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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Scotland – Politics and government – 18th century'
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Bedborough, Sheena J. "Unprincipled careerists or enlightened entrepreneurs? : a study of the roles, identities and attitudes of the Scots MPs at Westminster, c.1754 - c.1784." Thesis, University of Stirling, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/1893/22144.
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The Scots MPs of the eighteenth century have traditionally been portrayed in a negative light. In a century once noted for electoral corruption and the abuses of patronage, they were seen by contemporaries and later writers as among the worst examples of their kind: greedy, self-seeking, unprincipled ‘tools of administration’ whose votes could be bought with the offer of places and pensions. Lewis Namier’s seminal work exposing the cynical approach to politics of MPs generally, sparked a backlash which has produced a more balanced evaluation of English politics. Strangely, although Namier exonerated the Scots MPs from the worst of the charges against them, his less judgmental verdicts are found only sporadically in more recent writing, while the older viewpoint is still repeated by some historians. There is no modern study of the eighteenth-century Scots MPs, a situation which this research proposes to remedy, by examining the group of MPs who represented Scotland at Westminster between 1754 and 1784. It re-assesses the extent to which the original criticisms are merited, but also widens the scope by examining the contribution made by Scotland’s MPs, to British and Scottish political life in the later part of the eighteenth century. A study of the social make-up and the careers of this particular cohort provides the backdrop for the two main themes: the participation of Scots MPs in the legislative process, and their effectiveness as representatives of Scottish interests at Westminster. Existing biographical information has been supplemented by an examination of Parliamentary Papers, debates, and personal correspondence to enable further analysis of attitudes, in particular with regard to politics and political mores. The research explores issues of motivation, asking questions about allegiance, identity, perceptions of government, and how conflicts of interest were resolved, before presenting a conclusion which aims to offer a revised, broader, but more nuanced, assessment of this much-criticised group, based on more recent approaches to interpretation of the period.
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Bartley, David D. "John Witherspoon and the right of resistance." Virtual Press, 1989. http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/720155.
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This study investigated one central aspect of the political views of John Withexspoon: His steadfast belief in the right of resistance. A product of the Reformation and Enlightenment movements, this doctrine offered justification for questioning the authority of magistrates acting contrary to their sovereignty: it further compelled disobedience to unjust laws and the removal of unjust officials to protect the instituted social order. The context of post-Union Scottish society provided a distinct setting for Witherspoon's introduction to resistance theory. As a devout Scottish Presbyterian and a learned Enlightenment scholar, Withexspoon commanded a thorough understanding of this civil-religious right and duty to protect society.Through his education at Edinburgh University, Witherspoon became acquainted with the substance of Scottish Enlightenment philosophy. Edinburgh instructors utilized the writings of Commonwealth theorists and the classical writers to construct their views of society and social obligation: Society was a constituted civil order, restrained by law, preserved by the efforts of every individual citizen. Witherspoon's Scottish ecclesiastical heritage served to vindicate his Enlightenment education by echoing a similar view of restraint and balance.Covenant Pianism, the product of the 16th-Century reformer John Knox and the Westminster Assembly of the 1640s, invoked the supremacy of a sovereign God over all instituted states. In the Scotsman's view, human depravity and selfish ambition would destroy government if not for the diligent vigil of involved, virtuous citizens. Members of society were thus obliged to oppose tyranny -the unjust, illegitimate exercise of civil-religious authority. Hence, both academic enterprise and doctrinal conviction provided Witherspoon a firm theoretical foundation to support the right of resistance.As President of Princeton during the Anglo-American crisis of the 1770s, Witherspoon directed the education of many future leaders of the new American nation. He was certainly not an idealistic crusader nor a reluctant follower, but consistently argued for the right of American colonists to resist the tyranny of England's Parliament. An early supporter of independence, Witherspoon was the only clergyman to sign Jefferson's Declaration. His most significant contributions, though, were made as a committee member in the Second Continental Congress.Department of History
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Wallace, Mark Coleman. "Scottish freemasonry 1725-1810 : progress, power, and politics." Thesis, St Andrews, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/324.
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Hawes, Claire. "Community and public authority in later fifteenth-century Scotland." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/7812.
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This thesis offers a reassessment of the political culture of Scotland in the later fifteenth century, from c. 1440 to c. 1490, through an examination of communitarian discourses and practices. It argues that the current understanding of political relations is limited by too great a focus upon personal relationships. While these were undoubtedly important, it is necessary also to consider the structures of law and governance which framed political interactions, and the common principles and values which underpinned action, in order to gain a fuller picture. In particular, it is argued that the current model, which assumes a more or less oppositional relationship between crown and ‘political community', ought to be replaced with a public domain in which claims to authority were asserted and contested. This approach allows the familiar political narrative to be firmly connected to the ideas expressed in contemporary advice literature, while also situating political authority spatially, by asking how it was experienced as well as how it was projected. The focus upon language and space allows for clear parallels to be drawn between different local political cultures, and allows connections and contrasts to be made between those cultures and the norms of kingship and lordship. It argues that reforms to civil justice made during James III's reign have played a far more important part in the turbulent politics of the time than has been appreciated, that both royal and aristocratic authority could be presented as acting both for the common good and for the interests of the crown, and that Scotland's towns not only had a vibrant political culture of their own, but were an important part of the politics of the realm.
