The Noble Enterprise of State Building: Reconsidering the Rise and Fall of the Modern State in Prussia and Poland

Abstract

Analysis of the state-building process in modern Europe rests upon the traditional assumption that monarchs were the central driving force behind the consolidation of power in the form of a centralized state. However, an alternative state-society account challenges the supposition that monarchs were always the centralizing group in early modern society. The formation of the modern European state was ultimately shaped by the state-building strategies adopted by societal elites who possessed certain forms of social power. This alternative understanding of the state-building process helps explain the puzzling developments surrounding the successful rise of Brandenburg-Prussia and the collapse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth during the early modern period.