The English Revolutions and the Emergence of Modern Parliamentarism
Maciej Wilmanowicz PhD
Summary:
The aim of the course is to explain the turning point at which early forms of distinctly modern parliamentarianism emerged in Great Britain, which occurred as a result of a series of revolutions in the seventeenth-century and subsequent profound changes in English political and legal thought. Students will learn about the relationship between the erosion of the king's extraordinary powers and their takeover by a sovereign legislative body. This will enable them to understand the origins of numerous contemporary political and legal phenomena, such as political parties, the rule of law, the legalization of the state of emergency, the theory of virtual representation and free mandate, as well as the theory of parliament as a deliberative assembly.
From a methodological point of view, the course will be based on a two-pronged approach, using standard institutional history and contextual exegesis of texts. By tracing the institutional and intellectual changes that took place in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, students will understand the complex interaction between historical “realities” and the political thought used to shape and interpret them. Authors discussed throughout the course include Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Daniel Defoe, Charles Davenant, David Hume, Edmund Burke, John Stuart Mill. Carl Schmitt, among others.
The end result of the course will be a historically rooted, but contemporarily relevant perspective on the underlying logic and problems of the modern parliamentary system.
Sections:
1. Before the Revolutions: Law v. Prerogative – the Old Dualism
The aim of this section is to trace the functioning of the old division between the extraordinary, prerogative powers of the king and the ordinary, law-preserving powers of the parliamentary assembly.
Mandatory:
· Bate’s Case in: The Stuart Constitution 1603-1688: Documents and Commentary, edited by John P. Kenyon, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1986, pp. 54-56.
· Edward Coke, The First Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England or, a Commentary upon Littleton., London 1789, p. 623-624. https://archive.org/details/cu31924021661693/page/n623
Additional:
· Francis Oakley, Jacobean Political Theology: The Absolute and Ordinary Powers of the King, „Journal of the History of Ideas” 1968, Vol. 29, No. 3, pp. 323-346.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2708446
2. The Collapse – English Revolutionary Period 1640-1689
In this module several key texts will be discussed to highlight the gradual erosion of the old passive role of the parliamentary assembly and its increasing intrusion onto the field of “extraordinary” royal powers. Questions will be posed regarding the applicability of the term “the Hobbesian moment” to the Glorious Revolution of 1688-1689.
Mandatory:
· Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Cambridge Student Edition. Chapters XVII, XVIII, XIX.
· John Locke, Two Treatises on Government, Second Treatise, Cambridge Student Ediditon. Chapter XIV – “Of the Extent of the Legislative Power”, “Of Prerogative”.
Additional:
· King Charles I, Answer to Nineteen Propositions of Both Houses of Parliament, 1642, https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo2/A78646.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext
· The case of Sir Edward Hales, Baronet, London 1695, p. 11.
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A35644.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext
· John Somers, A Vindication of the Proceedings of the Late Parliament of England, London 1689, pp. 1-5. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo2/A60885.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext
3. The Parliamentarization of Sovereignty
This module will focus on the institutional and conceptual problems related to the parliament’s increasingly active role in the sphere of executive power and political decision making. The possibility of a tyrannical parliament will be discussed.
Mandatory:
· Debates of the House of Commons from the year 1667 to the year 1694, vol. 9, pp. 262-274 [pay special attention to R. Cotton’s speech at p. 274]
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=pst.000024443050&seq=268
· Daniel Defoe, Legion’s New Paper, p. 5, 15-16
https://books.google.pl/books/about/Legion_s_New_Paper.html?id=XyBZAAAAcAAJ&redir_esc=y
Additional:
· Jon Parkin, Taming the Leviathan: The Reception of the Political and Religious Ideas of Thomas Hobbes in England 1640-1700, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2007, pp. 378-409.
4. An Ambivalent Victory – the Rage of Party (1689-1716)
This module will be devoted to the immediate consequences of the parliamentary rule after the Glorious Revolution and the conceptual struggle surrounding the new phenomenon of political party.
Mandatory:
· Charles Davenant, Whether a good Member of the Common-wealth may remain Neuter in times of Faction? And of Faction in general, in The Political and Commercial Works of Charles Davenant, London 1771, vol 4, pp. 303-314.
· Humphrey Mackworth, A Vindication of the Rights of the Commons, Preface (pp. 12-16 in the PDF file)
Additional:
· Archibald Hutcheson, A Speech made in the House of Commons, on Tuesday the 24th of April 1716. At the Second Reading of the Bill for Enlarging the Time for Continuance of Parliements, &c., London 1716, pp. 13-16
· Terence Ball, Party, in Political Innovation and Conceptual Change, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1989, edited by Ball, Farr, Hanson, pp. 155-174.
5. “A Deliberative Assembly of One Nation” – Conceptualizing the Parliamentary Rule
In this module we will trace the gradual emergence of a modern theory of the parliamentary rule, based on a distinct vision of representation and a new epistemological approach to the question of political “truth” and “common good”.
Mandatory:
· Edmund Burke, Speech to the Electors of Bristol, 1774
https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch13s7.html
· David Hume, Of Parties in General and Of the Independency of Parliament, 1741/1777
https://davidhume.org/texts/empl1/pg
https://davidhume.org/texts/empl1/ip
Additional:
· John G.A. Pocock, The Classical Theory of Deference, The American Historical Review Vol. 81, No. 3 (Jun., 1976), pp. 516-523
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1852422
· John Stuart Mill, Liberty, 1859, pp. 85-97
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/34901/34901-h/34901-h.htm
6. Party Rule and Modernity
In this final section we will take a look at the critique of the underlying logic of the parliamentary system, as well as at some attempts to defend its enduring validity.
Mandatory:
· Carl Schmitt, The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy, translated by Ellen Kenendy, MIT Press, Cambridge Mass. 1988, pp. 33-50.
· Nadia Urbinati, Democracy Disfigured: Opinion, Truth and the People, Harvard University Press, Cambridge Mass. 2014, pp. 1-15.
Additional:
· John Ferejohn, Pasquale Pasquino, The Law of the Exception: A Typology of
Emergency Powers, International Journal of Constitutional Law, Volume 2, Issue 2, April 2004, pp. 210–239.
· Henry St. John Bolingbroke, Dissertation upon Parties, London 1733-34, https://historyofeconomicthought.mcmaster.ca/bolingbroke/parties.html
Requirements to pass the course:
To successfully pass the course students are required to prepare an essay discussing on of the following topics:
1. Hobbes’ theory of sovereignty and the parliamentary rule,
2. Constitutional significance and justification of the royal extraordinary powers in the early-modern period,
3. Early-modern critique of political party,
4. Theory of parliament as a deliberative assembly – origin, justification, reality
5. Modern parliamentarism – axiological grounds v. practical workings
Students may prepare an essay on a topic related to the course or further developing issues raised during the classes, but not included in the above list, after prior consultation and with the approval of the lecturer.
Completed essays of 2,000–3,500 words (including bibliography) must be submitted in a WORD file through the Moodle platform by April 30. Final grades will be announced by the end of May.