Voluntary Associations and Political Participation
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Maartje Janse [1]
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[1] University of Leiden
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- Localización: Popular Agency and Politicisation in Nineteenth-Century Europe: Beyond the Vote / Oriol Luján Feliu (ed. lit.), Diego Palacios Cerezales (ed. lit.), 2023, ISBN 978-3-031-13519-4, págs. 193-211
- Idioma: inglés
- Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
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Resumen
Voluntary associations played a role in processes of politicisation that are visible in Europe in the nineteenth century. This is not in itself a new insight, but we lack a good understanding of how and why this was the case. In this chapter I reflect on various ways in which associational life broadened popular participation as well as people’s understandings of politics between 1820 and 1860. Middle-class reformers of all sorts and stripes played an important role in reinventing voluntary associations as tools for political pressure. Using examples from such organisations as the Irish Catholic Association and British anti-slavery societies in the 1820s, and from a Dutch temperance society in the 1840s and 1850s, it will become clear that mass organisation in politics could be very attractive, and was sometimes successful.
