History of IR

1648-1945
BSIR-I
Instructor: Aroobah Lak
From Darkness to Light: The Renaissance Begins
From Darkness to Light:
The Renaissance Begins

• The Renaissance was a fervent period of European cultural, artistic,

political and economic “rebirth” following the Middle Ages.
• During the Middle Ages, a period that took place between the fall
of ancient Rome in 476 A.D. and the beginning of the 14th century,
Europeans made few advances in science and art.
• Also known as the “Dark Ages,” the era is often branded as a time
of war, ignorance, famine and pandemics such as the Black Death.
• The Renaissance is credited with bridging the gap between the
Middle Ages and modern-day civilization.
• Renaissance – means “rebirth” in French.
• This was a time period following the middle ages that lasted from
the 1300-1500s.
• Renaissance promoted the rediscovery of classical philosophy,
literature and art.
• There was a renewed interest in learning about the achievements
of the ancient Greeks and Romans.
• The Renaissance had its beginnings in Italy.
• Italians cities such as Florence and Venice became rich through
trade and industry
• The fifteenth-century Florentine architect Leon Battista Alberti
expressed the new philosophy succinctly:
• ‘‘Men can do all things if they will.’
 • During the 14th century, a cultural movement called
humanism began to gain momentum in Italy.
• Petrarch (1304--1374), has often been called the father
of Italian Renaissance humanism
• Among its many principles, humanism promoted the
idea that man was the centre of his own universe, and
people should embrace human achievements in
education, classical arts, literature and science.
Humanism • Emphasized the abilities and accomplishments of
human beings.
• Humanists believed people were capable of great
things and placed a great value on education.
• As a result, artists, architects, leaders, writers,
scientists and other talented individuals were greatly
admired.
• Renaissance Art -Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519)
• Oil-based paints were used for the first time.
• Artists began to paint in perspective (3D) and use
shading.
• Artists painted everyday life instead of religious scenes
 • Johannes Gutenberg invented the first real printing press in
Germany.
• Gutenberg’s first printed book was the bible.
• For the first time in history, the average person had access to
printed materials.
• Some of the ancient Greek and Roman works rediscovered during
the Renaissance dealt with science.

Science & • For the 1st time, Europeans could read about early Greek and
Roman scientific advances.

Technology • These discoveries inspired Europeans to study math, astronomy,

and science.

Renaissance Religion
Humanism encouraged Europeans to question the role of the Roman
Catholic church during the Renaissance.
 • By the early 1300s many Europeans
thought the church had become too
Reformation powerful and wealthy.
• Complaints and unhappiness with the
church led to a religious reform
movement called the Reformation.
• The Reformation began in what is now
Germany.
• People thought religious officials had
lost sight of their religious duties.
 The Protestant Reformation
• A German monk named Martin Luther disagreed with the
teachings of the Catholic Church.
• In 1517, Luther nailed a list of complaints to a church door in
Whittenberg, Germany.
• These complaints were called the 95 Theses.
• • Luther’s protests angered church officials, who expelled him
Reformation from the church.
• He believed that the way to heaven was to have faith in God.
• He believed the bible was the only authority for Christians.
• Martin Luther’s followers became known as Protestants.
• They protested against the church and its teachings.
• Martin Luther started the Lutheran church.
 Catholic Reformation
• Also known as the counter-reformation
• Many catholic officials wanted to reform the
church as well.
Reformation • Church leaders began focusing more on
spiritual concerns and less on political power.
• They worked to make the church’s teachings
easier to understand.
Thirty Years War

The Thirty Years’ War was in part a German religious war and
in part a civil war fought over constitutional issues in the
Holy Roman Empire.

That was a conflict that had devastating consequences for

central Europe, with around 20% of the German population
being killed.

The war had religious roots as the Holy Roman Emperor

(initially the Habsburg Ferdinand II) tried to reassert Catholic
hegemony over the Protestant areas of the empire.
Holy Roman Empire

• Federated state loosely ruled by the Austrian Habsburgs

(Holy Roman Emperors)
• Most important cities: Prague & Vienna
• Politically decentralized: German states/ princes
maintained local, feudal rights and exercised some
autonomy
• Religiously divided: Catholic states, Lutheran states, and
growing Calvinist populations
• Holy Roman Emperors :
• Sought greater centralization around their dynasty and
capital city (therefore, weakening the power of the local
states/ princes)
• Desired a permanent standing army
• Religion: Habsburgs were Catholic
On the Eve of the War: the Protestant Union

