Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-07T07:56:02.681Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Political-Economic Foundations of Representative Government

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2019

Kevin Narizny Open the ORCID record for Kevin Narizny [Opens in a new window]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The dominant interpretation of the Glorious Revolution portrays it as an innovative compromise that used clever institutional design to solve a coordination problem between rival elites. In contrast, I argue that it was neither innovative nor a compromise and that it was the product of structural change rather than institutional design. Following Barrington Moore, I focus on the rise of agrarian capitalism and economically autonomous elites, who, in contrast to rent-seeking elites, do not depend on favor from the state for their income. They have an interest in the creation of a political system that ensures their equal rights under the law, open access to markets, and opportunities to form broad coalitions against rent-seeking. This makes them a critical constituency for representative government. I test this argument through an analysis of patterns of allegiance for Crown and Parliament at the outset of the English Civil War and address its relevance to the Glorious Revolution.

Type
Article
Information
Perspectives on Politics , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , June 2020 , pp. 454 - 469
Copyright
© American Political Science Association 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

The author is grateful to Bill Bulman, Jeffry Frieden, Arman Grigoryan, Erin Hern, Seo-Hyun Park, Gang Wang, the participants in the “Political Economy of Regime Transitions” workshop at Lehigh University, and anonymous reviewers for their comments and advice.

References

Acemoglu, Daron and Robinson, James A.. 2012. Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty. New York: Crown.Google Scholar
Adamson, John. 2007. The Noble Revolt: The Overthrow of Charles I. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.Google Scholar
Alexander, Gerard. 2001. “Institutions, Path Dependence, and Democratic Consolidation.” Journal of Theoretical Politics 13(3): 249–70.10.1177/095169280101300302Google Scholar
Alford, Ryan P. 2011. “The Star Chamber and the Regulation of the Legal Profession, 1570–1640.” American Journal of Legal History 51(4): 639–726.10.1093/ajlh/51.4.639Google Scholar
Anderson, Perry. 2005. Spectrum: From Right to Left in the World of Ideas. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Antler, Steven D. 1972. “Quantitative Analysis of the Long Parliament.” Past and Present 56: 154–57.10.1093/past/56.1.154Google Scholar
Antler, Steven D. 1975. “A Rejoinder.” Past and Present 68: 130.10.1093/past/68.1.130Google Scholar
Appleby, Andrew B. 1975. “Agrarian Capitalism or Seigneurial Reaction? The Northwest of England, 1500–1700.” American Historical Review 80(3): 574–94.Google Scholar
Arriola, Leonardo R. 2013. Multiethnic Coalitions in Africa: Business Financing of Opposition Election Campaigns. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Beddard, Robert. 1991. “The Unexpected Whig Revolution of 1688.” In The Revolutions of 1688, ed. Beddard, Robert, 11–101. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Bell, Henry E. 1953. An Introduction to the History and Records of the Court of Wards and Liveries. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bellin, Eva. 2002. Stalled Democracy: Capital, Labor and the Paradox of State-Sponsored Development. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Beresford, Maurice W. 1961. “Habitation versus Improvement: The Debate on Enclosure by Agreement.” In Essays in the Economic and Social History of Tudor and Stuart England, in Honour of R. H. Tawney, ed. Fisher, Frederick J., 40–69. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Blackwood, B. Gordon. 1965. “The Lancashire Cavaliers and Their Tenants.” Transactions of the Historical Society of Lancashire and Cheshire 117: 17–32.Google Scholar
Blackwood, B. Gordon. 1978. The Lancashire Gentry and the Great Rebellion, 1640–60. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Blackwood, B. Gordon. 1993. “Parties and Issues in the Civil War in Lancashire and East Anglia.” Northern History 29(1): 99–125.10.1179/nhi.1993.29.1.99Google Scholar
