion of an economic raison d'etat was a necessary component for the consolidation of a competitive interstate system, itself a necessary requirement for the expansion of the capitalist world-economy.