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Intertwined political and economic crises have battered citizens of EU-states for several years now. Due to demanding austerity politics ”democracy” seems to remain, in many cases, only an empty phrase. This book examines the challenges to parliamentary politics today but also explores its means to develop, reform and even survive. The book approaches these questions in terms of political rhetoric and conceptual history as well as more traditional style of political philosophy. The writers of this volume come from different European backgrounds, providing a versatile discussion and a fruitful insight to parliamentarism today in Europe. Different perspectives comprise a historico-theoretical discussion, for example, by viewing parliament as a victim of its own success, by seeing the European Parliament as a historically new possibility for democratic representation and by giving a sceptical view of parliamentary democracy in modern mass conditions.

This book presents a comprehensive study of Oakeshott's conception of political activity. The author first examines Oakeshott in the contexts of liberal, conservative and Idealist thought, and then presents a detailed interpretation of the change in his conception of politics in the context of British postwar political thought. It is argued that Oakeshott’s conception of political activity shifted from a near contempt of politics towards the applauding of politics as a deliberative and reflective activity. The development is disclosed by examining the change in his key concepts, such as authority and tradition. Accordingly, some rather unexpected aspects of Oakeshott’s thought, such as his close relationship to the linguistic turn, appear. The author argues that although Oakeshott cannot exactly be classified as belonging to that group of political philosophers for whom politics represents a superior human activity, his later work presents an important and original view of politics as an art of contingency.