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Representative Assemblies in Europe, 1250–1750

David Stasavage

in States of Credit: Size, Power, and the Development of European Polities

This chapter examines the evolution of representative assemblies in Europe during the period 1250–1750. Numerous historical sources provide evidence of a clear distinction between the financial roles ... More

This chapter examines the evolution of representative assemblies in Europe during the period 1250–1750. Numerous historical sources provide evidence of a clear distinction between the financial roles played by representative bodies in city-states and by those in territorial states. Within city-states, representative bodies met frequently, they played a direct role in controlling government finance. Within territorial states, representative assemblies were sometimes an obstacle to a government's efforts to obtain credit. The chapter first provides an overview of the origins of representative assemblies before discussing the prerogatives of representative assemblies in city-states and territorial states. The evidence relates to long-standing historical arguments about the emergence and evolution of political representation. The chapter also highlights the pronounced difference in the activities of representative assemblies in city-states and territorial states.Less

Introduction

David Stasavage

in States of Credit: Size, Power, and the Development of European Polities

This book examines two distinctive features of European state formation: the invention of the concept of political representation and the development of a system of public credit. Using systematic ... More

This book examines two distinctive features of European state formation: the invention of the concept of political representation and the development of a system of public credit. Using systematic data on public credit and political representation for thirty-one European states over the period 1250–1750, the book asks whether the presence of an intensive form of representation facilitated access to credit for the former, allowing them to survive and their economies to prosper. It also explores how this joint emergence of credit and representation affected broader trends involving war, state formation, and economic development. The book argues that the presence of an intensive form of representation characterized by an assembly that could monitor and modify expenditures played a key role in facilitating access to credit by European states. The book also discusses the prerogatives and level of activity of representative assemblies in territorial states as compared to city-states.Less

Assessing the City-State Advantage

David Stasavage

in States of Credit: Size, Power, and the Development of European Polities

This chapter examines whether the difference in the activities of representative assemblies in city-states and territorial states had implications for the evolution of public credit. It first ... More

This chapter examines whether the difference in the activities of representative assemblies in city-states and territorial states had implications for the evolution of public credit. It first develops a basic game theoretic model that demonstrates how both political representation and public credit might emerge as an equilibrium outcome dependent on an underlying cost for representatives of monitoring public finances. It then uses the model to conduct empirical tests in order to identify what factors were correlated with the initial creation of a long-term public debt. Three hypotheses are tested: that access to credit depended on commercial and economic development; that access to credit depended on the presence of representative institutions; and that access to credit depended on the differing underlying conditions in city-states and territorial states. The results show that greater commercial and economic development favored access to public credit.Less

Three Territorial State Experiences

David Stasavage

in States of Credit: Size, Power, and the Development of European Polities

This chapter examines public credit and political representation in three European territorial states: France, Castile, and Holland. It tackles the following question: If having a representative ... More

This chapter examines public credit and political representation in three European territorial states: France, Castile, and Holland. It tackles the following question: If having a representative assembly with strong control over finance had major advantages, then why could territorial states not emulate the institutions present in their city-state neighbors? The chapter first considers the early history of the rentes sur l'Hôtel de Ville and how it set the stage for the French monarchy's frequent difficulty in later obtaining access to credit. It then discusses absolutism in Castile and Castilian public credit in the seventeenth century, along with representative assemblies in the Dutch Republic. The experience of France, Castile, and the Dutch Republic shows that most territorial states faced obstacles in establishing an intensive form of political representation, and thus in gaining access to credit.Less

Implications for State Formation and Development

David Stasavage

in States of Credit: Size, Power, and the Development of European Polities

This concluding chapter recaps on what the book has investigated: the development of a representative form of government and the establishment of a system of public credit in Europe. It has also ... More

This concluding chapter recaps on what the book has investigated: the development of a representative form of government and the establishment of a system of public credit in Europe. It has also explored the constraining effects of representative assemblies and the idea that geographic scale hindered the ability to sustain an intensive form of political representation. The chapter examines the implications of the book's findings for three broad debates concerning the role of war in the process of state formation, the possibility of using institutional change to solve commitment problems, and the sources of early modern growth. In particular, it considers the political determinants of economic development within European city-states. The chapter suggests that the same political conditions that were key to the early success of the so-called “states of credit” may have also ultimately set them on a path toward economic decline.Less

: A Republic of Citizens:: Condorcet's Indirect Democracy

in Representative Democracy: Principles and Genealogy

This chapter analyzes the first comprehensive proposal of democratic representation as a norm of good government. The goal of Condorcet's constitutional plan was to regulate the creation of authority ... More

This chapter analyzes the first comprehensive proposal of democratic representation as a norm of good government. The goal of Condorcet's constitutional plan was to regulate the creation of authority “from the bottom up” by means of a flexible and permanent relationship between participation and representation. The plan's aim was to prevent the “despotism” of the representative assembly, on the one hand, and the random fluctuation of the people between a state of depoliticized apathy and a state of extralegal mobilization, on the other.Less

Congress: The First Branch

Benjamin Ginsberg and Kathryn Wagner Hill

in Congress: The First Branch

This chapter is an overview of the US Congress and its major functions of representation and legislation. It argues that many of the characteristics of Congress with which Americans are so impatient ... More

