Abstract
This paper suggests a new approach to analyzing the causes of franchise extension. Based on a new dataset, it provides a detailed econometric study of the Great Reform Act of 1832 in the United Kingdom. The analysis yields four main results. First, modernization theory receives limited support. Second, the reform enjoyed some measure of popular support. Third, the threat of revolution had an asymmetric impact on the voting behavior of the pro-reform Whigs and the anti-reform Tories. While the threat might have convinced reluctant reformers among the Whig politicians—and among their patrons—to support the bill, it seems to have hardened the resistance to reform among the Tories. Fourth, ideology played a critical role. Nevertheless, it also appears that self-interest and political expedience explained the votes of many Members of Parliament.
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Notes
“Rotten” boroughs were also known as “nomination” or “pocket” boroughs. They were constituencies that had been created in the Middle Ages and still returned MPs in the nineteenth century, even though they had by then lost the bulk of their population. The classic example of a “rotten” borough was Old Sarum, which only numbered 11 inhabitants in 1831.
Schonhardt-Bailey (1994, 1998, 2006) adopts a similar approach in her study of the repeal of the Corn Laws as well as in her study of industrial and agricultural interests in the German Parliament during the nineteenth-century. Galor and Moav (2006) also use a comparable methodology in their study of the voting patterns of the British MPs on the 1902 Balfour Act, which suggested a reform on the English education system. See also Greene (2008), who analyzes the survival strategies of dominant parties in authoritarian regimes when they face pressures to democratize by using sample surveys of leaders from the Revolutionary Institutional Party in Mexico in the 2000s. Finally, our study is closely related to Ziblatt (2008). He studies the failed 1912 attempt to reform the voting franchise governing elections in Imperial Germany and links the voting patterns on the reform to structural characteristics of the constituencies in which the legislators were elected. In particular, he shows that landholding inequality played a major role.
The universities of Cambridge, Dublin and Oxford were self-governing bodies that returned MPs on a franchise that granted all graduates the right to vote. Cambridge and Oxford returned two MPs while the University of Dublin returned only one.
These data are collected from Namier and Brooke (1964), Stookes Smith (1973), Thorne (1986), and various editions of Dod (various years).
It must be noted that the categories are not mutually exclusive and many MPs are therefore recorded in more than one category, e.g., army officer and landowner. In our estimations, we use landowners as the control group.
The influence of the patrons was also affected by the governance structure of a constituency. In the representative boroughs or in boroughs with officials appointed at the court leet of the lord (the court leet was a local court which could try and punish by jury crimes committed within its jurisdiction and its officials who served as local justices were appointed by the local patrons), the manor patrons could be very influential. In contrast, in boroughs with a municipal corporation, which consisted of a mayor, aldermen, burgesses and other officials, there was a body that, in principle, could curb the influence of local patrons.
For some Welsh boroughs, we do not have definite information on the number of contested elections. We use these constituencies as the control group in the statistical analysis.
The census and parliamentary districts do not overlap exactly. This should be kept in mind when studying the descriptive statistics. However, this does not limit the relevance of these data for our estimations for two reasons. First, it is reasonable to assume that the economic differences between the census and parliamentary districts are not important. Second, we use these data to assess the impact of the local economic circumstances in the elections, not to infer how individual voters voted. In any case, as we discuss below, most individuals did not have the right to vote under the rules of the Unreformed Parliament.
The £10 cut-off was so high that a number of boroughs had very few voters. For example, Amersham with a population of 2612 would only have 25 £10 voters.
The bill implied a total loss of 31 seats across England and Wales.
To simplify the analysis, we assume in our estimations that Radicals and Whigs belong to the same political group (largely) in favor of reforms. In the following, we shall refer to them simply as the Whigs.
In fact, on average, the constituencies in the sample did not experience any growth in the share of employment in the industrial sector between 1821 and 1831.
Lizzeri and Persico (2004) also argue that the extension of the franchise was driven by a conflict of interest among the members of the elite, but they focus on conflicts along economic lines.
Our data record only a limited number of characteristics of the MPs. One may be worried that some of these omitted factors are correlated with characteristics that we do observe. We cannot rule this out in general, but for some omitted factors it is unlikely to be a big issue. This is, for example, the case with respect to wealth, education, and religion. All of the MPs were relatively wealthy. Nearly all of them had attended Oxford or Cambridge at a time when one had to be Anglican to attend either one of these universities because of the Test and Corporation Act. Although that law was repealed in 1828 and the Catholic Relief Act was passed in 1829 so that Catholics and Dissenters could be elected in 1830 and 1831, all English MPs in our sample were Anglican. Thus, although these factors are omitted, they are unlikely to be correlated with any of the characteristics included simply because there is little or no variation across MPs.
To the best of our knowledge, there is no reliable source on the precise number of electors in each constituency.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Omar Al-Ubaydli, Roger Congleton, Mark Gradstein, Hans Pitlik, James Robinson and David Samuels for helpful comments. Raphaël Franck gratefully acknowledges financial support from the Adar Foundation of the Economics Department at Bar Ilan University. The usual disclaimer applies.
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Aidt, T.S., Franck, R. How to get the snowball rolling and extend the franchise: voting on the Great Reform Act of 1832. Public Choice 155, 229–250 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-011-9911-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-011-9911-y