Modernity impacts halacha when 1)government intervenes 2) people rely on their own judgment

Dr. Jacob Katz (Changing Position and Outlook of Halakhists in Early Modernity) The beginnings of modernity, as we all know, can be dated in relation to the phenonmenon the history of which we wish to trace. The attempt to fix time when the position of the rabbis, the official bearers of halakhic authority, changed, eliciting as a result an alteration in their outlook as well, may well be facilitated by observation of two corresponding proceses. One of these was the growing intervention of the respective governments in the  affairs of the Jewish communities, undermining the autonomy upon which the authority of the rabbis depended. The other was the emergence of a group of people within the communities who, relying on their own judgment contested the prerogative of the rabbis to control the religious conduct of  their congregants. The two phenomena are not independent of each other.  The tendency of the modern state to appropriate functions formerly the domain of religious institutions and the endeavor of individuals to exempt themselves from religious authority are both an expression of the expanding spirit of rationalism in the course of the eighteenth century.