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11. Mexican Silver for the Cortes of Cadiz during the War against Napoleon, 1808-1811

Author:
Carlos Marichal Salinas
Publication Date:
02-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
In this essay attention is focused on the persistence of colonial loyalties despite the profound crisis at the center of the Spanish monarchy as a result of the Napoleonic invasion of the Iberian peninsula. One clear indicator of colonial support can be found in the review of the numerous loans and donations collected in colonial Mexico for the purpose of assisting the patriot forces in Spain in their struggle against Napoleon. The financial contributions were considerable. Between late 1808 and early 1811, over 25 million pesos in tax monies, loans and donations were sent from New Spain to C´adiz, principal seat of patriot resistance in southern Spain.
Topic:
History
Political Geography:
Europe, France, Spain, Mexico, and Iberia Peninsula

12. Slavery, Science, and the end of the Old Regime in the Luso-Brazilian Empire

Author:
Kirsten Schultz
Publication Date:
02-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
This paper provides a preliminary examination of some of the late eighteenthcentury bases for the reception of liberalism and debates on slavery, specifically the Luso-Brazilian engagement with natural science and the work of the Lisbon Royal Academy of Sciences. The Academy's work most directly concerned with the question of slavery and the slave trade appealed to economic principles of utility, efficiency and productivity to identify ways to reform the practice of enslaving Africans in the interest of increasing the wealth generated within the colonial and imperial economies. Thus, even as slavery was being assailed internationally on both philosophical and religious grounds, Luso-Brazilian Academic writing insisted it was an economic rather than moral problem. At the same time, however, Academic inquiries into the question of human difference often undercut claims about Africans that were invoked elsewhere in the Atlantic world to justify the perpetuation of slavery and the slave trade. As Academic reformism thus grappled with the humanity of Africans, civilization and barbarism emerged as privileged categories of analysis for discerning the future of slavery, reasserting the moral dimensions of the institution.
Topic:
Human Rights and History
Political Geography:
Europe, Brazil, South America, and Spain

13. Staging the Revolution(s)

Author:
David T. Gies
Publication Date:
02-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
Spanish playwrights in the period between the French Revolution and the Spanish War of Independence became increasingly sensitized to militarization and conflict. Manuel José Quintana's ground-breaking Pelayo (1805) drew on tropes from Spain's historical past to discuss current and coming events. A new reading of Quintana's play suggests that he, among others, marked this rapidly changing cultural and political milieu with works that projected a growing nationalism and defense of Spain against the threats from north of the Pyrenees.
Topic:
Civil Society, War, History, and Arts
Political Geography:
Europe, France, and Spain

14. Forging Catholic National Identities in the Transatlantic Spanish Monarchy, 1808-1814

Author:
Scott Eastman
Publication Date:
02-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
By 1810, with the convening of the Cortes of Cádiz, the opening of the public sphere and war threatening to tear apart the monarchy, Spaniards began to forge a new national identity and an inclusive transatlantic nation. The common cultural idiom of religion and the language of national sovereignty provided a unifying symbolic repertoire for Spanish national identities during the transition from the Old Regime to liberal ascendancy. Yet American independence severed the ties of a transatlantic Spanish monarchy and an inclusive national identity as prescribed in the Constitution of 1812. The Virgin of Guadalupe, which had been appropriated by royalists as well as insurgents during the War of Independence in New Spain, soon emerged as the symbolic image of the Mexican nation. Religious imagery that had served to unite Spaniards on both sides of the Atlantic fragmented into regional identifications in the Americas, and Spain itself emerged as a sovereign nation that had broken with the Old Regime.
Topic:
Nationalism, Religion, and History
Political Geography:
America, Europe, Spain, and Mexico

15. Crown, Empire and Nation (1807-1834)

Author:
Miriam H. Pereira
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
Before 1807, in Portugal the new liberal ideals had mainly an indirect influence, reflected in the enlightened elite. The wave of a more profound political change came about only in the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the whole Iberian area was involved in the European wide struggle between old regime and the new liberal society and state, that was enhanced by the Napoleonic wars. Between 1807 and 1820, Portugal went through one of the most complex period of its whole History, when the British informal occupation of twelve years, followed the French invasion, short but very destructive. The Crown survived in the hands of the House of Bragança and kept Brazil and the rest of the its colonial territories for over a decade. This makes the Portuguese and Brazilian history of this period somewhat different from that of both Spain and its American colonies. It provides an interesting case for the study of the evolution of three main institutions and political concepts involved in the end of the Old Regime: the Crown, the Empire and the Nation, whose changes during this period are analysed in this paper..
Topic:
Civil Society and History
Political Geography:
United Kingdom, America, Europe, Brazil, South America, and Portugal

