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Copyright of Adab Al-Kufa is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Informed by my secondment to the UK Parliament in 2015-2016, and the production and reception of The Good Parliament report--which offered a blueprint for a diversity-sensitive House of Commons--this article reflects on my experiences becoming a feminist academic critical actor. This new type of critical actor extends the conceptualization first developed by Childs and Krook (2006, 2008). A distinctiveness vis. Chappell and Mackay's (2021) concept of the "feminist critical friend" is also drawn: In addition to researching institutional change and supporting others in their reform work, the feminist academic critical actor is essential to instigate and institute institutional change. In this, the feminist academic critical actor is engaged in quotidian persuasion work and is both the agent as well as the analyst of research, critically reflecting on the dynamics and actors of institutional status, change, and resistance, including their own acts, in situ and after. In making the case for the feminist academic critical actor, the academic is recognized as doing something different, begging important questions of responsibility and accountability, and the opportunities and costs of engaging in such acts, particularly for minoritized and/or precarious academics. In the latter part of the article, I sketch out some of the dilemmas located in the questioning of my authority and legitimacy, and concerning the harm that I faced as a relatively privileged aspirant feminist academic critical actor, acting to rework the highly masculinized institution that is the UK House of Commons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article undertakes a comprehensive investigation into several common critiques of career politicians. Career politicians are said to be self‐serving: active and assertive when it suits their career interests, and much more interested in attaining higher offices than in serving as constituency‐oriented MPs. Yet, empirical investigations of their alleged behaviours are few, and the results are patchy and mixed. Focusing on the United Kingdom case and using a multi‐dimensional conceptualization that accords with academic and popular understandings of career politicians, the article draws on uniquely rich attitudinal and longitudinal behavioural data covering the first large generational wave of career politicians to be elected to parliament in the early 1970s. It reports findings consistent with contemporary critiques, suggesting that such dispositions are inherent in the role of career politician. The strongest career politicians among this first wave concentrated strategically on career‐serving activities, voted strategically to safeguard their careers, attained and retained successfully ministerial offices and prioritized their personal goals over their party obligations. The article further demonstrates that different measures used by researchers can produce contradictory results and that future comparative research should seek to range beyond unidimensional indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we investigate changes in British parliamentary discourse by using the Hansard Corpus (1803–2005). Our first goal is to determine whether parliamentary speeches have become colloquialised by studying frequency changes of select features associated with informal spoken language. Second, by analysing data from the House of Commons and the House of Lords separately, we show that the texts from the two Houses should be considered distinct sub-registers, each with their own conventions and development paths. Finally, we analyse a pattern that seems particularly relevant to parliamentary debates: one where speakers imply disagreement by referring to their peers in the third person, thus circumventing a parliamentary regulation whereby speakers are prohibited from addressing one another directly. Our findings support the idea of an ongoing colloquialisation/democratisation trend affecting parliamentary discourse while also suggesting that this process is not entirely transparent in the written record because of editorial interference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the second day of the Westminster Parliament of January 1380 John Lowther, one of the MPs for Westmorland, was stabbed to death by a fellow Member, Sir William Curwen, who sat for Cumberland. A case study of this homicide (the principal record of which is printed in the appendix) and its background offers new information on the arrangements for the housing of MPs during 14th‐century parliaments and demonstrates how the affair acquired a long parliamentary afterlife, before eventually being settled in 1394. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What do 'dilemmas' reveal about elites' underlying beliefs, values and attitudes to parliaments and reform? In this article, I answer this question in two ways. First, I identify three parliamentary 'traditions' among elites regarding the UK Parliament and reform in British politics (specifically: conservative, liberal and reformist traditions). Second, I explore how these different traditions inform MPs when confronted with dilemmas about Parliament's role using two illustrative case studies: the vote to leave the European Union and the Covid-19 pandemic. In so doing, this article makes two original contributions: empirically, by establishing that MPs' actions were informed by one of three traditions, it offers a new explanation for how parliamentary actors respond to challenges; and, theoretically, through the use of the interpretive concept of 'dilemmas', the article demonstrates the added value of using interpretive approaches to explaining parliamentary politics and, specifically, opportunities for analysing institutional change and continuity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the second day of the Westminster Parliament of January 1380 John Lowther, one of the MPs for Westmorland, was stabbed to death by a fellow Member, Sir William Curwen, who sat for Cumberland. A case study of this homicide (the principal record of which is printed in the appendix) and its background offers new information on the arrangements for the housing of MPs during 14th‐century parliaments and demonstrates how the affair acquired a long parliamentary afterlife, before eventually being settled in 1394. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Qualification of Women Act, which granted women the right to membership in the House of Commons and to participate in its debates, is a positive step that complements a law previously approved by the British government in the same year, which is the law granting women the right to vote after years of hard work and tireless efforts, a positive step that has proven Through it, the feminist segment and its presence in a society dominated by male dependence.These laws came as an appreciation for the feminist effort, and in appreciation of the active roles that the country’s women exercised during the years of World War I.The law received positive reactions when it was discussed in Parliament, as it is an inevitable and natural result after granting them the right to vote Since women have always been eligible to vote, it is logical that they are eligible to sit in the House of Commons.

The successes and failures of political leaders and their rise and fall from power are well analysed by academic studies. The roles played by former leaders however are more obscure, particularly if they continue to maintain an institutional presence. This article explores the backbench behaviour of 12 former UK prime ministers following their departure from Downing Street. We find that contemporary former prime ministers display more diverse backbench behaviour in the House of Commons, are more focused on performing constituency representation in the chamber and engage in a form of statecraft focused on real time assessments of their successors. This is significant as it suggests that our traditional assumptions of post leadership careers may need reinterpreting. It also demonstrates an ongoing democratic benefit to the presence of former leaders within legislatures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A substantial aim of political communication is to engage specific groups of citizens through pragmatic policies and various media channels to convey messages and gain the audience's acceptance effectively. This study investigates political communication as a form of discourse that occurs within political contexts, which involves the exchange of messages among political actors to address and resolve political issues. It is an interdisciplinary field encompassing aspects of psychology, economics, culture, society, and linguistics. This paper aims to give a satisfactory explanation for the question concerning effective communication characteristics: how might politicians utilize them in their speech to be more effective? This pragmatic study in discourse is devoted to analyzing the various effective syntactic structures that arise within political interactions according to Sperber and Wilson's Theory of Relevance. The contribution of this study is evident as guidelines for further understanding the correlation between language and cognition. The researchers find that politicians seek to cognitively take advantage of the tendency of the audience to strive for relevance. In this way, expectations and attitudes are to be recognized and met by either interlocutors. The focal point of the study is the linguistic and inferential aspects of communication (verbal and non-verbal forms), represented in explicatures and implicatures. The study's findings exhibit the politicians' efforts in crafting their utterances optimally to meet the audience's expectations of relevance, which could be used as an influential method for further studies concerning discourse and communication. This research paper aims to pragmatically exploit the effectiveness of the political interactions (extracts) in the House of Commons (UK parliamentary debates). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction of evidence sessions for House of Commons public bill committees in 2007, including oral evidence from witnesses, was widely seen as a potentially significant improvement in informing scrutiny of legislation. Drawing on interviews with officials and witnesses, and on data gathered from Hansard for the 2017–2019 session, this article examines the selection and some of the characteristics of witnesses, witnesses' views of the process and how oral evidence is used in subsequent scrutiny of the legislation. While recognising that oral evidence does make an important contribution to scrutiny, the article notes that both the process as it currently exists, and the inevitable influence of political factors, mean that the impact of oral evidence on legislation remains very limited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Informed by my secondment to the UK Parliament in 2015–2016, and the production and reception of The Good Parliament report—which offered a blueprint for a diversity-sensitive House of Commons—this article reflects on my experiences becoming a feminist academic critical actor. This new type of critical actor extends the conceptualization first developed by Childs and Krook (2006, 2008). A distinctiveness vis. Chappell and Mackay’s (2021) concept of the “feminist critical friend” is also drawn: In addition to researching institutional change and supporting others in their reform work, the feminist academic critical actor is essential to instigate and institute institutional change. In this, the feminist academic critical actor is engaged in quotidian persuasion work and is both the agent as well as the analyst of research, critically reflecting on the dynamics and actors of institutional status, change, and resistance, including their own acts, in situ and after. In making the case for the feminist academic critical actor, the academic is recognized as doing something different, begging important questions of responsibility and accountability, and the opportunities and costs of engaging in such acts, particularly for minoritized and/or precarious academics. In the latter part of the article, I sketch out some of the dilemmas located in the questioning of my authority and legitimacy, and concerning the harm that I faced as a relatively privileged aspirant feminist academic critical actor, acting to rework the highly masculinized institution that is the UK House of Commons.