Blackwood, B. Gordon. 1996. “The Cavalier and Roundhead Gentry of Norfolk.” Local Historian 26(4): 194–208.Google Scholar
Blackwood, B. Gordon. 2001. Tudor and Stuart Suffolk. Lancaster, UK: Carnegie.Google Scholar
Boucoyannis, Deborah. 2015. “No Representation without Taxation: The Coercive Origins of Consent and Constitutionalism.” Politics and Society 43(3): 303–32.10.1177/0032329215584765Google Scholar
Bowen, Lloyd. 2007. The Politics of the Principality: Wales, c.1603–1642. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.Google Scholar
Brenner, Robert. 1993. Merchants and Revolution: Commercial Change, Political Conflict, and London’s Overseas Traders, 1550–1653. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Brooks, Christopher. 2009. Law, Politics, and Society in Early Modern England. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511757372Google Scholar
Brooks, Christopher. 2013. “The Agrarian Problem in Revolutionary England.” In Landlords and Tenants in Britain, 1440–1660: Tawney’s Agrarian Problem Revisited, ed. Whittle, Jane, 183–99. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell.Google Scholar
Brown, Alex T. 2015. Rural Society and Economic Change in County Durham: Recession and Recovery, c.1400–1640. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell.Google Scholar
Bryer, Robert A. 2006. “The Genesis of the Capitalist Farmer: Towards a Marxist Accounting History of the Origins of the English Agricultural Revolution.” Critical Perspectives on Accounting 17(4): 367–97.10.1016/j.cpa.2004.04.007Google Scholar
Claydon, Tony. 2002. William III. Harlow, UK: Pearson.Google Scholar
Cliffe, John T. 1969. The Yorkshire Gentry from the Reformation to the Civil War. London: Athlone.Google Scholar
Coate, Mary. 1963. Cornwall in the Great Civil War and Interregnum, 1642–1660. 2nd edition. Truto, UK: Barton.Google Scholar
Cogswell, Thomas. 1989. The Blessed Revolution: English Politics and the Coming of War, 1621–1624. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cox, Gary W. 2016. Marketing Sovereign Promises: Monopoly Brokerage and the Growth of the English State. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781316493007Google Scholar
Cruickshanks, Eveline. 2012. “Popular Revolution or Foreign Invasion?” Eighteenth-Century Life 36(1): 118–22.10.1215/00982601-1457156Google Scholar
Cust, Richard. 1987. The Forced Loan and English Politics, 1626–1628. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Davie, Neil. 1991. “Chalk and Cheese? ‘Fielden’ and ‘Forest’ Communities in Early Modern England.” Journal of Historical Sociology 4(1): 1–31.10.1111/j.1467-6443.1991.tb00114.xGoogle Scholar
Davies, Julian. 1992. The Caroline Captivity of the Church: Charles I and the Remoulding of Anglicanism, 1625–1641. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
De Krey, Gary S. 2008. “Between Revolutions: Re-Appraising the Restoration in Britain.” History Compass 6(3): 738–73.10.1111/j.1478-0542.2008.00520.xGoogle Scholar
Dimmock, Spencer. 2014. The Origin of Capitalism in England, 1400–1600. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Dodd, Arthur H. 1952. Studies in Stuart Wales. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.Google Scholar
Dore, Robert N. 1966. The Civil Wars in Cheshire. Chester, UK: Cheshire Community Council.Google Scholar
Duffin, Anne. 1996. Faction and Faith: Politics and Religion of the Cornish Gentry before the Civil War. Exeter, UK: Exeter University Press.Google Scholar
Ekelund, Robert B. and Tollison, Robert D.. 1981. Mercantilism as a Rent-Seeking Society: Economic Regulation in Historical Perspective. College Station: Texas A&M University Press.Google Scholar
Epstein, Stephan R. 2004. “Introduction: Town and Country in Europe, 1300–1800.” In Town and Country in Europe, 1300–1800, ed. Epstein, Stephan R., 1–29. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ertman, Thomas. 1997. Birth of the Leviathan: Building States and Regimes in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511529016Google Scholar
Everitt, Alan. 1960. Suffolk and the Great Rebellion, 1640–1660. Ipswich, UK: Cowell.Google Scholar
Everitt, Alan. 1966. The Community of Kent and the Great Rebellion, 1640–60. Leicester, UK: Leicester University Press.Google Scholar
