Parliamentary History Research Articles

The treachery of writing about democracy (this is not an epilogue)

ABSTRACT The title of this article parodies the name of one of René Magritte’s most famous paintings called The Treachery of Images, which, underneath its hyperrealist rendition of a pipe denies it being a pipe (Ceci n’est pas une pipe). Pushing the boundaries of standard epilogue-writing conventions, the present philosophical section discusses our compilation of articles through the lens of apophasis, which recognizes the limits of language to accurately describe undefinable concepts such as ‘democracy’ and ‘the people’. As a rhetorical device that speaks something into being while negating this very possibility, apophasis is a key characteristic of negative theology. Because it accepts the impossibility of defining the divine, it leaves room for the denial of its existence. Yet, at the same time, the apophatic paradox affirms the divine’s existence precisely by acknowledging its transcendental unspeakable nature. Inspired by Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault, who were themselves inspired by negative theology, scholars from various fields in the arts, social sciences, psychology, and the humanities have already developed useful apophatic-analytical tools in their methodological debates. My suggestion to employ a similar yet adapted lens for studying parliamentary history has been triggered by the thread that ties all contributions to this research anthology together. As they centre on parliamentary meta-discourse about tried and tested procedures, they feature negation, negotiation, and other apophatic rhetoric in the MPs’ struggles to define and perform their jobs as representatives. A more deliberate introduction of the apophatic lens – with an emphasis on apophatic rhetoric of materiality of parliaments in their interactions with the ineffable people – would take the concept quite paradoxically out of this discourse-analytical framework, to draw attention to political and colonial histories of experiences of the unspeakable.

Women Reservation Bill in Lok Sabha: A Century Long Struggle for Gender Equality

Women in India have been granted various rights over the years to establish gender equality and to improve their number in decision making. Efforts were started when the demand for separate political reservation for women was made in 1920 during the national movement for Independence. It was the Government of India Act, 1935 by which reservation of seats for women was given. The issue was debated at length during the debates of Constituent Assembly. Committee on the Status of Women in India (CSWI) 1971, recommended reservation for women in local bodies. National Perspective Plan for Women 1988-2000 recommended reservation for women in all elected bodies from Panchayats to Parliament that resulted in 73rd and 74th Amendment. To ensure their presence in national and state legislatures, a Bill seeking to reserve seats for women was introduced in 1996 in the Parliament. But due to narrow political interests of different political parties and lack of consensus among them, it could not succeed to get the approval of the Parliament. Finally, the passage of Women Reservation Bill in September 2023 with conditions is a golden moment in Indian Parliamentary history.

The political alignment of presidents of the early Royal Society of London

PurposeThis study aims to identify the political alignment and political activity of the 11 Presidents of Britain’s most important scientific organisation, the Royal Society of London, in its early years 1662–1703, to determine whether or not the institution was politically aligned.Design/methodology/approachThere is almost no information addressing the political alignment of the Royal Society or its Presidents available in the institution’s archives, or in the writings of historians specialising in its administration. Even reliable biographical sources, such as the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography provide very limited information. However, as 10 Presidents were elected Member of Parliament (MP), The History of Parliament: British Political, Social and Local History provides a wealth of accurate, in-depth data, revealing the alignment of both.FindingsAll Presidents held senior government offices, the first was a Royalist aristocrat; of the remaining 10, 8 were Royalist or Tory MPs, 2 of whom were falsely imprisoned by the House of Commons, 2 were Whig MPs, while 4 were elevated to the Lords. The institution was Royalist aligned 1662–1680, Tory aligned 1680–1695 and Whig aligned 1695–1703, which reflects changes in Parliament and State.Originality/valueThis study establishes that the early Royal Society was not an apolitical institution and that the political alignment of Presidents and institution continued in later eras. Furthermore, it demonstrates how the election or appointment of an organisation’s most senior officer can be used to signal its political alignment with government and other organisations to serve various ends.

