Supremacy in the Commons

Author(s):  
David R. Como

The creation of the New Model Army in 1645 brought unprecedented polarization to parliament’s cause. Common ground between “presbyterians” and “independents” eroded and, increasingly, Roundheads were driven into competing camps. This polarization was exacerbated by the polemical interventions of the most extreme independents, most notably the clique associated with Richard Overton’s secret press. The resulting political battles were conducted using the full range of techniques and practices outlined in previous chapters. Parliamentary maneuver was complemented by grass-roots mobilization, including petitioning, co-optation of the city government, sermons and countermeasures, rumors, street placarding, and calculated print campaigns, hinting at significant transformations in the conduct of political life. Paradoxically, these conflicts worsened with parliament’s victory at Naseby, as the competing sides gathered strength to struggle over the final settlement. The chapter concludes by examining the political rise of John Lilburne, with his controversial claims for the supremacy of the House of Commons.

1994 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Virginia Guedea

Beginning in 1808 the people started to play a prominent role in the political life of Mexico. This article examines the significant growth of popular political participation in the City of Mexico during the period 1808-1812. In particular, it analyzes the substantial role that the people played in the elections of 1812, a role they would continue to play in the early years of the new nation.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvain Piron

This chapter considers fourteenth-century Italian debates about the costs of marriage to the work of a philosopher. Following Heloise’s famous injunction against the idea of marriage to Abelard, when she railed against the impact it would have upon his work, this chapter investigates how the terms of this conversation were transformed by the insights of lay intellectuals of cities like Arezzo, Bologna, and Florence, who were grappling with the implications of fatherhood as part of the economic unit of the household, and its role in the political life of the city.


1965 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lotte Glow

Historians of politics of the English Civil War have until recently studied the behaviour of members of Parliament through their speeches on the floor of the Houses. This practice led to the view that parliamentary policy was determined by the ascendancy of one of two opposing factions, composed of the most outspoken and influential members. J. H. Hexter's analysis of the tellers in divisions during the critical period of peace negotiation with the King in 1642 and 1643 expanded this rigid dichotomy and showed that political opinion in the House of Commons was divided into three “Parties,” the less committed centre being most susceptible to the winds of political change. He also showed that policy decisions did not depend solely upon the persuasiveness and stature of the leading politicians, but were shaped according to the temporary allegiances of a body of enthusiastic, though inconsistent, followers. The work of M. Frear Keeler, and of D. Brunton and D. H. Pennington shifted the emphasis further from the leadership to the rank and file by their interest in the background and grass roots of the most insignificant member alongside his more illustrious colleagues.The aim of this article is to examine another aspect of the dynamics of parliamentary politics. It seeks to show how the leadership of the Commons gained control over the members by skilfully delegating vital functions to carefully chosen committees, for the committee system, as it evolved during the early months of the Long Parliament and as it developed during the years of war, met the challenge of the absent Privy Council in providing Parliament with a new and responsible executive.


2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 124-135
Author(s):  
Ad de Bruijne

