State, Society, and Politics in the Habsburg Monarchy
Peter Becker
The focus of my paper is on state-society relationship in the Habsburg monarchy during the
19th century. During the Vormärz period, restaurative politics directed against the political
and cultural legacies of the enlightenment and a strong distrust towards unauthorized
political and social actors limited mobilization and political integration of non state actors.
The post revolutionary period saw some change with the introduction of chambers of
commerce and limited communal autonomy, the systematic integration of non-state actors
was not aimed at. Considering its strategic importance for social and economic development
under the framework of infrastructural power (Michael Mann), the paternalistic disregard
for non-state actors had lasting impacts.