Parliamentarism in Northern and East-Central Europe in the Long Eighteenth Century

Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
List of contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction: parliamentarism in the age of absolutism
	Riksdag, sejm and diaeta
	Ideas and motivations
	The later decades
	Lessons, further questions and chances for progress
Comparing representative institutions: the historiography and the challenges
	A grand theory
	The representativity of privileged estates
	New lines of thought: quantification and prosopography
	An activity index
	Towards a general framework
PART I: Institutions and political machineries
	1 The peasant estate of Sweden: its rise and early modern evolution
		The prominence of freeholders
		Local/regional significance
		Military significance (1434–1682)
		Political usefulness and increasing independence (1560–1682)
		Comparison with Denmark
		The estate of the peasants during the Age of Greatness (1617–1718)
		The estate of the peasants during the Age of Liberty (1719–1772)
		Concluding remarks
	2 The ‘common good’ or the particularism of the nobility? The political system of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the first half of the eighteenth century
		Introduction
		General assumptions governing the political system of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the first half of the eighteenth century
		Main organs of political power in the eighteenth-century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: the sejm
		The main organs of political power in the eighteenth-century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: the senate
		The main organs of political power in the eighteenth-century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: sejmiki
		The main organs of political power in the eighteenth-century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: the king
		The main organs of political power in the eighteenth-century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: confederations
		Final remarks
	3 Instruments of conviction in the political culture of eighteenth-century Hungary
		The preparations for the Pragmatica Sanctio
		The passage of the Pragmatica Sanctio in Hungary – ‘arranged spontaneity’
		Efforts at reform: ‘harmful novelties’ or attempts at modernisation?
		Summary
	4 The estates in the middle: populist absolutism and constitutionalism in early modern Swedish politics
		The populist option
		State-of-the-art state-building
		Aristocratic constitutionalism
		Commoner constitutionalism?
		Queen Christina as King Lear
		Peace and war: the trajectory of Caroline absolutism
		Give peace a chance: the forbidden assembly and the Great Northern War
		The commoner founding fathers
		The peasantry’s grievances
		The centre holds
		Cooperating organizations
		Conclusion and discussion
PART II: Concepts and motivations
	5 From confession to constitution: the motivation of the Hungarian political elite in the middle of the eighteenth century
		Eighteenth-century Hungary and the generative model
		Motivation
		Career paths
		A chronology
	6 Maria Theresa’s monarchy: between inheritable merit and remunerable loyalty
		Whose meritocracy?
		An omnipresent discourse on merits
		The Order of St. Stephen and the petitioning strategies of merited subjects
		In search of balance
	7 Political ambition: the concept in Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws and its reception in Hungary (1748–1848)
		Introduction
		The early reception of Montesquieu in Hungary
		‘The Soul of the Laws’: the 1833 translation in context
		Montesquieu within the knowledge infrastructure of liberal improvement
		Ambition in the political discourse of Reform Era Hungary
		Conclusion
	8 Domicilium libertatis or a threat to liberty? Eighteenth-century discussions on the role and place of the sejm within the system of government of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
		“An assembly of the Commonwealth”
		“One absolute mistress, the sejm”
		Domicilium libertatis
		“Of whom are the councils of state in the Commonwealth formed?”
		“Not by their own power…”
		“Depriving the nation of liberty”?
		Conclusion
PART III: The eclipse, revival and transformation of estates’ politics
	9 The growth of political instability and the royal coup in Sweden, c. 1760–1780
		The foundations for political stability
		The crisis of the 1760s
		Political stability and instability in Sweden
	10 Pragmatism triumphant: Hungary’s political culture in the age of the French Revolution
		The political climate in early 1790
		The diet at its opening
		Assertive estates: the first phase of the diet
		Resurgent crown: the second phase of the diet
		The question of religion: the third phase of the diet
		Conclusion
	11 Role perception in the first modern Hungarian parliament, 1848–1849
		A constitutional turn and a new political system
		The parliament of popular representation
		Representatives on their own role
		Parliament under changing political conditions
		Afterword
Index