What are the historical sources for mobilizations around distant issues - one of the characteristic features of modernity? This article examines the social dynamics that led to the first sustained campaigns on distant issues in late eighteenth-century Britain. Their emergence is often understood to have been determined by the rise of new ideologies of humanitarian compassion during the period. To test the role of these ideologies, I compare two sets of campaigns: Edmund Burke's impeachment of Warrant Hastings and the series of religious mobilizations initiated with the movement against the colonial slave trade. While both campaigns were driven by similar cultural idioms of humanitarian concern, Burke's initiative failed to produce popular engagement, while the religious campaigns were able to mobilize wide groups of public supporters. This striking difference highlights the importance of religious associational networks for the emergence of the first modern instances of mobilization on distant issues.
Associative neworks; Distance activism; Abolitionism