Strategies of collectiveness: representative claims in Dutch petitionary practices, c. 1600–1940

Abstract

This chapter examines the extent that petitioners in the Netherlands since the 17th century have deployed strategies that suggest ‘collectiveness’ to enhance the chances of their petitions being granted by authority. The chapter conceives of petitions as ‘representative institutions’ and, following the work of the political theorist Michael Saward, argues that petitioners chose among at least three different types of ‘representative claims’: self-representation, representation with consent, and representation without consent. Between the early 17th and the mid-20th century, there is no simple linear development towards the idea that all those who it is claimed supported a petition did actively consent as such, as we might expect given the rise of representative democracy over the period. Instead, we are presented with a more complex picture. As well as contributing to our understanding of the development of petitioning as a form of representation over four centuries, the chapter sharpens the conceptualisation of petitions as representative claims. Rather than suggesting a shift from individual, private petitioning to collective, public petitioning, which has often been central to existing scholarship, the chapter emphasises that both types could utilise similar forms of representative claim.