Local Notables Research Articles

Revolution and State Structure: The Bureaucratization of Tax Administration in Early Modern England and France

This article explores the relationship between revolution and the bureaucratization of tax administration in early modern England and France. Revolution produces bureaucratization only when the monitoring capacity of states is developed enough to make bureaucratic organization more efficient than alternatives such as tax farming and collection by local notables. As monitoring capacity varies across types of taxes and levels of administration, states also bureaucratize at different paces and are differentially affected by revolution. This explains why the revolutions in England and France had greater effects on indirect taxes than on direct taxes and at top levels of tax administration compared to lower levels. Thus, revolution is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for bureaucratization, but it contributes to the process by sweeping away impediments to reform.

Crime and Punishment in Early Republican China: Beijing's First Model Prison, 1912-1922

Prisons today are often condemned as institutions of brutal deterrence, but they were viewed as products of benevolence and producers of goodness across the globe during most of the nineteenth and twentieth century. 1 A cathedral of modernity, the prison was embraced by local notables, county magistrates, government officials, legal experts, and political elites around the world from Paris to Rio de Janeiro and Auburn to Tokyo. Changing sensibilities towards pain, new representations of bodily integrity, humanitarian values heralded by Enlightenment thinkers, utilitarian ideas about punishment as a corrective measure, growing dissatisfaction with existing legal penalties, and revulsion at the conditions of existing jails combined towards the end of the eighteenth century in England and France to create a new conception of the prison as a total institution in which the wicked criminal could be reformed into a good citizen. While commitment to social improvement and faith in the malleable nature of humankind pervaded these early debates, the most important factor in the emergence of the prison was the political revolutions of the late eighteenth and mid-nineteenth century. During the French revolution, the fall of the Bastille symbolized the defeat of an entire ancient regime of punishment perceived to be cruel and arbitrary. A post-revolutionary mode of governance, in which legitimacy was vested in the nation rather than in a king, based its authority to punish on a code of law. Moreover, as the social hierarchies specific to traditional regimes were theoretically swept away by a new ideology of equality and fraternity, the state proclaimed a duty of care over its subjects: criminals should be punished in a humane way before being restituted to the social body. The idea of the reformative prison--producer of obedient citizens for a moral community based on the rule of law--paralleled the rise of [End Page 140] the modern state and the extension of political rights. Russia, for instance, opted for rehabilitation over corporal punishment during the era of Great Reforms, undertaking to redeem the nation's criminals in a new prison system, 2 while prison reform was embraced by the Meiji reformers in Japan after 1868. These global developments were dynamically interrelated: portraying their mission as a fight against "barbarism" and "inhumanity," prison reformers around the world operated within a comparative framework in which prison reform was seen as an indicator of a nation's "progress." The dungeon stood as an embarrassing reminder of backwardness, while the prison epitomized civilisation. Corporal punishment, arbitrary justice, and corrupt gaols were remnants of an old world, while reformed judicial systems, legal codes, and modern prisons were indicative of a new political order.

Construire leur accord. Ingénieurs des Ponts et Chaussées et paysans des îles dans l'estuaire de la Loire (XIXe-XXe siècles)

Forging Agreement. Engineers of the Ponts et Chaussées and Peasants in the Islands of the Loire River estuary 19th -20th centuries) : Whereas contemporary historiography has primarily analysed the role of the 19th century French State engineers in creating and unifying national territory, this article proposes to call our attention to their project implementation methods at the local level. Within the scope of the great channel-digging project in the Loire River estuary, the article gives an account of the complex interplay of local : actors. We discover that; far from developing relationships exclusively with local notables, the engineers needed to be on good terms with the small, peasants and forged an agreement with them that was indispensable for the continuity of the project:

Enter the dragon: China's courtship of Hong Kong, 1982–1999

From 1982, when the Chinese government first signalled its intention to take back Hong Kong, to the actual transfer of sovereignty in 1997, the PRC engaged in a long-term campaign to “win friends and influence people” in the British colony. Hoping to prevent a large-scale flight of capital and manpower, and wishing to cultivate a core group of sympathetic local notables as future political leaders, Beijing issued frequent pledges of non-interference in Hong Kong's affairs and adopted classic “united front” tactics — flattering, cajoling, and otherwise wooing potential supporters while snubbing (and sometimes smearing) outspoken critics. Despite intensely negative local reaction to the 1989 “Tiananmen Massacre”, over the long haul Beijing largely succeeded in disarming public fears of a heavyhanded Chinese takeover. Consequently, the handover itself was an extremely calm, tranquil affair. And in the first 2 years of Hong Kong's new status as a “Special Administrative Region” of China, the PRC earned generally high marks for honoring its pledge to uphold the principle of “one country, two systems”.

