The Peace of Münster, signed between the Catholic Monarchy and the United Provinces in 1648, went against the political culture of both polities. The fact that the Spanish Monarchy definitively accepted the independence of its former subjects clearly negated the policy put forward by the Monarchy during the ‘eighty' years that the war lasted and to the Monarchy's declared main goals. For the United Provinces, signing a peace with the archenemy without having brought liberty and religious fr...

A panoramic picture of international politics and the formation of the modern State.

The opposition to the omnipotence of the State - as symbolised by Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan (1651) - had a significant impact on the political organisation of European society. A liberal strategy intended to provide a protective legal status for individual citizens, whereas a social strategy aimed to strengthen the social fabric to counterbalance the power of the State. Gradually both strategies became interwo...