Empires and States in a Globalizing World (1500-present) - Period 5+6 Honors Program Program Spring 2021 Semester - Extended - Amsterdam

This course studies empires, the formation of modern states, waves of globalization and global patterns of political organization. It focuses on Europe, China and the Ottoman Empire in a global, comparative perspective. The course starts with the background of the emerging political world order, turning then to the period of national states, discussing the era of intensified globalization in the later nineteenth century, and the effects of earlier states and empire-formations in the present. It deals with questions such as:
1. Why did the most powerful states and empires emerge in Eurasia and not in Africa or the Americas? What were the preconditions for successful state formation in Eurasia?
2. Why was it that European state formation was geared more towards the development of nation-states, in comparison to eastern Eurasia? Why, and how, did the Westphalian state system develop in Europe and not elsewhere?
3. How did political and economic developments interact within the different models of state formation? What was the impact of the financial revolution and the industrial revolution on state formation? And how did this relate again to the emergence of state-formation-from-below and comparable democratic processes?
4. What was the impact of globalization on state formation?
5. How did the emergence of nationalist notions interact with state formation? How did empires deal with the nationalist and religious differences, in contrast to the more monolithic models of the European nation-states?
The course will invite students to engage in critical discussions about worldwide social and economic transformation, the politics of space, nation-state ideology, the colonial encounter, and the increasing problems regarding the supposedly rock-solid connection between state power, territoriality and sovereignty.

Contact hours listed under a course description may vary due to the combination of lecture-based and independent work required for each course therefore, CEA's recommended credits are based on the ECTS credits assigned by VU Amsterdam. 1 ECTS equals 28 contact hours assigned by VU Amsterdam.