Escape from the Great Confinement: The Genealogy of a German Workhouse

Early in 1588, the city council of Nuremberg commissioned a blue-ribbon panel of local notables to address the perennial local problem of street begging. Since the council’s centralization of almsgiving and poor relief in 1522, all public panhandling had been considered unnecessary as well as illegal. Yet despite over sixty years of mandates and ordinances threatening fines, imprisonment, or even banishment, the practice appeared to magistrates to be actually increasing in frequency and magnitude. Among the various suggestions offered by panel members, one stands out by reason of its remarkably precocious timing. Councilman Paulus Koler commiserated with his fellow city councilors on the plague of street beggars harassing and occasionally threatening the city’s residents. He considered all previous legislation useless, however, and could not foresee that simple rewording of the same would in any way alter the outcome. Even previous surveys of beggars in the city and its suburbs “had borne little fruit,” both because of the list compilers’ ineptitude and the council’s failure to make effective use of the information. Instead Koler made the following more radical proposal: “that the council ordain a special place (for which purpose the pesthouse might be renovated) . . . and therein appoint an industrious man (who might be chosen from among the alms officials) and have an ordinance written for him [entailing] how and under what conditions he should feed the arrested beggars and children and otherwise provide for the

A Economia Moral do Recrutamento Militar no Império Brasileiro

O artigo trata da dinâmica do recrutamento militar no Brasil imperial, especialmente no período anterior à Guerra do Paraguai. Argumenta-se que, no campo da prestação militar, o Estado imperial depende de formas indiretas de governança, especialmente de liturgias dos notáveis locais. As bases morais e materiais da administração honorária impõem uma série de indisponibilidades à ação governamental, promovendo a tradução local do recrutamento. A administração honorária e as ordens de privilégio circunscrevem os limites e as possibilidades do recrutamento no Império. O artigo descreve a operação local do recrutamento como um complexo jogo em que se combinam estratégias do poder central, dos notáveis locais e dos prováveis recrutas imersos em redes de proteção.

Bad conversation? Gender and social control in a Kentish borough, c. 1450–c. 1570

The image of the nagging woman being ducked as a scold is firmly ensconced among popular images of women in the past, but the historical phenomenon of prosecutions for scolding, though it has been briefly touched on in many studies, has been the subject of only two substantial contributions, those of David Underdown and Martin Ingram. Underdown has maintained that from the 1560s there was increasing concern with scolds, which he links with the rise in witchcraft prosecutions and growing anxiety about domineering and unfaithful wives. Accepting the notion of a ‘crisis of order’ in the decades around 1600, he postulates as an aspect of this a ‘crisis in gender relations’ which he attributes to a decline in neighbourliness and social harmony resulting from the spread of capitalism. He bases his argument partly on literary sources, including plays, sermons and popular pamphlets (though conceding that literary evidence is not conclusive and that the misogynistic tradition in literature is a long one) and partly on a somewhat impressionistic survey of court records from around 1560 to around 1640. This period, he claims, witnessed an intense preoccupation with women perceived as threatening the patriarchal order, manifested by greater numbers of prosecutions of scolds and other disorderly women than in the preceding and subsequent periods, and by more severe punishments, notably the cucking-stool. Women accused as scolds, he maintains, were usually poor, widows, newcomers, social outcasts or ‘those lacking the protection of a family’, and were likely to vent their frustration on local notables as the nearest symbols of authority. He suggests that both the prosecution of scolds and their punishment by ducking were more common in towns and wood-pasture villages than in arable areas (such as that around Fordwich in Kent, the borough we will be looking at); however, he admits that rural records have survived less well than urban, and gives no quantified evidence for the alleged lenience of the authorities in arable villages towards ‘disorderly’ women.

Clientèles Royales et Clientèles Seigneuriales Vers la fin de L'ancien Régime Un dossier espagnol

Les processus de centralisation étatique bénéficient actuellement d'un regain d'intérêt de la part de la recherche, qui remet cependant en cause les paradigmes traditionnels de l'histoire de l'« Etat moderne », centrée sur les réussites et les échecs de l'action des gouvernants, la création d'institutions nouvelles et l'émergence de bureaucraties étatiques. Les approches actuelles revalorisent, certes, l'étude des phénomènes politiques mais font ii des séparations établies entre le politique et le social. Au lieu d'adopter la perspective unidimensionnelle d'une pénétration des périphéries par l'État, elles étudient les interactions complexes entre les pouvoirs locaux et une multiplicité de pouvoirs supérieurs, obéissant eux-mêmes à des normes souvent très différentes de celles de l'idéal type wébérien de l'État souverain en tant que détenteur du monopole de la violence légitime. Cette réorientation va donc au-delà de l'analyse des « limites de l'absolutisme » et des résistances plus ou moins efficaces qui s'y opposaient, telles qu'elles furent mises en lumière depuis les années 1960.

