century, the new economic opportunities of the
seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries would
also have fundamentally different implications for these
different parts of Europe. Because in 1600 the grip of the
Crown was weaker in England than in France and Spain,
Atlantic trade opened the way to the creation of new
institutions with greater pluralism in England, while
strengthening the French and Spanish monarchs.
T HE C ONTINGENT P ATH OF H ISTORY
The outcomes of the events during critical junctures are
shaped by the weight of history, as existing economic and
political institutions shape the balance of power and
delineate what is politically feasible. The outcome,
however, is not historically predetermined but contingent.
The exact path of institutional development during these
periods depends on which one of the opposing forces will
succeed, which groups will be able to form effective
coalitions, and which leaders will be able to structure
events to their advantage.
The role of contingency can be illustrated by the origins
of inclusive political institutions in England. Not only was
there nothing preordained in the victory of the groups vying
for limiting the power of the Crown and for more pluralistic
institutions in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, but the entire
path leading up to this political revolution was at the mercy
of contingent events. The victory of the winning groups was
inexorably linked to the critical juncture created by the rise
of Atlantic trade that enriched and emboldened merchants
opposing the Crown. But a century earlier it was far from
obvious that England would have any ability to dominate the
seas, colonize many parts of the Caribbean and North
America, or capture so much of the lucrative trade with the
Americas and the East. Neither Elizabeth I nor other Tudor
monarchs before her had built a powerful, unified navy. The
English navy relied on privateers and independent
merchant ships and was much less powerful than the
Spanish fleet. The profits of the Atlantic nonetheless
attracted these privateers, challenging the Spanish
monopoly of the ocean. In 1588 the Spanish decided to put
an end to these challenges to their monopoly, as well as to