Provincializing the Dutch State: South Holland in the 19th Century
Abstract In contrast to the image of the Netherlands as a solid state since the early modern period, this article argues that Dutch statehood was the product of a hard-won process that required a good part of the 19th century to reach any sort of administrative consolidation. We look at state building from a decentered perspective, not so much from above or below, but rather from the middle, concentrating on the province of South Holland, and from within, foregrounding the piecemeal fine-tuning of the administrative system at the provincial level. We show that every administrative intervention... Mehr ...
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Dokumenttyp: | Artikel |
Erscheinungsdatum: | 2017 |
Reihe/Periodikum: | Administory ; volume 2, issue 1, page 166-184 ; ISSN 2519-1187 |
Verlag/Hrsg.: |
Walter de Gruyter GmbH
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Schlagwörter: | Materials Chemistry / Economics and Econometrics / Media Technology / Forestry |
Sprache: | Englisch |
Permalink: | https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-27108862 |
Datenquelle: | BASE; Originalkatalog |
Powered By: | BASE |
Link(s) : | http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/adhi-2018-0020 |
Abstract In contrast to the image of the Netherlands as a solid state since the early modern period, this article argues that Dutch statehood was the product of a hard-won process that required a good part of the 19th century to reach any sort of administrative consolidation. We look at state building from a decentered perspective, not so much from above or below, but rather from the middle, concentrating on the province of South Holland, and from within, foregrounding the piecemeal fine-tuning of the administrative system at the provincial level. We show that every administrative intervention had a spatial element or – to put it differently – created its own spatiality. The province, in that sense, was not a fixed territorial entity, but an amalgamation of spatial properties, depending on the administrative issue at stake.