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ENA, SANJUÁN Íñigo. "The vertebrae of the Leviathan : municipal debt and state formation in the eighteenth-century Crown of Aragon." Doctoral thesis, European University Institute, 2022. http://hdl.handle.net/1814/74919.
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Defence date: 28 September 2022Examining Board: Prof. Pieter Judson (European University Institute); Prof. Tamar Herzog (Harvard University); Prof. Christopher Storrs (University of Dundee); Prof. Regina Grafe (European University Institute)
Why and how did modern states emerge in Southwestern Europe? These are the main questions that this thesis answers by examining the debt of six municipalities of the Crown of Aragon during the 18th century through a multiscale, transversal, and comparative approach. The ancient practices which constituted the Aragonese polity appeared in the mid-fourteenth century and survived at least until the mid-eighteenth century partially thanks to the debt of the municipalities. Towns and kingdoms were in many cases ruled by assemblies of creditors by virtue of debt restructuring agreements. Debt accounts for the long survival of the Aragonese polity, but also for its sclerosis. The financial situation of the debtholders, mostly ecclesiastical institutions, prevented rulers from defaulting on municipal debt and adopting drastic measures against the Church, as they feared a financial meltdown. The emergence of the modern state was an intricate process which started by 1750, mainly due to the collapse of the ancient mechanisms. The modern state appeared as a set of practices devised and implemented by a myriad of actors who tried to recompose social and political life. State formation was first and foremost a local process in which municipal debt proved crucial too. The examination of local dynamics reveals that modern states in Southwestern Europe followed similar paths during the early phases of their formation.
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Thompson, Stephen John. "Census-taking, political economy and state formation in Britain, c. 1790-1840." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2010. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/265510.
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Since 1801 the British government has counted the population once every ten years. Only the Second World War has interrupted this practice, making the census one of the most enduring administrative institutions of the modern British state. This dissertation is about why legislators and political economists first sought to quantify demographic change in the early nineteenth century. The first chapter explains the administrative organisation of census-taking under John Rickman, who directed the first four censuses. The second chapter examines the legislative origins of census-taking in eighteenth-century Britain. It compares the efforts of two backbenchers, Thomas Potter and Charles Abbot, to establish a national census in 1753 and 1800. The third chapter analyses the pre-census empirical basis of fiscal policy during the 1790s, paying patticular attention to William Pitt the Younger's use of political arithmetic to estimate the yield of Britain's first income tax. The fou1th chapter examines the function and limitations of the population data used by four national accountants - Benjamin Bell, Henry Beeke, J. J. Grellier and Patrick Colquhoun - in their responses to Pitt's new tax. The fifth chapter re-assesses the economic and social thought of Robet1 Southey, whose opposition to T. R. Malthus's Essay on the pr;ndple of populahon, and especially its commitment to poor law abolition, arose from a fundamental disagreement about the state's role in welfare provision. The sixth and seventh chapters consider the relationship between information gathering and state formation. Chapter six quantifies the number and range of printed accounts and papers produced by the House of Commons in the early nineteenth century. It challenges previous analyses which have used public expenditure and statute-making as measures of state formation. The final chapter explores how census data was used to determine the redistribution of parliamentary representation that took place as a result of the 1832 Reform Act. Employing a diverse range of methodologies and sources, this study contributes to histories of economic thought and state formation by revealing the extent to which political arithmetic converged with Smithian political economy during the French revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. This convergence proved sho1t-lived, however, and early nineteenthcentury political arithmetic was consigned to historical oblivion by the world 's first professional economist, John Ramsay McCulloch. Nonetheless, reasoning by 'number, weight, or measure', paiticularly in respect of population, challenged and transformed the conduct of parliamentary business in this period, leading to the legislative dissolution of the existing electoral system in 1832.
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Tanner, Roland J. "The political role of the Three Estates in Parliament and General Council in Scotland, 1424-1488." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 1999. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/10986.
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This thesis examines the political role of the three estates in the Scottish parliament and general council between 1424 and 1488. Previous histories of the Scottish parliament have judged it to be weak and constitutionally defective. By placing each meeting of the estates within the context of political events, examining the frequency of meetings, identifying previously unknown parliaments, and studying those who attended and sat on its committees, a more detailed picture of parliament's role and influence has been created. A broadly chronological approach has been used in order to place parliaments in the context of the time in which they sat. Chapters 1 and 2 examine parliament between the return of James I from England in 1424 and 1435 and show the opposition he faced regarding taxation and the developing noble and clerical resentment to attempts to extend royal authority in the secular and ecclesiastical spheres. Chapters 3 and 4 discuss the crisis in parliament and general council between 1436 and James I's death, its role in the establishment of a new minority government, and the interaction between the Crichton, Livingston and Douglas families between 1437 and 1449. Chapter 5 examines James II's use of parliament as a tool against the Black Douglases between 1450 and 1455, while Chapter 6 shows parliament's ability to exert influence over royal lands and possessions and to criticise royal behaviour from 1455 to 1460. Chapter 7 shows the role of factions in parliament in the minority of James III, and their ability to undermine the government. Chapters 8, 9 and 10 discuss the campaign of criticism against James III in the 1470s, the parliamentary crisis that faced him in 1479-82, and the greater royal control exerted in the 1480s. Chapter 11 examines the lords of the articles between 1424 and 1485 and concludes that the committee was not, as has formerly been suggested, a royal board of control. In conclusion the Scottish parliament is judged to have played a leading role in political affairs, providing a forum in which the estates were able to criticise, oppose and defeat the crown over a broad range of issues.
