The Evolution Of Parliament

This institutional history charts the development and evolution of parliament from the Scottish and Irish parliaments, through the post-Act of Union parliament and into the devolved assemblies of the 1990s. It considers all aspects of parliament as an institution, including membership, parties, constituencies and elections.

Parliamentary theory, practices, discourses, and institutions constitute a distinctively European contribution to modern politics. Taking a broad historical perspective, this cross-disciplinary, innovative, and rigorous collection locates the essence of parliamentarism in four key aspects—deliberation, representation, responsibility, and sovereignty—and explores the different ways in which they have been contested, reshaped, and implemented in a series of representative national and regional case studies. As one of the first comparative studies in conceptual history, this volume focuses on debates about the nature of parliament and parliamentarism within and across different European countries, representative institutions, and genres of political discourse.

Excerpt from The Evolution of Parliament A student who is mainly versed in the history Of the sixteenth century must, however, if he trespasses on the middle ages, be ready to face prosecution with all the rigour of medieval lore; and this volume cannot escape criticism of its lack of technical knowledge in many details. My excuse for the trespass is that, being engaged on a study of the Tudor constitution, I could not understand it without seeking answers to preliminary problems which had not been solved; and historical curiosity combined with an academic interest in politics to expand an introduction to the constitutional history of the Tudor period into an essay on the place of parliament in the past, the present, and the future of the English state. The last two chapters at least of this volume are not history; but I doubt the logic and the expedience of the contention that it 13 only the business of those who have not studied the past to discuss the present or the future. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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