| Agents of the People: Democracy and Popular Sovereignty in British and Swedish Parliamentary and Public Debates, 1734-1800 Contributor(s): Ihalainen, Pasi (Author) |
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ISBN: 9004183361 ISBN-13: 9789004183360 Publisher: Brill OUR PRICE: $207.10 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: March 2010 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Philosophy | Political - Political Science | Political Ideologies - Democracy - Social Science |
| Dewey: 321.8 |
| Series: Studies in the History of Political Thought |
| Physical Information: 548 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: This book on the pre-history of democratization shows how and why more modern attitudes to democracy started to emerge in the late eighteenth century. Focusing on the language of parliamentarians, the author reconstructs and compares debates on the political role and representation of the people in Britain and Sweden. His analysis demonstrates not only the persistence of the classical, pejorative, conception of democracy but also the gradual re-evaluation of the notion prior to the French Revolution. The author analyses the clash between British and French conceptions of democracy as well as the first definitions of the sovereignty of Parliament as the sovereignty of the people. Furthermore, by placing parliamentary discourse in the context of public debates, he reveals the previously ignored role that parliaments played in redefining the most crucial concepts in Western political theory. |