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Author:   Deborah Boucoyannis (George Washington University, Washington DC)
Publisher:   Cambridge University Press
Imprint:   Cambridge University Press
Edition:   New edition
Dimensions:   Width: 16.00cm , Height: 2.70cm , Length: 23.60cm
Weight:   0.720kg
ISBN:  

9781107162792

ISBN 10:   1107162793
Pages:   400
Publication Date:   15 July 2021
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

Preface and acknowledgments; Part I. The origins of Representative Institutions: Power, Land, and Courts: 1. Introduction; 2. A theory of institutional emergence: regularity, functional fusion, and the origins of parliament; 3. Explaining institutional layering and functional fusion: the role of power; Part II. Origins of Representative Rractice: 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; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.

Reviews

'This is a book of immense and stimulating breadth, providing a powerful argument for the importance of the administration of justice as a core aspect of the emergence of representative institutions. It will challenge historians to rethink their own fields of concentration in comparative fashion and will also bring historical scholarship and perspectives to the work of social scientists.' John Hudson, Bishop Wardlaw Professor of Legal History, University of St Andrews, and L. Bates Lea Global Law Professor, University of Michigan 'Almost everything we have taken for granted about the historical sociology of constitutionalism is here shown to be wrong: the strength rather than the weakness of kings, and justice rather than taxation, did most to develop parliamentary powers. That this is so is powerfully demonstrated by exemplary comparative scholarship on western Europe on the one hand and on Russia and the Ottomans on the other. This is a masterpiece that will occasion debate, re-orient the field, and remain with us for an age.' John A. Hall, Emeritus James McGill Professor of Sociology, McGill University 'In this powerful and learned work Deborah Boucoyannis retells the story of representative institutions in Europe, challenging much existing social science scholarship in this area. Rather than concentrating only on fiscal affairs, she shows us that to understand the emergence of representation, we need to look to the administration of justice, and how, when, and where it developed. This is a fascinating and highly original piece of scholarship.' David Stasavage, Dean for the Social Sciences & Julius Silver Professor of Politics, New York University 'This is a path-breaking, inter-disciplinary, and extraordinarily ambitious book, which seeks to explain how representative institutions first emerged. Boucoyannis constructs a compelling and innovative case for the processes of justice as the critical factor shaping representative emergence, where a central authority exercised control over the nobility while obligating local communities to participate in the provision of justice, which gradually transformed into a demand for rights. Boucoyannis's grasp of both the social theory and the historical record is breath taking, and her arguments will require theorists and empiricists from various disciplines to reappraise fundamentally their interpretation of this important subject.' Mark Bailey, Professor of Late Medieval History, University of East Anglia, and James Ford Lecturer in British History, University of Oxford 'This is a brave and uniquely difficult book. Both adjectives imply warm commendation. Reading deeply into history and political theory, Dr Boucoyannis has dared to explicate a massive historical problem - the origins of western liberalism and constitutionalism - in theoretical perspectives so as virtually to reconceive a major field. For the problem she addresses is beset with a huge conceptual difficulty: how to reconcile the ever shifting pasts of human power with the more stubborn meanings of theoretical concepts: government, rights, law, representation, etc. Her novel results will repay careful study.' Thomas N. Bisson, Emeritus Henry Charles Lea Professor of Medieval History, Harvard University

'This is a book of immense and stimulating breadth, providing a powerful argument for the importance of the administration of justice as a core aspect of the emergence of representative institutions. It will challenge historians to rethink their own fields of concentration in comparative fashion and will also bring historical scholarship and perspectives to the work of social scientists.' John Hudson, Bishop Wardlaw Professor of Legal History, University of St Andrews, and L. Bates Lea Global Law Professor, University of Michigan 'Almost everything we have taken for granted about the historical sociology of constitutionalism is here shown to be wrong: the strength rather than the weakness of kings, and justice rather than taxation, did most to develop parliamentary powers. That this is so is powerfully demonstrated by exemplary comparative scholarship on western Europe on the one hand and on Russia and the Ottomans on the other. This is a masterpiece that will occasion debate, re-orient the field, and remain with us for an age.' John A. Hall, Emeritus James McGill Professor of Sociology, McGill University 'In this powerful and learned work Deborah Boucoyannis retells the story of representative institutions in Europe, challenging much existing social science scholarship in this area. Rather than concentrating only on fiscal affairs, she shows us that to understand the emergence of representation, we need to look to the administration of justice, and how, when, and where it developed. This is a fascinating and highly original piece of scholarship.' David Stasavage, Dean for the Social Sciences & Julius Silver Professor of Politics, New York University 'This is a path-breaking, inter-disciplinary, and extraordinarily ambitious book, which seeks to explain how representative institutions first emerged. It confronts the contradictions that exist in the scholarship between, on the one hand, theories within the social sciences emphasizing the pivotal role of taxation and state building and, on the other hand, the historical evidence from Europe and the Ottoman Empire over the last millennium that does not obviously support such theories. Boucoyannis constructs a compelling and innovative case for the processes of justice as the critical factor shaping representative emergence, where a central authority exercised control over the nobility while obligating local communities to participate in the provision of justice, which gradually transformed into a demand for rights. Boucoyannis's grasp of both the social theory and the historical record is breath taking, and her arguments will require theorists and empiricists from various disciplines to reappraise fundamentally their interpretation of this important subject.' Mark Bailey, Professor of Late Medieval History, University of East Anglia, and James Ford Lecturer in British History, University of Oxford

Author Information

Deborah Boucoyannis teaches Comparative Politics at George Washington University. This book is based on a dissertation that received the American Political Science Association's Ernst Haas Best Dissertation Award in European Politics and the Seymour Martin Lipset Best Dissertation Award from the Society for Comparative Research. She has published in Perspectives on Politics, Politics and Society, and other journals.

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