From a Multiethnic Empire to a World of Nation States

Book discussion co-organized by the CEU Democracy Institute, the Review of Democracy, the Research Center for the History of Transformations (RECET), the Institute of Culture Studies and Theatre History at the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Department of European, International and Comparative Law at the Faculty of Law at the University of Vienna
Natasha Wheatley's bold and fascinating new book The Life and Death of States: Central Europe and the Transformation of Modern Sovereignty (Princeton University Press 2023) rediscovers the multinational Habsburg polity as a hothouse for ideas that still shape our understanding of the sovereign state. Mapping the history of nesting nationalities in an intricate dynastic empire, the book explains how a regime of self-contained nation-states theoretically equal under international law emerged from the ashes of the Habsburg polity. Wheatley sheds rich light on how the Habsburg Monarchy was turned inside out, how its constitutional and legal arrangements were mapped onto the globe after its demise. Apart from tracing the Empire's afterlife up to the decolonization movements of the twentieth century, Wheatley offers riveting insights on the chronopolitics of sovereignty: In the context of the Habsburg polity, Central European jurists pioneered the crucial legal fiction of the supposed immortality of states, their capacity to hibernate and to re-emerge for a fresh lease of life.
Panelists:
Natasha Wheatley, Assistant Professor, Princeton University
Peter Becker, Professor, University of Vienna
Franz L. Fillafer, Historian, Austrian Academy of Sciences
Eva-Maria Muschik, Assistant Professor, University of Vienna
Renata Uitz, Co-director, CEU Democracy Institute; Professor, CEU Department of Legal Studies
Moderator:
Jannis Panagiotidis, Scientific Director, RECET
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