The Ideal Of Parliament In Europe Since 1800

This edited collection explores the perceptions and memories of parliamentarianism across Europe, examining the complex ideal of parliament since 1800. Parliament has become the key institution in modern democracy, and the chapters present the evolution of the ideal of parliamentary representation and government, and discuss the reception and value of parliament as an institution. It is considered both as a guiding concept, a Leitidee, as well as an ideal, an Idealtypus. The volume is split into three sections. The establishment of parliament in the nineteenth century and the transfer of parliamentary ideals, models and practices are described in the first section, based on the British and French models. The second part explores how the high expectations of parliamentary democracy in newly-established states after the First World War gradually started to subside into dissatisfaction. Finally, the last section attests to its resilience after the Second World War, demonstrating the strength of the ideal of parliament and its power to incorporate criticism. Examining the history of parliament through concepts and ideals, this book traces a transnational, European exchange of models, routines and discourse.

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.

As political polarisation undermines confidence in the shared values and established constitutional orders of many nations, it is imperative that we explore how parliaments are to stay relevant and accessible to the citizens whom they serve. The rise of modern democracies is thought to have found physical expression in the staged unity of the parliamentary seating plan. However, the built forms alone cannot give sufficient testimony to the exercise of power in political life. Parliament Buildings brings together architecture, history, art history, history of political thought, sociology, behavioural psychology, anthropology and political science to raise a host of challenging questions. How do parliament buildings give physical form to norms and practices, to behaviours, rituals, identities and imaginaries? How are their spatial forms influenced by the political cultures they accommodate? What kinds of histories, politics and morphologies do the diverse European parliaments share, and how do their political trajectories intersect? This volume offers an eclectic exploration of the complex nexus between architecture and politics in Europe. Including contributions from architects who have designed or remodelled four parliament buildings in Europe, it provides the first comparative, multi-disciplinary study of parliament buildings across Europe and across history. Praise for Parliament Buildings ‘In its totality, this is an invaluable book, both as a comprehensive review of the wider implications of architecture and building in culture and society, and as a specific resource in the understanding of one highly specialised, but profoundly significant building type.’ Dean Hawkes, Cardiff University and University of Cambridge ‘Symbols of history and of hope, theatres of struggle, cradles of consensus: parliamentary buildings, as these diverse essays show, both reflect our democracies and can help them function better.’ David Anderson, House of Lords ‘Parliament Buildings is a brilliant interdisciplinary exploration of a fascinating topic. Theoretically sophisticated, empirically rich and historically informed, it demonstrates the multiple ways in which politics and the built environment intersect, and sheds light on the symbolic and material practices central to contemporary representative politics.’ Duncan Bell, University of Cambridge

Parliaments are often seen as Western European and North American institutions and their establishment in other parts of the world as a derivative and mostly defective process. This book challenges such Eurocentric visions by retracing the evolution of modern institutions of collective decision-making in Eurasia. Breaching the divide between different area studies, the book provides nine case studies covering the area between the eastern edge of Asia and Eastern Europe, including the former Russian, Ottoman, Qing, and Japanese Empires as well as their successor states. In particular, it explores the appeals to concepts of parliamentarism, deliberative decision-making, and constitutionalism; historical practices related to parliamentarism; and political mythologies across Eurasia. It focuses on the historical and “reestablished” institutions of decision-making, which consciously hark back to indigenous traditions and adapt them to the changing circumstances in imperial and postimperial contexts. Thereby, the book explains how representative institutions were needed for the establishment of modernized empires or postimperial states but at the same time offered a connection to the past. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9780367691271, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 licence.

This book examines the political parties which emerged on the territories of the former Ottoman, Qing, Russian, and Habsburg empires and not only took over government power but merged with government itself. It discusses how these parties, disillusioned with previous constitutional and parliamentary reforms, justified their takeovers with programs of controlled or supervised economic and social development, including acting as the mediators between the various social and ethnic groups in the respective territories. It pays special attention to nation-building through the party, to institutions (both constitutional and de facto), and to the global and comparative aspects of one-party regimes. It explores the origins of one-party regimes in China, Czechoslovakia, Korea, the Soviet Union, Turkey, Yugoslavia, and beyond, the roles of socialism and nationalism in the parties’ approaches to development and state-building, as well the pedagogical aspirations of the ruling elites. Hence, by revisiting the dynamics of the transition from the earlier imperial formations via constitutionalism to one-party governments, and by assessing the internal and external dynamics of one-party regimes after their establishment, the book more precisely locates this type of regime within the contemporary world’s political landscape. Moreover, it emphasises that one-party regimes thrived on both sides of the Cold War and in some of the non-aligned states, and that although some state socialist one-party regimes collapsed in 1989–1991, in other places historically dominant parties and new parties have continued to monopolize political power. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Recent collection of essays discusses the historical event and the multifarious consequences of the 1867 Compromise (Ausgleich, Settlement), conducted between the Habsburg monarch, Francis Joseph and the Hungarian political ruling class. The whole story has usually been narrated from a plainly Cisleithanian viewpoint. The present volume, the product of Hungarian historians, gives an insight into both the domestic and the international historical discourses about the Dual Monarchy. It also reveals the process of how the 1867 Compromise was conducted, and touches upon several of the key issues brought about by establishing a constitutional dual state in place of the absolutist Habsburg Monarchy. The emphasis is laid not on describing and explaining the path leading to the final and "inevitable" break-up of the Dual Monarchy, but on what actually held it together for half a century. The local outcomes of self-maintaining mechanisms were no less obvious in the Hungarian part of the Dual Monarchy, despite the many manifestations of an overt adversity toward it. The Creation of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy will appeal to historians dealing especially with 19th-century European history, and is also essential reading for university students.

'This is the first account in English of the making of Italian nationhood from the perspective of constitutional history. It is also the first to consider the role that the House of Savoy played in this process. Bringing together influential experts in the field, the collection covers the evolution of the Italian constitution from Russian diplomacy’s little-known planning of the Risorgimento to the monarchy’s demise after its clashes with fascism. Combining systematic coverage with original research, the volume includes such varied themes as the king’s role in the Italian wars of independence, the Italian peninsula’s forgotten charters of 1848, and the story of the ephemeral building that housed the first Italian parliament. Contributors are: Carolina Armenteros, Andrea Ungari, Paolo Colombo, Frans Willem Lantink, Christian Satto, Giulio Stolfi, Valentina Villa, Tommaso Zerbi, and Romano Ferrari Zumbini.

List of figures and tables -- Acknowledgements -- Preface -- Introduction -- Part I. Unity and Borders (1800-1914) -- Chapter 1. Dreaming of unity -- Chapter 2. Longing for borders -- Chapter 3. Looking for common ground -- Chapter 4. Performing communality -- Part II. Crisis and Decline (1914-1945) -- Chapter 5. Passage to a new Europe: the First World War -- Chapter 6. Fearing crisis -- Chapter 7. Organising for Europe -- Part III. Integration and identity (1945-) -- Chapter 8. Claiming European unity and a Europe of nations -- Chapter 9. Elevating European awareness -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Index.