The Australian Citizens’ Parliament and the Future of Deliberative Democracy
The Australian Citizens’ Parliament and the Future of Deliberative Democracy

Author: Lyn Carson

Publisher: Penn State Press

Published: 2015-06-29

Total Pages: 492

ISBN-13: 0271069074

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Growing numbers of scholars, practitioners, politicians, and citizens recognize the value of deliberative civic engagement processes that enable citizens and governments to come together in public spaces and engage in constructive dialogue, informed discussion, and decisive deliberation. This book seeks to fill a gap in empirical studies in deliberative democracy by studying the assembly of the Australian Citizens’ Parliament (ACP), which took place in Canberra on February 6–8, 2009. The ACP addressed the question “How can the Australian political system be strengthened to serve us better?” The ACP’s Canberra assembly is the first large-scale, face-to-face deliberative project to be completely audio-recorded and transcribed, enabling an unprecedented level of qualitative and quantitative assessment of participants’ actual spoken discourse. Each chapter reports on different research questions for different purposes to benefit different audiences. Combined, they exhibit how diverse modes of research focused on a single event can enhance both theoretical and practical knowledge about deliberative democracy.

Lords of Parliament
Lords of Parliament

Author: Emma Crewe

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Published: 2005-11-29

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 9780719072079

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This work marks the first time a researcher has had largely unlimited access, and every significant aspect of the Upper Chamber has been scrutinized. The result is a unique portrait, packed with the unexpected, of a surprising institution which is becoming increasingly influential. Meticulous scholarship is combined with clarity in explanation to produce a work that helps to bridge the gap between anthropology and political science.

A Thousand Steps to Parliament
A Thousand Steps to Parliament

Author: Manduhai Buyandelger

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2022-11-07

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 0226818748

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A Thousand Steps to Parliament traces how the complicated, contradictory paths to political representation that women in Mongolia must walk mirror those the world over. Mongolia has often been deemed an "island of democracy," commended for its rapid adoption of free democratic elections in the wake of totalitarian socialism. The democratizing era, however, brought alongside it a phenomenon that Manduhai Buyandelger terms "electionization"--a restructuring of elections from time-grounded events into a continuous, neoliberal force that governs everyday life beyond the electoral period. In A Thousand Steps to Parliament, she shows how campaigns in Mongolia have come to substitute for the functions of governing, from social welfare to the private sector. Such long-term, high-investment campaigns depend on an accumulation of wealth and power beyond the reach of most women candidates. Given their limited financial means and outsider status, successful women candidates instead use strategies of self-polishing to cultivate charisma and a reputation for being oyunlag, or intellectful. This carefully and intentionally crafted identity can be called the "electable self" treating their bodies and minds as pliable and renewable, women candidates draw from the same practices of neoliberalism that have unsustainably commercialized elections. A Thousand Steps to Parliament traces how the complicated, contradictory paths to representation that women in Mongolia must walk mirror those the world over, revealing an urgent need to grapple with the encroaching effects of neoliberalism in democracies globally.

The Autocratic Parliament
The Autocratic Parliament

Author: Irene Weipert-Fenner

Publisher: Syracuse University Press

Published: 2020-03-23

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 0815655010

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When protests erupted in response to the 2010 Egyptian parliament elections that were widely viewed as fraudulent, many wondered. Why now? Voters had never witnessed free and fair elections in the past, so why did these elicit such an outcry? To answer this question, Weipert-Fenner conducted the first study of politics in modern Egypt from a parliamentary perspective. Contrary to the prevailing opinion that autocratic parliaments are meaningless, token institutions, Weipert-Fenner’s long-term analysis shows that parliament can be an indicator, catalyst, and agent of change in an authoritarian regime. Comparing parliamentary dynamics over decades, Weipert-Fenner demonstrates that autocratic parliaments can grow stronger within a given political system. They can also become contentious when norms regarding policies, political actors, and institutions are violated on a large scale and/or at a fast pace. Most importantly, a parliament can even turn against the executive when parliamentary rights are withdrawn or when widely shared norms are violated. These and other recurrent patterns of institutional relations identified in The Autocratic Parliament help explain long spans of stable, yet never stagnant, authoritarian rule in colonial and postcolonial periods alike, as well as the different types of regime change that Egypt has witnessed: those brought about by external intervention, by revolution, or by military coup.

Obscure Scribblers
Obscure Scribblers

Author: Andrew Sparrow

Publisher: Methuen Publishing

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13:

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Sparrow's account of over three centuries of Parliamentary reporting brings in literary giants such as Samuel Johnson and Charles Dickens (who worked as a reported in Parliament in the 1830s) as well as covering major developments in how reporting was carried out - and press coverage.

Parliament and the Media
Parliament and the Media

Author: Ralph M. Negrine

Publisher: Burns & Oates

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13:

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Based on an analysis of media content from selected periods in 1986 and 1996, this study examines the changing nature of parliamentary and political coverage in Britain, Germany and France. The comparison of the output suggests that although there are differences in political structures and media practices, there are also important similarities, such as a reduction in the length of politicians' sound-bites on television, and changes in the make-up of newspapers which affect the nature of parliamentary and political coverage. The findings are placed within a broader context of a continually changing relationship between political institutions and actors in the media.

Commons and Lords
Commons and Lords

Author: Emma Crewe

Publisher: Haus Publishing

Published: 2015-05-15

Total Pages: 54

ISBN-13: 1910376272

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The British Parliament rewards close scrutiny not just for the sake of democracy, but also because the surprises it contains challenge our understanding of British politics. Commons and Lords pulls back the curtain on both the upper House of Lords and the lower House of Commons to examine their unexpected inner workings. Based on fieldwork within both Houses, this volume in the Haus Curiosities series provides a surprising twist in how relationships in each play out. The high social status of peers in the House of Lords gives the impression of hierarchy and, more specifically, patriarchy. In contrast, the House of Commons conjures impressions of equality and fairness between members. But actual observation reveals the opposite: while the House of Lords has an egalitarian and cooperative ethos that is also supportive of female members, the competitive and aggressive House of Commons is a far less comfortable place for women. Offering many surprises and secrets, this book exposes the sheer oddity of the British parliament system.

Parliament and Congress
Parliament and Congress

Author: William McKay

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2010-06-03

Total Pages: 596

ISBN-13: 0199273626

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In Parliament and Congress the constitutional background and the procedures are described and where possible compared in an entirely fresh look at the two legislatures. Though their constitutional positions and development are quite distinct, they nevertheless have much in common historically and face many of the same contemporary problems.