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;

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.

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.

The parliamentary style of politics has been formed over centuries; nobody theorised it in advance. This book presents a thought experiment to spell out key principles of the parliamentary ideal type of politics. Max Weber offers the main intellectual inspiration, Westminster parliament provides the main historical reference and the author's studies on parliamentary procedure and rhetoric provide the background for the book. Parliamentary acting and thinking offer us the best example of politics as a contingent and controversial activity. Using a parliamentary imagination, the author constructs the ideal type in five main chapters: dissensual modes of proceeding; rhetoric of parliamentary debate; parliamentary formation and control of government; parliamentarians as politicians; and parliamentary time as their common subtext. In the last two chapters, the book outlines the possibilities of extending parliamentary judgment to politics beyond parliaments proper and the chances for parliamentary politics succeeding today.

This book seeks to develop Rhetoric as a field of knowledge in an important new direction, European Union politics. The authors analyse what could be called a “European style of politics�: textual strategies and rhetorical styles evolving within and around the EU’s supranational and national institutions. By fusing rhetorical and sociological approaches, political thought and culture, the book contributes to the analysis of the ‘political’ as a way of thinking and judging the political aspect of any phenomena. 

'Democratization' is a concept often used in academic book titles, yet not many of them deal with the initial breakthrough of democratization. This research companion presents an alternative view to the widespread assumption that Western democracies should be the normative reference for the study of democratization elsewhere. Rather, it questions the universal validity of such an assumption by searching the history of European politics and by paying specific attention to the struggles of democratization accomplished outside Western Europe. The authors apply a comparative approach to analyzing debates in the primary sources in a number of countries and languages and situate the results into a broader European context. Focusing on European democratization from different historical and analytical perspectives, they discuss the politics, concepts and histories involved in democratization as a complex of changes that has altered the conditions of political action and debate in the continent for the past two centuries.

'Democratization' is a concept often used in academic book titles, yet not many of them deal with the initial breakthrough of democratization. This research companion presents an alternative view to the widespread assumption that Western democracies should be the normative reference for the study of democratization elsewhere. Rather, it questions the universal validity of such an assumption by searching the history of European politics and by paying specific attention to the struggles of democratization accomplished outside Western Europe. The authors apply a comparative approach to analyzing debates in the primary sources in a number of countries and languages and situate the results into a broader European context. Focusing on European democratization from different historical and analytical perspectives, they discuss the politics, concepts and histories involved in democratization as a complex of changes that has altered the conditions of political action and debate in the continent for the past two centuries.

This book seeks to develop Rhetoric as a field of knowledge in an important new direction, European Union politics. The authors analyse what could be called a "European style of politics": textual strategies and rhetorical styles evolving within and around the EU's supranational and national institutions. By fusing rhetorical and sociological approaches, political thought and culture, the book contributes to the analysis of the 'political' as a way of thinking and judging the political aspect of any phenomena.

The authors deal with the place of parliamentary politics in democracy. Apparently a truism, parliamentarism is in fact a missing research object in democratic theory, and a devalued institutional reference in democratic politics. Yet the parliamentary culture of politics historically explains the rise and fall of modern democracies. From the Contents: * Part I: The Uses of Parliamentarism Parliamentary Emergency Powers: A Political Chimera? Questions in the House: Parliamentary Politics and the Rhetoric of 'Question-Time' Cambridge and Oxford Union Societies as Parliamentary Bodies 'Advanced Liberalism' and the Politics of Reform in Victorian Parliamentary Culture The Mandate in the Parliament Varieties of Anti-Parliamentarism in Europe Revising the Aggregative Role of Parliaments in a Fragmented World * Part II: Debating Democratic Theory and Performance The Rhetorical Use of 'Parliamentarism' and the Interwar Crisis of Democracy Democracy and Compromise: Why Consensus is not Democratic? The Legitimacy Politics of the Theory of Aleatory Democracy The Paradox of Democratic Selection: Is Lottery Better than Voting? Can Deliberative Mini-Publics Help to Improve the Standards of Representative Democracy? The Editors: Kari Palonen, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Centre of Political Thought and Conceptual Change, Editor of Redescriptions, and Co-founder of the History of Political and Social Concepts Group, University of Jyvaskyla, Finland Jose Maria Rosales, Associate Professor of Moral and Political Philosophy at the University of Malaga, Spain, and board member of Concepta, International Research School in Conceptual History and Political Thought, University of Helsinki, Finland

