Friends of Freedom

From the Sons of Liberty to British reformers, Irish patriots, French Jacobins, Haitian revolutionaries and American Democrats, the greatest social movements of the Age of Atlantic Revolutions grew as part of a common, interrelated pattern. In this new transnational history, Micah Alpaugh demonstrates the connections between the most prominent causes of the era, as they drew upon each other's models to seek unprecedented changes in government. As Friends of Freedom, activists shared ideas and strategies internationally, creating a chain of broad-based campaigns that mobilized the American Revolution, British Parliamentary Reform, Irish nationalism, movements for religious freedom, abolitionism, the French Revolution, the Haitian Revolution, and American party politics. Rather than a series of distinct national histories, Alpaugh shows how these movements jointly responded to the Atlantic trends of their era to create a new way to alter or overthrow governments: mobilizing massive social movements.

Democratic Innovation in the Scottish Parliament: An Evaluation of Committee Mini-Publics

When the Scottish Parliament was established the intention of the founders was to make it a more innovative, participatory, and deliberative legislature than the UK had experienced before. Research suggests that attempts to achieve these aspirations were short-lived. Recently, a Commission on Parliamentary Reform (2017) was established to add fresh impetus to this mission. Its recommendations included the running of inhouse mini-publics to support the committee system. In 2019 the Scottish Parliament’s Citizen Engagement Unit ran their first mini-publics: a Citizens' Jury on land management and the natural environment for the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee, and a series of Citizens’ Panels on the future of primary care for the Health and Sport Committee. This paper evaluates their design and implementation against key norms of deliberative democracy and the expectations of the reform committee, to establish whether the Scottish Parliament is now adopting a meaningful ‘new politics’. We analyse primary data collected from a mixed method study that included structured participant surveys, semi-structured interviews with parliamentary staff, committee members, and expert witnesses; supplemented with non-participant observations and secondary data sources. We conclude with suggestions to enable mini-publics to be embedded in the committee system more permanently.

4. Parliament

This chapter looks specifically at the UK Parliament as this is the central institution of the UK political system. It describes the people in Parliament, its internal makeup, and the way in which it is changing. The chapter examines the roles of members of the House of Commons and House of Lords. It considers the four basic functions of Parliament: providing a basis of government, holding government to account, producing legislation, and interacting with the wider public. The chapter describes three practical examples to help illustrate some of its themes. These are the following: the 2010–15 coalition government’s attempts to reform the House of Lords; the 2009 Wright Committee proposals for parliamentary reform and their implementation; and the practice of pre-appointed hearings conducted by parliamentary committees.