Liberalism Liberalism generated in Europe in the 17th century and generally focused on the protection of property and individual rights. Opello (2004) describes this concept as an instance of the “universal law of reason” (p. 94). The absolute power of a state should, therefore, be limited with the help of ‘popular sovereignty’, which involved the public in state decision and its own protection. Also the ‘general will’ of the population led to a focus on freedom, especially in communication, seen in the new expressions of public opinion in the media. This new emergence of sovereignty subsequently emerged new individual rights, which focused on private property rights and the protection from inefficient absolute rule (Opello, 2004). When Catherine the Great (II) was declared as Empress in 1762 she continued the westernization process of Peter the Great. Although continuing this process, Catherine II faced different interests than her predecessor Peter the Great who was mainly interested in building a stable relation to the rest of Europe. Since she was primarily influenced by the ideas of the period of Enlightenment and of French philosophers like Montesquieu or Voltaire her interest in ruling Russia was based more on philosophy (Palmer, 2007). Her first reforms in 1767 were the ‘Legislative …show more content…
As the first eras consisted of just relatively sufficient systems and could be diminished easily by the following figures, after a specific analysis, this paper states, that Peter the Great had the major actions and innovations to shape the state of Russia as it is known today. He emerged a foundation of strength, protection and competition, which withstood foreign dangers and oppressions inside the state. His military and social reforms resembled the innovations of European states, which are most definitely considered modern states already, seen in Robert’s