Early Modern Era: State Building and Social Control

How the rulers of the states thought about and responded to their subordinates. Based on an assessment of the primary documents, the rules of the states adopted the absolutism leadership approach in thinking about and responding to their subordinates. They focused on implementing a comprehensive and elaborate system to depict their control and influence as leaders or rulers of their respective states. For example, in the case of Jahangir, the rule focused on an elaborate celebration with the objective of showing his might as the ruler of India. Jahangir’s absolutism leadership approach evident in the excerpt, “world-subduing emperor, world-subduing king,” in which he describes his crowning as the ruler and emperor a valuable victory for India. Jahangir implemented extreme measures to ensure everyone else had information about the issue. After their assumption of power, rulers of the states such as Jahangir attained control through the cancellation of revenue taxes or duties. In such instances, the ruler had absolute discretion and opinion on the physical and historical building of the towns. In the case of Louis XIV, he used the army and set a bureaucracy to enable him to assert an absolute rule in reshaping France and relevance in Europe.

Examples of Power and Authority in the Documents

Based on a succinct analysis of the documents, it is possible to comprehend diverse examples of power and authority in the conduct of the leaders. The first example is legitimate power, which is the conventional supremacy. Rulers of the states in the documents expressed legitimate power because of their positions in the society; in essence, they had a chance platform to make absolute decisions imperative in the transformation of their states based on their expectations. Louis XIV illustrates absolutism in which he has the sovereign power and ultimate authority as the king ruling by the divine right. He was able to become the real king and the sole ruler of France through expressing the legitimate power and ultimate authority.

Everything in the states identified in the documents had to go through the ultimate and sole rulers. Subordinates, such as the secretaries and ministers of the state, had to render account to the king personally on the daily encounters. These attributes are critical in aiding the illustration of the absolute power or legitimate authority based on the position of the rulers in their respective states. From the Turkish letters, it is evident that the rulers had discretion over the activities and events occurring in their states; thus, the chance to use their positions to control and maintain order among the subordinates. These approaches were critical in enabling leaders or rulers to maintain social control in their states while interacting with the subordinates.

How a comparison of multiple documents from different regions and perspectives helps us to better understand state building in the early modern era. A comparison of the numerous documents from the diverse areas and perspectives is critical in comprehending different characteristics and themes in the state building within the early modern era. Comparisons of multiple documents provide the chance to learn about the approaches by the leaders or rulers to maintain social control in their states through optimization of different theories and perspectives of power. Besides, comparisons of the different documents offer the chance to explore unique perspectives on the issues to do with the social control and interaction with the subordinates.