Preliminary Programme

This article uses the case of post-Petrine Russia to explore the role of formal schooling in social mobility and social reproduction among the elite in early modern context. A study of career and educational choices made by Russian nobles in the 1730s-1740s and recorded in the registers of the Heraldry and petitions for enrollment into the Noble Land Cadet Corps demonstrates that the members of post-Petrine elite did have very clear preferences regarding their service trajectories. As noble families acted on the basis of specific combinations of resources and threats each of them faced, there emerged deep cleavages within the elite in terms of its attitude towards schooling. While wealthier nobles tended to opt for joining state schools, especially the Noble Cadet Corps, the poorest nobility not only overwhelmingly ignored educational requirement and service registration rules imposed by the state, but also avoided applying for state schools, preferring instead to enlist directly into regiments as privates. Despite numerous attempts, the government failed to force these poorer nobles to follow new rules of entering schools and state service, codified in 1736-1737, and was forced to regularly issue collective pardons to the offenders. While wealth was one crucial factor shaping the nobles’ trajectories, their social connections and cultural endowments were no less important in channeling their educational and career choices and making them embrace or reject the post-Petrine service regime. As a result, the early modern “Westernization” of the elite emerges as a dynamic social process driven by the choices made by the nobles themselves. (Show less)

This paper shows that Spanish historians writing in early seventeenth century revised the triumphalist view of Philip II’s reign by criticizing his interventions in France, and suggested a more cautious foreign policy aimed at protecting the empire and avoiding costly over-extensions. This paper focuses on the political messages contained in two widely printed early seventeenth century histories, Luis de Bavia’s Tercera y Quarta Parte de la Historia Pontifical (1608) and Marcos de Guadalajara y Javier’s the Quarta parte de la Historia Pontifical General y Católica (1612). In their accounts of Philip II’s reign they criticize the monarch for ignoring the counsel of his advisors and recklessly intervening in the French Wars of Religion. This political critique stands in contrast to Spanish history writing in the sixteenth century, which typically advanced a triumphalist vision of Spain’s imperial power and glorified the Spanish monarchy as the invincible defender of the Catholic faith across the world. Bavia and Guadalajara y Javier reject this triumphalism and demonstrate that Spanish imperial power had its sharp limits. While the two historians applaud Philip II’s motives for intervening in the French Wars of Religion to protect the Church in France, they show that the campaign quickly became a quagmire and imperiled the Spanish crown’s domains in the Netherlands by re-deploying the Army of Flanders to France. This enabled the rebellious Dutch to make irreversible gains that led to the loss of Spanish territory, exposed the loyal Catholic Flemish to forced conversions to Protestantism, and led to the destruction of churches in waves of iconoclastic fury. Bavia and Guadalajara y Javier’s candid observations were ripe with political meaning in the Spanish imperial world of the early seventeenth century. The historians’ critical remarks serve as a warning to policy makers about the limited resources and growing vulnerability of Spain, and suggest that Philip III should focus on maintaining the empire rather than engaging in costly interventions. This analysis alters conventional wisdom about the thrust of Spanish history writing and the historical memory of Philip II in the seventeenth century, as presented by Richard Kagan and others, which has emphasized contemporary historians’ praise of the monarch and his campaigns. The multiple printings of the critical histories of Bavia and Guadalajara y Javier in the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon suggests that their messages of imperial restraint found broad appeal in seventeenth-century Spain, and point to history writing’s importance as a tool of political criticism in the Spanish empire. (Show less)

