Democracy by default: States, elites, and the process of reform in modern Europe

This dissertation represents an attempt to open the lines of communication between the contemporary study of democracy and the political-historical analysis of state and regime formation. The European past, it is claimed, may indeed be a source of insight into the instances of democratic development seen in the world today. The key is the institutional and ideational context in which democratization occurs. Elite conflict is taken to be central to "first wave" democratization, but with the emphasis placed upon state reform in interaction with elite political ideas. Where, as in France, state reform came into direct conflict with elite privileges, and few institutional counterweights existed to monarchical authority, traditional constitutionalism encouraged the formulation of deep concerns about the extent of monarchical power in the aftermath of a successful reform. The French revolutionary process made the state 'safe' for reform, but also set the stage for a highly unstable process of democratization through at least the next century. The British elite was similarly mindful of constitutional balance, but there the structure of privilege ensconced within Parliament effected a process of state reform which reduced the threat of despotism and thus favored Britain's gradual and highly stable process democratization. On the basis of a treatment of these two national trajectories, as well as of the Prussian and some contemporary cases, the dissertation attempts to establish that it is elite conflict, under the influence of the institutional and ideational past, which can best help us to understand the timing and character of democratic change.