{"id":181,"date":"2024-08-23T09:59:22","date_gmt":"2024-08-23T09:59:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/routledgelearning.com\/rhr-politicalhistory\/?page_id=181"},"modified":"2024-09-26T14:13:11","modified_gmt":"2024-09-26T14:13:11","slug":"movements-and-ideologies","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/routledgelearning.com\/rhr-politicalhistory\/subject-introductions\/movements-and-ideologies\/","title":{"rendered":"Movements and ideologies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Dr Kathryn Rix<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Assistant Editor, House of Commons 1832\u20131945, History of Parliament<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>From the reflections prompted by the French Revolution in the closing decades of the eighteenth century to the debates surrounding the emergence of socialism in the late nineteenth century, this was a period which saw an outpouring of pamphlets, essays, newspaper and periodical articles, books, speeches, and novels commenting on and theorising about the workings of the British political system. Some of this came from the perspective of the two major parties that dominated nineteenth-century politics \u2013 the Conservatives and the Liberals \u2013 but much of it sought to critique the existing political and constitutional framework and offer different approaches to the theory and practice of governing, from radicalism and socialism to utopianism. Philosophers such as Jeremy Bentham \u2013 the founder of modern utilitarianism \u2013 and John Stuart Mill \u2013 a major figure in the history of classical liberalism \u2013 reflected not only on political theory, but also on social and economic questions. Their theories, and those of other thinkers, helped to shape the views of many of their contemporaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>Criticism of the existing political system was not confined to the printed page, but also translated into direct action, from spontaneous outbreaks of rioting and violence to more carefully orchestrated protest movements. These were associated particularly with the working classes and were rooted both in their poor economic circumstances and their exclusion from the franchise. These forces united in the radical campaign for parliamentary reform, the cause which those killed in the Peterloo Massacre (1819) had gathered to support. Disappointed by the 1832 Reform Act, the Chartist movement made renewed demands for major changes to the electoral system in the 1830s and 1840s. While it used constitutional methods such as mass petitions to Parliament, Chartism sometimes also erupted into violence. Lobbying Parliament for change was not, however, confined to the working classes; a whole host of pressure groups emerged in the nineteenth century, such as the temperance movement which aimed to restrict the sale and consumption of alcohol. The Westminster Parliament was one in which four nations \u2013 England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland \u2013 were represented, and nationalist movements gathered pace as the long nineteenth century progressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>This Routledge Historical Resource contains a variety of primary sources and much secondary literature to further your studies of movements and ideologies. Matthew Roberts\u2019s essay on \u2018Conservatism and Liberalism\u2019 offers an overview of these political ideas in tandem with the evolution of their associated political parties, while Matthew Kidd\u2019s essay on \u2018The politics of labour: socialism and trade unionism\u2019 gives a useful introduction to the impact of socialism. Further insights into Liberalism can be found in Anthony Howe and <\/a>Simon Morgan\u2019s Rethinking Nineteenth-Century Liberalism<\/em>. The multi-volume sets <\/a>Contemporary Thought on Nineteenth Century Conservatism<\/em>, Contemporary Thought on Nineteenth Century Liberalism<\/em>, and Contemporary Thought on Nineteenth Century Socialism<\/em> contain a wide-ranging selection of primary sources, while Gregory Claeys<\/a>\u2019 <\/a>The Chartist Movement in Britain, 1838\u20131856<\/em> includes over 100 Chartist pamphlets. There are also edited collections by several of the major political thinkers and theorists of their time, including William Godwin, William Cobbett, Harriet Martineau, and John Stuart Mill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the reflections prompted by the French Revolution in the closing decades of the eighteenth century to the debates surrounding the emergence of socialism in the late nineteenth century, this was a period which saw an outpouring of pamphlets, essays, newspaper and periodical articles, books, speeches, and novels commenting on and theorising about the workings of the British political system. Some of this came from the perspective of the two major parties that dominated nineteenth-century politics \u2013 the Conservatives and the Liberals \u2013 but much of it sought to critique the existing political and constitutional framework and offer different approaches to the theory and practice of governing, from radicalism and socialism to utopianism. Philosophers such as Jeremy Bentham \u2013 the founder of modern utilitarianism \u2013 and John Stuart Mill \u2013 a major figure in the history of classical liberalism \u2013 reflected not only on political theory, but also on social and economic questions. Their theories, and those of other thinkers, helped to shape the views of many of their contemporaries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":103,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-181","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/routledgelearning.com\/rhr-politicalhistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/routledgelearning.com\/rhr-politicalhistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/routledgelearning.com\/rhr-politicalhistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/routledgelearning.com\/rhr-politicalhistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/routledgelearning.com\/rhr-politicalhistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/routledgelearning.com\/rhr-politicalhistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":252,"href":"https:\/\/routledgelearning.com\/rhr-politicalhistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/181\/revisions\/252"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/routledgelearning.com\/rhr-politicalhistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/routledgelearning.com\/rhr-politicalhistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}