The enactment of religious change through Parliament during the Reformation gave it a central role in shaping the church in England; this role deepened in the mid-seventeenth century. The House of Commons 1640-1660 project, recently published, revealed complexity and variety in MPs' response, as well as the impossibility of pinpointing the views of many. Staunch adherents of the episcopal national church as led by Archbishop Laud sooner or later disappeared from the House. Among the rest, many of whom were involved in some way in religious matters and some of whom brought experience of other ecclesiologies, views evolved over time. Few MPs emerge as consistent Presbyterians; the Westminster Assembly attracted suspicion; the Presbyterian settlement of 1645 was from the start visibly ignored. There was significant enthusiasm for a state church, but no agreement on its form. 'Independents' differed markedly in their response to 'heresy' and acceptance of toleration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years have seen an increase in the use of delegated legislation to implement major policy decisions in the UK. This has exacerbated the longstanding criticism that Westminster lacks sufficiently robust procedures for parliamentary scrutiny of delegated legislation. However, the UK is not the only country to use delegated legislation, or to face the challenge of ensuring it receives adequate parliamentary scrutiny. This article therefore places the UK system in wider context by comparing it to six other national parliaments. We highlight one comparative strength of the UK system, two weaknesses it shares with the other six cases, and one way in which the UK might learn lessons from elsewhere. Overall, our evidence suggests that no one country offers a clear template for more rigorous parliamentary scrutiny of delegated legislation. Successful reform of the UK's system is likely to require creative procedural innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The right to petition the British Parliament is a part of the British democratic traditions. British subjects have constantly signed petitions and then sent them to the Parliament in hope of getting a favourable response. According to the Factsheets of the British Parliament, "[t]he first known petitions to the Lords and to both Houses of Parliament date from the reign of Richard II, but seem to have become widespread from the reign of Henry IV onwards." (Factsheet P7, p. 5). The present study analyses a sample corpus made up of petitions presented in the House of Commons of the British Parliament and aim at identifying argumentative and linguistic features which may be typical for this kind of petitions. To do this, a general survey of the meaning of the English noun =petition' and the derived verb =to petition' will be carried out first. The argumentative and semantic features identified for them as they emerge from their dictionary definitions will be checked on the corpus of petitions. The results of the analysis are expected to prove their presence in the petitions presented in the British Parliament while differences may also show up. In order to do this, a theoretical framework for the argumentative and for the linguistic approach will be chosen. As will be mentioned further on, this will be Toulmin's (2003) model of argument (made up of Data, Claim, Warrant, Backing, Qualifiers and Rebuttal). As for the linguistic perspective, the Speech Act theory developed by Searle (1969) and Austin (1975), together with the description of English verbs used in various speech acts, outlined by Kreidler (1998), will be used to identify the speech acts and predicates present in the petitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The old palace of Westminster developed organically over the period it was used by parliament. As well as the Lords and the Commons, it was also home to the law courts and a number of people, officials and otherwise, who lived on site. It was also a commercial hub. On occasion, there were initiatives to redevelop the complex but these were never acted upon. Instead, there was a regular programme of replacement of perishables and occasional small‐scale developments in preference to undertaking more dramatic alterations. This article considers the way in which parliament was maintained from the Restoration in 1660 to the accession of George III, the pressures to adapt on those who lived and worked there, and the conflicting interests involved in overseeing the various buildings. Concentrating on the house of lords and drawing on the papers of the lord chamberlain and lord great chamberlain, two of the central figures in managing the palace, it will highlight the tendency to rely on ad hoc solutions. It will also underscore the importance of the complex bureaucratic relationships within the palace, which may have helped preclude a more unified vision for the site. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United Kingdom faces twin constitutional crises. The existence of the Union itself is now under stronger challenge than ever before, and many of the conventions and understandings which have underpinned the constitutional stability of the United Kingdom and the relationships between executive, Parliament and judiciary have been eroded or overthrown. There is no single, easy way to put things right. What is needed are reforms to the working of Parliament, the Civil Service and devolution, to restore greater balance and stability to our constitution. These should include measures to strengthen the ability of Parliament to hold the executive to account and a new Civil Service Act to provide for the independence, governance and accountability of the Civil Service. To overcome the strains that now threaten the unity of the UK we need a cultural shift in UK politics in favour of partnership and mutual respect, underpinned by changes to the way we do business in both government and Parliament and by greater devolution of power within England. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United Kingdom faces twin constitutional crises. The existence of the Union itself is now under stronger challenge than ever before, and many of the conventions and understandings which have underpinned the constitutional stability of the United Kingdom and the relationships between executive, Parliament and judiciary have been eroded or overthrown. There is no single, easy way to put things right. What is needed are reforms to the working of Parliament, the Civil Service and devolution, to restore greater balance and stability to our constitution. These should include measures to strengthen the ability of Parliament to hold the executive to account and a new Civil Service Act to provide for the independence, governance and accountability of the Civil Service. To overcome the strains that now threaten the unity of the UK we need a cultural shift in UK politics in favour of partnership and mutual respect, underpinned by changes to the way we do business in both government and Parliament and by greater devolution of power within England. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Commons obtained the service of a royal sergeant‐at‐arms in 1414. Alongside him, the sergeant‐at‐arms brought his mace. Originally a blunt weapon and a badge of the sergeants‐at‐arms' office, the later merely ceremonial mace became associated with the Speaker of the House and part of the Speaker's processions by the mid 16th century. I will argue that the change in parliamentary rituals was an imitation of the usage of great maces of cities and boroughs, in which sergeants had carried great maces in front of their mayors in processions since the 14th century. I will further argue that the House's imitation of this ritual lead to an uplift of the Speaker's position within the House. The enhancement in the Speaker's role in the House's ceremonial proceedings went alongside an enhancement in the Speaker's role in the House's political proceedings. The Speaker evolved from a mere mouthpiece of the Commons into a representative of the House. This example illustrated the interdependency between symbolic and functional elements observable within the house of commons, but also more broadly in the study of parliamentary history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At UK general elections, parties and candidates standing in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales give prominence to pledges to act on behalf of those territories. This article examines how far and in what ways MPs with constituencies in those parts of the UK actually seek to give representation to these territorial units once elected. A typology of forms of substantive parliamentary representation of sub-state units such as these is outlined, and results of a content analysis of Commons contributions by backbench MPs between 1992 and 2019 are presented. It is found that MPs from the parts of the UK with devolved legislatures focus extensively on the sub-state territorial level and that these MPs have adapted their representational styles to the changed institutional context following devolution. These findings have important implications for how we think about the roles of MPs from Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales in the post-devolution context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article utilises the idea of procedural justice ('fair processes') as a tool for analysing the ways in which Parliament engages with the public. It concludes that the engagement work of individual services in Parliament often reflects such ideas, and suggests that procedural justice could have value in bringing new insights to the work of Parliament in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Commons obtained the service of a royal sergeant‐at‐arms in 1414. Alongside him, the sergeant‐at‐arms brought his mace. Originally a blunt weapon and a badge of the sergeants‐at‐arms' office, the later merely ceremonial mace became associated with the Speaker of the House and part of the Speaker's processions by the mid 16th century. I will argue that the change in parliamentary rituals was an imitation of the usage of great maces of cities and boroughs, in which sergeants had carried great maces in front of their mayors in processions since the 14th century. I will further argue that the House's imitation of this ritual lead to an uplift of the Speaker's position within the House. The enhancement in the Speaker's role in the House's ceremonial proceedings went alongside an enhancement in the Speaker's role in the House's political proceedings. The Speaker evolved from a mere mouthpiece of the Commons into a representative of the House. This example illustrated the interdependency between symbolic and functional elements observable within the house of commons, but also more broadly in the study of parliamentary history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The