书名: Public Debt and the Birth of the Democratic State: France and Great Britain 1688-1789 (Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions)
作者: David Stasavage (Author)
出版社: Cambridge University Press (April 28, 2003)
语言: English
ISBN-10: 0521809673
ISBN-13: 978-0521809672
Book Description
This book develops new theory about the link between debt and democracy and applies it to a classic historical comparison: Great Britain in the eighteenth century which had strong representative institutions and sound public finance vs. ancient regime France, which had neither. The book argues that whether representative institutions improve commitment depends on the opportunities for government creditors to form new coalitions with other social groups, more likely to occur when a society is divided across multiple political cleavages. It then presents historical evidence to show that improved access to finance in Great Britain after 1688 had as much to do with the development of the Whig Party as with constitutional changes. In France, it is suggested that the balance of partisan forces made it unlikely that an early adoption of 'English-style' institutions would have improved credibility.
Review
"...offers a new approach to the subject. (Stasavage) is therefore able to buttress by his economic models the arguments previously advanced by historians to explain Britain's success and France's failure to develop an effective system of public credit in the eighteenth century. This makes his work of considerable value to those historians who have relied upon traditional approaches to these important questions." -- H.T. Dickinson, The International History Review
"Succinct and lucidly written, Public Debt and the Birth of the Democratic State is both a splendid introduction to a complex literature and a highly original contribution that is bound to generate new research and debate...His central discovery, that a regime's financial credibility depends as much on partisan politics as on institutions, can only enrich our understanding of the rise of the modern state." -- H-France Book Reviews
"...stimulating...based upon extensive reading in the secondary historical literature, and it raises some fundamental questions about our understanding of the eighteenth-century state." -- European History Quarterly
"Can readers assume that an estates general would have declared a bankruptcy in 1715 merely because St. Simon thought it should? And how far are we carried by the conclusion that French 'political instability' in 1789 'seems to have been linked to the absence of a stable majority based on moderate policies'? These and other issues suggest the difficulty of construing a distant past to propose timeless answers--reason enough for providing Stasavage's book to graduate students and faculty." -- Choice
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作者: David Stasavage (Author)
出版社: Cambridge University Press (April 28, 2003)
语言: English
ISBN-10: 0521809673
ISBN-13: 978-0521809672
Book Description
This book develops new theory about the link between debt and democracy and applies it to a classic historical comparison: Great Britain in the eighteenth century which had strong representative institutions and sound public finance vs. ancient regime France, which had neither. The book argues that whether representative institutions improve commitment depends on the opportunities for government creditors to form new coalitions with other social groups, more likely to occur when a society is divided across multiple political cleavages. It then presents historical evidence to show that improved access to finance in Great Britain after 1688 had as much to do with the development of the Whig Party as with constitutional changes. In France, it is suggested that the balance of partisan forces made it unlikely that an early adoption of 'English-style' institutions would have improved credibility.
Review
"...offers a new approach to the subject. (Stasavage) is therefore able to buttress by his economic models the arguments previously advanced by historians to explain Britain's success and France's failure to develop an effective system of public credit in the eighteenth century. This makes his work of considerable value to those historians who have relied upon traditional approaches to these important questions." -- H.T. Dickinson, The International History Review
"Succinct and lucidly written, Public Debt and the Birth of the Democratic State is both a splendid introduction to a complex literature and a highly original contribution that is bound to generate new research and debate...His central discovery, that a regime's financial credibility depends as much on partisan politics as on institutions, can only enrich our understanding of the rise of the modern state." -- H-France Book Reviews
"...stimulating...based upon extensive reading in the secondary historical literature, and it raises some fundamental questions about our understanding of the eighteenth-century state." -- European History Quarterly
"Can readers assume that an estates general would have declared a bankruptcy in 1715 merely because St. Simon thought it should? And how far are we carried by the conclusion that French 'political instability' in 1789 'seems to have been linked to the absence of a stable majority based on moderate policies'? These and other issues suggest the difficulty of construing a distant past to propose timeless answers--reason enough for providing Stasavage's book to graduate students and faculty." -- Choice
[thread=11850]论坛相关讨论主题[/thread]
