POLB92H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Louis Xvii Of France, Proletariat, Hungarian Nationalism
25 Feb 2014
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Identify the specific decision/event (e. g. bad harvest) that causes the outcome: decision should be highly contingent. It should be easy to imagine that it could go the other way. Impact of revolution: strengthens private property, barriers to national market eliminated, critique of marxist approach, blurred lines of conflict (sizeable minority of aristocrats/clergy support voting by head, conflicts within ruling class, revolution strengthens state, not entrepreneurs. Skocpol and the french revolution: weakened french state due to international competition from stronger powers (such as england). They lost the 7 years war and that resulted in financial problems (debt counts for 60% of expenditures). The state was also weak because many people had the choice to pay taxes: the elite resistance to state reform meant that french elitists depended on the state, but did nothing to make it stronger. The officers of the state refused to suppress the resistance: there was also autonomous peasantry and peasants were extremely oppressed.
