1st Edition
The Voice of the People? Political Participation before the Revolutions
Over the last two centuries, Europe has developed various forms of political representation from which democratic parliamentary systems gradually emerged. This book unravels the conditions, scale and impact under which political participation of common burghers and peasants emerged.
Political participation in Europe before the Revolutions moved away from the traditional focus on ‘Three Estates’ which has often blurred the interpretation of popular participation’s role in societies. This book instead examines Europe’s key political variants such as high levels of commercialization and urbanization, combined with a balance of powers between competing categories of actors in society controlling relatively independent resources which lead to political participation forming across the continent. Instead of starting from any ideal type of political participation, this book focuses on the variation through time and space, its composition and activity, helps to explain the functions particular institutional settings fulfilled. The time frame 1100–1800 sheds light on the long-term evolutions such as institutional inertia and processes of oligarchizing. To reveal a correlation of economic and demographical growth with the claim of rising social classes to voice their interests. It also points to the opposite tendency: the formation of fiscalmilitary monarchical states.
This book is essential reading for those interested in the formation of Europe’s political structures and students of premodern political history.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
1. Historical roots of political voice
- Voice and Representation 1
o A Unique Achievement 10
o Continuity? 15
- The State of Research 19
o Terminology 23
o Theoretical Points of Departure 25
o Political Participation Today 30
o This book 33
2. The Playing Field Is Demarcated: Communities and Political Landscapes
- Increasing differences in development 3
- The geographic environment 6
- The formation of political units from a dominant core 13
- The imperial obsession 16
- Alliances of free communities 20
- Coasts, Rivers, and Land masses 26
- The Political Geography 28
- The Playing Field 38
3. The Players: the Formation of Political Communities
- Estates and their Representation 3
o The First Estate: the Clergy 5
o The Estate of the Nobility 9
o Peace Movements 12
o Precedence 15
- Concentration of Power 24
o Counsel and Aid 24
o England: the Early Kingdom 26
o Dynastic Wars, Bad Kings, and Rebellious Barons 29
- Balances of Power: Catalonia and Aragon 38
- Dynastic Discontinuity 43
o Castile and León 45
o Brabant and Castile 48
- The Leading Actors 52
4. Game Changers: the Third Estate Makes Itself Heard
- The Italian Polyarchy 2
o The Astonishing North 2
o The Social Composition of the Tuscan Population 13
o The Papal States 16
o The South 17
o Balances of Power 22
- Popular Sovereignty in Flanders 23
- Commercial Interests 33
- Peasants’ Voice 38
o The common concern for water management
in the Low Countries 47
- Core Concepts in the Political Debate 51
- The Triangular Relationship: Prince, Nobility, Cities 56
5. Within the Lines: Institutionalized Political Voice
- The Vulnerability of Princes 2
- The Iberian Cortes and Languedoc 5
- Abuse of Power and Tiranny in England 15
o Political Voice on War 22
o Representation of the Land? 27
- City Leagues in the German Realm 32
- The Microcosm of the Low Countries 39
o From the Meuse Region Urban League to the
Land of Liège 39
o The First Social and Political Revolution: Flanders 43
o From City Leagues to the Brabant Constitutional Tradition 47
o Estates and Princely Ambitions 53
o Contrasts 57
- Expansion and Emancipation 65
6. Spectators Invade the Pitch
- The First Religiously Inspired Revolution: Bohemia 1
- The Bourgeois Revolution in the Low Countries 5
o Church and Religion as Sources of Disruption 10
oThe First Sovereign Popular Representation 13
- Religious Polarization in the German Realm 27
- Elective Kingship and Regional Power in Central Europe 41
oPoland 41
oHungary 45
o Swiss Confederation 46
- Seizure of Power by the Privileged in France 48
- Republics Among Monarchies 56
- The Reformation as Catalyst 59
7. Distribution of Gain and Loss
- Societies in Figures 2
o Numbers of People and Concentrations 3
o Composition of the Population 9
- Forms of Aristocratic Rule in Central and Eastern Europe 16
- Balances of Power in the Holy Roman Empire 31
o A Dramatic Case: Saxony 42
- Estates’ Members as Brokers in the French Periphery 45
- The Subjugation of Catalonia and the ‘long sleep’ of Iberia 51
- Conclusion 60
8. The Champions and the Excluded
- Sovereign Republics 1
- Revolution Turning into Oligarchy: the United Provinces 5
- England and the United Kingdom: the Monarchal Republic 16
o The Bloody Road to a Constitutional Monarchy 17
o The Consolidated Parliament 27
- Sweden, a Separate Case 33
o The Formative Period 33
o Royal Voluntarism and Parliamentary Opposition 36
o Political Parties 44
- Colonies and the other Excluded 50
o Ireland 51
o North America 53
- Ascending and Descending Power 60
9. Conclusions. Participation versus Effectivity
- A Dash of Political Anthropology 1
- Phases of Expansion and Contraction 4
o Political Voice? The development phase, 1100-1350 5
o Consolidation and trials of strength, 1350 -1600 9
o Constitutional Representation or Fiscal-military Monarchy, 1600-1800 15
- The fundamental dynamics 19
o Emancipation and Stiffening 19
o Representation from below 23
o State Power 25
o Institutional Inertia 30
o Continuity of Political Cultures 33
General Bibliography
Index
Biography
Wim Blockmans is Professor Emeritus of Medieval History at the University of Leiden, The Netherlands. His previous publications include the co-editing of The Routledge History Handbook of Maritime Trade around Europe 1300–1600 (2016).
'[...] he aims to find an explanation for the way in which political participation has or has not taken shape over the centuries and in different places [the liberal revolutions before and after 1800].'
Lauren Lauret, the low countries, 2024 - https://www.the-low-countries.com/article/the-struggle-for-political-participation-is-never-over