The parliamentary style of politics has been formed over centuries; nobody theorised it in advance. This book presents a thought experiment to spell out key principles of the parliamentary ideal type of politics. Max Weber offers the main intellectual inspiration, Westminster parliament provides the main historical reference and the author's studies on parliamentary procedure and rhetoric provide the background for the book. Parliamentary acting and thinking offer us the best example of politics as a contingent and controversial activity. Using a parliamentary imagination, the author constructs the ideal type in five main chapters: dissensual modes of proceeding; rhetoric of parliamentary debate; parliamentary formation and control of government; parliamentarians as politicians; and parliamentary time as their common subtext. In the last two chapters, the book outlines the possibilities of extending parliamentary judgment to politics beyond parliaments proper and the chances for parliamentary politics succeeding today.

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.

Max Webers Politik aus Beruf ist aktuell als Thematisierung des Politikbegriffs und Verteidigung des Typus Politiker. Die Schrift wird hier historisch und rhetorisch neu gelesen.

Pococks "The Machiavellian Moment" versteht Politik als Kontingenzbehandlung. Das "Webersche Moment" deutet Max Weber ebenfalls in diesem Sinne, interpretiert ihn jedoch als Denker, der die Kontingenz uminterpretiert. Anstatt sie als 'fortuna' im Hintergrund der Politik zu deuten, sieht Weber die Kontingenz der Chancen als Voraussetzung dafur, politisches Handeln zu verstehen. Diese Sicht pragt auch seine Politikkonzeption: Streben, Macht und Kampf ebenso wie Leidenschaft, Verantwortungsgefuhl und Augenmass verweisen auf verschiedene Aspekte der Kontingenz. Der Autor zeigt, dass die "Globalisierung der Kontingenz" (Connolly) in der gegenwartigen Politik eine Art Ruckkehr der 'fortuna' bedeutet. Politik hat nun beide Aspekte der Kontingenz, die Chancen und die 'fortuna' aufeinander zu beziehen."

Max Weber studies have been radically transformed since the 1980s. The author continues this revision by reading Weber as a thoroughly political thinker. Weber's key concept is Chance, a concept that allows us to study politics as contingent activity and to understand both the actions of politicians and the presence of the political aspect in research. This collection contains essays from 1999 to 2014 and a new introduction. The first part deals with Weber's concept of politics and the politician as an ideal type, the second discusses Weber's reinterpretations of key political concepts of freedom, democracy, parliament, nation and the state. The third part links Weber's concept of 'objectivity' with the parliamentary style of politics. The essays set Weber's political thought in relationship to his predecessors (Constant, Bagehot, Nietzsche), contemporaries (Sombart, Schmitt, Benjamin), later (Arendt, Sartre) or contemporary scholars (Skinner, Koselleck) and current Weber studies (Hennis, Scaff, Ghosh).

Max Weber studies have been radically transformed since the 1980s. The author continues this revision by reading Weber as a thoroughly political thinker. Weber's key concept is Chance, a concept that allows us to study politics as contingent activity and to understand both the actions of politicians and the presence of the political aspect in research. This collection contains essays from 1999 to 2014 and a new introduction. The first part deals with Weber's concept of politics and the politician as an ideal type, the second discusses Weber's reinterpretations of key political concepts of freedom, democracy, parliament, nation and the state. The third part links Weber's concept of 'objectivity' with the parliamentary style of politics. The essays set Weber's political thought in relationship to his predecessors (Constant, Bagehot, Nietzsche), contemporaries (Sombart, Schmitt, Benjamin), later (Arendt, Sartre) or contemporary scholars (Skinner, Koselleck) and current Weber studies (Hennis, Scaff, Ghosh).

The concepts and rhetoric of democracy are once again the main focus of this volume of Redescriptions volume. The book's contributions take up: the claim of representative democracy as an elective aristocracy, the past and present of the British parliament, the media's dealing with gender in the US presidential campaign, and the reactivated debate on obligatory voting. Two articles deal with the legal language of politics, namely with the German tradition of international law and with the unproblematic concept of human rights today, and a further article looks at the politics of languages. (Series: Redescriptions. Yearbook of Political Thought, Conceptual History and Feminist Theory - Vol. 15)