Early modern state formation in the margins? A review of early modern popular politics and limited royal power in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Spanish colonial empire

Abstract

The traditional historiography of early modern state-building has usually followed the western European paradigm of historiography, the usual models being France, England, Brandenburg-Prussia and Sweden. Regions that do not follow this paradigm have simply been left out and labeled “backward” or as “lagging behind”. In this literary review, our focus is on two different and rather surprising cases of early modern state formation: the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Spanish colonial empire in Latin America. By following the scholarship on these two large conglomerates, we focus on two scholarly concepts: the idea of early modern realms as composite/conglomerate states, and state formation as a dynamic process involving several actors and interest groups. Our emphasis is particularly on sixteenth-century developments, as that century can be considered a thorough transition period in both regions. We hope that this literary review will bring the formerly marginalized conglomerates to the fore in discussion and research into state formation.