How did governments adapt and adopt new ideas of constitutionalism, nationalism, and bureaucratization during the nineteenth century? Provide at least one Western and one non-Western example

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answers will vary but correct responses should include: Almost all European states contained more than one nation, and many European nations straddled the borders of states. Nationalism was therefore disruptive. German nationalists yearned to unite all German-speaking people in a single state. Beyond Europe, nineteenth-century nationalism is hard to distinguish from patriotic resistance against European imperialism. Rebels proclaimed arbitrary "nations"—such as the Philippines, Indonesia, Algeria, and India—that had never existed before and that housed many different peoples, with nothing much in common except European rulers. Constitutionalism was not confined to Europe, but Europe was its great arena. After the wars that accompanied and followed the French Revolution, most European states tried to prevent another such explosion by sanctifying existing frontiers and outlawing or restricting constitutional reforms. By mutual agreement, they intervened to repress each other's revolutions. The nineteenth century was therefore a great age for monarchies. All the new European states of the period—Belgium, Greece, Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria, newly united Italy and Germany—were monarchies. Republics that fell in Venice, Genoa, and the Netherlands were not restored. Even in Latin America, some states toyed with plans for monarchical systems. Mexico and Haiti had monarchs for a time. Brazil's monarchy survived until a military coup in 1889 . Most European monarchies, however, eventually granted or accepted constitutions, or admitted more people to the political process. Although constitutionalism was Western inspired, traditional societies often had similar systems or conceptions of government of their own that limited rulers' power or subjected them to control or scrutiny by aristocratic or (less often) popular assemblies. When, for instance, the war leader Atiba reconstructed the collapsed kingdom of Oyo in what is now central Nigeria in the 1850s, he looked back to his people's traditions, restoring the rites of ancient gods, founding temples for guardian deities, instituting worship of royal ancestors, even though he and most of his people were nominally Muslims. Bureaucratization emerged worldwide, in old empires (Ottoman), new industrial states (United States, Germany, Britain), and regions with ambitious rulers (Ethiopia, Thailand, Egypt, Asante kingdom) with an improved ability to harness economy to government goals.