Tiago Fernandes
Department of Political and Social Sciences, European University Institute, Florence Kellogg Institute Visiting Fellow
“Patterns of Civil Society in Western Europe, 1870s1970s: A Comparative and Historical Interpretation”
Tuesday, January 26
12:30pm - C103 Hesburgh Center
This paper addresses the sources of civil society. What makes people form, affiliate with, and engage in activities in voluntary associations? I develop a theory of the origins of civil society through a comparative historical study of the popular sector/lower-class associations of urban and rural populations in a set of Western European countries during the 1870s to 1970s. I argue that patterns of civil society in Western Europe from the 19th to the late 20th century were shaped by state-church relations and their legacies during the process of modernization. The more the church put up a territorial barrier to state expansion, the less likely the state was to develop capacity. When state and church elites were allies in the process of nation building, it was easier to achieve national territorial unification, because the state used church resources, personnel, and apparatus for the implementation of state policies, especially for welfare provision (pensions, relief funds) and educational policies.
State capacity was enhanced when states could rely on the tradition of partnerships with religious bodies that began in the 17th century. This constituted an institutional legacy which made states more wiling to empower voluntary associations. Political elites and state-builders would more easily recognize popular class associations as legitimate and, in the context of the heightened international military and economic competition of the 1870s to 1930s, integrate them into policymaking networks for the dispensation of military, welfare, and economic policies, promoting recognition of the autonomy and self-administrative capacity of voluntary associations. Moreover, since high-capacity states are more able to impose uniform jurisdiction and control over a territory, this made it easier for associations to expand through the whole national territory, to connect different geographical areas, and to more easily develop encompassing peak associations.