Too Little, Too Late: The Politics of Local Complacency

: Contemporary regime analysis has increasingly taken on a comparative dimension. Bristol, England, illustrates the politics of regime building and, in a traditionally conservative and affluent city, the attenuated processes of interest coalescence. The discussion illustrates the susceptibility of an emergent English regime to external forces: a changing economic environment, the weakening of traditional authority, the oppressive nature of central/local relations, and the imposition of formalized competition for resources. Regime formation in England has taken place within the context of the transfer of power from local democratic government to less accountable forms of local governance. The presence of a “new magistracy” in urban governance (analogous to the local notables of traditional community power), together with the institutionalization of interurban competition, gives a distinct English flavor to the growing literature on European regime formation and offers an explanation for the belated emergence of a new urban regime in Bristol.

Economic Aspects of the Viceregal Entrance in Mexico City

On November 4, 1640, a ship two months out of Cádiz entered the harbor of Veracruz and dropped anchor opposite the fortress of San Juan de Ulúa. On board was the new Viceroy of the Kingdom of New Spain, the Duque de Escalona, Diego López Pacheco. The viceroy’s arrival in Veracruz was but the first act in the elaborate drama of colonial government. Escalona and his party tarried in the port, passing the time inspecting the king’s troops and fortifications while they recuperated from the crossing and prepared for the journey to Mexico City. Accompanied by a mounted escort, gentlemen from the towns and cities of New Spain, a retinue of priests, servants and relatives, a herd of sheep, cattle, and other livestock, and by a baggage train carrying the stores of food and wines he brought with him from Spain, the viceroy would climb from sea level to the central meseta of New Spain, an ascent of nearly 8000 feet. The trip to Mexico City was a time for introductions, feasts, toasts, and pageants; but, it was also a time for politics, as the local notables, merchants, and government officials who accompanied the viceroy’s party vied for a favorable processional position and attempted to arrange a place at court for themselves, their relatives, and clients. Each village or town through which the viceroy passed would welcome him according to local custom and means. In larger towns like Puebla, this meant sumptuous entertainment, a procession to the cathedral followed by a reception and banquet. The viceroy could expect a more humble, but no less colorful reception when he passed through one of the dozens of smaller Indian communities along the route.

Bringing the Countryside Back In: A Case Study of Military Intervention as State Building in the Brazilian Old Republic

AbstractBrazil's Contestado Rebellion (1912–1916) pitted 20,000 millenarian rebels against two-thirds of the Brazilian army. A major event in the consolidation of the Brazilian Republic, it serves as an important case study of the dynamics of central state intervention in the Brazilian hinterland. Local notables took advantage of a new, unprecedented central state presence to press for advantages in their local struggles. At the same time, officer experiences during the rebellion led them to question the institutional arrangements that they felt produced the conflict. The result was a new officer push for a nationalist, central state intervention during the Republic.

