scholarly journals “What Value Should We Attach to All These Petitions?”: Petition Campaigns and the Problem of Legitimacy in the Nineteenth-Century Netherlands

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 509-530 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maartje Janse
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Liberal Education ◽  
Political System ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Education Law ◽  
The Political ◽  
International Context

This article focuses on large-scale petitioning campaigns, or petitionnementen as they were called, organized between 1828 and 1878, including contemporary reflections and debates on this new phenomenon. Although there were only a handful of petitionnementen, they had a remarkable impact—not only on the issues at hand but also on the balance of power between Crown, Cabinet, Parliament, and people. Mass petitions necessarily challenged the political system, whose legitimacy was based on elections under a limited franchise. Based on parliamentary reports, pamphlets, and other sources reflecting on petitioning in general and the petitionnementen more specifically, this article asks how petitioners claimed legitimacy, and how politicians and other observers responded to those claims. Special attention is given to the international context within which Dutch petitioning practices developed. The article focuses on three case studies, representing the major petitioning campaigns of this period: the Southern petition movements of 1828–1830 that were a catalyst for the Belgian revolution (thus reinforcing the association between mass petitioning and revolution), the Anti-Catholic “April Movement” of 1853, and the so-called People’s Petitionnement of 1878, against the liberal education law. Remarkably enough, in the Netherlands it was not progressive reformers, but most prominently conservative Orthodox Protestants who organized petitionnementen.

Democracy and Political Culture

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ross McKibbin
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Social System ◽  
Political System ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The One ◽  
Definition Of

This book is an examination of Britain as a democratic society; what it means to describe it as such; and how we can attempt such an examination. The book does this via a number of ‘case-studies’ which approach the subject in different ways: J.M. Keynes and his analysis of British social structures; the political career of Harold Nicolson and his understanding of democratic politics; the novels of A.J. Cronin, especially The Citadel, and what they tell us about the definition of democracy in the interwar years. The book also investigates the evolution of the British party political system until the present day and attempts to suggest why it has become so apparently unstable. There are also two chapters on sport as representative of the British social system as a whole as well as the ways in which the British influenced the sporting systems of other countries. The book has a marked comparative theme, including one chapter which compares British and Australian political cultures and which shows British democracy in a somewhat different light from the one usually shone on it. The concluding chapter brings together the overall argument.

scholarly journals Geographical Change of the Japanese National Land in the 200 Years Using INŌ’s Map with GIS

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 1-2
Author(s):  
Yuji Murayama ◽  
Yuki Iwai
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Industrial Development ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Geographic Information ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Political ◽  
Spatial Transformation ◽  
Survey Line ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The 19Th Century

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> This presentation discusses the regional changes quantitatively in the 200 years through the overlay analysis of the present map and the INŌ’s map made by Tadataka INO in 1821 (Figure 1). INO surveyed the coastline and major roads on foot. He investigated not only survey lines, but also various geographic information such as rivers, lakes, mountains, village names, castles, temples, administrative boundaries, etc. Visualizing all of the 214 sheets of the INŌ’s large-scale map with Geographic Information Systems (GIS), we can analyse the national land condition seamlessly at the end of the Edo era.</p><p>Methodological point of view, we have serious problems including the scale, projection, identification of geographic features and so on, when we compare the old map with the present. In this connection, digitalizing the INŌ’s map as the GIS data is very useful to examine the spatial transformation scientifically during the 200 years. The digital INŌ’s map was constructed by employing the geo-reference function of GIS with the triangulation method. The survey line was converted into the line feature of vector data, and the place names were converted into the point feature of raster data. The distance of the survey line was measured by GIS-based geometric operation.</p><p>We obtained the following findings. The distributions of villages, ports, and facilities in western Japan were denser than those in eastern Japan in the 19th century. This was caused not only by the difference in natural environment and landform but also by socioeconomic factors including the locations of the castle towns and industrial activities. The regional structure has been dramatically transformed by the modernization of the political system, transportation system, and industrial development in reclaimed areas (Figure 2). It is concluded that most parts of changes in regional characteristics have been attained by overcoming the natural constraints. However, the difference in the political system has also been influential to the formation of the present regional system.</p>

When Participation Wins Votes: Explaining the Emergence of Large-Scale Participatory Democracy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jared Abbott
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Participatory Democracy ◽  
National Level ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Costs ◽  
Participatory Institutions ◽  
Potential Benefits ◽  
Nationwide Implementation

Why are large-scale participatory institutions implemented in some countries but only adopted on paper in others? I argue that nationwide implementation of Binding Participatory Institutions (BPIs)&#x2013;&#x2013;a critical subtype of participatory institutions&#x2013;&#x2013;is dependent on the backing of a strong institutional supporter, often a political party. In turn, parties will only implement BPIs if they place a lower value on the political costs than on the potential benefits of implementation. This will be true if: 1) significant societal demand exists for BPI implementation and 2) the party&#x2019;s political opponents cannot take advantage of BPIs for their own gain. I test this theory through two detailed case studies of Venezuela and Ecuador, drawing on 165 interviews with key national-level actors and grassroots activists.

The State

2019 ◽  
pp. 124-152
Author(s):  
Paul Stock
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Definitive Form

Chapter 6 discusses late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century geography books’ sustained focus on the political states of Europe. The books present states both as organic communities with multi-faceted jurisdictions, and as increasingly centralized governmental authorities. They usually specify that monarchy is the definitive form of European government, and that European states share a propensity for ‘liberty’, broadly defined as respect for law and property, and the maintenance of the balance of power in Europe. Some geographical texts talk about ‘nations’, but ideas about European polities remain reliant on established notions of governmental structures.

