Kinship networks, local government, and elections in a town in southwest Germany, 1800-1860

Journal of Family History

Volumn 30, Issue 4, 2005, Pages 347-365

  Lipp, Carola ^a,b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF GÖTTINGEN   (Germany)

^b Institut für Kulturanthropologie Europäische Ethnologie   (Germany)

Author keywords

Constitutionalism; Early constitutionalism; Elite; Germany; Kinship; Local elite; Political culture; Social network analysis; Social networks

Indexed keywords

EID: 25444524832     PISSN: 03631990     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0363199005278726     Document Type: Review

References (59)

1. My thanks go to my coresearchers at the University of Göttingen: Astrid Reinecke, MA (Kleio-Database), Martin Irmer (SPSS), Christina Lubinski, MA (Graphs). The network analysis was done by Holger Flier, University of Cologne (working with Prof. Michael Jünger in Computational Sciences).
2. Andrejs Plakans, Kinship in the Past. An Anthropology of European Family Life 1500-1900 (Oxford, 1984).
3. It was David Schneider with his famous study on American kinship who emphasized the "meaning" of kinship in opposition to the traditional method of genealogical reconstruction practiced in social and cultural anthropology. David M. Schneider, American Kinship. A Cultural Account. (Englewood Cliffs, 1968; 2nd ed., 1980).
4. See also David M. Schneider, A Critique of the Study of Kinship (Ann Arbor, 1984).
5. For example, Jack Goody, ed., Family and Inheritance: Rural Society in Western Europe, 1200-1800 (Cambridge, 1976);
6. Giovanni Levi, "Family and Kin - A Few Thoughts," Journal of Family History 15 (1990):567-578;
7. David Warren Sabean, Property, Production and Family in Neckarhausen, 1700-1870 (Cambridge, 1990);
8. Peter P. Schweitzer, ed., Dividends of Kinship: Meanings and Uses of Social Relatedness (London, 2000).
9. Carles Salazar, "Primordial Obligations: An Exploration of the Moral Basis of Western Kinship Systems." Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Europe (2004): 16-23.
10. Graham Allan, "Sibling Solidarity," Journal of Marriage and the Family (1977): 177-184, here p. 177.
11. Gottlob Friedrich Stump, Übersicht der Rechte und Pflichten des württembergischen Staats- und Gemeindebürgers. Stuttgart 1824 und Gemeindeverfassung: Verwaltungsedikt für die Gemeinden Oberämter und Stiftungen (Stuttgart, 1822).
12. David Warren Sabean, Kinship in Neckarhausen, 1700-1870. (Cambridge, 1997), 51;
13. Barbara Rajkay, Verflechtung und Entflechtung: Sozialer Wandel in einer bikonfessionellen Stadt, Oettingen 1560-1806 (Augsburg, 1999), 55f.
14. See Carola Lipp and Lothar Krempel, "Petitions and the Social Context of Political Mobilization in the Revolution of 1848/49: A Microhistorical Actor Centered Network Analysis," in Petitions in Social History, Lex Heerma van Voss, ed.; Special Issue of International Review of Social History Supplement, No. 9 (Cambridge, 2001), 151-170;
15. Carola Lipp, Culture et mobilisation politiques en période de révolution. L'exemple du mouvement petitionnaire d'Esslingen de 1848/49, Revue d'histoire du XIXe siècle: 1848 - Nouveaux regards, (1997), 49-65.
16. Peter P. Schweitzer, ed., Dividends of Kinship: Meanings and Uses of Social Relatedness (London, 2000), introduction, 14.
17. Janet Carsten, ed., Cultures of Relatedness: New Approaches to the Study of Kinship (Cambridge, 2000), introduction, pp. 1-36.
18. Allan, Sibling Solidarity, 183.
19. See Carola Lipp, Zum Zusammenhang von lokaler Politik, Vereinswesen und Petitionsbewegung in der Revolution 1848/49: Eine Mikrostudie zu politischen Netzwerken und Formen der Massenmobilisierung in der politischen Kultur der Revolutionsjahre, Esslinger Studien, 36 (1997): 211-269;
