Transnational mobilization and cultural representation: political transfer in an age of proto-globalisation, democratisation and nationalism 1848-1914

Political transfer boomed in Europe, the Atlantic world and beyond in the second half of the nineteenth century. Drawing on a variety of empirical examples, this article addresses three core dimensions of political transfer: the changing structural conditions for transfer; the transfer agents and their strategies; and the means they could employ drawing upon new forms of collective networking across borders, diffusing information, and visualizing political ideas, policies and practices to enhance the legitimacy of political transfer. It is argued that research on political transfer has great potential for reconceptualizing European history in the second half of the nineteenth century as overlapping and connected history.