Historical Background

1
Historical Background Intro to Rational Choice
Theory

• Three historical venues
• Campaign for Ratification of the American
  Constitution, 1787-1788
• Long battle over political and economic reform in
  Victorian Britain, 1832-1885
• Drive for Confederation in Canada, 1864-1867

2
Political Economic Reform in Victorian Britain

• End of the old regime
• 1776 Loss of American Revolution
• Pulls power away from King to Parliament
  Cabinet
• 1789 French Revolution
• Creates elite resistance to radical reform (e.g.
  universal suffrage)
• 1803-1815 Napoleonic Wars
• Leaves Britain as worlds unchallenged
  superpower, but at great financial cost

3
Political Economic Reform in Victorian Britain

• Beyond these political events, great economic and
  social change
• Industrial Revolution Urbanization
• Growing and increasingly radical working class
• Shift of wealth from country to city, i.e., elite
  divisions between Tories (old, landed
  aristocracy) and Liberals/Whigs (newer, urban
  capitalists)
• Peterloo Massacre 1819, Corn Law Repeal,
  Chartism

4
Political Economic Reform in Victorian Britain

• Response is evolutionary change
• Reform Acts, 1832, 1868, 1885
• Repeal of the Corn Laws Free Trade in 1847
• Ascendancy of Cabinet Commons, 1910
• Home Rule in Ireland, 1921

5
Political Economic Reform in Victorian Britain

• The Reform Acts
• 1832 Reform Act (Representation of the People)
• modest expansion via property franchise (40s
  freeholders 10 householders)
• disenfranchisement of pocket boroughs
• 1867 Reform Act
• Significant expansion (1-2 million)
• Tenant (i.e., renters) franchise
• 1884 Reform Act
• Last step before universal manhood suffrage
• Near wholesale adoption of single-member districts

6
Political Economic Reform in Victorian Britain
Voting in Double-Member Districts
Non-partisan Plumpers
Split-Ticket Voters
7
Political Economic Reform in Victorian Britain
Trends in Split Voting, 1832-1910 Source Cox
1987
8
Political Economic Reform in Victorian Britain
Trends in Non-Partisan Plumping Voting,
1832-1910 Source Cox 1987
9
Political Economic Reform in Victorian Britain
The Decreasing Success Rate of Private Members
Bills, 1800-1900 Source Cox 1987
10
Political Economic Reform in Victorian Britain
The Nationalization of Politics and Changing
Nature of Elections, 1832-1895
11
Political Economic Reform in Victorian Britain
Figure 1. Electioneering Costs and Non-partisan
Plumping at Nineteenth Century British Elections
12
Political Economic Reform in Victorian Britain
Shifting to programmatic politics?
13
Political Economic Reform in Victorian Britain

• Institutional Changes
• Growth of parties (nationalized politics and
  disciplined MPs)
• Slow uptake of programmatic politics
• Political reform, Free Trade, and the Irish
  Question
• Cabinet dominance
• Lords as a veto player
• Refuge of landed interest, Empire and Church of
  England