Protestant Union: alliance of 12 Lutheran states in the Holy Roman

Empire and three major states outside the Holy Roman Empire
• goal: Protect the interests and liberties of Protestants in Europe
• formed in 1608
• led by Frederick of the Palatinate, the Holy Roman Empire’s most powerful
Protestant leader (had converted to Calvinism)
• agenda of the Protestant Union was complicated because many of the states had
significant Calvinist populations
• Lutheran Sweden, Lutheran Denmark and Catholic France were also allied with
the Protestant Union

Protestant Union was challenged by the formation of the Catholic

League
Frederick V (of the
Palatinate)
The Catholic League

Catholic League: alliance of Catholic states in the Holy Roman Empire

✓ goal: Protect Catholic interests in the Holy Roman Empire and in Europe

✓ formed in 1609, to counteract the Protestant Union

✓ led by Maximilien, Duke of Bavaria, one of the Holy Roman Empire’s most
Maximilien of Bavaria powerful princes

• Catholic League would play an important role in the Thirty Years’ War
United Provinces of the Netherlands

• Struggle for independence from Spain had begun as a revolt against

Spain’s Philip II in 1568 Dutch led by William the Silent (House of
Orange) and his descendants (Dutch leaders referred to as
“Stadtholder”)

• Spain refused to recognize The Netherlands as an independent

country, although a truce was called in the fighting in 1609 .

• Thirty Years’ War: Dutch were led by Stadtholder Frederick Henry,

Prince of Orange.
• Religion: Protestant , majority Calvinists

Frederick Henry • Dutch sought religious toleration

Prince of Orange • Economy: Dutch Golden Age - rich due to trading, banking and
shipbuilding
• Amsterdam: one of Europe’s most important commercial cities
eventually The Netherlands would become a colonial power
France

Government
• Ruled by the Bourbon dynasty from Paris
• Henry IV (1589-1610): first Bourbon king
• Louis XIII (1610-43): government dominated by Cardinal Richelieu, who
served as Louis’ Chief Minister
Religion
• Catholic: both the French crown and approximately 90% of the population
• Huguenots (French Calvinists): about 10% of the population with limited
rights of freedom of conscience
Foreign policy

Louis XIII • sought to weaken the Spanish & Austrian Habsburgs because France was
surrounded by Habsburgs in the Holy Roman Empire & Spain (Habsburg
encirclement)
• wanted to keep the Holy Roman Empire weak and disunited
• Cardinal Richelieu: a politique who was willing to aid Protestant states in
his effort to weaken the Holy Roman Empire & Spain
Republic of Poland
Geography :
• Poland in the early 17th century was physically the largest in the
• country’s history fertile soil that was ideal for agriculture
• land was overwhelmingly flat, making it easy to expand yet difficult to defend
• elected monarchy: weak and ineffective
Government
• Nobility (szlachta): compared to the rest of Europe, Poland had a
disproportionately high percentage of nobles (c. 8%); retained significant feudal
rights and privileges (paid no taxes)
• Inability of the Polish government to develop either an absolute monarchy or a
constitutional monarchy would eventually weaken the country.
Economy:
Sigismund III (1587- • Agriculture: Poland was one of Europe’s great exporters of grains (wheat, barley,
1632) etc.) to the Baltic region and beyond .
• Sweden, Spain and the Holy Roman Empire (and, later, Russia) all wanted to gain
control of the lucrative grain trade
 Sweden
Government
• Ruled by the Vasa dynasty: most notable king was
Gustavus Adolphus (1611-32)
• Elected monarchy
Economy
• An economic power as a result of being a key member
of the Hanseatic League (medieval//early modern
European economic alliance in the Baltic region)
• Sought to control more of the Baltic economy,
including Poland’s lucrative grain trade
Religion
• Had turned Protestant (Lutheran) during the 16th-
century Reformation
• Gustavus Adolphus was a devout Lutheran
• wanted to protect Protestants in northern Europe
• made his troops sing Lutheran hymns while they Gustavus Adolphus
marched
 Denmark-Norway

Government
• Monarchy led by the Oldenburg dynasty
• Denmark-Norwary were united in a personal union
• Christian IV (1588-1648)
• most important king of Denmark- Norway
• Also was the Duke of Holstein, one of the states
of the Holy Roman Empire
• Christian was concerned with protecting
Protestants in northern Europe and the growing
power of Sweden
Religion:
. Lutheran state since the middle of the 16th century

Christian IV
 • Hence, in the heartland of Europe, three
denominations vied for dominance: Roman
Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism.
30 Years • Roman Catholicism: The Roman Catholic Church
traces its history to Jesus Christ and the Apostles.
War Over the course of centuries it developed a

