商品簡介
The British House of Commons provides the closest historical approximation for the parliamentary ideal type of politics. This book deals with the formation and conceptual change in the Westminster procedure, based on the way they are interpreted in the tracts on procedure. The tracts illustrate the changing parliamentary self-understanding from the 1570s to the present, along with the growing political role of procedural disputes. The parliamentary style of politics, as discussed in the tracts, can be divided into two genres: the politics of agenda-setting and the politics of debate. The book analyzes their formation and overall conceptual change, as well as the procedural responses to the increasingly scarce parliamentary time from the period after the 1832 parliamentary reform. It insists that, in spite of claims on urgency and on government's leadership, the procedural resources of the House of Commons contribute to maintaining the debate-centered parliamentary style of politics. The parliamentary procedure relies on regulating debates in a fair way and on constructing opposed perspectives on the agenda items.