Effectiveness Does Not Always Equate to Legislative Quality: The Case of the 15th Parliamentary Term in Greece

Abstract In the scientific debate about what quality means in legislation, the opinion has spread that legislation of good quality is synonymous with effective legislation. This article discusses that effectiveness does not always equate to legislative quality. The example of the 15th parliamentary term in Greece, amid the acute debt crisis, is typical. The most intense and numerous phenomena of ‘bad’, unconstitutional law-making in recent Greek parliamentary history were observed during this term. Nevertheless, the effects of this kind of legislation were remarkably positive since all the indicators of the Greek economy improved spectacularly. Yet, anti-democratic legislation is not qualitative legislation; even an authoritarian regime can enact effective laws. In a democratic rule of law, however, the law-making processes, the content, and the form of drafts must follow the Constitution and the Standing Orders of the Parliament; the legislature is obliged to produce law by the law. Particularly adherence to the prescribed procedures is of vital importance, as it functions as a guarantee of achieving good legislative quality. After all, no one can foresee the best quality content at the start of the legislative process since it is formed after creative fermentation and balancing of tendencies while following the prescribed procedures.

Dangerous or Goodly Passions: The Role of Emotion in Parliament and Politics

Dangerous or Goodly Passions: The Role of Emotion in Parliament and Politics

The Ceremonial Mace in the House of Commons and Great Maces of Cities and Boroughs in the 16th and Early 17th Century*

AbstractThe Commons obtained the service of a royal sergeant‐at‐arms in 1414. Alongside him, the sergeant‐at‐arms brought his mace. Originally a blunt weapon and a badge of the sergeants‐at‐arms’ office, the later merely ceremonial mace became associated with the Speaker of the House and part of the Speaker's processions by the mid 16th century. I will argue that the change in parliamentary rituals was an imitation of the usage of great maces of cities and boroughs, in which sergeants had carried great maces in front of their mayors in processions since the 14th century. I will further argue that the House's imitation of this ritual lead to an uplift of the Speaker's position within the House. The enhancement in the Speaker's role in the House's ceremonial proceedings went alongside an enhancement in the Speaker's role in the House's political proceedings. The Speaker evolved from a mere mouthpiece of the Commons into a representative of the House. This example illustrated the interdependency between symbolic and functional elements observable within the house of commons, but also more broadly in the study of parliamentary history.

The Economic Achievement of Sir Robert Peel 1841–6*

AbstractNorman Gash (1912–2009), the leading authority on the ‘age of Peel’, died on 1 May 2009, having left instructions to his daughters that the bulk of his private correspondence and personal papers should be destroyed. A small exception was made in respect of material relating to Sir Robert Peel (1788–1850), the subject of his most famous historical and biographical labours. A collection of papers and correspondence was bequeathed to the Peel Society at Tamworth, on strict condition that it should never be sold.1 Among the ‘Gash Bequest’ was a hitherto unpublished essay on ‘The Economic Achievement of Sir Robert Peel 1841–1846’. Typed in characteristic style on Gash's Remington typewriter, with only occasional manuscript insertions, the essay aptly summarises the position which he had developed in the final volume of his biography of Peel, the second volume of which was published 50 years ago this autumn.2 The essay is republished below as written, without any supporting notes or references. It acts not only as a commemoration of the half‐century since Gash's life of Peel was completed, but of the 40 years which have elapsed since he published an equally ground‐breaking article on the Conservative Party in the first volume of Parliamentary History.3

‘The Last of the Tories’: Political Selections from the Diaries of the Fourth Duke of Newcastle‐under‐Lyne, 1839–1850. Edited by Richard A.Gaunt. Oxford: Wiley‐Blackwell. 2021. Parliamentary History Texts and Studies 17. xii, 426 pp. Paperback £19.99. ISBN 9781119878643.

