Dutch Decline in Eighteenth-Century Europe
International Conference
28-29 September 2006
Erasmus University Rotterdam

Call for papers

Despite the Dutch decline of the (later) 18thc, statesmen and political thinkers across Europe kept referring to the Dutch state, its institutions and its moral foundations as a 'model' for the increase of wealth and power. Are the ideas of the 'Dutch model' and 'Dutch decline' not in direct contradiction with each other, either at the level of political economy, institutional arrangements or morality? Or can these ideas be reconciled, or be shown to be necessarily related - as two sides of the same coin - once Dutch history in a European context is well understood? This basic question is addressed by drawing on different lines of historical research, and by pursuing different themes: commerce and decline; reactions & attempts at redress; international politics and decline; the complex, multi-level intellectual interventions and debates on morality, economy, luxury, progress, international order and peace. An old international order came to an end, a new was born, but how?

Paper abstracts (400 words, 30 June): stapelbroek@fsw.eur.nl