Introduction: petitions and petitioning in historical perspective

Abstract

This introduction charts the growth of a vibrant but fragmented field of research on petitions and petitioning across a wide range of different chronological and geographical contexts. The development of this literature has various causes, including dissatisfaction with established narratives regarding the 'rise' of democracy prompting an examination of non-electoral political practices; the emergence of e-petitions in the 21st century; and petitions’ utility for recovering the voices of groups – such as women, colonised or indigenous peoples, or refugees – marginalised within the official historical record. Mirroring the book’s structure, the introduction considers definition, chronology, and impact in turn. In defining petitions as a genre, it outlines various typologies before analysing the key elements that have historically characterised petitions. Petitioning’s history over the longue durée, it suggests, includes moments of transformation and rapid change mapping onto a broader story of social and political modernisation, but these exist alongside deep continuities that remain remarkably stable across long periods and regime changes. Finally, petitions have mattered, regardless of specific successes or failures, because of their many uses for both petitioners and authority. In particular contexts, petitioning has had the potential, sometimes realised, to catalyse sudden, unpredictable upheavals in politics, society, and the state.