Parliamentary HistoryVolume 41, Issue 3 p. 512-513 Review ‘The Last of the Tories’: Political Selections from the Diaries of the Fourth Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne, 1839–1850. Edited by Richard A. Gaunt. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. 2021. Parliamentary History Texts and Studies 17. xii, 426 pp. Paperback £19.99. ISBN 9781119878643. Alex Middleton, Alex Middleton orcid.org/0000-0001-7969-1059 St Hugh's College, OxfordSearch for more papers by this author Alex Middleton, Alex Middleton orcid.org/0000-0001-7969-1059 St Hugh's College, OxfordSearch for more papers by this author First published: 17 October 2022 https://doi.org/10.1111/1750-0206.12649Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume41, Issue3October 2022Pages 512-513 RelatedInformation

Institutions Ignored: A History of Select Committee Scrutiny in the House of Lords, 1968–2021

AbstractWithin the vast seam of scholarship on parliamentary history the evolution and role of select committees in the house of lords, particularly in relation to investigatory or policy‐focused committees, has been almost completely overlooked. They have been ‘institutions ignored’. This gap in the existing research base is particularly stark when compared with the very large literature on the history of select committees in the house of commons. This article fills this gap by providing the first detailed historical account of the evolution of investigatory or policy‐focused committees in the house of lords. This account reveals the evolution of a distinctive ‘scrutiny style’ moulded around the notion of complementarity, a highly specialised approach and an understanding of the merits of self‐restraint. However, during 2018–21 a fundamental review of the investigatory committee system was undertaken within the house of lords which led to significant change in relation to both the structure and ambition of committees. The impact of this reform agenda is likely to ensure that select committees in the Lords are far more visible in the future, within and beyond the Palace of Westminster, than they were in the past.

Charles McIlwain, Wallace Notestein and Konstantin A. Kuznetzov Are the Three “Cultivators of the Field of Parliamentary History” of the Early 20th Century (And the Incomparable Is Comparable)

The article is devoted to three eminent scientists of the beginning of the 20th century, who studied the English parliament of pre-revolutionary England. The first is the American lawyer Charles McIlvaine, created the theory of the transformation of parliament from a court dependent on the crown to a “sovereign legislative body of the kingdom”. The second is Wallace Notestein that claimed the parliament should become an independent object of historical studies and called for archival research and the publication of parliamentary sources. The third is Konstantin A. Kuznetzov, published in Russia a book “The Tudor and Stuart English House of Commons”, where he partially began to implement the program formulated by W. Notstein a year later. Konstantin Kuznetsov comes to the conclusion that under the early Stuarts the House of Commons was more and more willing to get the commoners’ election out of control of the royal officers and the Lords of the Privy Council, and tried to make it more democratic. To that end, the House used its right to verify the election. The author examines various electoral cases and petitions on electoral grievances to demonstrate that the House of Commons interpreted the old rules and proceedings aiming to guarantee voters more independence. A special committee of the House of Commons often examined requests from towns to restore the right of sending their presenters, which the towns lost in the Middle Ages. The towns sought to broaden their representation. At the same time, the commoners remained adherents and supporters of the tradition. They had no intention to change the electoral system by a parliamentary statute. The House of Commons was trying to make elections freer by the interpretation of the rules established in ancient time. On the basis of a comparative analysis of the works of three researchers, the author shows K. A. Kuznetzov’s book was the best work on parliamentary history in the world at the beginning of the 20th century.

What is Parliamentary History Now?

What is Parliamentary History Now?

Securing Parliamentary Party Allegiance through Anti Defection Laws in Pakistan: A Legislative and Judicial Discourse

This paper aims to analyse the evolution of anti defection laws in Pakistan by going through legislative and juridical efforts made in this regard and to check whether contemporary jurisprudence on parliamentary defection has served its purpose. The political history of Pakistan also illustrates the need of anti-defection legislation in a country, which has experienced vices of defections and counter-defections by elected members in its parliamentary history for personal gains. Accordingly, several legislative efforts were carried out to penalize the act of defection by members of legislative assemblies. The role of Judiciary in the interpretation and implementation of these laws remained prominent throughout. This study employed doctrinal methodology by carrying out data analysis through descriptive and critical review of primary sources of law in the light of issues identified from secondary sources. Considering the current state of the legislature and judiciary in Pakistan, it is reasonable to conclude that the current anti-defection laws require extensive revision and modification in order to reflect contemporary realities and practices followed by members both within and outside of Parliament.