Everitt, Alan. 1967. “Farm Labourers.” In The Agrarian History of England and Wales, 1500–1640, ed. Thirsk, Joan, 396–465. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Finlayson, Michael G. 1983. Historians, Puritanism, and the English Revolution: The Religious Factor in English Politics before and after the Interregnum. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Fleming, David. 1981. “Faction and Civil War in Leicestershire.” Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological Society 57: 26–36.Google Scholar
Fletcher, Anthony. 1975. A County Community in Peace and War: Sussex, 1600–1660. Harlow, UK: Longman.Google Scholar
French, Henry R. and Hoyle, Richard W.. 2007. The Character of English Rural Society: Earls Colne, 1550–1750. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Goldstone, Jack A. 2006. “Europe’s Peculiar Path: Would the World Be ‘Modern’ If William III’s Invasion of England in 1688 Had Failed?” In Unmaking the West: “What-If?” Scenarios That Rewrite World History, eds. Tetlock, Philip E., Lebow, Richard N., and Parker, Geoffrey, 168–96. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Gregson, Nicky. 1989. “Tawney Revisited: Custom and the Emergence of Capitalist Class Relations in North-East Cumbria, 1600–1830.” Economic History Review 42(1): 18–42.10.2307/2597044Google Scholar
Gunitsky, Seva. 2017. Aftershocks: Great Powers and Domestic Reforms in the Twentieth Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Handley, Antoinette. 2008. Business and the State in Africa: Economic Policy-Making in the Neo-Liberal Era. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hill, Christopher. 1956. Economic Problems of the Church: From Archbishop Whitgift to the Long Parliament. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Hill, Christopher. 1980. The Century of Revolution, 1603–1714. 2nd edition. London: Nelson.Google Scholar
Hill, Christopher. 1997. Puritanism and Revolution: Studies in Interpretation of the English Revolution of the Seventeenth Century. New York: St. Martin’s.Google Scholar
Hintze, Otto. 1975. The Historical Essays of Otto Hintze. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hochberg, Leonard. 1984. “The English Civil War in Geographical Perspective.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 14(4): 729–50.10.2307/203463Google Scholar
Holmes, Clive. 1974. The Eastern Association in the English Civil War. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hopcroft, Rosemary L. 1997. “Rural Organization and Receptivity to Protestantism in Sixteenth-Century Europe.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 36(2): 158–81.10.2307/1387550Google Scholar
Hopcroft, Rosemary L. 1999. Regions, Institutions, and Agrarian Change in European History. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Hoppit, Julian. 2003. “The Landed Interest and the National Interest, 1660–1800.” In Parliaments, Nations, and Identities in Britain and Ireland, 1660–1850, ed. Hoppit, Julian, 83–102. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Horwitz, Henry. 1977. Parliament, Policy, and Politics in the Reign of William III. Newark: University of Delaware Press.Google Scholar
Hosford, David H. 1976. Nottingham, Nobles, and the North: Aspects of the Revolution of 1688. Hamden, CT: Archon.Google Scholar
Hosford, David H. 2008. “The Peerage and the Revolution of 1688.” Parliamentary History 27(2): 198–214.10.1111/j.1750-0206.2008.00036.xGoogle Scholar
Hoyle, Richard W. 1987. “An Ancient and Laudable Custom: The Definition and Development of Tenant Right in North-Western England in the Sixteenth Century.” Past and Present 116: 24–55.10.1093/past/116.1.24Google Scholar
Hughes, Ann. 1987. Politics, Society, and Civil War in Warwickshire, 1620–1660. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511522604Google Scholar
Hunt, William. 1983. The Puritan Moment: The Coming of Revolution in an English County. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hutton, Ronald. 1999. The Royalist War Effort, 1642–1646. 2nd edition. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
James, Margaret. 1930. Social Problems and Policy during the Puritan Revolution, 1640–1660. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
James, Margaret. 1941. “The Political Importance of the Tithes Controversy in the English Revolution, 1640–1660.” History 26(101): 1–18.Google Scholar
Kennedy, Geoff. 2007. “Radicalism and Revisionism in the English Revolution.” In History and Revolution: Refuting Revisionism, eds. Haynes, Michael and Wolfreys, Jim, 25–49. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Kennedy, Geoff. 2008. Diggers, Levellers, and Agrarian Capitalism: Radical Political Thought in 17th Century England. New York: Lexington.Google Scholar