Jews and the Criminalization of Madness

1999 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Goldberg
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Sciences ◽  
Grey Zone ◽  
Social Type ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Mental Pathology ◽  
Medical Process

Distinctions between delinquency and illness were ill-defined and problematic, as we have seen in the case of the masturbator Johann A. And it was precisely in this vague grey zone between the two that psychiatry was able to insert itself in defining a new mental pathology. The problem of deciphering the difference between delinquency/criminality and madness was further complicated and given a unique twist in the cases of Jewish patients, whose Jewishness (in the eyes of the asylum) was by definition a kind of criminality and immorality. Jewishness, in other words, represented a category of interpretation distinct from illness, one which, in turn, had become highly politicized in the debates about Jewish emancipation since the eighteenth century. Therefore, when race was used to interpret patient behavior, it constituted a form of thinking outside of the medical domain in the strictest sense. In this way, it was potentially at odds with the medical process, and could, as I will show in two case studies, function to prevent the asylum staff from seeing and treating patients as ill. This chapter thus examines the limits of the medicalization of deviancy— the points where, in contrast to the “illnesses” discussed heretofore (male masturbation, nymphomania, and religious madness), medicine pulled back, seeking explanations for the person in a framework outside of the terms of medicine. That extramedical framework drew from long-standing stereotypes of Jews as immoral and criminal; but it also had a more immediate source in a contemporary trope that united Jewishness and criminality in a social type: the jüdischer Gauner (Jewish crook). Such images of Jews had in turn become part of the political arsenal of those opposing Jewish emancipation on the grounds of an incorrigible Jewish “character.” My argument here runs counter to the few historical works on Jews and insanity, which, consistent with the medicalization thesis, have focused exclusively on the conflation of Jewishness and illness in medical theories. In part, this approach derives from their focus on the second half of the nineteenth century, where the conflation was indeed overwhelming, psychiatry and medicine (as well as other human sciences) having become saturated with racial and degeneration theories.

Alignment, Nonalignment, and Small Powers: 1945–1965

1966 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 397-418 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert L. Rothstein
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Power System ◽  
Long Range ◽  
Political System ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Small Power ◽  
The One ◽  
Small Powers ◽  
Patterns Of Interaction

A functioning balance-of-power system, comparable to the one which existed throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, limits the ability of Small Powers to achieve their own goals. However, in compensation it provides more real security for them—in terms of the maintenance of independence—than other historical systems, all of which offered the Small Power some elements of maneuverability but to the detriment of long-range security. At first glance the contemporary political system appears to contradict this generalization: Surely, one would presume, the new status of Small Powers reflects a system in which the weaker units of international politics have finally achieved both security and influence. Nevertheless, a closer examination of actual patterns of interaction substantially qualifies this presumption: The original generalization, that is, remains basically sound.

scholarly journals The practice of accountability in questioning prime ministers: Comparative evidence from Australia, Canada, Ireland, and the United Kingdom

2021 ◽  
pp. 136914812110585
Author(s):  
Ruxandra Serban
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Text Analysis ◽  
Political System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Prime Ministers ◽  
The United Kingdom

This paper compares the practice of holding prime ministers to account in four case studies: Australia, Canada, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. Using text analysis, as well as research on prime ministerial responsibilities, it investigates oral questions asked in parliamentary procedures where prime ministers are questioned together with ministers (Question Period in Canada and Question Time in Australia) versus procedures where they are questioned individually (PMQs in the United Kingdom and Oral Questions to the Taoiseach in Ireland), and explores the degree to which they are questioned for matters that are within their remit. It argues that the practice of prime ministerial accountability is decisively shaped by procedural features such as whether written notice is required for questions, as well as by the broader role of the questioning mechanism in the political system, and less by the collective or individualised nature of questioning.

Emer de Vattel on the Society of Nations and the Political System of Europe

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simone Zurbuchen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political System ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Founding Father ◽  
Sovereign State ◽  
Modern Natural ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
The Law

This chapter aims to explain why considering Vattel as a founding father of positivism rests on a misunderstanding. Despite the continuous attention Vattel received in the scholarly literature as well as in the diplomatic and juridical practice, especially in the United States, his legacy remained highly contested ever since his treatise The Law of Nations was first published in 1758. One reason is its indebtedness to the modern natural law tradition but also to Vattel’s originality, mainly due to the significance he attributed to the sovereign state as a free and independent member of the society of nations. Vattel established many dualisms to develop his very broad notion of the law of nations: he applied the law of nations to the ‘political system’ of Europe, which he considered a kind of republic instituted for maintaining order and liberty and founded on the scheme of the balance of power.

The Referendum in Britain

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucy Atkinson ◽  
Andrew Blick ◽  
Matt Qvortrup
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Union Membership ◽  
Political System ◽  
British History ◽  
The Political ◽  
British Politics ◽  
International Context ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Practical Instrument

The tumultuous Brexit experience demonstrated the potentially immense significance of the referendum to British politics. This episode demonstrated the importance of extensive assessment of this democratic device. One means of gaining greater understanding of the referendum is by considering it in the context of British history, both as an idea and as a practical instrument. This work fills a gap in the existing literature in considering the origins and implementation of referendums in Britain. It considers a number of themes that have arisen in the context of the most recent British referendum (on European Union membership in 2016): the place of referendums within British democracy; their particular application at given times; the reasons they are held; to whom they might and might not appeal and why; their consequences; and their tendency to generate controversy. It addresses the following overarching question: when and why did such votes take place in the UK? It also asks: (from the perspective of Britain) how did the idea of using the referendum develop; what was the significance of the international context for the advocacy and application of this device; how was it perceived; to what extent and how did it come to be incorporated into the political system; and what has been the significance of the referendum; especially from the perspective of the British constitution?

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