Présentation de l'éditeur

In The European Commission of the Danube, 1856-1948 Constantin Ardeleanu offers a history of the world’s second international organisation, an innovative techno-political institution established by Europe’s Concert of Powers to remove insecurity from the Lower Danube. Delegates of rival empires worked together to ‘correct’ a vital European transportation infrastructure, and to complete difficult hydraulic works they gradually transformed the Commission into an actor of regional and international politics. As an autonomous and independent organ, it employed a complex transnational bureaucracy and regulated shipping along the Danube through a comprehensive set of internationally accepted rules and procedures. The Commission is portrayed as an effective experimental organisation, taken as a model for further cooperation in the international system.

Sommaire

Introduction

Russophobia, Free Trade and Maritime Insecurity

The Danube Question and the Making of Two River Commissions

A Quest for Authority and Autonomy

‘Civilising and Disciplining Nature’

On Money, Tolls and Standards

Threats, Opportunities and Institutional Survival

On Transnational Bureaucrats and Rulemaking

The Lower Danube and Romanian Nation-Making 

Europolis – from a Piratical Republic to a Collective Colony

Between Experimentalism and Anachronism – the Road to the Abolishment of the European Commission of the Danube

Conclusions