RésuméLes chrétiens ont souvent fait face à des tensions entre leur identité chrétienne et leur statut de citoyens d’une démocratie. Ces tensions constituent une forme particulière de l’inévitable problème fondamental que rencontrent les chrétiens dans toute société au sein de laquelle ils vivent. À la suite de Saint Augustin, on peut exprimer cela en terme de la difficulté à articuler la double appartenance, à la cité de Dieu d’une part et à la « cité des hommes » de l’autre. En dépit de ces tensions, et en vertu de la providence divine, la participation des chrétiens peut aussi contribuer à des bénédictions temporaires pour la société à laquelle ils appartiennent. L’histoire du monde occidental en fournit bien des exemples, dont fait partie l’émergence même des démocraties. Dans le contexte postchrétien actuel, ces fruits historiques de l’influence chrétienne sont souvent dissociés de leurs racines et deviennent par conséquent instables, ou sont contrecarrés par des difficultés, voire des impasses. Ayant conservé leurs racines, les chrétiens peuvent souvent clarifier les choses et proposer des solutions. La contribution chrétienne peut s’avérer fructueuse, par exemple dans le contexte contemporain de l’opposition entre la version libérale de la démocratie de l’Europe occidentale et la version non libérale de l’Europe de l’Est. L’auteur conclut en mentionnant cinq points devant retenir l’attention concernant la participation de chrétiens à la vie d’une démocratie : il s’agit de rester attaché à l’Église qui constitue la communauté politique du Royaume à venir, de considérer l’identification à un organe politique terrestre comme demeurant secondaire, de promouvoir des activités au bénéfice de la société depuis le sein de l’Église, de tenir compte du fait que les objectifs moraux dans le contexte de la société doivent être différents de ceux que l’on adopte dans le contexte de l’Église, et de demeurer fidèle à un style de vie prophétique par la parole et les actes.SummaryChristians have traditionally experienced tensions between their Christian identity and their citizenship in a democracy. This tension is a special variant of the inevitable underlying classical challenge for Christians in all societies where they live. Following Augustine, this can be expressed as the challenge to combine the dual citizenships of the city of God and the ‘city of man’. Despite such tensions, under God’s providence the participation of Christians can also lead to temporary blessings for their societies. Western history provides many examples of this, the development of democracy being one of them. In the current post-Christian context these historical fruits of Christian influence have often become detached from their roots and therefore become unstable or burdened by difficulties and even deadlocks. Being still connected to that root, Christians can often provide clarification and contribute to solutions. This Christian contribution can be made fruitful, for example, in the contemporary clash between Western European liberal and Eastern European illiberal versions of democracy. The article concludes with five points of attention for Christian participation in a democracy: staying anchored in the Church as the political community of the future kingdom, considering earthly political identifications as secondary, developing public grass roots activities from within the Church, realising that moral aims in the context of society have to be different from those in the context of the Church, and remaining faithful to a prophetic lifestyle in word and deed.ZusammenfassungChristen erleben für gewöhnlich Spannungen zwischen ihrer Identität als Christ und als Staatsbürger in einer Demokratie. Diese Spannung stellt eine besondere Variante der unvermeidlichen klassischen Herausforderung dar, der Christen in jeglicher Gesellschaftsform begegnen. Gemäß Augustinus mag sich dies in der Schwierigkeit ausdrücken, die doppelte Staatsbürgerschaft in der ,,Stadt Gottes“ und der ,,Stadt der Menschen“ miteinander zu vereinen. Trotz derartiger Spannungen kann durch die Vorsehung Gottes auch der Einfluss von Christen zu vorübergehenden Segnungen für ihre Gesellschaft führen. Die westliche Geschichte liefert viele Beispiele hierfür, und die Entwicklung der Demokratie ist nur eines davon. Im gegenwärtigen nachchristlichen Kontext haben sich diese historisch gewachsenen Ergebnisse christlichen Einflusses häufig von ihren Wurzeln gelöst und wurden daher unstabil oder von Schwierigkeiten und sogar Blockaden überfrachtet. Solange Christen immer noch mit diesen Wurzeln verbunden sind, sind sie oftmals in der Lage, für eine Klärung von Situationen zu sorgen und zu Lösungen beizutragen. Dieser christliche Einfluss kann zum Beispiel im gegenwärtigen Konflikt zwischen liberalen westeuropäischen und illiberalen osteuropäischen Formen von Demokratie genutzt werden. Der Artikel schließt mit fünf Punkten, die für den Beitrag von Christen in einer Demokratie zu berücksichtigen sind: Christen bleiben in der Gemeinde als der politischen Gemeinschaft des künftigen Reiches Gottes verhaftet, säkulare politische Zuordnungen werden als sekundär betrachtet, öffentliche Basisaktivitäten werden aus der Gemeinde heraus entwickelt, in der Einsicht, dass sich ethische Zielsetzungen im gesellschaftlichen Kontext von jenen im Gemeindekontext unterscheiden müssen und unter der Voraussetzung, dass Christen einem prophetischen Lebensstil in Wort und Tat treu bleiben.


1965 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lotte Glow

It has been said that the Civil War was won by committees. Recent writers on this subject have begun to show how parliamentary policy and its execution was forged in the committee chambers rather than on the crowded floor of the House of Commons. This article is concerned with the personnel of these committees, in particular with those men who were not famous for their political activities and attitudes. Obviously, a core of leaders was needed in order to direct the business of the committees, to give continuity to their proceedings and to ensure that their work was in accord with the policy of the Commons. But the political ‘parties’ were relatively small, and with all the enthusiasm in the world their members could not attend personally to all aspects of government, civil and military. This study is concerned with the men who had no known political views but who contributed a great deal of time and effort to the running of parliamentary affairs. Because of their relative obscurity in the House it will be useful to ask why they were chosen to serve on certain committees, how their background and activity compared with that of their more ‘political’ colleagues, and how they reacted to situations where they were required to take a political stand. Above all, it will be possible to judge whether these men formed a coherent group rather than a random collection of individuals. These men owed their positions to their administrative skill rather than to their political affiliations. As administrators they were responsible to the legislature, and during a time of intensified state intervention, they became analogous to a non-political civil service, ready to execute the policy decisions of the party leaders.