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Lightowler, Claire. "Policy divergence and devolution : the impact of actors and institutions." Thesis, University of Stirling, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/1893/16785.
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The creation of the National Assembly for Wales and the Scottish Parliament in 1999 was accompanied with an aspiration that these new institutions would allow Scotland and Wales to develop their own policies, better suited to local needs than those designed in Westminster or Whitehall. This thesis explores policy-making in the first terms of the devolved institutions in Scotland and Wales, focusing on where the policies developed by these institutions diverged from those pursued at Westminster. Policy divergence is examined by studying the development of the financing long-term care for the elderly policies. The aim of this thesis is to identify why policy divergence occurred in the long-term care case, considering the impact of actors (or agents) and the institutional setting in which they operate, as suggested by Scharpf's model of actor-centred institutionalism. As actor-centred institutionalism suggested, both actors and institutions played a major role in shaping policy responses. In the Scottish case a range of actors cooperated and lobbied together for the introduction of free personal care, spurred on by the First Minister, who created an opportunity for those in favour of free personal care to pressurise his government to introduce the policy. In contrast, in Wales, actors were divided and never built up the same momentum to ensure the introduction of a more generous long-term care package. The institutional setting in which these actors operated was a major factor in shaping their policy preferences and the strategies they adopted to achieve them. This thesis considers the impact on policy-making of the devolved institution's electoral system, financial and legislative powers, design of the institutions, and the place of these institutions in a UK setting. The different institutional structures in Scotland and Wales provided different incentives and resources for actors, encouraged different styles of policy-making from Westminster and affected the way in which issues were framed. Examining the roles of actors and institutions in the formation of distinctive policies highlighted that in the real world these two elements are mutually dependent and cannot be separated. As a result it is impossible, and pointless, to determine whether actors or institutions were most influential on the development of distinctive policies. Instead this thesis explores how the difference between the configurations of actors and institutions in Scotland and Wales contributed to the creation of policies which were distinctive both from each other and the UK Government.
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Ferguson, William Alexander Stewart. "Scottish-Irish governmental relations, 1660-90." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2015. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/283971.
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Bennett, Andrew Peter Wallace. "20th century Bannockburn : Scottish nationalism and the challenge posed to British identity, 1970-1980." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1997. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp01/MQ29481.pdf.
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Ahn, Doohwan. "British strategy, economic discourse, & The Idea of a Patriot King, 1702-1738." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2012. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/283894.
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Philp, Karen. "John Russell, the fourth Duke of Bedford, and politics, 1745-1751." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1991. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:e486c33f-a4bb-4f25-9b66-7c0017aee64e.
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This dissertation on the fourth duke of Bedford examines the political activities of a member of the House of Lords. It documents the activities of the members of the Pelham Administration, using Bedford's correspondence to provide an outline for the narrative. The aim is to provide a greater understanding of Bedford's political career, and also to illustrate the influence this individual had in determining ministerial policy. A discussion of Bedford's social connections leads into an overview of the events culminating in his inclusion in the Administration in 1745. Initially First Lord of the Admiralty, Bedford was promoted in 1748 to the office of Secretary of State for the Southern Department. In both offices, his concern was the promotion and protection of trade. He advocated the 'Country' Whig view that the protection of British merchants and their overseas markets by the navy was in the countryâs best interest. Bedford recognized the importance of securing and expanding American markets, and implemented measures, such as the proposed 'reduction' of Canada, to promote this aim. Bedford also lead the negotiations for the commercial treaty with Spain, signed at Madrid in 1750, that gave special trade status to Britain. Bedford sought to increase his political influence in various constituencies during the 1747 General Election. The local influence he wielded, however, did not enable him to carry through private turnpike legislation in Parliament. His legislation was defeated on 13 February 1750, at third reading, in an unusually high vote (154-208). Newcastle, whose relationship with Bedford had grown increasingly acrimonious, played a role in the defeat of this bill. The deterioration in this relationship contributed to Bedford's resignation from office on 14 June 1751.
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Vaudry, Janice C. "James Caulfeild, the earl of Charlemont : portrait of an Irish whig peer." Thesis, McGill University, 1988. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=61768.
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Underwood, Scott V. "A revolutionary atmosphere : England in the aftermath of the French revolution." Virtual Press, 1990. http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/722223.
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This study is a cross-examination of the theory of revolution and the historical view of English society and politics in the late eighteenth century. Historical research focused upon the most respected (if not the most recent) works containing theory and information about the effects of the French Revolution on English society and politics. Research into the theory of revolution was basically a selection process whereby a few of the most extensive and reasonable theories were chosen for use.The cross-study of the two fields revealed that, although historians view it as politically conservative and generally complacent, English society, fettered by antiquated political institutions and keenly aware of the recent French Revolution, contained all the elements conducive to rebellion listed by the theorists of revolution. In the final analysis, research indicated revolution did not occur in England because of the confluence of political, military and social events in England and France.Department of History
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Kim, Minchul. "Democracy and representation in the French Directory, 1795-1799." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/15874.