タンズィマート改革期におけるトルコ農村社会

In the present paper, the author analyzes the local administrative and tax reforms during the Tanzimat period (1839-1876) in relation to the Land Law Revisions, in order to understand the problems posed for Turkish rural society at the time. In the present paper, the Land Law Revisions means the 1858 Land Law and the process of codifications and revisions.The aim of the Tanzimat reform movement of the Ottoman Empire was to establish a “modern” state based on the rule of law. Prior to the reform movement, Turkish rural society can be characterized as existing in a state of weakening central control and controlled by local notables (â'yâns) acquiring de facto private ownership of land through tax farming contracts and the management of large scale farms known as çiftliks. Thus the local notables gained control over local political affairs. Therefore, the objective of the Tanzimat reforms was +o regain state control over rural society by rebuilding a centralized state order.Research concerning the administrative and tax reforms during the Tanzimat period has been dominated by institutional historical approaches, while the perspective of the land problem in relation to the agrarian society has been virtually ignored. On the other hand, studies concerning the Land Law Revisions from the perspective of legal history have been conducted by Ö. L. Barkan and H. Cin. The only research to date concerning the direct effects of the Tanzimat reforms on agrarian society has been conducted by H. Inalcik, who dealt primarily with the early period of the Tanzimat reforms, and thus provides minimal or no analysis of the actual influences of the post-1850 reforms and the Land Law Revisions on the rural society.Concerning the process of implementation of the Land Law Revisions, Y. Nagata has stressed the necessity of analyzing the political and socio-economic struggles over landownership among the central government, local notables and rural population in relation to the Ottoman Empire opening up to the penetration of the international economy. Thus with consideration to the above mentioned factors, the author focuses, in the present paper, on the interests and roles played by the above three parties in a discussion of the concrete points of dispute: namely, the strengthening of control over state land (mîrî), and a policy to standardize the âsâr tithe and later temporarily increase the rate.From this perspective, the author is able to show that these two attempts are very closely related not only to the Land Law Revisions, but also to the Tanzimat administrative and tax reforms. In concrete terms, firstly, the government, in order to regain control of rural society and rebuild a centralized state organization, aimed at strengthening its control over mîrî through the regional administrative mechanism. In the Title deed Act of 1859, we find detailed terms concerning the registration of land titles, which clealy illustrates an attempt to legitimize the holdings and the use of mîrî.Secondly, the author demonstrates that the Tanzimat tax reforms were implemented with the express purpose of guaranteeing land tax revenues as the largest source of funding for the entire reform process. After abolishing most of the traditional taxes, the government standardized the âsâr tithe at a rate of 10% for the whole country. Furthermore in 1867, in return for recognizing an enlarged inheritance rights of personal holding of the mîrî, the government temporarily attempted to increase the âsâr tithe. In other words, the firm establishment of both centralized control over mîrî in rural society and the âsâr tithe as an important source of revenue for impoverished public coff

Villes et institutions scientifiques. Genèse des pôles scientifiques français

Cities and scientific institutions. The genesis of French scientific centres French scientific institutions are part of urban history. The author points out three major successive periods during the rise of the university over two centuries. First, under the Empire, the academic community's concentration in Paris was reduced when faculties were created in the provinces. When the Third Republic was created, higher education was decentralized due to enthusiasm for reforms and the support of local notables. Since World War II, national town and country planning policies have been added to local needs, creating a new geography of science centered around metropolitan areas.

Liberal policy and the control of public order in western Sicily 1860–1862

AbstractThis article is concerned with explanations of the failure of stateformation and nation building in liberal Italy, and concentrates on attempts to integrate western Sicily into the new political framework. The marxist account of this process has emphasized the extent of peasant revolt against the new state, and its brutal repression. Unification, it is argued, failed because it was based on coercion and domination rather than on leadership by popular consent. The present article suggests that this explanation is incomplete as it ignores the behaviour and attitude of local elites within western Sicily. The dominance of local affairs by such groups was challenged by the advent of a modern centralizing state. The article uses records from this period to show that many local notables frustrated government efforts to set up new town councils, new police forces and a liberal judicial system. This kind of resistance was far more difficult to overcome than popular revolt, because it could (and did) challenge the whole basis of centralized liberal rule. The article also looks at the military repression of the 1860s and argues that it too was undermined by the opposition of local elites. An additional reason, therefore, for the failure of unification after 1860 may be the new state's lack of appeal among its supposed class allies.

Social mobility in Qajar Iran: Haj Muhammad Hassan Amin al‐Zarb

(1990). Social mobility in Qajar Iran: Haj Muhammad Hassan Amin al‐Zarb. Middle Eastern Studies: Vol. 26, No. 4, pp. 582-595.

The Public Face of Royal Ritual: Sermons, Medals, and Civic Ceremony in Later Stuart Coronations

The coronations of kings have always been occasions of solemn ritual and ceremony; they have been as well, in most cases, the occasion of public rejoicing and festivity. The coronations of the Stuart rulers of England were no exception. There were the ceremonies in Westminster Abbey, attended by the great and mighty of the kingdom and such foreign dignitaries as might come themselves or send their ambassadors. And there were public ceremonies too. In accordance with a custom established early in English history, after preliminary ritual in Westminster Hall, the monarch passed in grand procession to his coronation in the Abbey. In 1377, on the day before his crowning, young King Richard II rode in state through London from the Tower to the Palace of Westminster; pageants, music, recitations, and his subjects' shouts of acclaim marked the king's progress. A new custom was added. Following the rites in the Abbey, all London celebrated with bonfires, bell ringing, and general merrymaking while the newly crowned monarch and his court dined sumptuously in Westminster Hall. Away from the capital, in villages and towns across England, the happy day was marked by civic salutes, speeches, and parades and, for the local notables, feasting. In the later seventeenth century, when printed and illustrated accounts of the events of the glorious day were made available for public sale, even those living in the most distant and isolated parts of the kingdom could share indirectly in the splendor of the great occasion.' The ceremonies marking the crowning of a king, or queen, were, over the course

Afghanistan : Modèles anthropologiques et pacification

Olivier Roy, Afghanistan: anthropological models and pacification. The policy of pacification, waged in Afghanistan from 1980 to 1988, by the Kabul government and by the KGB, relied on an accurate, but not publicized, anthropological model, which contradicted the published analyses made by Soviet scholars, who were making use of the official ртe-peresiroika anthropological concepts. The official model relied on a substantial ist concept of ethnic group and tribe, whereas the real practice of pacification was adapted to the flexibility of the identities and of the power game among the local notables.

