Dr Andrew Phemister (IASH): Democracy and the boycott: Reactions to development of Irish boycotting
Abstract: 'The first 'boycott' ever enacted was struck against the eponymous land agent Captain Charles Boycott in 1880. As part of the dramatic struggle over Irish land and political self-determination, the boycott proved devastatingly effective. Although it was in many ways simply a resuscitation of older forms of collective political agency, a traditional 'moral economy' protest, it scandalised commentators in Ireland, Britain and the United States. Once its efficacy became clear to labour activists across the Atlantic, these fears grew ever more pressing. When confined to Ireland in the midst of the Land War, the suspension of normal legal considerations could keep it under control, but liberal thinkers in Britain and the US who detested the practice possessed no obvious conceptual or legal means of redress. The purpose of this talk is to examine reactions to this 'triumphant anarchy', and to look at the impact of the boycott on elite concerns about popular democracy and the development of modern liberal thought.'