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Democracy was no more than a marginal force during the eighteenth century, unanimously denounced as a chimerical form of government unfit for passionate human beings living in commercial societies. Placed in this context this thesis studies the concept of ‘representative democracy' during the French Revolution, particularly under the Directory (1795–1799). At the time the term was an oxymoron. It was a neologism strategically coined by the democrats at a time when ‘representative government' and ‘democracy' were understood to be diametrically opposed to each other. In this thesis the democrats' political thought is simultaneously placed in several contexts. One is the rapidly changing political, economic and international circumstances of the French First Republic at war. Another is the anxiety about democratic decline emanating from the long-established intellectual traditions that regarded the history of Greece and Rome as proof that democracy and popular government inevitably led to anarchy, despotism and military government. Due to this anxiety the ruling republicans' answer during the Directory to the predicament—how to avoid the return of the Terror, win the war, and stabilize the Republic without inviting military government—was crystalized in the notion of ‘representative government', which defined a modern republic based on a firm rejection of ‘democratic' politics. Condorcet is important at this juncture because he directly challenged the given notions of his own period (such as that democracy inevitably fosters military government). Building on this context of debate, the arguments for democracy put forth by Antonelle, Chaussard, Français de Nantes and others are analysed. These democrats devised plans to steer France and Europe to what they regarded as the correct way of genuinely ending the Revolution: the democratic republic. The findings of this thesis elucidate the elements of continuity and those of rupture between the Enlightenment and the French Revolution.
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Doyle, Charles James. "The judicial reaction in south-eastern France, 1794-1800." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1987. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:59cc347e-6a12-4540-8d81-65018e2170da.
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The thesis investigates and analyses the hitherto neglected phenomenon of political reaction within the judiciary of south-eastern France during the period between the Thermidorian Reaction and the advent of the Consulate. The character, objectives and effects of the 'reaction judiciaire1 are studied through a series of different perspectives. The first task is to highlight the discrepancy between the concepts of the social and political effects of a revamped judicial system formulated during the Year III and the corrupt abuse of judicial power by reactionary provincial judges. Indeed, the study constantly seeks to explore the conceptual as well as the practical damage inflicted on the Directorial regime by the supposed trustees of the post-Terrorist republican settlement. Emphasis is placed upon the collaboration between the southern judges and the counter-revolutionary elements within the local community, especially in the discussion of the origins of the judicial reaction. The changes of technique and of objective which the judiciary experienced are explored in full. It is described from its beginnings as a weapon of retribution for the aggrieved local community against the former agents of the Terror to its role in the subversion of regional jacobinism to its support for the period of unchecked counter-revolution during the Year V and finally to its function as a 'rearguard' defender of arrested counter- revolutionaries during the period of the Second Directory. In addition, due consideration is given to the motivation of individual judges who operated the reaction. It is hoped that the thesis has provided a model for the study of the causes, techniques and aims of political reaction from within an independent state power. Furthermore, it is hoped that the work is seminal in its suggestion that judicial reaction and its many ramifications had both a direct and indirect bearing upon the fall of the Directory.
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Eiser, David. "Regional economics and constitutional change in the UK." Thesis, University of Stirling, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/1893/26053.
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The UK, traditionally one of the more fiscally centralised of OECD countries, is currently in the midst of an extensive programme of tax decentralisation. This is most evident in Scotland. Ten years ago the Scottish Government was almost wholly reliant on a block grant from the UK Government to fund its spending, and debate was focussed on how the determination of this grant should be reformed. Today the Scottish Government has far greater fiscal autonomy. Income tax was almost fully devolved to the Scottish Parliament in April 2017, and around half of VAT revenues will be assigned to Scotland by 2020. As a result, the devolved Scottish budget will in future be linked much more closely to Scotland’s economy, and Scottish politicians will be able to deviate from UK policy on the setting of income tax and various smaller taxes. The objective of this PhD is to examine the economic and political motivations for and implications of greater fiscal decentralisation, with a particular focus on the Scottish case. Its key over-arching questions include: • Which fiscal powers are more and less suitable for decentralisation, and what might constraints might a devolved government face in exercising devolved tax powers? • To what extent are the objectives of fiscal decentralisation compatible with the goal of inter-regional equity in public good provision? • To what extent is fiscal decentralisation likely to enhance the incentives faced by politicians in a devolved parliament to pursue particular types of policy? And to what extent does the answer to this question depend upon the way in which supporting fiscal institutions, notably including the design of block grant arrangements, influence this? • What factors determine regional economic performance, and to what extent can devolved governments be held accountable for (or face the budgetary consequences of) those trends? • To what extent might fiscal decentralisation assuage or accentuate demands for Scottish independence? This PhD consists of four academic papers covering aspects of regional economics and constitutional change in the UK, with a particular focus on Scotland. Each of the four papers is preceded by an abstract. An introductory chapter provides theoretical and policy context within which the four papers are situated. A concluding section to the PhD is provided in Chapter 6. The four papers cover the following topics: • Paper 1 (Chapter 2) was published in the immediate aftermath of the Scottish independence referendum of 2014, and considers the issues and constraints involved in devolving further fiscal powers to the Scottish Parliament. • Paper 2 (Chapter 3) considers the scope for replacing the Barnett Formula (used to allocate funding to the Scottish Government) with a form of spending-needs assessment, based on a comparative analysis of formulae used within England and Scotland to allocate health funding to territorial health boards. • Paper 3 (Chapter 4) examines how regional labour markets in the UK responded to the 2008/9 recession and its aftermath, and considers which factors may have influenced regional resilience to the recession. • Paper 4 (Chapter 5) examines the factors that determine differential growth in regional income tax revenues, and considers the extent to which it is reasonable to hold devolved governments wholly to account for differential economic performance. • Chapter 6 concludes.
