The noble enterprise of state building: Elites, power and the rise (and demise) of early modern states in East Central Europe

The central puzzle addressed in this work focuses on the variation in the state-building strategies adopted by ruling elites in early modern East Central Europe. The empirical focus of this study is the early-modern period of European history, beginning in the late-sixteenth century through the eighteenth century, when the forces responsible for the formation of early-modern states transformed the political map of the European continent. Unlike past accounts that tend to focus on the role of absolutist monarchs in crafting and shaping the institutions of the early modern state, this study focuses on the holders of early forms of state power in society---the nobility.;I posit that the type of power held by noble elites and their relationship vis-a-vis the ruling monarch shaped their strategies for centralizing authority at the level of the state. I argue that if power was uniformly held among the nobility then there was a convergence of state-building preferences and a willingness to work with the monarch to develop early forms of centralized rule. Conversely, in societies where there were disparities in wealth and resources among noble elites, I find a divergence among elite preferences for how to construct the state. The convergence or divergence of preferences combined with the power of the nobility vis-a-vis the monarch produced four different strategies and more importantly four very different outcomes among the early modern states in East Central Europe.;Within the region of East Central Europe we find diverse outcomes at the level of the state. Some societies such as Prussia and Russia erected strong, centralized state institutions that enabled them to exert control and influence throughout the region. Other societies such as Poland-Lithuania and Hungary failed to erect sufficiently powerful states and ultimately suffered collapse and partition and disappeared from the map of early modern Europe. This study ultimately seeks to reconcile these differences and provide an alternative model for understanding the relationship between societal power and the state-building process.