1992 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 331-343 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. R. Oldfield

AbstractDuring the late eighteenth century organized anti-slavery, in the shape of the campaign to end the African slave trade (1787–1807), became an unavoidable feature of political life in Britain. Drawing on previously unpublished material in the Josiah Wedgwood Papers, the following article seeks to reassess this campaign and, in particular, the part played in it by the (London) Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. So far from being a low-level lobby, as historians like Seymour Drescher have suggested, it is argued here that the Committee's activities, both in terms of opinion-building and arranging for petitions to be sent to the house of commons, were central to the success of the early abolitionist movement. Thus while the provinces and public opinion at the grass roots level were undoubtedly important, not least in the industrial north, it was the metropolis and the London Committee which gave political shape and significance to popular abolitionism.


Author(s):  
Andrea Gamberini

At the beginning of the thirteenth century, two new actors made their appearance in the political life of the communes: the factions and the Societas Populi. This chapter focuses on the political language and culture of these two elements, highlighting the tendency of various social actors to consistently represent the unity of the political body. This was the supreme value which neither the factions nor the Popolo would renounce, even when they were alone in power: on the contrary, in fact, it was very much in that kind of situation that the parties tended to represent themselves as ‘the whole’. The chapter then goes on to examine the role that both the factions and the Societas Populi played in fostering the first experiences of lordly government in the city.


2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Krauss

This article examines the tension in Hannah Arendt’s thought between the creativity of political action and the worldlessness of labour in light of fieldwork with feminist activists in Mexico City. Drawing from my ethnographic research, I explore how labour and action are knitted together in the feminist practice of accompanying women who seek safe abortion in the city. Bringing Arendt’s thought into dialogue with anthropologies of illness experience as well as the reflections of my interlocutors in the field, I shift from an approach to the situation of abortion as a decision-making event, to ask other questions about autonomy and dependency, freedom and necessity, mortality and political life. I argue that what is interesting about Arendt’s conceptualisation of the labouring body is not that she separates ‘bare life’ from the political sphere of ‘men’, but rather that it alerts us to the uncertain way our life is implicated with others. In conclusion, I argue that feminist accompaniment networks foster an ephemeral relation of care between activists and women in situations of abortion, one that invites us to re-imagine the temporality of political action and to ask, again, what it is to make a new world versus make this world livable.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Hendy Setiawan

The military's involvement in power and land ownership often leads to conflicts, both vertically and horizontally. According to the Agrarian Reform Consortium's records in 2020, agrarian conflicts involving military personnel during the Covid-19 pandemic were relatively stagnant. This paper aims to explore the conflict between the TNI Akmil Magelang and the Magelang City Government. The method used in this study uses a descriptive qualitative approach. Data collection techniques in this study using observation and documentation techniques and processing research data using the stages of data presentation, verification, and concluding. This study uses Pondy's (1967) theory regarding the stages of conflict as an analytical tool. The results show that the military conflict over land control with the city government has occurred since 1985. However, this conflict has not yet found common ground. The peak of the conflict occurred in mid-August 2020 when the TNI put up a sign at the mayor's office complex. The TNI gave an ultimatum to the Magelang City Government to leave or compensate for land assets. The development of the conflict is currently heading towards conflict resolution. However, it does not mean that in the end the conflict resolution can be found. This departs from the historical record where this conflict has been going on for a long time, and various parties as mediators are involved. However, the conflict continues to roll on and at any time can explode again in public.  


2020 ◽  
pp. 33-41
Author(s):  
Dmitrii Anatolevich Kachusov

The subject of this article is the city protection movement in Barnaul. On the background of strengthening of authoritarian trends in political life of the country, takes place reorientation of the vector of civil activity from solution of the political problems of federal scale towards the local social issues. Namely the local public movements become an important element in the society of separate cities that allow the interaction between civil activists, society, and municipal authorities. The advancement of Internet and social networks greatly contributed to broadening of the audience of city protection communities, growth of opportunities for their influence upon public consciousness and government authorities. Assessment of the size, publication activity and staff composition of the city mono-problem communities in social networks in the key method for studying the city public movements. The research determined the presents of a number of organizations in Barnaul oriented toward the general questions (preservation of historical center of the city, protection of park zones, etc.), as well as solution of particular problems. The author also underlines a large portion of youth (below 30 years of age) among the members of city protection communities. Despite the fact that currently the social database is restricted, members of the communities actively participate in city life, using the Internet as an environment for public self-presentation and channel for communication with population, government, and mass media.


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