BGHS

Felix Saurbier

Political Corruption in the Early Modern Period: Practices and Discourses in England and Germany Compared (1550-1750/1800)

The project examines terms, debates and conflicts in the field of political corruption and their relevance to criticism and the legitimisation of authority. The underlying concept stresses the attribution of deviant behaviour to political actors in terms of illegitimately receiving and granting benefits. It analyses how such phenomena were assimilated semantically, reflected normatively and included in the governance-related discourses of England and Germany. It asks whether the fact that people discussed covert influences increased the possibility of addressing such practices. And if so, did it also increase the possibility of political participation by incorporating problems of governance into a broader discourse? The project is divided into two sub-projects focusing on historical discourses (I.) and on practices (II.). On the one hand, common vocabularies are identified (I.1 lexical inventory) and the coverage of corrupt practices by political theorists is surveyed (I.2 contextualisation of political thought). On the other hand, the expansion of ideas of corruption into lawmaking (II.1 normative regulation) and the function of corruption-related vocabularies and norms in situations of intense political communication (II.2 practices of communication) are brought into focus.