Administration Practices between Persistence and Change: Towards a Transitory and Entangled Perspective on the History of Habsburg Administration and Its Legacy

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

The panel explores the history of administration as part of the Austrian-Hungarian imperial rule and Habsburg legacy in the successor states.
Departing from shifting political and legal systems as the common denominator of the papers, special attention is given to persistence and change in both personnel configurations and practices and institutional structures in the context of large-scale political transitions. The concept “belief” will be employed in order to assess the capacity and legitimacy of the discussed fields of administration during shifting polities. By looking at popular trust and the extent of belief of administrative personnel in the governmental activities of we approach the concept “belief” from multiple perspectives. Thus, the panel brings the question of administrative practices into the frame of state governance formation, which is analyzed from a transitory perspective of entangled political legacies.
Drawing on recent scholarly debates on governance, administration is conceptualized as a field of relationships and arena of competing interests of varying strengths. The panel participants will critically interrogate fixed notions of administrative apparatuses. They acknowledge administration as a means of the state with the purpose of promoting particular policies, while at the same time they critically assess the assumption of its unlimited commanding capacity. The panel provides new perspectives on the history of administration, its procedural rule and governmental activities by embedding it in political, social, and ecological contexts as its determining factors. It analyses individual actors (administrative personnel) as well as administrative institutional settings in Southeastern and Central Europe.

Sub Unit

• History: Central and Southeast Europe, 1800-1918

Chair

• Rok Stergar, U of Ljubljana (Slovenia)

Papers

• The Dismembration of the Habsburg Monarchy and its Effects on Government Employees - Therese Garstenauer, U of Vienna (Austria)

• The Habsburg Occupation Regime in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1878-1908): An Ottoman Perspective - Michael Portmann, Austrian Academy of Sciences (Austria)

• Administering Forests: State-led Management and Administration of Forest Use in Bosnia and Herzegovina During the Inter-Imperial Transition from Ottoman to Austrian-Hungarian Rule (1878-1918) - Iva Lucic, Stockholm U (Sweden)

Discussants

• Jana Osterkamp, Collegium Carolinum (Germany)

• Cristina Florea, SUNY Albany