Early modern state formation or gute Policey? The good order of the community

TY - JOUR

T1 - Early modern state formation or gute Policey? The good order of the community

AU - Romein, C. A.

PY - 2022/11/2

Y1 - 2022/11/2

N2 - This review article focuses on how gute Policey helps us understand the organisation of early modern communities–and their governments. The practice of gute Policey–or good order of the community–became visible through legislation (normative texts), while many contemporary academics and lawyers wrote theoretical texts about it. The field is well-known within German research, but it seems hardly known within the Anglophone world due to a preoccupation with state-building/ formation. This article discusses the mainstream interpretations of why governments created more and more legislation: increased control, implementation and communalism–and the resulting negotiated vision.

AB - This review article focuses on how gute Policey helps us understand the organisation of early modern communities–and their governments. The practice of gute Policey–or good order of the community–became visible through legislation (normative texts), while many contemporary academics and lawyers wrote theoretical texts about it. The field is well-known within German research, but it seems hardly known within the Anglophone world due to a preoccupation with state-building/ formation. This article discusses the mainstream interpretations of why governments created more and more legislation: increased control, implementation and communalism–and the resulting negotiated vision.

U2 - 10.1080/0268117x.2022.2111339

DO - 10.1080/0268117x.2022.2111339

M3 - Article

SN - 2050-4616

SP - 1031

EP - 1056

JO - The Seventeenth Century

JF - The Seventeenth Century

ER -