The Politics of Corn Law Repeal and Theories of Commercial Policy

T. J. McKeown

British Journal of Political Science, 1989, vol. 19, issue 3, 353-380

Abstract: The large shift in voting in the House of Commons on repeal of the Corn Laws in the 1842-46 period has led many analysts to focus on the political calculus of Peel's government and on the role of ideology in shaping this policy change. While the claim that ideology was an independent source of change lacks substantiation, the claims about Peel's changing political calculus are an important part of a larger explanation for the change in voting. However, showing that Peel had his own reasons for preferring repeal is not the same as showing why Peel was successful. An analysis of the political and economic interests of constituents and Members of Parliament reveals that these interests were systematically related to Members' votes on repeal. Repeal is thus more appropriately understood as the result of the interaction of Peel's immediate objectives with a more congenial political environment that had arisen due to the changes induced by British economic development.

Date: 1989
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:bjposi:v:19:y:1989:i:03:p:353-380_00

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in British Journal of Political Science from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().