Kings as judges : power, justice and the origins of parliaments / Deborah Boucoyannis.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Boucoyannis, Deborah, 1970- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Representative government and representation--Europe.

Representative government and representation.

Taxation--Europe--History.

Taxation.

Liberalism--Europe--History.

Liberalism.

Political participation--Europe.

Political participation.

Europe--Politics and government.

Europe.

Europe--Economic conditions.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiv, 386 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2021.

Summary:

How did representative institutions become the central organs of governance in Western Europe? What enabled this distinctive form of political organization and collective action that has proved so durable and influential? The answer has typically been sought either in the realm of ideas, in the Western tradition of individual rights, or in material change, especially the complex interaction of war, taxes, and economic growth. Common to these strands is the belief that representation resulted from weak ruling powers needing to concede rights to powerful social groups. Boucoyannis argues instead that representative institutions were a product of state strength, specifically the capacity to deliver justice across social groups. Enduring and inclusive representative parliaments formed when rulers could exercise power over the most powerful actors in the land and compel them to serve and, especially, to tax them. The language of rights deemed distinctive to the West emerged in response to more effectively imposed collective obligations, especially on those with most power.

Contents:

Cover

Half-title page

Title page

Copyright page

Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

Preface and Acknowledgments

Part I The Origins of Representative Institutions: Power, Land, and Courts

1 Introduction: From Roving to Stationary Judges

2 A Theory of Institutional Emergence: Regularity, Functional Layering, and the Origins of Parliament

3 Explaining Functional Layering and Institutional Fusion: The Role of Power

Part II The Origins of Representative Practice: Power, Obligation, and Taxation

4 Taxation and Representative Practice: Bargaining vs. Compellence

5 Variations in Representative Practice: "Absolutist" France and Castile

6 No Taxation of Elites, No Representative Institutions

Part III Trade, Towns, and the Political Economy of Representation

7 Courts, Institutions, and Cities: Low Countries and Italy

8 Courts, Institutions, and Territory: Catalonia

9 The Endogeneity of Trade: The English Wool Trade and the Castilian Mesta

Part IV Land, Conditionality, and Property Rights

10 Power, Land, and Second-Best Constitutionalism: Central and Northern Europe

11 Conditional Land Law, Property Rights, and "Sultanism": Premodern English and Ottoman Land Regimes

12 Land, Tenure, and Assemblies: Russia in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

Part V Why Representation in the West: Petitions, Collective Responsibility, and Supra-Local Organization

13 Petitions, Collective Responsibility, and Representative Practice: England, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire

14 Conclusion

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 18 Jun 2021).

ISBN:

1-316-73004-2

1-316-73197-9

1-316-67836-9

OCLC:

1295272135