De Bibliotheek van de Tweede Kamer

Abstract The library of the Dutch House of Representatives is a collection of thirty thousand books in the fields of constitutional law and Dutch politics. The collection is rooted in the nineteenth century and has seen the various stages of expansion and decline typical to a library of use. In recent years, the historical book collection has been brought together in a single location for the first time in its history. The books are placed in a four-stories high nineteenth century library that is known as the ‘Handelingenkamer’. Bringing the collection together in one place has created a visual reflection of two centuries of Dutch parliamentary history. This article explores the history of the collection as a whole, not only as a library for the support of the work of parliamentarians in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but also as a collection and library space that has representative value which can be employed for temporary exhibitions and educational purposes.

Rupture or Continuity? Revisiting the Basic Themes of the Historiography of the 21 April Dictatorship

What did the 1967–1974 dictatorship represent for Greece? A violent and illegal episode, a mere parenthesis in the course of its parliamentary history, or an event with deep roots in Greek society and politics? These two basic, albeit contradictory views require us to consider how the last dictatorship in Greece was conceived in public and academic discourse as well as how these two discourses interacted. The main argument of this article is that even the most self-evident concepts about the character of the 1967 dictatorship, so trivial that we hardly perceive them as concepts, emerged through complex cultural processes. More specifically, it examines a series of well-known academic texts or texts produced in academic settings, dating from the junta era to the late 1980s. Although the research on the dictatorship has progressed greatly since then, this article seeks to show that in the first two decades after its collapse, there was a rich production of perceptions regarding the dictatorship that continue to shape our understanding of the period, which is why it is essential to reflect on them.

Parliamentary history in Norwegian school textbooks (1800–2000)

ABSTRACT This article investigates how the Norwegian Parliament has been treated in history textbooks between 1800 and 2000. It also includes coverage of the medieval assemblies known as ting. Writing national history was affected by the Union with Sweden 1814-1905. In the early nineteenth century, authors often omitted parliamentary history as it had involved conflict with the Swedish king Carl Johan (reigned 1818–44). Over time, the Norwegian Constitutional Assembly and Norwegian Parliament became important topics. In the 1890s, textbooks began presenting recent history from a nationalist point of view. This continued after independence had been achieved in 1905. As the scene of the most important struggles in society, parliament often dominated such narratives. During and after the Second World War, some textbooks included mild criticism of the constitution and parliament. The constitution had not allowed poorer people to vote and parliament had collaborated with the German occupants. Parliamentary history received declining emphasis between 1950 and 2000. This stemmed from more international history and social history being included in curricula. Democratization remained central when considering the nineteenth century, and in the 1990s religious and ethnic minorities began to be included in the narrative of how the constitution had emerged in 1814.

Enoch Powell, Parliament and Europe

AbstractIn recent years, there has been substantial academic reappraisal of Enoch Powell alongside a growing public realisation, increased by the debate over Brexit, that his interests were wider than immigration and notably included opposition to British membership of the European Community – a topic that this article probes further. It begins by examining Powell's understanding of the British nation as a unitary state, centred on parliament, that underpinned his interpretation of both Conservatism and Unionism. Then, covering the period up to the 1975 referendum, the article analyses exactly how Powell argued that membership of the European Community threatened parliamentary sovereignty. It situates Powell's thinking in the context of arguments made by others and explores the connections made by Powell between the threat from Europe and the history of parliament itself, particularly the formation of the unions with Scotland and Ireland. The article shows that while Powell's arguments were marginalised in the later 1970s and for much of the 1980s, they were revived from the early 1990s – albeit in a changed constitutional context.