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Newton, Joshua David. "The Royal Navy and the British West African settlements, 1748-1783." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2013. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.648224.
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Moran, Arik. "Permutations of Rajput identity in the West Himalayas, c. 1790-1840." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2010. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:a5436935-3a87-4702-8b0a-471643633c46.
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The sustained interaction of local elites and British administrators in the West Himalayas over the decades that surrounded the early colonial encounter (c. 1790-1840) saw the emergence of a distinctly new understanding of communal identity among the leaders of the region. This eventful period saw the mountain ('Pahari') kingdoms transform from fragmented, autonomous polities on the fringes of the Indian subcontinent to subjects of indigenous (Nepali, Sikh) and, ultimately, foreign (British) empires, and dramatically altered the ways Pahari leaders chose to remember and represent themselves. Using a wide array of sources from different locales in the hills (e.g., oral epics, archival records and local histories), this thesis traces the Pahari elite's transition from a nebulous group of lineage-based leaders to a cohesive unitary milieu modelled after contemporary interpretations of Hindu kingship. This nascent ideal of kingship is shown to have fed into concurrent understandings of Rajput society in the West Himalayas and ultimately to have sustained the alliance between indigenous rulers and British administrators.
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Scott, Nicola R. "The court and household of James I of Scotland, 1424-1437." Thesis, University of Stirling, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/1893/379.
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This thesis examines the importance of the royal court and household in Scotland during the reign of James I (1424-37). The medieval royal court and household has received little concentrated attention in recent Scottish studies. However, a significant body of published research exists elsewhere in Britain and Europe which shows the importance of this arena for other kingdoms at this time. These studies have emphasised how the court and household was an important centre for politics and culture in the medieval period, indicating how a similar study of the Scottish evidence is essential for a fuller understanding of James I’s reign. Through a variety of sources, the composition of James’s household and court affinity has been examined. It is evident from this that James lacked an appropriate body of companions and high-status administrative officers for a medieval ruler and this was to have significant consequences for his reign. Additionally, by looking at some of the cultural aspects of the royal court, in particular the architecture, literature and religion, a clearer picture of the socio-political dynamics and tensions of James I’s reign emerges. In contrast to the generally held view of James as a politically successful, strong and active monarch for much of his reign, this study instead indicates a king who failed to establish an attractive and useful court and household that could be exploited for royal political gain. With his failure to establish a suitable court and household, James was a king incomplete and it is the contention that this contributed significantly to the king’s assassination.
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Stewart, Hailey A. "The Power of Perception: Women and Politics at the Early Georgian Court." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2014. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc699945/.
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The early Georgian period illustrates how the familial dynamic at court affected women’s opportunity to exert political influence. The court represented an important venue that allowed women to declare a political affiliation and to participate in political issues that suited their interests. Appearances often at variance with reality allowed women to manipulate and test their political abilities in order to have the capability to exercise any possible power. Moreover, some women developed political alliances and relationships that supported their own interests. The family structure of the royal household affected how much influence women had. The perception of holding power permitted certain women to behave politically. This thesis will demonstrate that the distinction between appearances and reality becomes vital in assessing women at the early Georgian court by examining some women’s experiences at court during the reigns of the first two Georges. In some cases, the perceived power of a courtier had a real basis, and in other instances, it gave them an opportunity to assess the extent of their political power. Women’s political participation has been underestimated during the early Georgian period, while well-documented post-1760.
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Davis, Camille Marie. "Why the Fuse Blew: the Reasons for Colonial America’s Transformation From Proto-nationalists to Revolutionary Patriots: 1772-1775." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2015. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc804870/.
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The most well-known events and occurrences that caused the American Revolution are well-documented. No scholar debates the importance of matters such as the colonists’ frustration with taxation without representation, the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, and the Coercive Acts. However, very few scholars have paid attention to how the 1772 English court case that freed James Somerset from slavery impacted American Independence. This case occurred during a two-year stall in the conflict between the English government and her colonies that began in 1763. Between 1763 and 1770, there was ongoing conflict between the two parties, but the conflict temporarily subsided in 1770. Two years later, in 1772, the Somerset decision reignited tension and frustration between the mother country and her colonies. This paper does not claim that the Somerset decision was the cause of colonial separation from England. Instead it argues that the Somerset decision played a significant yet rarely discussed role in the colonists’ willingness to begin meeting with one another to discuss their common problem of shared grievance with British governance. It prompted the colonists to begin relating to one another and to the British in a way that they never had previously. This case’s impact on intercolonial relations and relations between the colonies and her mother country are discussed within this work.