20. Carola Lipp: "Political and Revolutionary Culture in a German Town 1830-1850: A Prosopographical Approach" History & Computing 12 (2000): 71-81.
21. Verwaltungsedikt für die Gemeinden, Oberämter und Stiftungen, (Stuttgart, 1822).
22. David Warren Sabean, "Social Background to Vetterleswirtschaft: Kinship in Neckarhausen," in Rudolf Vierhaus, ed., Frühe Neuzeit - frühe Moderne? (Göttingen, 1992), 11-132;
23. Sabean, "Kinship in Neckarhausen," 1998, p. 45f.
24. Wolfgang Reinhard, Oligarchische Verflechtung und Konfession in oberdeutschen Städten, in Antoni Maczak, ed. Klientelsysteme im Europa der frühen Neuzeit, (München, 1988), 47ff;
25. Wolfgang Schütze, Oligarchische Verflechtung und Konfession in der Reichsstadt Ravensburg, 1551-1648: Untersuchungen zur sozialen Verflechtung der politischen Führungsschichten, (Augsburg, 1981);
26. Katarina Sieh-Burens, Oligarchie, Konfession und Politik im 16. Jahrhundert: Zur sozialen Verflechtung der Augsburger Bürgermeister und Stadtpfleger, 1518-1648 (Augsburg, 1985);
27. Peter Steuer, Die Außenverflechtung der Augsburger Oligarchie von 1500-1620: Studien zur sozialen Verflechtung der politischen Führungsschicht der Reichstadt Augsburg, (Augsburg 1988);
28. Jürgen Nemitz, Die direkten Steuern der Stadt Regensburg: Abgaben und Stadtverfassung vom 17. bis zum frühen 19. Jahrhundert, (München, 2000).
29. Johann Jakob Moser, Von der Reichs-Stättischen Regiments-Verfassung (Frankfurt/Leipzig, 1772), 293.
30. See also Volker Press, Die Reichsstadt in der altständischen Gesellschaft, in Johannes Kunisch (ed.), Neue Studien zur frühneuzeitlichen Reichsgeschichte (Berlin, 1987), 9-42;
31. see also Frank Möller, Bürgerliche Herrschaft in Augsburg 1790-1880 (München, 1998).
32. Mayors were appointed by Wuerttembergian government but chosen from three candidates who were elected by the local citizens.
33. Those unspoken rules can be found in Swiss voting rituals until nowadays, for example, in the Swiss communities ("Landsgemeinden") in Appenzell, and Außerrhoden. See John Bendix, Brauchtum und Politik: Die Landsgemeinde Appenzell Außenrhoden (Urnäsch, 1993), 84.
34. Pierre Bourdieu, Sozialer Raum und 〈Klassen〉: Leçon sur la leçon (Frankfurt, 1985).
35. The election was controlled by state officials and the decision itself was open as the voter had to name his favorite before a communal scribe.
36. Figures 3 and 4 represent only relationships; this means fifteen brother relationships do not necessarily represent thirty people, because some persons had more than one brother on the communal board.
37. Verwaltungsedikt für die Gemeinden, 1822, §6, in August Ludwig Reyscher, Sammlung der württembergischen Gesetze, vol. XV/2 (Stuttgart and Tübingen, 1845), 87.
38. See the large number of members who obviously had arranged marriages between their children (co-fathers-in-law).
39. There might be a methodological problem as D. Sabean's familial-based type of genealogical representation did not allow for tracing the complicated relationships of a whole population.
40. To explain the political structure of the city executive: The government of the free city was called "Magistracy," a name that was used as well in Wuerttemberg until 1817. The magistracy was divided into an executive inner council and an outer council. In 1817 both councils were united and were later on called City Council (Stadtrat). In the free city there was no constitutional organ for the representation of the citizens, but a radical bourgeois opposition. Wuerttemberg installed in 1817 a citizen deputation, which from 1822 forward was called Bürgerausschuss.
41. Frank Möller, Bürgerliche Herrschaft in Augsburg 1790-1880 (München, 1998), 132;