16. Making and Unmaking Money: Economic Planning and the Collapse of East Germany

Author:
Jonathan R. Zatlin
Publication Date:
04-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
This paper locates the collapse of East German communism in Marxist- Leninist monetary theory. By exploring the economic and cultural functions of money in East Germany, it argues that the communist party failed to reconcile its ideological aspirations - a society free of the social alienation represented by money and merchandise - with the practical exigencies of governing an industrial society by force. Using representative examples of market failure in production and consumption, the paper shows how the party's deep-seated hostility to money led to economic inefficiency and waste. Under Honecker, the party sought to improve living standards by trading political liberalization for West German money. Over time, however, this policy devalued the meaning of socialism by undermining the actual currency, facilitating the communist collapse and overdetermining the pace and mode of German unification.
Topic:
Communism and Economics
Political Geography:
Europe, Eastern Europe, Germany, and West Germany

17. The Italian Stabilization of 1947: Domestic and International Factors

Author:
Juan Carlos Martinez Oliva
Publication Date:
05-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
The paper examines the 1947 monetary stabilization in Italy, tracing the domestic and international political dynamics that allowed ideas and theoretical concepts developed within the Bank of Italy to be applied in a successful action to subdue spiraling inflation. The combination of events and circumstances necessary for the good outcome in a critical juncture of Italian economic history was the fruit of the efforts made by Prime Minister Alcide De Gasperi in both the domestic and international political arenas and of the collaboration he received from Luigi Einaudi and Donato Menichella. The Government's economic action in this crucial episode constitutes perhaps the first outstanding example of cooperation between politicians and experts in the annals of the Italian Republic.
Topic:
Economics and Government
Political Geography:
Europe and Italy

18. Problems of Democratic Control in European Security and Defense Politics – a View from Peace and Conflict Research

Author:
Wolfgang Wagner
Publication Date:
09-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
Since EU members have agreed to establish integrated military forces and to decide jointly on their deployment in European institutions, the EU's “democratic deficit” is no longer confined to issues of common market governance but also includes foreign, security and defense politics. Drawing on recent debates in peace and conflict research, I will argue that a democratic deficit in European security and defense politics is not only worrying for its own sake but also because a growing body of literature regards the democratic control of security and defense politics as the best guarantee to maintain peaceful and cooperative relations with other states.
Topic:
Security, International Organization, International Political Economy, and International Security
Political Geography:
Europe

19. Transatlantic Tensions and European Security

Author:
Mary Elise Sarotte
Publication Date:
05-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
Any nuanced assessment of current transatlantic tensions requires an awareness of their historical context. An understanding of the legacy of the Cold War in particular helps to answer the following questions: (1) What are the sources of current US-European tensions? (2) Has the transatlantic connection sustained mortal damage, or can it endure? (3) What changes of attitude and of focus might help the transatlantic relationship in the future? The argument is as follows: The US-European relationship is under assault not just because of recent US military actions but also because of a longer-term shift away from a successful US Cold War grand strategy that still had much to offer the post-Cold War world. However, cause for alarm is limited, because the history of cooperation, the lack of alternative partners, and the very real nature of external threats means that neither the US nor the Europeans have any realistic alternative to cooperation with each other.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, and Cold War
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

20. Mad Cows and Ailing Hens: The Transatlantic Relationship and Livestock Diseases

Author:
Kate O'Neill
Publication Date:
05-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
This paper examines how the emergence and spread of animal diseases such as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, or “mad cow disease”) or avian influenza have shaped the dynamics of transatlantic trade in live animals and meat products. It then compares the responses of the US and the EU, respectively, to looming, potentially long-term threats of epidemics to human and animal health, focusing particularly on recent outbreaks BSE and avian flu. It documents what appears to be a shift away from a sole reliance on trade embargoes to protect animal and public health from disease outbreaks to deeper, institutional responses on the part of the US and EU respectively. However, while it appears that the EU is learning from the US public health establishment, there is little evidence of transatlantic cooperation in this area.
Topic:
International Relations, Disaster Relief, Economics, and Health
Political Geography:
United States and Europe