Parliamentary History: An Oblique Glance*

AbstractBecause parliamentary history has entered the DNA of English and anglophone historiography, one readily forgets how unusual are its parameters and influence in wider historical writing in the West. This essay supplies a reminder that we can look sideways at that historiographical form and think about the place of parliamentary history in societies so different as those of the United States and Europe. Doing so reveals oddities in the place of parliamentary history in divergent cultures and brings into question the viability of the subject in the light of current persuasions that have become hegemonic – the cultural, the gendered, the global. The enquiry concludes that the future of parliamentary history will rest on its ability to come to terms with some of those persuasions and relocate itself within their imperatives.

Constitutionalists, Despots, Whigs, and Revisionists: Tudor Parliamentary History in the 20th Century

AbstractThe 20th century was the great age of Tudor parliamentary history. This essay examines the contributions and profound changes to the field made by the leading historians of the era, especially Sir John Neale and Sir Geoffrey Elton. Taking as its starting point the whiggish ideas of Stubbs's Constitutional History of England, it traces the impact of A.F. Pollard, G.M. Trevelyan, and Sir Lewis Namier on the field. At its core, though, lie the often acrimonious differences of opinion between Neale and his pupil, Elton. For Neale the Elizabethan parliaments were characterised by an increasingly puritanical Commons eager to wrest control of debates on religion and the succession away from the queen. In so doing this created a constitutional clash that would eventually lead to civil war in the mid 17th century. This ‘orthodoxy’ was savagely critiqued by a revisionist ‘school’ led by Elton that dismantled the interpretation of Neale and replaced it with an institution that was not dominated by political conflict but by largely consensual politics. It was also a position that gave equal weight to the Lords and to the importance of the business of parliament – legislation. The revisionists were masters of critique and highly effective at demolishing Neale, but did little to replace his theories or to explain religio‐political conflict – in doing so it could be argued that they killed the subject. The essay ends by suggesting some new approaches to Tudor parliaments that could help revitalise the subject.

MOROCCAN PARLIAMENTARY HISTORY 1963-2016: A STUDY OF THE STRUCTURE AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL POWERS OF PARLIAMENT

This study attempts to provide a legal reading in the composition of the Moroccan Parliament in light of the transformation of the contents of the constitutional history of the Kingdom of Morocco from 1963 to the year 2011, as it will focus on the organizational transformations that the first chamber of the Moroccan Parliament defined. Therefore, we will try to monitor the various elements of the development of the structure of the Moroccan House of Representatives, through a reading of the Moroccan constitutions and organizational laws, the development of power or the constitutional functions assigned to it, based on the constitutions and internal regulations of the House of Representatives. Thus, this study constitutes a reference basis for understanding the Moroccan parliamentary history, for the House of Representatives in terms of its structure and the constitutional powers assigned to it.

Writing Scottish Parliamentary History, c.1500–1707

AbstractIn the 19th and 20th centuries, scholarship on the Scottish parliament was heavily informed by a narrative of ‘failure’, directed at explaining why its members voted it out of existence in 1707. Part of the problem was the tendency to see any deviation from the practices of the Westminster parliament as weakness. By reappraising parliament in terms of its utility to those who comprised its membership, notably the titled peerage and the monarch, historians have revealed its adaptability and inventiveness, especially in times of crisis. This essay considers how fresh approaches both to what constituted the parliamentary record and what can – and cannot – be found within it have exerted a transformative influence on our understanding of parliament's evolving role in Scottish political life. Although the Reformation crisis of 1560 and the accession of the ruling house of Stewart to the English throne in 1603 effected profound changes on parliamentary culture, this essay emphasises how parliament sustained its legitimacy and relevance, in part, by drawing on past practices and ideas. Historians have become more attentive in recent years to the means by which social groupings ordinarily excluded from formal parliamentary activity were nonetheless able to engage with, and influence, its proceedings. Gaps remain in our knowledge, however. Some periods have been more intensively studied than others, while certain aspects of parliamentary culture are understudied. The writing of Scottish parliamentary history will continue to offer rich possibilities in future.