History of Parliament Oral History Project has been interviewing former Members of the UK Parliament since 2011. Life stories from inside Parliament reveal missing information about personal motivations, informal cross-party collaboration and use (and misuse) of procedure that helps to demonstrate both how the institution worked and the difficulties of writing and passing legislation. Oral history interviews can be used as a source to add different perspectives on legal history, encouraging researchers to challenge more traditional sources. The paper discusses memories of some controversial legislation where individuals have deeply-held beliefs: laws around abortion. This is an example of how oral history can be used to understand the complexities of the process of law making and how things are done inside an institution, while also providing some personal and human perspectives on Parliament

While Brexit has particularly highlighted the role of the Speaker in the conduct of the business and debate of the House of Commons, the sequence alone probably does not explain the possible evolution of this role. The issue goes beyond Brexit, revealing changes that run more broadly through the UK’s political and institutional system and reflecting new questions about the place and function of Parliament. In this perspective/context, the Speaker has emerged as a key player in British political and parliamentary life.

Abstract The British party system is known for its discipline and cohesion, but it remains wedged on one issue: European integration. We offer a methodology using social network analysis that considers the individual interactions of MPs in the voting process. Using public Parliamentary records, we scraped votes of individual MPs in the 57th parliament (June 2017 to April 2019), computed pairwise similarity scores and calculated rebellion metrics based on eigenvector centralities. Comparing the networks of Brexit- and non-Brexit divisions, our methodology was able to detect a significant difference in eurosceptic behaviour for the former, and using a rebellion metric we predicted how MPs would vote in a forthcoming Brexit deal with over 90% accuracy.

Legislative committees usually combine legislative and oversight functions. Most research has focused on the former. The British House of Commons offers an opportunity to shed light on MPs' motivations to engage in the neglected oversight aspects of committee work, because its committee system separates lawmaking from investigatory functions. In this article, we examine the politics of assignment to the investigatory select committees. Using an original data set for the 2005–10 and 2010–15 Parliaments, we find that MPs' long‐standing policy interests are a strong and consistent predictor for select‐committee assignments, especially when committees' desirability increases. Our results are largely incompatible with partisan models predicting party loyalty to be a decisive factor in select‐committee assignments. Evidence suggests that the "Wright reforms" have consolidated the self‐selection mechanism operating in committee assignments. Against expectations of partisan motivations driving committee assignments, our evidence suggests that models based on informational concerns offer the most convincing rationale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Now that Justin Trudeau's "independent" Senate has had a full term to orient itself, how do we characterize the emerging relationship between it and the House of Commons? To answer this question, this article examines quantitative and qualitative changes in the Senate's impact on legislation since 2015. I look first of all at quantitative changes in Senate-Commons interaction, as assessed through the Senate's strong challenges to the Commons, more normal legislative review, and proactive policy influence. I then turn to qualitative case studies of Bills C-14, C-48, and C-69 to provide a more in-depth assessment of Senate review of legislation related to its core institutional mission. Overall, I argue that the newly independent Senate has been a much more assertive participant in the legislative process, but ultimately has been very mindful of reputational considerations and avoided going beyond "moderate" review. As a result, there are lingering questions about the practical significance of Trudeau's reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of French Journal of British Studies / Revue Française de Civilisation Britannique is the property of Centre de Recherches et d'Etudes en Civilisation Britannique and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The ability to hold MPs accountable for their actions is one of the cornerstones of modern representative democracy. While it is important for MPs to send signals to both their constituents and to their party, a large number of MPs remain absent from votes. Those absences are an important part of the MP's toolbox, but absences carry limitations, rooted in electoral and political constraints. We investigate how—conditional on the electoral cycle—some well-established political constraints along the government and opposition lines vary in strength. We examine the absence probabilities of MPs in the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2015, and find that as the next elections are approaching, political constraints somewhat weaken and electoral ones take over, but marked differences emerge between