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Dekavalla, Marina. "General elections in the post-devolution period : press accounts of the 2001 and 2005 campaigns in Scotland and England." Thesis, University of Stirling, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/1893/2301.
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This thesis examines and compares newspaper coverage of the first two general elections after Scottish devolution, looking at both the Scottish and English/UK press. By considering the coverage of a major political event which affects both countries, it contributes to debates regarding the performance of the Scottish press within an arguably distinct Scottish public sphere as well as that of the press in England within a post-devolution context. The research is based on a content analysis of all the coverage of the 2001 and 2005 elections in seven Scottish and five English and UK daily morning newspapers, a critical discourse analysis of a sample of the coverage of the most mentioned issues in each campaign and a small set of interviews with Scottish political editors. As a framework for its analysis, this thesis focuses on theories of national identity and deliberative democracy in the media. It finds that the coverage of elections in the two countries has a similar issue agenda, however Scottish newspapers appear less interested in the UK aspect of the elections and include debates on Scottish affairs which are discussed in isolation, within an exclusively Scottish mediated space. These issues are constructed as particularly relevant to a Scottish readership through references to the nation, inclusive modes of address to the reader and the inclusion of exclusively Scottish sources, which contrast with the Scottish coverage of “UK” issues. This distinction between “Scottish” and “UK” topics emerges as the key differentiating factor in the discursive construction of election issues in the Scottish press, rather than that between devolved and reserved issues. Newspapers in England on the other hand, report on the two campaigns without taking into consideration the post-devolution political reality. These core questions are contextualized within the thesis by reference to relevant dimensions of Scottish culture and politics, and interpreted in the light of events since 2005.
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Webb, Claire L. "The 'gude regent?' : a diplomatic perspective upon the Earl of Moray, Mary, Queen of Scots and the Scottish regency, 1567-1570 /." Thesis, St Andrews, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/459.
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Long, Katya. "Security and Liberty: the Republican dilemma in the Early American Republic." Doctoral thesis, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/210320.
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A la fin du 18ème siècle, les Etats-Unis inaugurent les révolutions fondatrices ou refondatrices, directement inspirée des Lumières et ayant dialoguées par-delà l’Atlantique. La période révolutionnaire a vue une élite politique nouvelle aux prises avec la nécessité de bâtir un «ordre nouveau», c'est-à-dire de créer un gouvernement et de définir le rapport au monde de ce nouvel Etat. Cette quête a amené les acteurs politiques de la révolution à chercher un modèle politique différent de celui, dominant, des monarchies absolues. L’idée de république s’impose dès la déclaration d’indépendance. En effet, les Lumières avaient redécouvert le républicanisme qui pouvait incarner l’espoir d’un ordre politique réformé. Cependant, les républiques classiques et les exemples contemporains confirment l’idée alors partagée par tous qu’une république ne peut être qu’une petite entité politique au sein de laquelle vit une population restreinte d’hommes libres et où les différences sociales sont relativement faibles. Non seulement cette petite taille des républiques était-elle un phénomène empirique mais elle semblait être une loi d’airain. Depuis la reformulation du dilemme républicain par Machiavel, l’idée qu’une république ne puisse pas être libre et étendue faisait consensus. Cette première république moderne, fille des Lumières pacifistes, a pourtant mené une expansion quasi-continentale. Comment cette petite république à la périphérie du monde pouvait-elle réconcilier sa volonté de rompre avec les tentations hégémoniques et son désir de puissance ?Comment pouvait-elle s’étendre tout en préservant sa liberté républicaine ?Nous avons formulé l’hypothèse que la réponse à ces questions se trouve dans une redéfinition des principes et des méthodes de leur politique étrangère. Afin de minimiser les risques de corruption de la république, les acteurs de la révolution ont cherché à mettre en place une politique étrangère républicaine fondée sur les idées des Lumières. Cette hypothèse nous a mené à articuler notre travail autour de trois axes de recherche :le premier portant sur la théorie politique internationale, le second sur le débat idéologique autour de la politique étrangère et le troisième sur les institutions de prise de décision et de mise en œuvre de cette politique étrangère. Ces trois axes sont reliés par les idées qui forment la structure intellectuelle des débats entre les acteurs ainsi que les déterminants de la création institutionnelle.
C’est là le cœur de notre thèse. En faisant appel à la méthodologie originale développée par Pierre Rosanvallon, qu’il décrit comme une histoire conceptuelle du politique, nous avons tout d’abord procédé à une étude du cadre intellectuel de la révolution américaine en mettant en lumière les évolutions des concepts-clefs de la philosophie des relations internationales par une analyse de la contribution de Montesquieu à la théorie politique internationale.
La thèse porte ensuite sur les débats révolutionnaires, la tension entre les idéologies des Lumières telles qu’illustrées par la pensée de Montesquieu et le désir d’expansion territoriale ou de grandeur des acteurs de la révolution. Nous avons choisi de consacrer notre étude aux élites, non pas que nous ne considérions pas l’histoire sociale digne d’intérêt mais nous avons postulé que dans cette phase de bouleversement politique, ce sont les élites politiques qui ont joué le rôle déterminant. Enfin, la troisième partie de la thèse consiste en une étude du cadre constitutionnel, législatif et institutionnel de la politique étrangère républicaine issue de l’interaction entre la structure intellectuelle des Lumières et son interprétation par les acteurs.
