GOBINEAU, RACISM, AND LEGITIMISM: A ROYALIST HERETIC IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE

The work of Arthur de Gobineau has presented scholars with a number of interpretive problems concerning his status as a race theorist, his place in the history of racial thought, and the influence of his work on subsequent thinkers. This essay addresses the particularly vexing issue of the origins of Gobineau's racism from the perspective of his affiliation with French royalists in the 1840s and challenges the existing scholarship on the derivation ofL'Essai sur l'inégalité des races humainesby placing theEssaiin the context of his international experience as a member of the French diplomatic corps. Although disillusioned with legitimist politics during the July Monarchy, Gobineau never abandoned his youthful ideological priorities. From the perspective of his royalist past, theEssaiappears as part of an extended rumination on the decadence of the French aristocracy and its failure to stem the tide of revolution and bureaucratic centralization. As such, Gobineau's racism can best be understood as a royalist heresy rather than a continuation of his aristocratic elitism or a clean break with his earlier preoccupations.

Studying the State through State Formation

This article seeks to take stock of the insights offered by the fast-growing literature on comparative state formation, which is treated here as a neglected offshoot of the “bringing the state back in” movement of the 1980s. Unlike previous Eurocentric reviews of this literature, this article includes works that range broadly in time and geography. The author focuses particularly on two areas of interest to political scientists: the causes of bureaucratic centralization and the origins of durable democratic/authoritarian institutions. The author also shows how the literature has reconceptualized the state in response to long-standing criticisms directed at this concept. The concept remains useful in political science despite impressions otherwise.

Competing Visions of the State and Social Welfare: The Medici Dukes, the Bigallo Magistrates, and Local Hospitals in Sixteenth-Century Tuscany

In 1542, Florence's Duke Cosimo I established a magistracy to supervise territorial hospitab and consolidate poor relief. Tense relations between the magistracy and these hospitab demonstrate the barriers to bureaucratic centralization in the sixteenth-century state, and underscore the fact that the shift from traditional charity to ‘new philanthropy’ was as much geographical and cultural as temporal. Tensions between the magistracy and successive Medici Dukes also demonstrate how in negotiations between bureaucrats and local communities territorial rulers could play both sides to advance their personal authority, and could learn from the difficulties of one magistracy how better to design another.

State-Building and Nation-Building in the “Third Germany”: Saxony after the Congress of Vienna

In a recent article on state-building in the “Third Germany” during the Rheinbund years, Hans Schmitt noted the “degrees of variation” that were to be found in the tempo, structure, and results of government reform programs among the German states. This variety stemmed not only from the uneven penetration of French influence, but also from the different historical conditions and levels of political development pertaining in each state. Schmitt concluded part of his analysis by pointing out that this variety which so characterized state-building between 1806 and 1813 continued after the fall of Napoleon and the unravelling of the Rheinbund. The multiplicity of state-building programs and agendas in Germany during the Restoration era confirms this assertion. For the monarchs of states such as Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden, and Nassau, the end of the French Imperium was an opportunity—under the new auspices of the German Confederation—to continue the integration of new territories and subjects via bureaucratic centralization and experimentation with constitutional models.

Experiment in Bureaucratic Centralization: Employee Blacklisting on the Burlington Railroad, 1877-1892

As a personnel policy that would assure the country's rapidly expanding railroad system the best grade of employees, centralization of discharge data within a company and interchange of such data between companies struck some executives as a useful practice. Others disagreed and, as Professor Black shows, their wisdom prevailed. The problem centered upon reliability of such key operating employees as brakemen and conductors, and responded better to institution of controls that would minimize the two most important misfeasances: drinking on the job and petty embezzlement.