parliamentary sessions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents findings from a critical discourse analysis of House of Commons debates about the Independent Assessment Process (IAP), an out-of-court compensatory adjudication process intended to resolve claims of sexual and physical abuse that occurred at Indian Residential Schools and one of five key elements of the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement. Our analysis is guided by the question: What do elected officials' discussions about the IAP reveal about the implementation of compensatory transitional justice mechanisms in settler colonial states, and about colonial relations (specifically attempts at reconciliation) more generally? Our study focuses on debates that took place between 2004 and 2019. We explored elected officials' framing of both Survivors and the Canadian State in their discussions about the IAP. Our analysis reveals the limited reach of dialogue based in a partisan and antagonistic context and supports those scholars who assert that transitional justice is incompatible with reconciliation and decolonization. By way of contributing to the larger interdisciplinary study entitled Reconciling Perspectives and Building Public Memory: Learning from the Independent Assessment Process, of which this article is part, we reflect on what our findings mean not only for public memory but also for studying the IAP moving forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines the previously undeciphered shorthand notes of Sir George Treby, a Whig mp and lawyer and the chairman of the House of Commons Committee of Secrecy investigating the Popish Plot (1678–81). Andrea McKenzie's exposition of how she cracked Treby's particular system of "secret writing," and the challenges, features, and practical principles of early modern stenography more broadly, will prove useful to other scholars attempting to decode seventeenth-century shorthand. Not least, these documents provide a fascinating snapshot of the private thoughts of one of the principal Whig opponents of Charles II and James II during two watershed moments in British history: the Exclusion Crisis and Tory Revenge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The causes of Brexit are usually analysed from the viewpoint of the domestic factors that led to the outcome of the 2016 referendum. In contrast, this article examines whether the impact of European integration on the United Kingdom's parliamentary democracy can be used to help understand the context in which the debates about the UK's departure from in the EU took place. Applying an interpretive sociological approach and analysing interviews with MPs in the House of Commons' European scrutiny system and parliamentary reports, the author finds that MPs' role conflicts have risen in three phases since 1992. Procedural adaptations have helped MPs play their deliberative role better, but they have also exposed important limitations for other traditional legitimation logics. The findings point to the need for further studies on the impact of European decision-making on domestic democratic practices, both to better understand the context of Brexit and to create more resilient democratic institutions in the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Marmara Üniversitesi Hukuk Fakültesi Hukuk Araştırmaları Dergisi is the property of Marmara University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Where female representatives are located within legislatures and what they do matters for the substantive representation of women. Previous scholarship has found that female parliamentary committee members participate differently than their male counterparts in relation to both policy area and status of positions held. Here, we draw on an original time-series data set (n = 9,767) to analyze the U.K. select committee system. We test for the impact of four variables previously found to be important in explaining changes in gendered divisions of labor: the system of appointment/election, the proportion of female representatives in the legislature, sharp increases in the number of female representatives, and changes in government from right-wing parties to left-wing parties. We find that horizontal and vertical divisions of labor persist over time and that membership patterns in the United Kingdom mainly correspond to those found elsewhere. Moreover, there is little evidence that any of the four variables have systematically affected membership patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A century after the first woman entered the House of Commons in 1919, female representatives now make up 33% of all Members of Parliament. This paper intends to examine the place and the role of female parliamentarians through the maiden speech which each new member delivers. The speech takes place within a framework of traditions and rules, but it also represents an opportunity for newly elected parliamentarians to highlight specific topics. The study of nearly 500 speeches over a century, through a quantitative and qualitative prism, enables us to assess to what extent female parliamentarians conform to tradition and try to integrate the dominant group or, on the contrary, how far they choose to break with conventions. The analysis also aims at identifying the themes dealt with by the new female MPs and determining if they act as spokespersons for the female British population by focusing on certain issues.