Ainsi, notre analyse des idées, des acteurs et des institutions de la république américaine nous a permis de contribuer d’une part à la théorie des relations internationales en mettant en lumière les évolutions des concepts-clefs de la politique internationale au cours du 18ème siècle et d’autre part à l’histoire des idées politiques en étendant son champ aux questions internationales. Cela nous a permis également de mettre en lumière le lien étroit entre la structure idéelle, les intérêts et les stratégies des acteurs et la création des institutions politiques.
Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales
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LISTA, Giovanni. "The political thought of Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun (1653-1716)." Doctoral thesis, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/1814/53184.
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Defence date: 27 March 2018Examining Board: Prof. Martin van Gelderen, European University Institute; Prof. Ann Thomson, European University Institute; Prof. Brian Young, University of Oxford; Prof. Charles-Édouard Levillain, Université Paris Diderot
The purpose of this thesis is twofold. On the one hand, it attempts to achieve a proper contextualisation of the works of the Scottish patriot Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun (1653-1712), drawing on but going beyond the studies of pure intellectual historians and focusing on Fletcher’s political stances. In this sense, his pamphlets are considered in chronological order and singularly in their most immediate context, that is the concrete issues they addressed, following the trajectory of their reception and the way they managed to modify the ongoing debates in relation to their practical aims. What emerges is the figure of a political activist rather than a systematic thinker, whose brilliant intuitions also belonged to the realm of concrete proposals rather than to utopian speculation only. On the other, the following dissertation bridges a gap in current historiography, constituting a first comprehensive and modern monograph on Fletcher. The introductory chapter indulges on his life, including some new sources and a specific section on his personal library. Chapter two focuses on the militia debate, exploring the distinctive radicality of Fletcher’s interventions, meant for an English and a Scottish audience. The third chapter deals with the economic reforms Fletcher designed for Scotland, reading them as an expression of English political arithmetic and a viable programme. The following chapter revolves around the intertwined ideas of reason of State and commerce, which Fletcher addressed in his Italian pamphlet on the Spanish succession crisis. The following section reconstructs the usage of the natural law theories in the debate about the Darien colony and Fletcher’s attack on the rise of factions in the English parliament. The closing chapter explores Fletcher’s role in the Union debates, looking at the reception of his parliamentary proposals and at the practical aims his last attributed publication tried to attain.
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KUCK, Gerhard. "Italienische Wege zum Sozialismus : Sozialismus- und Kommunismuskonzepte im Risorgimento (1765-1857)." Doctoral thesis, 1987. http://hdl.handle.net/1814/5865.
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Rödger, Jörg-Nicolas. "The impact of national identity in Scotland on devolution." 2003. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/theses/2570.
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Horgan, Kate. "Singing to the king : the politics of songs in eighteenth-century Britain c. 1723-1795." Phd thesis, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/150039.
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This study analyses the importance of songs in British eighteenth-century culture with specific reference to their political meaning. Traditionally marginalized in accounts of the ballad and the role of the ballad in literary culture, the political song will be situated as a multivalent phenomenon. Using an interdisciplinary methodology, combining the perspectives of literary studies and cultural history and deploying a neo{u00AD}Platonic framework which highlights the utilitarian power of songs, the argument is focused on four major case-studies, covering the period 1723-1795. Its organizing theme derives from the story of the rescue of King Richard the Lionheart from imprisonment by the singing of his minstrel Blondel, which emerges in eighteenth{u00AD}century ballad and music scholarship, and again in the context of the French Revolution. The thesis traces the various manifestations of this theme as a way of establishing the interconnections between topical songs, political songs, classical songs, hymns, psalms and ballads as way of illustrating the complexity of political song culture in this period. The first case-study recovers the 'Old Whig' identity of the anonymous editor of A Collection of Old Ballads (1723-25) in an analysis of the transmission and interpretation of 'A Princely Song of Richard Cordelion', which appears in the Collection. The chapter explores the politicization of song in the scholarship of Thomas Percy and Joseph Ritson and how song registered in various forms of print culture, including newspapers in 1786 when the Richard trope re-emerged. The role of the 'Old Hundredth' psalm as a national anthem alongside 'God Save the King' forms the second case-study. The 'Old Hundredth' came from a culturally entrenched version of the psalms known as 'Sternhold and Hopkins' which were implicated in questions of literary value at the formative moment of the ballad revival, and have rarely been considered as a context for the ballad revival. These two songs were sung in the second episode of singing to the King, in 1788, in thanks for King George Ill's recovery from illness. Psalmody as political song is also implicated in the third case-study from 1789 which recovers the role of songs in the ceremonies of elite political-reform associations and the classical song tradition of the 'Harmodium Melos'. The musical imagery in Edmund Burke's The Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) and An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs (1791), is used to conceptualise the danger that songs could pose in the revolutionary context by circulating beyond the political elite to the lower orders. The final case-study examines songs in radical Sheffield and the1795 imprisonment of James Montgomery for printing a political song. Montgomery's fate is analysed as the outcome of a set of connections between the songs of the United Irishmen and the use of songs as evidence in the trial of Thomas Muir for sedition, in Scotland, and the London treason trials of 1794. The role of song in the crisis of the 1790s, the thesis argues, is not only produced by its immediate contexts, but can best be understood as part of a resonant cultural politics with a long and complex history.
