Parliament the mirror of the nation : representation, deliberation, and democracy in Victorian Britain / Gregory Conti.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Conti, Gregory, 1987- author.

Series:

Ideas in context.

Ideas in context

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons--History--19th century.

Great Britain.

Representative government and representation--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Representative government and representation.

Proportional representation--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Proportional representation.

Democracy--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Democracy.

Political culture--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Political culture.

Great Britain--Politics and government--1837-1901.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xi, 408 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2019.

Summary:

The notion of 'representative democracy' seems unquestionably familiar today, but how did the Victorian era - the epoch when the modern democratic state was made - understand democracy, parliamentary representation, and diversity? In the famous nineteenth-century debates about representation and parliamentary reform, two interlocked ideals were of the greatest importance: descriptive representation, that the House of Commons 'mirror' the diversity that marked society, and deliberation within the legislative assembly. These ideals presented a major obstacle to the acceptance of a democratic suffrage, which it was widely feared would produce an unrepresentative and un-deliberative House of Commons. Here, Gregory Conti examines how the Victorians conceived the representative and deliberative functions of the House of Commons and what it meant for parliament to be the 'mirror of the nation'. Combining historical analysis and political theory, he analyses the fascinating nineteenth-century debates among contending schools of thought over the norms and institutions of deliberative representative government, and explores the consequences of recovering this debate.

Contents:

Diversity without democracy, the theory of the variety of suffrages, part one : institutions and sociologies

Diversity without democracy, the theory of the variety of suffrages, part two : values and criticisms

Democracy, diversity, and contestability : democracy against the variety of suffrages

Diversity with democracy? Proportional representation, part one : concepts and techniques

Diversity with democracy? Proportional representation, part two : the debate on PR's moral and political effects.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 26 Mar 2019).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-108-60623-7

1-108-64610-7

1-108-58246-X

9781108646109