Minashin Nickolay

№ 3, 2007

• TRUST NETWORKS AND THE FORMATION OF THE STATE. Dutch experience

  The article deals with the substantiation of heuristic value of the elite democracy concept while studying of political regimes that already stopped being autocratic but are far from consolidated liberal democratic standards. Owing to limited access to information on functioning of elite democracies of the 20th - 21st centuries the author turns to the Dutch experience of the late 16th - early 18th centuries proving that the effective integration of trust networks may be a mighty driver of national economic development providing for the high level of stability in the country. The author concludes that in the Netherlands` case the integration of trust networks replaced building of centralized bureaucratic institutions typical for modern history. However, due to the absence of such institutions the Netherlands found themselves behind their geopolitical rivals — England and France who were moving on the way of institutional development.

  DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2007-46-3-61-74