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POULSEN, Frank Ejby. "A cosmopolitan republican in the French revolution : the political thought of Anacharsis Cloots." Doctoral thesis, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/1814/53164.
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Defence date: 23 March 2018Examining Board: Professor Martin van Gelderen, European University Institute (Supervisor); Professor Ann Thomson, European University Institute (Second Reader/Internal Examiner); Professor Richard Whatmore, University of Saint Andrews (External Examiner); Professor Reidar Maliks, University of Oslo (External Examiner)
Republicanism has been on scholars’ research agenda since the 1970s, and several studies on eighteenth-century French republicanism have linked it to the Atlantic republican tradition. A central question that has puzzled intellectual historians studying republicanism is how this concept considered as antiquated or only adapted to small city-states became the concept of choice for a large modern nation such as France. The works of Pocock, Skinner, and Pettit launched a vast a research programme on Atlantic republicanism as a theory of liberty understood as ‘non-domination’. Focusing on eighteenth-century France and the French revolution, historians such as Baker, Hammersley, Monnier, Spitz, Whatmore, and Wright have argued against Furet, Ozouf, Maintenant, Nicolet, and Vovelle that this republicanism existed before and during the revolution as a language of opposition based on classical Greek and Roman authors. In particular, Edelstein has shown how the two languages of republicanism and nature collided to form a ‘natural republicanism’ that pervaded during the revolution and intellectually explains the Terror. Hammersley, on the other hand, has shown how English republican texts provided answers to the fundamental question for early modern republicans: how republican institutions and practices (securing liberty) could be made workable in the context of a large nation-state? However, these studies on classical republicanism and natural republicanism have overlooked or insufficiently explained the universalist side of the language of republicanism in the French revolution: how could republicanism be made workable for the world, and how could it be argued that humankind formed a nation? This thesis provides an answer to how a ‘universal republic’ could be theorised in the French revolution by examining the writings of Anacharsis Cloots (1755–1794). It argues that Cloots was one of the leading proponents of ‘cosmopolitan republicanism’. The thesis uses Cloots’s entire corpus of works, which have been published in a three volume collection entitled OEuvres, as well as a collection of all his revolutionary writings in 'Ecrits révolutionaires'. This thesis uses Skinner’s contextualist method to present an interpretation of Cloots’s writings by setting them in their political, social, and intellectual contexts. The introduction presents a critical review of studies on Cloots from the nineteenth century to the present. Vilified or lauded, Cloots was considered a founding figure of cosmopolitanism by nineteenth-century authors, a fame that faded in the twentieth century.
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JENSEN, Mikkel Munthe. "From learned cosmopolitanism to scientific inter-nationalism : the patriotic transformation of Nordic academia and academic culture during the long eighteenth century." Doctoral thesis, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/1814/52924.
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Defence date: 21 March 2018Examining Board: Prof. Stéphane Van Damme, European University Institute; Prof. Ann Thomson, European University Institute; Prof. Howard Hotson, Oxford University; Prof. Marian Füssel, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
This dissertation is a study of Nordic academia and its relation to the growing patriotic State. The dissertation examines how, why and to what extent Nordic academia transformed with to the rise of patriotism during the long Eighteenth Century as well as what consequences this transformation had for academic citizens, their institutional and academic practices and self-conceptions. Based on a composite methodology of quantitative and qualitative approaches, the dissertation examines this transformation by studying all 592 professors at the six Nordic universities through a transnational and comparative perspective. The dissertation argues, that the State’s increased interest in and need for science and education during the eighteenth century initiated a consolidation between the State and the University, and at the same time, the rise of patriotism and its stronger focus on the natural fatherland began a nationalisation process at the universities. Through an institutional and socio-cultural examination of the Nordic universities and their professors, this dissertation, firstly, demonstrates that Nordic academia was institutionally and culturally rooted in a centuries-old pan-European academic community and also shared its learned cosmopolitan notions. Secondly, the dissertation argues that it was these notions and practices of a cosmopolitan academia that were disrupted and transformed with the rise of patriotism and State power. It argues, that the State and the University consolidated in a shared patriotic purpose of prioritising the King, Country and fellow citizens above all other considerations. This new purpose changed both the universities’ institutional and academic practices overall, as national requirements and precedences were introduced, as well as the professors’ perceived scholarly and societal role, as they were no longer seen simply as scholars of the learned world but rather as State servants of the fatherland. Consequently, this new agenda and practices disrupted the cosmopolitan nature of the old academic community.
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Cunningham, David. "“ Bold in the Senate House and Brave at War ” : Naval Officers in the House of Commons 1715 - 1815." Thesis, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/1973.
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Between 1715 and 1815, 182 British naval officers sat in the House of Commons, a group hitherto unstudied in a systematic way. This thesis draws upon the work of the History of Parliament Trust to examine naval MPs’ backgrounds, means of entering and leaving Parliament, activities in the House and the interrelationship between their professional and parliamentary obligations and patronage. By critically engaging with contemporary scholarship, naval MPs are placed within an eighteenth century context of nascent patriotism and national identity fuelled by popular culture and print media, indicating further avenues of inquiry.