Kari Palonen Book order

In 1952, politicians from six European nations convened to draft a constitution for a future political community, marking a pivotal moment in the evolution of parliamentary governance within a supranational framework. This book revisits the often-overlooked origins of parliamentary Europe and explores the significance of this ad-hoc assembly in the context of post-World War II European integration. It examines how this gathering functioned as a project for integration and its implications for the political theory and history of parliamentarism, paving the way for future developments in EU parliamentary processes.

This book explores the evolution of parliamentary politics through a thought experiment inspired by Max Weber and the Westminster model. It examines key principles such as debate rhetoric, government control, and the role of parliamentarians. The author also discusses the relevance of parliamentary judgment in contemporary politics.

Focusing on the intersection of debates and political action, the book provides both theoretical insights and practical methods for analysis. It defines politics and political discourse, elaborates on debates as exchanges of arguments, and offers research practices for examining texts. Through case studies, it illustrates how to analyze parliamentary debates, documents, and media articles, making it a valuable resource for students and scholars interested in political rhetoric and text analysis.

Focusing on Max Weber as a political thinker, this collection explores his concept of Chance, which frames politics as contingent activity. The essays, ranging from 1999 to 2014, delve into Weber's views on the ideal politician and key political concepts like freedom, democracy, and the state. Additionally, the work connects Weber's notion of 'objectivity' to parliamentary politics. It situates Weber's ideas within a broader intellectual context, engaging with both historical and contemporary scholars, enriching the discourse on his political thought.

Recent studies manifest a new interest in the politics of internal parliamentary practices. The book presents a thesis that a shift from oratory to debate characterises the parliamentarisation of deliberative rhetoric. Parliamentary speeches are intelligible only as political interventions pro et contra to debates on motions on the agenda and the agenda-setting itself. Scholars of rhetoric and parliaments have been slow recognising this shift and its political implications. The book analyses the rhetoric of Westminster-related writings from late 18th century to WWII among academic and others outsiders in contrast to parliamentary insiders (officials, journalists, members). Special attention is given to John Stuart Mill and Walter Bagehot as popular British parliamentary theorists and to cases studies on actual parliamentary debates. With its procedures and ways of dealing time the Westminster-style parliament is an exemplary political assembly of debating pro et contra.

Currently, parliament as a political institution does not enjoy the best reputation. This book aims to recover less known political resources of the parliamentary mode of proceeding. The parliamentary procedure relies on regulating debates in a fair way and on constructing opposed perspectives on the agenda items. The British House of Commons provides the closest historical approximation for the parliamentary ideal type of politics. This book deals with the formation and conceptual change in the Westminster procedure, based on the way they are interpreted in the tracts on procedure. The tracts illustrate the changing parliamentary self-understanding from the 1570s to the present and the growing political role of procedural disputes. The parliamentary style of politics, as discussed in the tracts, can be divided into two genres: the politics of agenda-setting and the politics of debate. The book analyses their formation and overall conceptual change as well as the procedural responses to the increasingly scarce parliamentary time from the period after the 1832 parliamentary reform. It insists that in spite of claims on urgency and on government’s leadership the procedural resources of the House of Commons contribute to maintaining the debate-centred parliamentary style of politics.

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.

Politik ist von Natur aus ein Spiel mit der Zeit. Das Buch bietet eine interessante Lektüre mit einer gelungenen Kombination aus idealtypischen, rhetorischen und historischen Ansätzen. Der Autor setzt hiermit seine Studien der Politischen Ideengeschichte mit einer rhetorischen Analyse der Institutionen und Verfahren mit dem Spiel der Zeit fort. Die Parlamentarisierung und Demokratisierung der Politik bedingen einen kürzeren zeitlichen Horizont der Politik als in monarchischen oder bürokratischen Regierungsformen. Die zeitlichen Ebenen regulärer und wiederkehrender Gelegenheiten für Veränderungen lassen sich im Einzelnen in Lebensdauer, Dynamik, Zeitspannen und Kalendarium aufteilen. Weitere Kapitel, die sich mit der Demokratisierung des Wahlrechts, dem Wechsel in der Regierung, parlamentarischen Verfahren, rhetorischen Praktiken und der Zeit von Politikern beschäftigen, zeigen Zusammenspiel und Widerspruch dieser Ebenen. Die abschließenden Kapitel verbinden die zeitlichen Ebenen mit dem Spiel mit der knappen Zeit und schließen mit einer Befürwortung des kurzen zeitlichen Horizonts einer Wahlperiode als den wichtigsten Vorteil von parlamentarischen Demokratien. Mit dem Sprichwort: „Staatsmänner denken an die nächsten Generationen, Politiker an die nächsten Wahlen“, ermutigt das Buch seine Leser, zu denken wie ein Politiker.

The author presents in this volume a synthesis of his long-term studies on the conceptual history of politics. He offers a rhetorical history of the horizons of conceptualizing politics an activity in terms of nine topoi: irregularity, judgment, policy, deliberation, commitment, contestation, possibility, situation and play & game. He both constructs a schema for conceptualization of the spectrum of activities that are called politics and applies it to British, French and German debates on the concept since the nineteenth century.