Burundi: Social Sciences Facing Ethnic Violence

With two colleagues, MM. Andre Guichaoua and Gabriel Le Jeune, a sociologist and an historian, who had also worked in Burundi for many years, I was able to carry out a survey at Ntega and Marangara in mid-September 1988. We did not only meet with the local notables, but also mostly with simple people who were freely consulted in the absence of any representative of the civil or military authorities. They were: -On the one hand, Tutsi peasants who had run away from the slaughters organized against them by Hutu groups on August 14 to 17 and who then were gathered in sheltering camps located in small commercial centers;

Hierarchy and the search for social equality at the French constituant assembly, 1789–1791

If the greatest grief expressed by the Third Estate deputies as they arrived in Versailles in the Spring of 1789 concerned ‘inequality’, was the contrary really what they sought? A country ridden by inequalities of all sorts (administrative, fiscal, economic, judicial), France was far from ever having seriously considered a democratic form of life. ‘Diversity’ is the name Fernand Braudel gives the first chapter of his book, L’ldentitk de la France, due chiefly to the wide geographical area covered by the country from North to South. This territory allows for the many existing micro-economies which the Ancien Regime had not been able to unify. Braudel writes: ‘The Ancien Regime had inherited from the past, pell-mell, disorganization, confusion, institutional variety, administrative incoherence, and often impotence.‘* Glancing at town life, even there Braudel sees each village with its own particular structure, all the ‘theatre of a struggle between several powers’ (communal, seigniorial, royal), each trying to overrule the other. Everywhere ‘above the masses of workers without specialization, above the organization of trade guilds, there is a hierarchy headed by the local elite, no matter who they l~.‘~ It is these elites who come to Versailles: elected in the 445 bailiwicks of France they were the local notables chosen to represent the Third Estate. About threequarters of them were lawyers or holders of royal offices: honourable positions, well esteemed by the majority of voters. Of one accord, they all claim the vote by head which they were expecting to obtain ever since the end of 1788 when the government, under Necker, had proclaimed the doubling of the Third Estate. During the long discussions which took place in May-June 1789, two ways of thinking became apparent: those who attacked the Privileged Orders from below, demanding as their natural rights that reform be pushed through (i.e. the vote by head and the union of the three estates in the National Assembly): LeChapelier, Mirabeau, Rabaut de Saint Etienne, Sieyh. The others wished to persuade the Privileged Orders to give in to their requests on a conciliatory basis (Bergasse, Malouet, Mounier). However, no matter which tactics were given preference, all deputies agreed to hold their meetings with the utmost of legal precautions: no pro&-verbal, no official reporting, no formal procedures which could signify that they were meeting officially as the Third Estate. Fear of reprisals on the part of the government and the forces of order was one reason for their cautious attitude. The king might follow the advice of those who advocated strong measures to keep the revolution at distance. However, an equally strong reason (despite the attitude of the Breton deputies) was to obtain

Curé rouge ou légende noire ? Jean-François Carion, une figure emblématique du prêtre révolutionnaire en Sud-Morvan.

The parish priest of Issy l'Evêque on the eve of the Revolution, J.F. Carion acquired a renown that spread well beyond the town limits during the revolution: this was due to the echos of the campaign he carried on in favor of the tenant farmers and against their landlords as early as 1789 at the cahiers de doléances and during the following years until 1794; he was also known for the means used by this priest and village mayor, turned curé rouge, all through the Revolution in order to carry on his struggle against the local authorities. This earned him a stay in a Paris prison as ealy as 1790; he was troubled by the police on several occasions. Some denounced him as a brutal and abusive agent of village democracy while others, Robespierre and the Jacobins in particular stood up for him. Father of a line of local notables, he is mentioned by the local historiography of the nineteenth century with cautious discretion until Taine gave form to the view of Carion as a fanatical advocate of agrarian reform. From Aulard to Lefebvre it has been difficult for Jacobin historiography to disengage itself from well-known clichés but Albert Soboul began revising our knowledge of Carion and this article carrys this revision further.