Institute for History Annual Report 2010 - O - Universiteit Leiden

Migration, settlement processes of migrants and
the formation of minorities (and discrimination)
are mostly studied in an urban context. For this
reason, this research theme focuses on the city as a
framework for research. Urban environments can
be seen as a laboratory, in which processes of
migration, integration and formation of minorities
take place. Depending on the specific research
question, social processes can be studied with the
city as the ‘site’ or explicitly be linked to the
demographic, physical, spatial and political
opportunity structure of specific cities. Two
concrete projects should be mentioned: one is the
diachronic analysis of demographic changes in
pre-war and post-war The Hague, when both
Dutch and foreign migrations repeatedly and
significantly changed the character of the city. The
central question in this project is the extent to
which the diminished social cohesion of the last
decades of the 20th century should be viewed as a
new phenomenon. The second project looks into
the development of civil services in the Netherlands
by focusing on the area of tension between
citizens, church and government. In this way we
aim to discover the nature of the interaction that
existed between the civil initiatives undertaken by
the government, citizens and churches in the
transition from private to public. This research
focuses on the period between 1500 en 1800 when
citizenship moved from town to nation and the
effects of bureaucratisation on the ideal of
citizenship and the involvement of citizens in civil
services.
Institute for History
112
State formation and frontiers
The term globalisation refers primarily to an
increase in the exchange of goods, persons and
ideas between various parts of the World. Borders,
at local, national and supra-national level, play a
vital role. In the Early Modern period the
boundaries of cities were often more important
than national borders. In the modern period national
borders have not proved to be very stable.
Numerous new states emerged and the borders
between states changed constantly. Moreover,
changes of regimes, for example as the result of
decolonisation have given new meaning to existing
boundaries. In the case of the EU national
borders have lost salience to some extent, which in
turn influenced the mobility of people, capital,
goods and ideas, as well as the status of citizenship.
Political economy, networks and the
economic role of institutions The distribution of
incomes, means of production and legislations
changed dramatically since the 16th century and
even more so in the 19th and 20th centuries,
leading to an increasing intensity, velocity and
impact of the globalisation process. These
developments are related to the consumption
revolution, which started already in the 18th
century, involving trade networks, industrialisation,
decolonisation, and more recently the
European unification. Closely related are the
changes in labour relations and the competition
between various economies on a world scale.
Specific attention is given to institutions through
which people build their networks and social
capital. Instead of juxtaposing the Early Modern