Kitsikopoulos, Harry. 2000. “Technological Change in Medieval England: A Critique of the Neo-Malthusian Argument.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 144(4): 397–448.Google Scholar
Lachmann, Richard. 2000. Capitalists in Spite of Themselves: Elite Conflict and Economic Transitions in Early Modern Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lake, David A. 1992. “Powerful Pacifists: Democratic States and War.” American Political Science Review 86(1): 24–37.Google Scholar
Levi, Margaret. 1988. Of Rule and Revenue. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Levitsky, Steven and Way, Lucan A.. 2010. Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes after the Cold War. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511781353Google Scholar
Manning, Brian. 1991. The English People and the English Revolution. 2nd edition. London: Bookmarks.Google Scholar
McGuire, Martin C. and Olson., Mancur 1996. “The Economics of Autocracy and Majority Rule: The Invisible Hand and the Use of Force.” Journal of Economic Literature 34(1): 72–96.Google Scholar
McInnes, Angus. 1982. “When Was the English Revolution?” History 67(221): 377–92.Google Scholar
McMann, Kelly M. 2006. Economic Autonomy and Democracy: Hybrid Regimes in Russia and Kyrgyzstan. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511510281Google Scholar
Milanovic, Branko, Lindert, Peter H., and Williamson, Jeffrey G.. 2011. “Pre-Industrial Inequality.” The Economic Journal 121(551): 255–72.10.1111/j.1468-0297.2010.02403.xGoogle Scholar
Miller, John. 1988. “Proto-Jacobitism? The Tories and the Revolution of 1688–89.” In The Jacobite Challenge, eds. Cruickshanks, Eveline and Black, Jeremy, 7–23. Edinburgh: Donald.Google Scholar
Mingay, G. E. 1963. English Landed Society in the Eighteenth Century. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Moore, Barrington. 1966. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World. Boston: Beacon.Google Scholar
Morrill, John S. 1974. Cheshire, 1630–1660: County Government and Society during the English Revolution. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Morrill, John S. 1979. “The Northern Gentry and the Great Rebellion.” Northern History 15(1): 66–87.10.1179/nhi.1979.15.1.66Google Scholar
Murrell, Peter. 2017. “Design and Evolution in Institutional Development: The Insignificance of the English Bill of Rights.” Journal of Comparative Economics 45(1): 36–55.10.1016/j.jce.2016.08.007Google Scholar
Narizny, Kevin. 2012. “Anglo-American Primacy and the Global Spread of Democracy: An International Genealogy.” World Politics 64(2): 341–73.10.1017/S004388711200007XGoogle Scholar
Narizny, Kevin. .n.d. “Capitalism, Representative Government, and the Rent-Seeking State.” Working Paper.Google Scholar
Newman, P. R. 1993. The Old Service: Royalist Regimental Colonels and the Civil War, 1642–46. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
North, Douglass C., Wallis, John J., and Weingast, Barry R.. 2009. Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
North, Douglass C. and Weingast, Barry R.. 1989. “Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England.” Journal of Economic History 49(4): 803–32.Google Scholar
O’Donnell, Guillermo A. and Schmitter, Philippe C.. 1986. Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Phillips, C. B. 1978. “The Royalist North: The Cumberland and Westmorland Gentry, 1642–1660.” Northern History 14(1): 169–92.10.1179/nhi.1978.14.1.169Google Scholar
Pincus, Steven C. A. 2009. 1688: The First Modern Revolution. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Pincus, Steven C. A. and Robinson, James A.. 2014. “What Really Happened during the Glorious Revolution?” In Institutions, Property Rights, and Economic Growth: The Legacy of Douglass North, eds. Galiani, Sebastian and Sened, Itai, 192–222. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pocock, John G. A. 1992. “The Fourth English Civil War: Dissolution, Desertion, and Alternative Histories in the Glorious Revolution.” In The Revolution of 1688–89: Changing Perspectives, ed. Schwoerer, Lois G., 52–64. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Prest, Wilfrid R. 1992. “Predicting Civil War Allegiances: The Lawyers’ Case Considered.” Albion 24(2): 225–36.Google Scholar
