IMPACT OF ENLIGHTENMENT AND REVOLUTIONS AND

EMERGENCE OF MODERN INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL SYSTEMS

• Objectives: At the end of the lecture, students should be able

to
• Understand what enlightenment and revolutions means
• Describe the impact of enlightenment and revolutions
• What were the factors that led to the emergence of modern
international political systems
 What is enlightenment?

• What events led to the Enlightenment?

Prior to the Enlightenment, the Catholic Church reigned
supreme as Europe’s preeminent religious and intellectual
leader. However, during the 1500s and 1600s, several events
began to challenge its hold on power.
• The Enlightenment was an intellectual • Let’s explore three of the most important historical
developments:
movement in the seventeenth and • 1. Religious Reformation: In the year 1517, a German
eighteenth centuries that sought to monk and professor of theology named Martin Luther
pinned a list of ninety-five arguments, or theses, to the
improve society through fact-based doors of a cathedral. Those theses accused the Catholic
Church of corruption and abuse of power. Luther claimed
reason and inquiry. The Enlightenment that every individual possessed a connection with God
brought secular thought to Europe and and that the Church did not monopolize the path to
salvation.
reshaped the ways people understood • Luther’s action produced a split within the Catholic
issues such as liberty, equality, and Church and encouraged individuals to challenge the
institution’s previously unquestionable authority. Thanks
individual rights. Today those ideas to rising literacy rates and the invention of the printing
serve as the cornerstone of the world’s press just decades prior, Luther’s message reached a wide
audience. The Bible was now being printed in the
strongest democracies. vernacular, and people began reading it for themselves
rather than having priests explain it to them.
 • Scientific Revolution: In the early 1600s,
2. Political Upheaval: Europe reached a state English philosopher Francis Bacon
of near-constant conflict in the 1500s, as revolutionized intellectual thought by
leaders fought over land, resources, and demonstrating that scientific discovery could
competing interpretations of Christianity. An not be achieved through faith and religion but
entire century of religious wars culminated in rather rigorous research and observation. His
scientific method set the gold standard for
one of history’s deadliest conflicts: The Thirty future research. It also coincided with a wave
Years’ War (1618–48). of breakthroughs in the fields of astronomy,
Two major consequences emerged from that mathematics, and physics by scientists such as
conflict. First, the resulting peace helped Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler, and Isaac
Newton.
establish the bedrock principle of
international relations known as sovereignty • Although many of those intellectuals were
devout Christians who believed that science
—the concept that guarantees countries get and religion were easily reconcilable, religious
to control what happens within their borders authorities nonetheless viewed those
and prohibits meddling in another country’s discoveries as threats to their power. Officials,
domestic affairs. Second, it produced further for instance, placed Galileo under house arrest
criticism of the continent’s political and for his writings on how the earth revolved
religious leaders after decades of combat had around the sun, which undermined the
teachings of the Catholic Church.
claimed millions of lives.
• Despite protestations from the Church, this era
—known as the Scientific Revolution—led to a
flourishing of empirical thought in Europe.
What are the impact of
Enlightenment
• Opposition to Absolute
Monarchy: Intellectuals such as Jean-
Jacques Rousseau and John Locke
introduced the idea that no ruler should
have unlimited power. Both argued that
leaders derived their authority not from
God but from the people. And Locke
claimed that if the people opposed their
leader, they had the right to replace their
government with one that respected their
rights.
• Notably, few Enlightenment thinkers called
for democracy as people understand the
term today. Many intellectuals such as
Voltaire believed that monarchy was the
best way to advance social, political, and
economic goals. However, the idea that
citizens could hold their leaders accountable
was revolutionary.
 • Equality: Pre-Enlightenment Europe was
• Separation of Powers: The Baron de Montesquieu argued highly unequal, with powerful individuals
that power should not be concentrated in just one person. known as the nobility possessing exclusive
Instead, he called for a balanced distribution of power rights to own land, avoid taxes, and hold
between executive, legislative, and judicial authorities. privileged jobs, while the poorest members of
• Enlightenment thinkers similarly called for a separation of society struggled to survive. The
church and state—the idea that government should not Enlightenment challenged this arrangement,
interfere in religious affairs, and vice versa. Writers such as as thinkers like Locke argued that all men
were created equal and that no one should be
Voltaire were highly critical of religion’s outsize influence
born into more power than another.
in European policymaking, which had contributed to
generations of conflict on the continent. • However, many intellectuals believed that
such equality only applied to white men.
• Liberty and Individual Rights: John Locke introduced the Rousseau saw groups such as women, ethnic
idea that all men possess natural rights to life, liberty, and minorities, and enslaved people as inherently
property. Those rights, he argued, were inalienable, inferior to white men. Nevertheless,
meaning they could not be taken away or constrained by marginalized groups often used those same
law. Enlightenment arguments to advance their
• Calls for individual rights contributed to increased own cases for equality. English thinkers such
religious tolerance in Europe as various governments as Mary Astell and Mary Wollstonecraft wrote
extensively in support of women’s access to
began providing religious minorities greater freedom to the same rights and opportunities as men.
worship.
• Free-Market Capitalism: Scottish economist • Where did the Enlightenment inspire revolution?
Adam Smith railed against the era’s prevailing • As Enlightenment texts spread across the
economic policies such as mercantilism, in Atlantic, their ideas inspired revolutions.
which each country sought to produce as • American Revolution: Political and intellectual
much as possible domestically and import as leaders in Britain’s thirteen American colonies
little as possible from abroad. Through careful used Enlightenment values to justify their
observation and research, Smith came to declaration of independence in 1776. Following
introduce groundbreaking economic theories the American Revolution, those Enlightenment
—including supply and demand, free-market principles—including liberty, equality, and
capitalism, comparative advantage, and individual rights—became enshrined in the U.S.
minimal regulations—arguing that countries Constitution, even though many rights were
become richer when they make what they are initially reserved mostly for landowning white
best at producing and import what they are men. It would take nearly a century for the
not. Those ideas continue to form the United States to abolish the institution of slavery
backbone of international trade. and several decades longer to extend the right to
vote to women.
• French Revolution: News of the United States’
Enlightenment-inspired revolution ricocheted around the
world. In 1788, Thomas Jefferson—then the U.S. minister
to France—wrote to George Washington, noting that
France “has been awakened by our revolution, they feel
their strength, they are enlightened, their lights are
spreading, and they will not retrograde.” Indeed, the
following year France experienced its own revolution,
which ultimately toppled the country’s monarchy.
• Haitian Revolution: In 1791, the inhabitants of France’s
most profitable colony—Haiti, then known as Saint-
Domingue—began demanding their own right to liberty
and equality. Enslaved Haitians outnumbered
slaveholders ten to one on the island. After a thirteen-
year war, the Haitians defeated the French and
established the first Black-led republic. European powers,
however, did not immediately recognize Haiti as an
independent country and instead forced Haiti to pay
reparations to France over more than a hundred years.
• Latin American Revolutions: In the early 1800s,
Enlightenment-educated leaders such as Simón
Bolívar led movements for independence in
Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela.
However, while revolutionaries pledged to
eliminate the colonial era’s racial and social
hierarchies, independence rarely brought about
equality. Instead, leaders frequently
perpetuated the same unequal, undemocratic
systems that benefited the landowning elite.
• Across Latin America—as in the United States,
France, and Haiti—Enlightenment values began
the march toward fairer and more equitable
societies, but it would take generations for many
countries to begin fully realizing those ideals.