By making it easier for citizens to communicate their preferences, online forms of political participation have the potential to strengthen the representational link between politicians and voters. However, we know little about the effects of online advocacy on politicians' behavior. Using new data from an e‐petition system in the United Kingdom, I show that support for a petition among a Member of Parliament's constituents is associated with a substantial increase in the probability that the MP advocates for the petition in parliamentary debate, even when compared to MP behavior in counterfactual non‐petition debates which focus on the same policy issues. However, MP responsiveness is conditioned both by party discipline and electoral competition. These findings have important implications for our understanding of dyadic representation in parliamentary systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to demonstrate that the transition from the mainstream narrative to the interactional history of concepts promises tangible benefits for scholars of social time in general and temporal comparisons in particular. It is shown that the traditionally close alignment of narration with the production of historical consciousness at various levels hinders the study of time as a semantic variable perpetually contested, amended and upheld across society. Alternatively, the references to time made in public settings, allowing for more or less instant reactions (turn-taking) as well as expression of dissenting opinions (stance-taking), offer a much more representative palette of temporal semantics and pragmatics in a given sociopolitical environment. In a particularly intriguing case, the essentially deliberative venue where contestation is supported by both institutional arrangements and political reasons (British House of Commons) is put to test under circumstances commonly known as 'the post-war consensus' – the unspoken convention directing opposing political parties to suspend stance-taking regarding the past actions of the government during WWII, its immediate aftermath and its future prospects. As a reliable indicator of this arrangement, the contestation of temporal comparisons between relevant pasts and futures is tested in oppositions reflecting party allegiances (Conservatives vs. Labour vs. Liberals) and executive functions (government vs. opposition) between 1946 and 1952. It is shown that, notwithstanding the prevalence of non-contested statements aimed at preserving interactional coherence and pragmatic functionality of the setting, the moderately active contestation of the adversary's temporal comparisons in the House of Commons at that time helped all parties, albeit to a different degree, to shape their own political and institutional roles as well as to delegitimize their respective adversaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presenting research conducted by the 'St Stephen's Chapel, Westminster' project at the University of York, this article focuses on the Great Seal devised in 1649 and re-issued in 1651 to enable the Commonwealth to function following the execution of Charles i. As a familiar and ancient image of monarchy, the Great Seal posed an obvious challenge to the authority of the Rump Parliament. A radical new design, authorised by parliamentary committee and executed by engraver Thomas Simon, replaced royal iconography with images of popular sovereignty and nationhood: a map of England and Ireland on the obverse of the Seal, and the interior of the House of Commons chamber (formerly St Stephen's Chapel) on the reverse. The result was a striking evocation of political authority located in the House of Commons and deriving from the English people. Engravings of the Commons chamber, in circulation since the 1620s, are identified as a probable source for Simon's work. The Great Seal also re-asserted England's dominion over Ireland and the waters surrounding the British Isles. Overall, this article argues for continuity as well as alteration in the iconography of the Great Seal of England, at a time of revolutionary political change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Historia i Polityka is the property of Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)