1618 to
highly sophisticated theology and an elaborate
organizational structure headed by the papacy,
the oldest continuing absolute monarchy in the
1648 world.
• Lutheranism, branch of Christianity that traces
its interpretation of the Christian religion to the
teachings of Martin Luther and the 16th-century
movements that issued from his reforms.
• Calvinism: Branch of Christianity
 • The Thirty Years’ War was a
17th-century religious conflict
30 Years fought primarily in central
War Europe.
1618 to
1648 • It remains one of the longest
and most brutal wars in human
history, with more than 8 million
casualties resulting from military
battles as well as from the
famine and disease caused by
the conflict.
 Emperor Ferdinand II’s ascension to head of state of the
Holy Roman Empire in 1619.

The Holy Roman Empire may have controlled much of

Europe at the time, though it was essentially a collection
of semi-autonomous states or fiefdoms. The emperor,
from the House of Habsburg, had limited authority over
their governance.

Causes : Ferdinand’s first action as the head of Holy Roman

Empire-force citizens of the empire to adhere to Roman
Catholicism, even though religious freedom had been
granted as part of the Peace of Augsburg.

Peace of Augsburg 1555 “whose realm, his religion”

Defenestration
of Prague
Thirty Years war
• An initial revolt by Bohemian Protestants, who threw Imperial representatives out of the
window (the Defenestration of Prague), was easily crushed.
• But the Emperor’s successes, and his attempts to confiscate territory, alarmed other
Protestant powers.
• First Denmark intervened (unsuccessfully) and then Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden
achieved a string of military victories for the Protestant side, before he was killed in battle
in 1632.
• The battle lines were not drawn on exclusively religious grounds.
France, a Catholic power, financed the Swedish invasion and later joined the war directly;
some Protestant rulers initially fought on the Emperor’s side (the Protestant cause was itself
divided between Lutherans and Calvinists).
• Many of the participants had territorial motives; Sweden wanted control of the Baltic while
France used the war to acquire Alsace and Lorraine, two areas that were to cause repeated
tensions in the 19th and 20th centuries.
• The conflict also formed part of the much longer eighty-years war between Spain and its
former province, the Netherlands.
 Series of Events

The Bohemian nobility in present-day Austria and the Czech

Republic rejected Ferdinand II and showed their displeasure by
throwing his representatives out of a window at Prague Castle in
1618.

Bohemian Revolt- Bohemian states aligned with Protestant

Union states (present day Germany)– who had the backing of
Sweden and Denmark-Norway’s King Christian IV – and the
beginning of the Thirty Years’ War.

Ferdinand II- catholic league (states in Germany+ France and

Belgium) aligned with his Catholic nephew, King Phillip IV of
Spain
 This resulted in a Gordian tangle of alliances as princes
and prelates called in foreign powers to aid them.

Overall, the struggle was between the Holy Roman

Empire, which was Roman Catholic and Habsburg, and
a network of Protestant towns and principalities that
relied on the chief anti-Catholic powers of Sweden
and the United Netherlands, which had at last thrown
Over all

off the yoke of Spain after a struggle lasting 80 years.

A parallel struggle involved the rivalry of France with

the Habsburgs of the empire and with the Habsburgs
of Spain, who had been attempting to construct a
cordon of anti-French alliances.
 Consequences of 30 years war

Spain lost Netherlands

France emerged as a
A shift in European (Dutch republic) and its
dominant power in
Balance of Power place as a prominent
Europe
power in Europe

The member states of

United Netherlands
Sweden took control of the Holy Roman Empire
emerged as an
Baltic were granted
independent nation
full sovereignty.
Westphalian Peace Treaty in 1648
• Series of Peace Treaties
Signed in May-October, 1648 in Osnabruck & Munster

• It ended –

1) 30 years War, in Holy Roman Empire (1618-1648)

2) 80years War, between Spain & Dutch (1568-1648)
It Marked
Victory for German Princes over
1) Catholic churches
2) Habsburg Empire

Gave individual rulers in Holy Roman Empire

1) the right to govern their land free of external interference

2) Keep any land they had confiscated from church
 Each German prince became free from any kind of control by the Holy
Roman Emperor.
Political Provisions
The United Provinces i.e. Dutch Netherlands became officially
independent except for some part that remained in Spanish
possession.
of Peace Treaty

France received most of the German-speaking province of Alsace.

Sweden got lands in North Germany on the Baltic & Black Sea coasts.

