Constitutional Debates Rhetoric And Political Philosophy In Spain S Parliamentary History

This book examines the conceptual contributions of constituent representatives in Spain during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Spanish Parliament has been the stage for the political modernisation of the country. Constitutional debates have historically led to the gradual acknowledgement and broadening – usually unevenly – of citizens’ rights. At the same time, constitutional debates have created opportunities to design institutions and settle legal mechanisms to enforce rights and distribute state resources. The book identifies and analyses rhetorical and conceptual innovations produced in such debates from a historical perspective.

"This book delves into the conceptual changes produced by the Spanish constitutional debate held between 27 August and 9 December 1931. Taking place at the beginning of Spain's Second Republic, those parliamentary deliberations brought about significant novelties in the political vocabulary. Concepts such as democracy, sovereignty, reform, revolution, and freedom, among others, were re-signified. This study investigates the conceptual contributions made by Spanish MPs in the course of the constitutional debate of 1931 by assuming, as a research approach, an interdisciplinary stance combining conceptual history, political theory, and parliamentary constitutional history. By doing so, it selects five determining issues: the pervasive discussion about two competing meanings of a democratic state; the rhetorical uses of reform and revolution; conceptual controversies about religious freedom; the disputed idea of property rights; and the functions of parliament and the president of the republic in a semi-presidential regime. The constitutional debate was largely inspired by interwar European constitutionalism which constituent representatives used to update the Spanish constitutional tradition. With that goal in mind, this book is aimed at undergraduate and graduate students and scholars working in the fields of conceptual history, political philosophy, parliamentary history, European political history, and European constitutionalism"--

This book explicates how debates and documents can be understood, interpreted and analysed as political action. It offers the reader both a theoretical introduction and practical guidance. The authors deploy the perspective that debates are to be understood as political activity, and documents can be regarded as frozen debates. The first chapter discusses what is to be understood as politics and political. The second chapter explains the concept of debate as an exchange of arguments in speaking pro and contra. The third chapter presents concrete approaches, research practices and experiences that help analysing debates and documents as politics. The fourth chapter consists of a number of case studies that demonstrate how researchers can proceed in analysing parliamentary debates, documents, laws, and media articles. This book will be of use to all students and scholars interested in analysing texts and documents, as well as in political rhetoric and parliamentary debates. &n bsp;

“Constitution” is a rich term in Western political culture, encompassing political and juridical doctrine as well as government practices through the ages. This volume examines “constitutional moments” in history, those occasions or episodes when significant steps were taken in the definition or redefinition of polities. Their actors were writers or politicians, rulers or ruled, who found inspiration in a distant past or instead looked towards a future to be drawn anew. This book sheds light on such moments from Ancient Greece to the present day, mostly in Europe but also in the Ottoman world and the Americas, thereby uncovering a revealing variety of constitutional thinking and action throughout history. Contributors are: Jon Arrieta, Niall Bond, Luc Brisson, Peter Cholakov, Nora Chonowski, Angela De Benedictis, F. Sinem Eryilmaz, Hakon Evju, Pablo Fernández Albaladejo, Javier Fernández Sebastián, Merieke Gebhardt, Xavier Gil, Mark J. Hill, Ferenc Hörcher, Jaska Kainulainen, Thomas Lorman, Adriana Luna-Fabritius, Ere Nokkala, Brian Kjaer Olesen, András Pap, Nikola Regent, Alberto Mariano Rodríguez Martínez, Pablo Sánchez León, José Reis Santos, and Ersin Yildiz.

This book explores whether a beleaguered press in recent years has been developing an emotive, Eurosceptic post-truth rhetoric of its own – competing for attention with populist politicians. These politicians now by-pass the media, talking directly to their publics in blogs, on Twitter and Facebook. In the post-truth age, objective facts are less influential in shaping opinion than appeals to emotion. Audiences congregate around views they share and want to believe. The author presents a critical discourse analysis of the language used by populist politicians online, on Facebook, and subsequently quoted in the press, which highlights how the political rhetoric of Italian and British politicians is often at its most inflammatory around the issue of immigration. The same goes for the press. The Italian case study focuses on media coverage of the 2014 and 2019 European elections and 2018 general election. The British case study examines press reporting of the 2016 UK referendum on EU membership, the 2017 general election, and the September 2019 parliamentary debate immediately following the UK Supreme Court ruling that proroguing of Parliament was illegal. From the picture that emerges, the author argues that journalists need to change how they report, to challenge the post-truthers, holding them to account and pressing them on the facts while also harnessing the emotions of disaffected publics.

Following the profile of recent issues of the Yearbook, volume 13 (2009) of Redescriptions focuses on contemporary debates around the concept of democracy. Several articles, by scholars from different fields (political theory, philosophy, history, rhetoric, women's studies, law), discuss the present state and future prospects of democracy, its relationship to other concepts (deliberation, rhetoric, parliament, majority vs. minority) as well as its (in)compatibility with the power of the courts and the expertise. In this volume examples of conceptual histories are provided by articles on women's suffrage and friendship.

This book explores the circulation of anger and hostility in contemporary American culture with particular attention to the fantasy of refusal, a dream of rejecting all the structures of the contemporary political and economic system. Framing the question of public sentiment through the lens of rhetorical studies, this book traces the circulation of symbols that craft public feelings in contemporary popular cinema. Analyzing popular twenty-first century films as invitations to a particular way of feeling, the book delves into the way popular sentiments are circulated and intensified. The book examines dystopian films (The Purge, The Cabin in the Woods), science fiction (Snowpiercer), and superhero narratives (the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Joker). Across these varied films, an affective economy that emphasizes grief, betrayal, refusal, and an underlying rage at the seeming hopelessness of contemporary culture is uncovered. These examinations are framed in terms of ongoing political protests ranging from Occupy Wall Street, the Tea Party, Black Lives Matter, and the 6th January 2021 invasion of the US Capitol Building.