Radnitz, Scott. 2010. Weapons of the Wealthy: Predatory Regimes and Elite-Led Protests in Central Asia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Reid, Charles J. 1995. “The Seventeenth-Century Revolution in the English Land Law.” Cleveland State Law Review 43(2): 221–302.Google Scholar
Roberts, Clayton. 1966. The Growth of Responsible Government in Stuart England. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rollison, David. 1992. The Local Origins of Modern Society: Gloucestershire, 1500–1800. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Schmitter, Philippe C. 2010. “Twenty-Five Years, Fifteen Findings.” Journal of Democracy 21(1): 17–28.Google Scholar
Schwoerer, Lois G. 1981. The Declaration of Rights, 1689. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Searle, Christopher E. 1986. “Custom, Class Conflict, and Agrarian Capitalism: The Cumbrian Customary Economy in the Eighteenth Century.” Past and Present 110: 106–33.10.1093/past/110.1.106Google Scholar
Shaw-Taylor, Leigh. 2012. “The Rise of Agrarian Capitalism and the Decline of Family Farming in England.” Economic History Review 65(1): 26–60.10.1111/j.1468-0289.2010.00585.xGoogle Scholar
Simpson, Alfred W. B. 1986. A History of the Land Law. 2nd edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Skipp, Victor. 1978. Crisis and Development: An Ecological Case Study of the Forest of Arden, 1570–1674. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, A. Hassell. 1975. “Review of ‘The Eastern Association in the English Civil War’ by Clive Holmes.” Economic History Review 28(4): 712–13.Google Scholar
Sommerville, Johann P. 1999. Royalists and Patriots: Politics and Ideology in England, 1603–1640. 2nd edition. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Speck, William A. 1988. Reluctant Revolutionaries: Englishmen and the Revolution of 1688. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Stasavage, David. 2002. “Credible Commitment in Early Modern Europe: North and Weingast Revisited.” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 18(1): 155–86.Google Scholar
Stone, Lawrence. 1965. The Crisis of the Aristocracy, 1558–1641. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Stoyle, Mark. 1994. Loyalty and Locality: Popular Allegiance in Devon during the English Civil War. Exeter, UK: University of Exeter Press.Google Scholar
Stoyle, Mark. 2005. Soldiers and Strangers: An Ethnic History of the English Civil War. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Tate, William E. 1967. The English Village Community and the Enclosure Movements. London: Gollancz.Google Scholar
Tawney, Richard H. 2015. Religion and the Rise of Capitalism. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Thirsk, Joan. 1967. “The Farming Regions of England.” In The Agrarian History of England and Wales, 1500–1640, ed. Thirsk, Joan, 1–112. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Underdown, David. 1973. Somerset in the Civil War and Interregnum. Exeter, UK: David & Charles.Google Scholar
Underdown, David. 1985. Revel, Riot, and Rebellion: Popular Politics and Culture in England, 1603–1660. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
van Zanden, Jan L. 2000. “Early Modern Economic Growth: A Survey of the European Economy, 1500–1800.” In Early Modern Capitalism: Economic and Social Change in Europe 1400–1800, ed. Prak, Maarten, 69–87. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Wagner, Richard E. 1966. “Pressure Groups and Political Entrepreneurs: A Review Article.” Public Choice 1(1): 161–70.Google Scholar
Wallis, Patrick, Colson, Justin, and Chilosi, David. 2018. “Structural Change and Economic Growth in the British Economy before the Industrial Revolution, 1500–1800.” Journal of Economic History 78(3): 862–903.Google Scholar
Warmington, Andrew R. 1997. Civil War, Interregnum, and Restoration in Gloucestershire, 1640–1672. London: Royal Historical Society.Google Scholar
Weingast, Barry R. 1997. “The Political Foundations of Democracy and Rule of Law.” American Political Science Review 91(2): 245–63.10.2307/2952354Google Scholar
Weingast, Barry R. 2005. “The Constitutional Dilemma of Economic Liberty.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 19(3): 89–108.Google Scholar
Wood, Alfred C. 1937. Nottinghamshire in the Civil War. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Zaret, David. 1985. The Heavenly Contract: Ideology and Organization in Pre-Revolutionary Puritanism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar