AHC: surviving city-states
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Is this a general theory question or are you asking if a city-state could last before 1900 to modern day?
Perhaps:
(1) As part of some 19th-century classicising reform to make the nation more like ancient Greece or Rome.
(2) Localism as a governing philosophy takes off in a big way, and governments devolve most of their power down to the level of city-states.
(3) A European monarch of the 18th or 19th century sees that public opinion is turning against monarchy, and so decides to devolve most of his powers to the city-state level, on the theory that people won't care so much about how their country's head gets chosen if he doesn't do much to affect their daily lives, and that city states would be less likely to declare independence than whole provinces (this could be an important consideration in somewhere like the Austrian Empire). The idea proves a success, and soon gets emulated across Europe and, in turn, the rest of the world.
(4) All of the above.
Define "city state". Because many of those city states governed large amounts of hinterland.
Normally the definition is a state with only one city in it, where "city" is usually defined based on possessing certain municipal authorities which make it generally self-governing, at least in its internal affairs.
I am wondering both how long they could survive, and if it's possible that could reach now.
Feel free to answer either or both parts.
The farther you go back, the harder that is. All states go through several permutations even if they were directly connected to their initial government. So much happens and there are so many different factors that it is very difficult for a city-state from 1300, for example, to survive or even resemble how it existed initially post-1900. That's not realistic and you end up with one of those TLs where the Roman Empire or Byzantines somehow last for several thousand years. Generally very gratuitous.
It gets way more plausible the closer you get to modern day. The Republic of Cospaia is the closest to what you want, a hamlet which lasted from 1440 to 1826 due to some legal issue in feudal Europe which left it independent and remained useful as a place for illegal goods and contraband. Of course it was a hamlet and didn't have any particularly valuable real estate. It also obviously didn't survive the shift to centralized nation-states which were far less tolerant of independent "hinderlands" than medievally-structured governments.
However, if an area has a city (and a city is valuable by itself) then it likely has some sort of trade or economic advantage which has encouraged the concentration of people there. As such, I don't think the survival strategy of Cospaia is useful for a city-state. Barring that, Cospaia didn't even have a government and therefore it couldn't take or conquer territory (and thus was irrelevant to political actors within that area).
Simply put, I just don't see city-states from pre-1900 surviving till today, at least in any recognizable form. The closer you get to modern day, the easier that gets though. Especially during de-colonization. You can create lots of city-states during that period. The reconstruction of Europe is also a good time for that as is post-Soviet Union disintegration. A longer Warlord period could lead to Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Beijing being their own small governments. Basically, any period where there are subdivisions or political decentralization, city-states can arise.
Andora, Lichtenstein, Luxemberg, Monaca, San Marino, Singapore, etc. still exist today as city-states. Mind you Lichtenstein's foreign affairs are managed by their large neighbor: Switzerland and Monaco's foreign affairs are managed by France.
A few others exist as city-states with only small hinterlands (e.g. Togo).
Perhaps a third option is some sort of "sin city" between two countries. Perhaps install a casino or brothel or wine industry on an island, in the middle of a river that separates two prohibition states. Hong Kong and Macao used to serve those roles along the South Coast of China.
Sorry, but I have been reading a book about rum smuggling across the USA/Canada border during the 1920s.
For example, if you have ever driven from Nevada into Utah, you will notice plenty of brothels and bars and casinos on the Nevada side of the state-line, but none in (mostly Mormon conservative Utah). Jack Mormons tend to sneak across the state-line when they feel the need to commit sins like fornication, drinking or gambling.
If you lose all your money at the gaming tables, you can tell the wife that you were mugged on the bridge or ferry boat that connects "sin city" to the two "respectable" states/nations.
Hah!
Hah!
A few others exist as city-states with only small hinterlands (e.g. Togo).
Perhaps a third option is some sort of "sin city" between two countries. Perhaps install a casino or brothel or wine industry on an island, in the middle of a river that separates two prohibition states. Hong Kong and Macao used to serve those roles along the South Coast of China.
Sorry, but I have been reading a book about rum smuggling across the USA/Canada border during the 1920s.
For example, if you have ever driven from Nevada into Utah, you will notice plenty of brothels and bars and casinos on the Nevada side of the state-line, but none in (mostly Mormon conservative Utah). Jack Mormons tend to sneak across the state-line when they feel the need to commit sins like fornication, drinking or gambling.
If you lose all your money at the gaming tables, you can tell the wife that you were mugged on the bridge or ferry boat that connects "sin city" to the two "respectable" states/nations.
Hah!
Hah!
Singapore is a new nation and came into being through a decolonization issue. San Marino, you're right I missed that one even though I knew about it. Andorra's affairs are also partially governed by France and Spain. I would not call any of them, excluding San Marino and Singapore, truly sovereign.
Macau and Hong Kong weren't "sin cities", Macau only started building casinos after independency and Hong Kong was never independently governed (excluding maybe prior to unification). I think that's an unfair characterization.
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Medieval Europe was well on the way there from the 12th century onwards.
Communalist movements established autonomous municipal political bodies with their own sets of (often regionally co-ordinated or at least overlapping) laws, and their liberties were enshrined by increasingly impotent monarchs as "city rights" - or, in other places, they were fully independent with no power above them.
The epicentre of this medieval revolution was the Holy Roman Empire, where central power progressively decayed, and within the HRE, Northern Italy was a forerunner. But the wave transformed parts of France and Spain, the Low Countries, the Alpine regions, and various (other) German-speaking regions.
By the 14th and 15th centuries, there were two competing models on the threshold of modern statehood:
the one we're used to now, because it emerged victorious: territorial monarchies with centralising administrations,
and another one, which had emerged from the association of "free cities", and which took the form of leagues of city states or similar small communal republics: the Hanseatic League and the Old Swiss Confederacy are ones which everybody knows, but there were countless other such leagues all over the place, from the Swabian League to various Iberian "hermandades".
The two models inevitably came to loggerheads, and the struggle had to be decided in one direction or the other, for both models rivalled for control in the same spaces and frameworks. The struggle was ultimately mostly decided in favour of the absolute territorial monarchies who undermined the autonomy of their municipalities step by step and accumulated such immense powers that no league of cities was able to contend with. When the French Revolution and bourgeois nation-states came around, they only kicked in the crumbling facades of a few left-over municipal autonomies in the name of clearing away "feudalist relics". The communalist movement had, of course, not been entirely defeated: local assemblies and elected mayors overseeing municipal self-organisation have persisted in much of Europe and been exported, in the overall "modern territorial state package", to much of the rest of the world. But its model was subordinated to the other, territorial one.
If you want the city state / city league model to prevail, you need to look at a few pivotal points in the 15th and 16th centuries: the final decades of the Hundred Years War for France, but most of all the discovery and subjugation of much of the Americas by two centralising monarchies (four, if you count the late comers England/Britain and France, too).
Of course city states and their leagues would have to adapt profoundly in that TL, just like territorial monarchies did in ours, and ultimately even morphed into territorial republics, at least many of them. But that would be an interesting TL to explore. Its sheer amplour is incredible, which is why it's probably never getting written. I remember reading a TL about defiant Spanish cities preventing a centralisation of power in the Castilian-Leonese crown, that was fairly thrilling, but I don't remember the name anymore.
Communalist movements established autonomous municipal political bodies with their own sets of (often regionally co-ordinated or at least overlapping) laws, and their liberties were enshrined by increasingly impotent monarchs as "city rights" - or, in other places, they were fully independent with no power above them.
The epicentre of this medieval revolution was the Holy Roman Empire, where central power progressively decayed, and within the HRE, Northern Italy was a forerunner. But the wave transformed parts of France and Spain, the Low Countries, the Alpine regions, and various (other) German-speaking regions.
By the 14th and 15th centuries, there were two competing models on the threshold of modern statehood:
the one we're used to now, because it emerged victorious: territorial monarchies with centralising administrations,
and another one, which had emerged from the association of "free cities", and which took the form of leagues of city states or similar small communal republics: the Hanseatic League and the Old Swiss Confederacy are ones which everybody knows, but there were countless other such leagues all over the place, from the Swabian League to various Iberian "hermandades".
The two models inevitably came to loggerheads, and the struggle had to be decided in one direction or the other, for both models rivalled for control in the same spaces and frameworks. The struggle was ultimately mostly decided in favour of the absolute territorial monarchies who undermined the autonomy of their municipalities step by step and accumulated such immense powers that no league of cities was able to contend with. When the French Revolution and bourgeois nation-states came around, they only kicked in the crumbling facades of a few left-over municipal autonomies in the name of clearing away "feudalist relics". The communalist movement had, of course, not been entirely defeated: local assemblies and elected mayors overseeing municipal self-organisation have persisted in much of Europe and been exported, in the overall "modern territorial state package", to much of the rest of the world. But its model was subordinated to the other, territorial one.
