The people in politics: Early modern England and the Dutch Republic compared

Abstract

For too long, historians have seen the French Revolution as a watershed between a political dark age of oligarchy and absolutism, and the enlightened era of democracy that presumably started in 1789. This image was the result of the combination of three research interests that all developed since the 1960s: state formation, the social composition of elites, and riots and rebellions. The first privileged the state over local authorities, even though it was at the local level that most public services were delivered. The second implied that elites were only responsive to their own interests, and disregarded the concerns of their constituents. The third suggested that ordinary people were merely relevant as political actors on an incidental basis, during riots and rebellions, and disappeared into the background again as soon as the dust had settled.1