Switzerland became totally independent of the HR Emperor Swiss

Confederation.

Sweden gained control of Baltic.

Brandenburg got important territories on Sea & in central Germany.

 The treaty of Westphalia was the first
explicit expression of a European
society of states which served as a
precedent for all subsequent
developments of international society
Analytically

It was the external aspect of the

development of modern secular states
which had to find an orderly and
legitimate way to conduct mutual
relations without submitting to either
superior authority from abroad.
 Initiated a new system of political order in
Europe based upon the concept of a sovereign
land governed by a sovereign .
soverignity

Allowed the rulers of the imperial states to

Concept of

independently decide their religious worship.

Each prince would have the right to determine

the religion of his own state, the options being
Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism
Recognition
of the • General recognition of the
exclusive sovereignty of each
exclusive party over its lands, people,
sovereignty and agents abroad, and each
and several responsibility for
the warlike acts of any of its
citizens or agents
 Westphalian sovereignty is the
concept of nation-state
sovereignty based on two
things:
1)Territoriality
Westphalian
Sovereignty

2) the absence of a role for

external agents in domestic
structures.
 Modern I.R. Scholars have identified the Treaty as the
origination of M.N.Cs & I.O.s
Principle of internal sovereignty -the major European
countries agreed to respect the principle of territorial
integrity
Westphalian

Gave concepts of International law and diplomacy -

Sovereignty

Modern diplomatic relations started after this treaty

It is against

-- powerful states to seeking chance to influence the affairs of

others,

-- forcible intervening by one country in the domestic affairs

of another
 Beginnings of a new concept of

"Raison d'etat" (reason of state) replaces

"Raison religion as the determining principle of
alliances between European princes- various
d'etat” political orders and constitutional laws.

thus: primary loyalty to the state (and later,

the nation)
Broader Concept

“Supreme and
Ended Imperial Unity & Evolved into modern independent political
Unity under Catholic Principle of authority of the nation
Church Sovereignty state within its own
territory”
 The principle of the sovereignty of
states and the fundamental right
Relevance of of political self determination
its Principles in
contemporary
world The principle of (legal) equality
between states

The principle of non-intervention

of one state in the internal affairs
of another state
Absolutism A system in which the ruler, usually a monarch, holds absolute
power (complete authority) over the government and the
Monarch = alives kingoforthequeen
people who rules a
territory, usually for life and by hereditary
right

The opposite of a constitutional government or democracy,

such as that found in the United States

In 17th Century Europe, absolutism was tied to the idea of the

divine right of kings

Divine right = belief that the authority to rule

comes directly from God
 The Age of Absolutism takes its
name from a series of European
monarchs who increased the power
of their central governments.

Age of Centralization of power

absolutism
Characteristics of Absolute
Monarchies:

Concept of rule by divine right

 In the 17th Century, people looked to
the monarch for political stability

Absolute monarchs had tremendous

powers
• Make laws
• Levy taxes
Age of • Administer justice
absolutism •
•
Control the state’s officials
Determine foreign policy

No written Constitution or Bill of Rights

Most people did not have any rights at

all
 Europe was in a – Catholic
period after territory: Spain,
Reformation. France, Italy,
Still divided Southern

Age of religiously. Germany.

absolutism – Protestant
territory:
• Spain, France,
and England
England, had colonies in
Netherlands, Asia, the
Northern Americas, and
Germany Africa.
Age of Enlightenment
The Enlightenment

The Enlightenment – the great ‘Age of Reason’ – is defined as the period of

rigorous scientific, political and philosophical discourse that characterised
European society during the ‘long’ 18th century: from the late 17th century to
the ending of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815.
 Decisive Modernity (historian Roy Porter)

Centuries of custom and tradition were brushed aside in

favour of exploration, individualism, tolerance
and scientific endeavour.

The emergence of ‘reason’

The
Enlightenment
Break from ‘monarchical tyranny’

Bill of Rights

John Locke :Two Treatises of Government (1689)

 Glorious Revolution of 1688/89: A
movement of political change in
England

William and Mary were installed on

Bill of the throne as part of the new
Protestant settlement.
Rights
The Bill of Rights1689, established
that:
• It was illegal for the Crown to suspend or
dispense with the law,
• to levy money without parliamentary assent,
• or to raise an army in peacetime,
• and insisted on due process in criminal trials.
 Two Treatises of Government (published
in 1689) advocated:
• A separation of church and state,
• Religious toleration,
• The right to property ownership
• A contractual obligation on governments to
recognise the innate ‘rights’ of the people.

