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Constitutional Change in E ngland and the Diffusion of Regulatory Initiative, 1660–1714
Author(s) -
Pettigrew William A.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.12
H-Index - 15
eISSN - 1468-229X
pISSN - 0018-2648
DOI - 10.1111/1468-229x.12073
Subject(s) - parliament , state (computer science) , deregulation , statute , monopoly , legislation , regulatory state , revenue , political science , law and economics , public administration , law , economics , business , market economy , accounting , politics , algorithm , computer science
This article places a new account of the E nglish state's changing framework for economic regulation alongside what economic historians have demonstrated about the phasing and arenas of economic growth between 1660 and 1714. It places studies of parliamentary legislation into a broader examination of the state's means of regulation (which included the privy council and parliament) and sets this account of regulatory actions against a new account of the changing ways in which petitions approached the state as a regulatory body and how the state responded to those approaches. It also offers a more textured account of the changing styles of economic regulation in this period and of the important (though neglected) role played by commercial interests groups. It argues that the executive colluded with these interests during the Restoration period to use the state to increase the scale of E ngland's overseas trade. With the rising importance of parliament after 1689 regulatory initiative diffused to either local interests which focused on infrastructure projects or trading interests bent on defeating regulating statutes in ways that would lead to deregulation as other constitutional means of regulation (especially the privy council) retreated from view. The state continued to regulate to protect manufacturing (which also provided customs revenue) and to support the monopoly of the E ast I ndia C ompany (which provided money and materiel for the wars against L ouis XIV ). As such the article offers a broader and more agile means to understand the economic connotations of constitutional change in this critical period.