Participative political institutions in pre-modern Europe: Introducing a new database

This article introduces and describes a new city-level data set on political institutions in pre-modern Europe. To be precise, it presents three variables reporting the prevalence of the different existing types of participative political institutions between AD 800 and AD 1800 in 104 cities in central Europe (Alsace-Lorrain, Austria, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, and the German-speaking parts of Switzerland). According to the historical studies consulted, the three included measures (intensity of guild participation in the city council, participative election procedures, and the existence of institutionalized burgher representation) represent the universe of existing political institutions in cities in this era. This new data set is potentially useful for advancing knowledge in various ongoing research debates about the impact of political institutions and regimes on city development, the effects of guilds, the relationship of economic and political institutions, the debate about the advantages or disadvantages of city states relative to territorial states, and so forth.