Two
Treatises of
Government
Locke believed that reason and human
consciousness were the gateways to
contentment and liberty, and he
demolished the notion that human
knowledge was somehow pre-
programmed and mystical.
 Jean-Jacques Rousseau argued that man
was born free and rational but was
enslaved by the constraints imposed on
society by governments.

The Social ‘True political sovereignty always

remained in the hands of the people if
contract the rule of law was properly maintained
by a democratically endorsed
1762 government.’

a radical political philosophy that came

to influence revolutionary movements
in France and America later in the
century.
Influencial figures

Montesquieu :The Spirit of the Laws 1748.

• Separation of powers
• In this comparative study of governments, Montesquieu attempted to apply the scientific method to
the social and political arena to ascertain the ‘‘natural laws’’ governing the social and political
relationships of human beings.
• Montesquieu distinguished three basic kinds of governments: republic, monarchy, and despotism.
Voltaire The greatest figure of the Enlightenment:
• Criticism of traditional religion and his strong attachment to the ideal of religious toleration.
• Deism:
 This growth of ‘natural philosophy’ (the term
‘science’ was only coined later in the 18th
century) was underpinned by the application of
rational thought and reason to scientific enquiry;

Scientific first espoused by Francis Bacon in the early

revolution 1600s, this approach built on the earlier work
of Copernicus and Galileo dating from
the medieval period.

Scientific experimentation (with instrumentation)

was used to shed new light on nature and to
challenge superstitious interpretations of the
living world, much of which had been deduced
from uncritical readings of historical texts.
Secularisation and the impact on
religion
Religion and personal faith
were also subject to the tides
of reason evident during the
18th century.
Personal judgements on
matters of belief were
actively debated during the
period, leading to scepticism,
if not bold atheism, among
an enlightened elite.
Political freedoms, contracts and
rights

• Public debates about what qualified as the best forms of government were heavily influenced
by enlightened ideals, most notably Rousseau’s and Diderot’s notions of egalitarian freedom
and the ‘social contract’.
• By the end of the 18th century most European nations harboured movements calling for
political reform, inspired by radical enlightened ideals which advocated clean breaks from
tyranny, monarchy and absolutism.
• Late 18th-century radicals were especially inspired by the writings of Thomas Paine, whose
influence on revolutionary politics was felt in both America and France.
• Paine’s most radical works, The Rights of Man and later The Age of Reason , drew
extensively on Rousseau’s notions of the social contract.
• Paine reserved particular criticism for the hereditary privileges of ruling elites, whose power
over the people, was only ever supported through simple historical tradition and the passive
acceptance of the social order among the common people.
 • In her Vindication of the Rights of Woman, written in 1792, Wollstonecraft pointed
out two contradictions in the views of women held by such Enlightenment thinkers
as Rousseau.
• To argue that women must obey men, she said, was contrary to the beliefs of the
same individuals that a system based on the arbitrary power of monarchs over their
Women in subjects or slave owners over their slaves was wrong.

Englightenment • The subjection of women to men was equally wrong. In addition, she argued that the
Enlightenment was based on an ideal of reason innate in all human beings.
• If women have reason, then they too are entitled to the same rights that men have in
education and in economic and political life
Four Dissertations by Enlightenment philosopher David Hume

An ill-educated and
ignorant crowd was in
Governments could
danger of running into
David Hume warned offer a
violence and anarchy
of the dangers he benign/soft/harmless
if a stable framework
perceived in the presence in people’s
of government was
pursuit of liberty for lives only when
not maintained
all. moderated by popular
through the consent
support.
of the people and
strong rule of law.
The outcomes of the Enlightenment

By the early 1800s a new ‘public sphere’ of political debate was evident in European society, having
emerged first in the culture of coffee-houses and later fuelled by an explosion of books, magazines,
pamphlets and newspapers.

Secular science and invention, inspired by a spirit of enquiry and discovery, also became the hallmark
of modern society, which in turn propelled the pace of 18th-century industrialisation and economic
growth.

Individualism – the personal freedoms celebrated by Locke, Hume, Adam Smith, Voltaire and Kant –
became part of the web of modern society that trickled down into 19th-century notions of
independence, self-help and liberalism.
Representative government on behalf of the people was enshrined in new constitutional
arrangements, characterised by the slow march towards universal suffrage in the 1900s.
 Evidence of the Enlightenment thus remains
with us today:

Our notions of free speech,

Our secular yet religiously tolerant societies,

Legacy of
Enlightenment
In science, the arts and literature

All legacies of a profound movement for change

that transformed the nature of society forever.