Recent years have seen a revival of historical interest into political corruption. Questions range from finding out what, at times, constituted corruption and when, how and why assumptions of correct public behaviour changed. In this special issue, authors investigate the occurrence of corruption and changing attitudes towards it, in Germany, the Netherlands, France and Great Britain in the long nineteenth century. Scandals of corruption are centred around the hypothesis that modernisation (bureaucratisation, democratisation and industrialisation) led to change in these countries and to a shift from early modern plurality of values to modern clashing political ideologies. Although some “old” practices undoubtedly remained, it turns out that the hypothesis largely holds true.
ForumBloodlands – eine Debatte über Massenmorde der stalinistischen Sowjetunion und NS-Deutschlands
Timothy Snyder: Das Bild ist größer, als man denkt. Eine Antwort auf manche Kritiken an Bloodlands
Corruption and the Rise of Modern Politics
Toon Kerkhoff / Ronald Kroeze / Pieter Wagenaar: Corruption and the Rise of Modern Politics in Europe in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries: A Comparison between France, the Netherlands, Germany and England. Introduction
Niels Grüne / Tom Tölle: Corruption in the Ancien Régime: Systems-theoretical Considerations on Normative Plurality
Robert Bernsee: Corruption in German Political Discourse between 1780 and 1820: A Categorisation
Christian Ebhardt: In Search of a Political Office: Railway Directors and Electoral Corruption in Britain and France, 1820–1870
Toon Kerkhoff: Changing Perceptions of Corruption in the Netherlands: From Early Modern Pluralism to Modern Coherence
Ronald Kroeze / Annika Klein: Governing the First World War in Germany and the Netherlands: Bureaucratism, Parliamentarism and Corruption Scandals