42. Ralf Roth, Stadt und Bürgertum in Frankfurt am Main: Ein besonderer Weg von der ständischen zur modernen Bürgerschaft, 1760-1914 (München, 1996), 204.
43. The data about kinship relationships are based on the kin relationships of individual persons and not on membership. People who served in office more than once were counted as only one case.
44. For the drawing of Graph 6 I thank Lothar Krempel, MPI for Social Research, Cologne. See Carola Lipp/Lothar Krempel, "Petitions and the Social Context of Political Mobilization in the Revolution of 1848/49. A Microhistorical Actor Centered Network Analysis," in Lex Heerma van Voss, ed., Petitions in Social History. International Review of Social History Supplement 9, (Cambridge, 2001), 151-170;
45. also Carola Lipp, Zum Zusammenhang von lokaler Politik, Vereinswesen und Petitionsbewegung in der Revolution 1848/49, in Esslinger Studien 36 (1997): 211-269.
46. Barry Wellmann and Steven D. Berkowitz, eds., Social Structures: A Network Approach (Cambridge, 1988);
47. Patrick Doreian and Louis H. Albert, "Partitioning Political Actor Networks: Some Quantitative Tools for Analyzing Qualitative Networks," Journal of Quantitative Anthropology (1989): 279-291;
48. Mustafa Emirbayer and Jeff Goodwin, "Network Analysis, Culture, and the Problem of Agency." American Journal of Sociology 99 (1994): 1411-1454;
49. Bonnie H. Erickson, "Social Networks and History." Historical Methods 30 (1997): 149-157;
50. Mark S. Granovetter, "The Strength of Weak Ties." American Journal of Sociology 78 (1973): 1360-1380.
51. In the early nineteenth century votes were given to persons and not parties. Each voter could name a person with legal citizenship he wanted to be elected. Therefore we have a great dispersion of voters' decisions. Nevertheless there was a certain concentration of votes on people recommended by fellow citizens via newspaper or by election assemblies that mostly were organized by the liberal Civic Society beginning in the 1830s.
52. Carola Lipp, Zur sozialen Reproduktion des Honoratiorensystems in den offenen Wahlen des Vormärz, Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichte, 9 (1998): 496-524.
53. Lothar Gall, "Liberalismus und 'bürgerliche Gesellschaft': Zu Charakter und Entwicklung der liberalen Bewegung in Deutschland," Historische Zeitschrift 220 (1975): 324-356.
54. Following Mitterauer, artisans were highly mobile and only a few crafts such as brewing and baking were bound to houses. See Michael Mitterauer, "Zur familienbetrieblichen Struktur im zünftischen Handwerk," in M. Mitterauer, ed., Grundtypen alteuropäischer Sozialformen (Stuttgart, 1979), 98-122, here 114;
55. Josef Ehmer, "Family and Business Among Master Artisans and Entrepreneurs: The Case of 19th Century Vienna." The History of the Family 6 (2001): 187-202.
56. Katherine A. Lynch, "The European Marriage Pattern in the Cities: Variations on a Theme by Hajnal." Journal of Family History XVI (1991): 79-96, here p. 80.
57. Josef Ehmer, Soziale Traditionen in Zeiten des Wandels: Arbeiter und Handwerker im 19. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt and New York, 1994), 110f, 122ff.
58. Mitterauer, Zur familienbetrieblichen Struktur, 1979, p. 106.
59. In the liberal society of the Vormärz 43.2 percent had kin within the association; this means 1.7 relatives per person. The relationships among the Democrats reached nearly the same amount. Of the Democratic party one-third (35.5 percent) shared their membership with relatives. In contrast to them, conservatives held on to traditional structures. More than 61 percent of the members of the constitutional party had kin within the organization; this means that each constitutionalist had 3.8 relatives next to him.