According to several contemporary witnesses, and many nowadays historians, one of the key instruments used by the Italian social and political élite of the XIX century to secure the national unification (and the monarchy as the leading institution of the newborn state) was the army. What few of them has noted, however, is that the army and the military who controlled it were more than an instrument: they were an essential part of the Italian national élite, capable of influencing the nation-building process itself. The Italian army officers, and specifically the general staff ones, attended university-level military academies where social sciences were taught along with general history, human geography and foreign languages. They traveled the world and confronted themselves with fellow officers from different social, political, cultural and national contexts. They took part in politics and local administration, as well as in economical enterprises, and boldly influenced Italy's foreign policies. Above all, they were well aware of the role the army was supposed to hold in the institutional and symbolic panorama of unified Italy and pre-war Europe. And they wrote about all of this.
The research project is grounded on two main sources. On one hand, the quantitative analysis of the careers and the biographies of 250 general staff officers who attained specific roles of great responsibility and relative autonomy from 1882 to 1915. On the other hand, correspondence, diaries, unpublished memoirs found in several private and family archives – in other words, those unofficial, unseen writings that we think could be more telling than the formal ones in revealing the military personal beliefs and cultural affiliations and influences. Crossing the quantitative and qualitative outputs, we can explore in depth the influence of military in the conception of politics, education, nationalization processes or social relationships in a case study, the Italian one, that is either peculiar and well integrated in the wider European context. (Show less)

Starting in the 1930s and with increasing emphasis during the following decades the public sectors of the industrialized western countries were reformed. A common denominator of the reform movements was that they were state-led, expert-driven and focused on the employment of scientific knowledge. In the proposed paper we discuss the modes in which the agency of the reform movements has been described in the literature. To what extent have the experts themselves been regarded as acting strategists? Or are they merely seen as the obedient tools of political parties, social movements or governments? How has the interaction between experts and policy making units been analysed and in which ways has the role of the experts in mid-twentieth century public sector reform been described in previous research?

The paper compares the literature of public sector reforms in the US, Great Britain, Norway and Sweden. Our purpose is to find out the extent to which the experts themselves have been assigned an active part in the literature as well as find out how different notions of expertise has affected the perception of strategic agency. (Show less)

We present a proposal for a new study of the naval elites that allows us to observe how they acted as vectors of social change. To that end, we suggest two areas of analysis.
First, a critical appraisal of social status. The classical interpretation of the Spanish and French social inaction, in contrast to the English mobility, is questionable. On the one hand, it should not be forgotten that nobility was not a homogeneous body free of internal tensions. For instance, in the English case there is a discussion between Stone’s open elite and Wasson’s proposal of an inbred political elite. Regarding the Royal Navy, Samantha Cavell has questioned Elias’ initial thesis and has provided evidence of a process of aristocratization both to access as to promote within the Navy. Moreover, it is true that in France and Spain nobility was a requirement in order to join the Navy as midshipman. However, access was not restricted only to the aristocracy. In fact, most of the future officers of the Spanish Navy came from the hidalguía (low nobility), as happened in the Army or in the Royal Administration. During the 18th century the lower nobility became one of the main agents of change because. Apart from the fact that they got their position by the service to the Monarchy, these changes brought with them dignity and professionalization to their careers.
Second, the transformation of social values. The European naval officers’ image in the 18th century was characterized by a particular combination. It was a military career and they were men of warfare, strategist, whose honour came from the battles; but, at the same time, it was a scientific career, because they had to acquire knowledge and technical skills, such as pilotage, cosmography, or mathematics. This combination resulted in some social values that are central to the interpretation of naval elites as a force of transformation (their education, preparation and training). Several studies have shown the importance of naval education, which was a benchmark in England, France and Spain, as a training model that was generalized in the Army or in the Administration. This shift of values had a direct impact on the patterns and modes of social stratification. Stronger institutions and positions, which required higher standards that were generally achieved through education, conferred honour and outstanding authority. It represented a new model where the social position, which usually derived from a post in an institution, eventually became more relevant than social status itself.
In other words, a new comparative study of European naval elites in the 18th century represents an attempt to revisit and problematize some of the principles on which the interpretation of elites is based. It will also help to ascertain the important role played by naval elites in social transformations: they represented the separation between status and position; elites introduced the theoretical supremacy of certain values such as education, dedication, individual merit, or training and preparation. (Show less)