If you want the city state / city league model to prevail, you need to look at a few pivotal points in the 15th and 16th centuries: the final decades of the Hundred Years War for France, but most of all the discovery and subjugation of much of the Americas by two centralising monarchies (four, if you count the late comers England/Britain and France, too).
Of course city states and their leagues would have to adapt profoundly in that TL, just like territorial monarchies did in ours, and ultimately even morphed into territorial republics, at least many of them. But that would be an interesting TL to explore. Its sheer amplour is incredible, which is why it's probably never getting written. I remember reading a TL about defiant Spanish cities preventing a centralisation of power in the Castilian-Leonese crown, that was fairly thrilling, but I don't remember the name anymore.
have Trieste survive as an Italian puppet. Or have it declare independence from Slovenia, and when it tries to join Italy the offer is rejected. Slovenia's and Trieste's relationship is similar to Poland and Danzig, with Slovenia effectively controlling the trade of the place. We could also have the situation of Portugal deciding to take it's controlling cities thing to the extreme, except with Brazil since they could actually put settlers there. Portugal's empire is better defended ITTL, since Portugal only has Brazil (which largely defends itself) and a few heavily fortified cities across the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans. By the time of independence, Portugal lets them go in 1975 (maybe earlier) with the exception of military bases and such.To be clear: what would it take for the city-state to survive as the primary sub-national political division, rather than the state or province?
I'm not after preserving Sparta as such (cool as that would be
Thoughts?
To conclude, either 1 city, or 30 cities get independent.
I think I may have misunderstood your intention...
I'm thinking more of the city-state as an institution than any one of them in particular.
That was a very interesting commentary, though.
Really any colonial port enclave could easily become a functioning city state, ie Aden, Pondicherry, Lagos, Penang, Guangzhouwan, Qingdao, as the port traffic and tax laws pretty much can single handedly keep the economy rolling and bring in the goods that cant be produced in the small country
Was it ever the norm rather than the exception for cities to be directly subordinate to the state rather than part of some Country or the like?
Maybe as decolonization happens. Europeans see the writing on the wall 15-20 years sooner, (before WW2 starts) and begin to gather together so that once the colonial pulls out they are able to hold on to large cities on the coast.
Another idea like point 3 by Fabius Maximus, maybe a tradition of rump city states form, maybe the Byzantines hold on to Byzantium. Napoleon stays on Elba, the Chinese emperor holds on to Shanghai etc.
You do have a bunch of them in the Caribbean; Kuwait, Bahrain, UAE, Qatar,Singapore, Brunei are ones which come to my mind
FairlyUninformedGraduate
Gone Fishin'
Perhaps something like the cinque ports?
You could imagine a situation in late medieval England where the crown is weakened but wants to create a power base to balance out the nobility, to head off an Atl wars of the Roses. Following petitions from the aldermen and merchants of a number of larger cities, the king grants cities meeting set criteria high levels of autonomy including the right to pass local laws - in his name of course- and collect taxes. In return, the city states and their annually elected mayors swear obedience and pay the crown a direct income independent of parliament. The city states also pledge to maintain royal highways and contribute trained bands if needed, provided their independence is respected.
Then, when a noble revolt occurs, the prosperous city folk provide troops to the crown plus a steady income. The crown wins but not so decisively they can afford to risk rescinding these privileges, and we are left with a nation of more or less self governing cities that support a monarchy that itself keeps the lords in check. Lord mayors run cities and urban MPs are essentially ambassadors for their city to the crown.
You could imagine a situation in late medieval England where the crown is weakened but wants to create a power base to balance out the nobility, to head off an Atl wars of the Roses. Following petitions from the aldermen and merchants of a number of larger cities, the king grants cities meeting set criteria high levels of autonomy including the right to pass local laws - in his name of course- and collect taxes. In return, the city states and their annually elected mayors swear obedience and pay the crown a direct income independent of parliament. The city states also pledge to maintain royal highways and contribute trained bands if needed, provided their independence is respected.
Then, when a noble revolt occurs, the prosperous city folk provide troops to the crown plus a steady income. The crown wins but not so decisively they can afford to risk rescinding these privileges, and we are left with a nation of more or less self governing cities that support a monarchy that itself keeps the lords in check. Lord mayors run cities and urban MPs are essentially ambassadors for their city to the crown.