Structuring the State
The Formation of Italy and Germany and the Puzzle of Federalism
Chapter One
INTRODUCTION: HOW NATION-STATES ARE MADE
The concurrence of the German and Italian revolutions will one day
represent one of the most fruitful of parallels for the philosophy of
history.
-HEINRICH TREITSCHKE
FOR OVER THE PAST 130 years, Heinrich Treitschke's invitation to scholars
to compare the German and Italian national revolutions has gone largely
unanswered. Despite the turbulent parallels between nineteenth- and
twentieth-century German and Italian political development, the two cases
remain an underutilized comparison for the study of state formation,
nationalism, and federalism. This study takes up Treitschke's appeal to
compare the two great episodes of nineteenth-century European nation-state
formation in order to address a puzzle: how are nation-states made, and
what determines whether nation-state formation leads to the creation of
federal or unitary patterns of governance?
In an age when the issues of state building and feder ... read full excerpt from Structuring the State: The Formation of Italy and Germany and the Puzzle of Federalism ebook
