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Kleinstaaterei is a German word, mainly used for the political situation in Germany and neighbouring regions during the Holy Roman Empire. It refers to the large number of small states and city-states, some of which were little larger than a single town; see List of participants in the Reichstag of 1792 for a list as of that year.

Contents 1 Rise of the Kleinstaaterei 2 Other uses 3 Usage in contemporary Germany 4 See also 5 Sources and references

Unlike in other European states, especially France, the tendency in the early modern period towards political concentration and centralization failed to produce any truly coherent imperial state within the Holy Roman Empire. On the contrary, the hundreds of (mostly minor, even tiny) principalities — mainly resulting from successive dynastic splits, sometimes reflected in compound names such as Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha — were the ones to modernise their military, judicial, and economic administrations. These were virtually non-existent at the imperial level, and were a little more than a feudalistic confederal figurehead without political or military clout. During the religious wars, they were fundamentally split between Roman Catholic and Protestant dynasties.

After French Emperor Napoléon I toppled the Empire in 1806, Kleinstaaterei was altered but not eliminated. Through the elimination of Church-ruled regions (secularisation) and through the annexation of neighboring principalities, enclaves and exclaves (democratisations), he imposed a relative concentration into over two dozen states — from several hundred — in the Confederation of the Rhine (German: Rhinebund). Bonaparte's hegemonic vehicle that didn't survive his military defeat, and the victorious allies (including Prussia and Austria, the only major German powers, neither part of that Rheinbund) decided at the Congress of Vienna (1814–15) on massive dynastic restorations, be it with some exceptions and compensations for some redrawing of the map, resulting in a more concentrated edition — around 40 states — of the pre-Napoleonic Kleinstaaterei.

The rise of nationalism across Europe in the various movements striving for 'nation-states', each governing an entire (ethno-cultural) people, made progressive forces insist on a unified Germany. This mood is reflected in the pejorative use of the word Kleinstaatereiduring this era. The call for a united nation-state was one of the central demands of the Revolutions of 1848, but the ruling houses still managed to resist then.

Only Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck's policy to gradually construct a politically real German Empire under the Prussian royal house of Hohenzollern would in 1871 end Kleinstaaterei (except in some peripheral regions, such as Luxembourg and Liechtenstein) in favour of a "strictly German" Nationalstaat (without the Hapsburg domains of Austria–Hungary), putting Germany back on the map as a major European power (albeit too late to become a major colonial power).

The decentralized nature of the Kleinstaaterei made it difficult for the German economy to live up to its potential. The varying systems of weights and measures, different currencies, and huge numbers of tariffs created a system which impeded trade and investment. The unprecedented rapidity of Germany's economic growth after the unification under Bismarck provides further evidence that the Kleinstaaterei was economically repressive. The system did contribute to cultural diversity within Germany and the numerous rival courts — though usually politically insignificant — often acquired some notoriety through mecenate patronage. Who outside Germany would ever have known (Sachsen-Anhalt-)Köthen without the duke's patronage to J.S. Bach?

By analogy Kleinstaaterei equally applies to similar cases, especially, until its Risorgimento (reunification as a kingdom from 1861–70), to the Italian peninsula, where many partially republican city states of widely varying sizes coexisted with numerous, often petty, monarchies. The term applies even though in time several regions had seen significant concentrations resulting in a few major powers which were stronger than their size suggested, as their power came from being among Europe's richest states, including the Papal States in central Italy, the dogal Venetian Republic, the duchy of Milan in Lombardy, Piedmont–Sardinia (which would achieve the unification from its Turin-based home territories), and the largest, the Neapolitan Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

The word Kleinstaaterei is also disparagingly used to refer to small countries, like the Vatican City, Monaco, Liechtenstein, New Utopia etc; or sometimes in reference to small island-states, like Micronesia, Vanuatu, Nauru etc.

Today, the term Kleinstaaterei is sometimes used in the German media and elsewhere in a figurative sense to describe the German political system of federalism in a critical way, especially referring to its seeming inefficiency to decide on reforms in political fields that are in the responsibility of the Länder and thus are under the auspices of sixteen different administrations.

• Balkanisation
• List of states in the Holy Roman Empire
• List of participants in the Reichstag of 1792
• German Mediatisation

• The German Wikipedia article (unsourced when consulted, February 2006)