Parliamentarism and Encyclopaedism: Parliamentary Democracy in an Age of Fragmentation

✍ Scribed by Giovanni Rizzoni

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Year: 2024
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 191
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book explores a specific aspect of modern parliamentarism: its ability to produce and organise political knowledge. The book argues that the very meaning of modern parliamentarism cannot properly be understood without considering the cognitive value which is inherent in the representative function discharged by parliaments, vis-a-vis the political community. It does so by studying the 'encyclopaedic patterns' underlying modern parliamentarism. Exploring the concept from ancient times to modernity, it addresses the fundamental question of the relationship between knowledge and democratic decision-making. This is a truly innovative book; challenging, provocative and asking crucial questions of how parliaments work and legislate.

✦ Table of Contents

Preface
Contents
Introduction: Political Representation and Knowledge
1. Origins and Features of Modern Encyclopaedism
I. The Encyclopaedia as an Invention of Modernity
II. Pre-Modern Encyclopaedism
III. From Chambers' Cyclopaedia to Diderot and D'Alambert's Encyclopédie
IV. The National Encyclopaedias of the Nineteenth Century
V. The Nineteenth-Century Encyclopaedism between Philosophy, Pedagogy and Literature
VI. Encyclopaedism and Parliamentarism and their Parallel Transformations
2. Encyclopaedic Parliamentarism in the Nineteenth Century
I. Parliaments and Political Representation in the Nineteenth Century
II. Parliaments and the Bourgeois Public Sphere
III. The Birth of Modern Parliamentary Representation between Publicness and Separateness
IV. Parliaments as Political Theatres of the Nation
V. Parliaments as Cognitive Maps of Politics
VI. Parliamentary Time between Cyclicity and Syncronicity
VII. The Era of Generalist Politicians: The Centrality of Parliamentary Oratory
VIII. Parliamentary Libraries
IX. The Great Treaties on Parliamentary Procedures
X. Parliamentary Encyclopaedism and the Rationality of the Legislator
XI. The Crisis of the Nineteenth-Century Encyclopaedic Parliament
3. Encyclopaedic Parliamentarism in the Twentieth Century
I. Major Transformations in Twentieth-Century Parliaments
II. Party Parliaments
III. Parliamentary Committees and the Professionalisation of Politics
IV. Bicameralism as a Resource for the Parliamentary Encyclopaedia
V. The New Knowledge Systems Supporting Parliaments
VI. Legislative Rationality in the Twentieth Century
VII. The Basic Structure of the Twentieth-Century Parliamentary Encyclopaedia
4. Crisis and Transformation of the Encyclopaedic Model
I. Encyclopaedias in the Twentieth Century between Crisis and Innovation
II. Deconstruction of the Parliamentary Encyclopaedia
III. 'Resistance' (and Resilience) of the Parliamentary Encyclopaedia
Conclusions: The New Parliamentary Encyclopaedia: Combining Specialised Knowledge with Common Sense
I. Old and New Encyclopaedism
II. Building ‘Wikipedian Parliaments’
III. Developing the ‘Federalising Capacity’ of Parliaments
IV. Opening an Instituent Perspective in the Parliamentary Encyclopaedia
V. Memory, Reason and Imagination for the New Parliamentary
Encyclopaedia
Bibliography
Index