This chapter is an overview of the US Congress and its major functions of representation and legislation. It argues that many of the characteristics of Congress with which Americans are so impatient stem directly from the institution's democratic nature. The legislative process is complicated because a representative assembly must find ways of balancing minority rights and majority rule and develop mechanisms for reaching decisions while still allowing competing claims to be heard and taken into account. In short, Congress is slow to act, cumbersome in its procedures, and contentious in its discussions because it is a democratic decision-making body. Many who disparage Congress are, in effect if not intent, disparaging popular government.Less

His Britannick Majesty’s New Subjects: The Rights of Subjects in Grenada and Quebec

Hannah Weiss Muller

in Subjects and Sovereign: Bonds of Belonging in the Eighteenth-Century British Empire

Chapter 4 examines subjecthood in the Atlantic world, focusing on the colonies of Grenada and Quebec, officially ceded by France under the Treaty of Paris. Although economic protections were ... More

Chapter 4 examines subjecthood in the Atlantic world, focusing on the colonies of Grenada and Quebec, officially ceded by France under the Treaty of Paris. Although economic protections were certainly of interest to settlers in these territories, it was debates over the political and legal rights of the white French Catholic inhabitants that dominated political life in both colonies throughout the 1760s and 1770s. These struggles demonstrate that the privileges associated with British subject status in the Atlantic often differed dramatically from those in the British Isles and were shaped by demographic, economic, and political imperatives. Chapter 4 emphasizes the struggles of individuals who actively negotiated their political and legal rights, particularly the ways in which “new subjects,” who were predominantly French Catholic, and “old subjects,” who identified as British-born and Protestant, used petitions.Less

Illusion and Disillusion

Peter Duus and Kenji Hasegawa

in Rediscovering America: Japanese Perspectives on the American Century

This chapter discusses how the Japanese viewed Americans in the nineteenth century. It notes that of all the foreign powers the Japanese encountered, the United States seemed the most different—it ... More

This chapter discusses how the Japanese viewed Americans in the nineteenth century. It notes that of all the foreign powers the Japanese encountered, the United States seemed the most different—it was a country to be admired, not feared. The chapter further notes that even before educated Japanese had any direct contact with Americans, they idealized the United States as a political and moral utopia. It observes that the Japanese were impressed that all the people participated in their own governance, that laws were determined by “public discussion,” and that, in America, “liberty” was the highest civic virtue. The chapter adds that even before the Meiji Restoration, future government leaders such as Itō Hirobumi and Kido Kōin queried Joseph Iteco about the American Constitution, and that, in its early days, the Meiji government established a rudimentary representative assembly.Less

Aristotle’s “Manner of Thinking” and the Deleterious Use of His Ideas

Vickie B. Sullivan

in Montesquieu and the Despotic Ideas of Europe: An Interpretation of "The Spirit of the Laws"

In The Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu claims that Aristotle’s political ideas grew out of his jealousy of Plato and his passion for Alexander the Great. Like Aristotle, Montesquieu finds much to ... More

In The Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu claims that Aristotle’s political ideas grew out of his jealousy of Plato and his passion for Alexander the Great. Like Aristotle, Montesquieu finds much to criticize in Plato’s legislation. But, as is argued in this chapter, Montesquieu also perceives a worrisome affinity between the two philosophers. In Aristotle’s writings, as in Plato’s, the Frenchman identifies misguided proposals to forbid commerce and to limit human reproduction. Especially repugnant for Montesquieu is Aristotle’s doctrine of natural slavery, as well as his recommendation for the enslavement of non-Greeks. Montesquieu lavishes Alexander with praise precisely because he spread commerce and recognized the equality of non-Greek peoples, casting aside the prejudicial lessons of his teacher. Regarding Aristotle’s influence in Christian Europe, Montesquieu charges the philosopher with promulgating an erroneous idea of monarchy that ignores the importance of constitutional restraints on the prince’s will. Moreover, he attributes to Aristotle’s teachings the Scholastic prohibition on lending at interest that perpetuated barbarities against European Jews. Uncovering the despotic prejudices behind Aristotle’s doctrines, Montesquieu seeks to relieve Europe of their deleterious influence.Less

Life in the German Armies

Mark Hewitson

in The People's Wars: Histories of Violence in the German Lands, 1820-1888

The ways in which war was understood and remembered depended, in part, on how wartime acts of violence were viewed by civilians and, in part, on the peacetime role and significance of the armies ... More

The ways in which war was understood and remembered depended, in part, on how wartime acts of violence were viewed by civilians and, in part, on the peacetime role and significance of the armies which had sanctioned such violence. To what extent did military service and soldiers’ actions offend civilians’ and, especially, commentators’ and officials’ sensibilities, making future conflicts less likely? How did contemporaries view an ‘arming of the people’? This chapter investigates the negotiations and contradictions which existed between citizens’ and soldiers’ values, attitudes, and expectations in garrison towns and elsewhere. It looks, amongst other things, at the discussion of military service, standing armies and militias in representative assemblies, and the press.Less