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.

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

Thanks to their economic and military strength, the European empires had achieved global supremacy by 1900, with large parts of the world under their dominance in the wake of colonial expansion. This situation fuelled ideas of Europe's permanent, almost natural global superiority, especially among the middle classes. However, as early as the First World War, such claims came under increasing pressure. This volume explains the role played by modern nationalism and anti-imperial movements, the competition between different political orders, changes in the economy and society, and the great ideas and utopias. Their interplay gave rise to enormously destructive forces in Europe. From the Boer and Balkan wars before 1914 to the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s and the Ukraine war since 2022, they have produced a continuum of violence. At the same time, the great promise of political participation and social security is one of the constants of Europe's history in the long twentieth century. Against this backdrop, modern societies emerged whose values had moved far away from the older models. Perceptions of the role of the sexes, families, and generations changed fundamentally. In addition, the major internal European migrations, together with the global immigration that became increasingly significant after 1945, ensured that the ethnic profile of European societies changed considerably. Europe in the Long Twentieth Century shows how, on the one hand, these different factors led to a Europeanisation of living and working conditions and, at the same time, how the political and economic integration of the countries of Europe progressed. On the other hand, it demonstrates how Europe's role in the global context changed fundamentally. As much as the geopolitical provincialisation of Europe continued unabated, Europeans were constantly searching for new ways to assert themselves throughout the long twentieth century. The search continues.

This book analyzes the negotiation of socio-political concepts, such as citizenship, republicanism, and representation, between “ordinary” French citizens and their representatives in parliament during the early twentieth century. By examining the letters written to French Deputies of the Chamber (députés) at a tumultuous time in French political history, the author sheds light on the role that politically unorganized citizens played in the process of democratization. Central to the investigation are the aspirations, wishes and demands of individuals acting on their own or as spokespersons for informal communities. The way that they formulated personal requests in their letters to députés reveals their expectations of political representatives, the regime, and their own place in society. By taking a closer look at the epistolary relations between voters and non voters on the one hand and their deputies on the other during a time of rapidly succeeding governments, economic crises and changes in electoral laws, this book demonstrates how the Third Republic’s existence was co-determined by ordinary citizens’ perceptions of the regime. Helping readers to reflect on the nuances of the politicization process, this innovative book offers unique insights for those researching French political history and modern European political culture.

Today, the demand for transparency is omnipresent. In particular, transparency is considered a prerequisite for good governance, for political participation and democracy. On closer inspection, however, transparency proves to be ambivalent. For complete transparency has not yet been achieved anywhere. Moreover, measures to increase transparency can have the opposite effect and stir up mistrust. Historians are just beginning to discover this topic. The volume assembles contributions covering European history since the 19th century. The contributors focus on political and cultural history, but include also economic and media history as well as the history of ideas. They analyse publicly debated demands and efforts for transparency, conceived as the access to information or ist disclosure.

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 edited collection represents the first comprehensive volume in English on the crucial, but under-explored, late period in the history of East European communism. Focusing on developments in Czechoslovakia from the crushing of the Prague Spring in August 1968 to the ‘Velvet Revolution’ of November 1989, the book examines a broad range of political, social and cultural issues, while also analysing external perceptions and relations. It explores the concept of ‘normalisation’ in historical context and brings together British, American, Czech and Slovak experts, each with their own archival research and particular interpretations. Overall, the anthology aims to assess the means by which the Prague Spring reforms were repealed and how Czechoslovakia was returned to a ‘normal’ communist state in line with Soviet orthodoxy. Key themes include the Communist Party and ideology; State Security; Slovak developments; ‘auto-normalisation’; women and gender; cultural and intellectual currents; everyday life and popular opinion; and Czechoslovakia’s political and cultural relationship with the USSR, the GDR, Poland and Yugoslavia. The volume sheds light on the process of decay of the Czechoslovak communist regime and the reasons for its ultimate collapse in 1989.

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.

Social mobility is about climbing the societal ladder, or switching to a better, more promising or rewarding position. But how does this work for those already atop or very close to it? Climbing up the Social Ladder? explores instances of social mobility among different types of positional, decisional and status-defined elites in East-Central Europe during the long 19th century, at individual or group level.

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.