Parliamentary Democracy

This essay is part of the Social Watch India's Citizens' Report on Governance. This is the third essay I have written for this venture. It reviews the functioning of the Indian Parliament from citizens' perspective on various parameters of productivity given the public spending on this institution of democracy, representation and governance.

Like many other developing countries, Pakistan experienced dictatorship and collapse of parliamentary system four times moreover, the immature attitude of political leaders enforcing the military to do unconstitutional act in Pakistan. PPP remained the most dominant political party of Pakistan and four times has got a chance to remain in power. After the assassination of Benazir, Bhutto party won the majority vote in 2008 election and made coalition government. Pakistan people party government adopts the policy of reconciliation and revives the constitution in its original shape and it was the first time in the history of Pakistan when democratic government completed its full tenure. In its period it passed three significantly important amendments and women empowerment bill. PPP government adopted the policy of reconciliation and revives the constitution in its original shape.

The victorious conclusion of the war coupled with a great democratising reform created a sense of expectation that the parliament that was elected in December 1918 could not more starkly have disappointed. There was shock at the overnight transformation of party politics, and general confusion. To the central criticism that that 1918 Reform Act had provided for a deeply unrepresentative and therefore undemocratic House of Commons, came complaints that the legislature had become merely an appendage of the executive, and parliamentary government had been supplanted by party government. Many observers opined that the authority of the House of Commons had been undermined. This article considers how the implications of the act were envisaged, and how they were experienced and reported. It will look at the legislature that resulted, its members, and how they adapted to and changed its procedures and conventions. Lastly it will reflect on the politics of the impact of the Reform Act, on the parties, on their policies, and on a new political environment. Through their writings at the time and their reflections subsequently, those who were Members and those who were observers of Parliament testified to how they felt the House of Commons had changed as a result of the impact of the 1918 Reform Act.

During the First World War, conflicts between the people’s sacrifices and their political participation led to crises of parliamentary legitimacy. This volume compares British, German, Swedish and Finnish debates on revolution, rule by the people, democracy and parliamentarism and their transnational links. The British reform, although more about winning the war than advancing democracy, restored parliamentary legitimacy, unlike in Germany, where Allied demands for democratisation made reform appear treasonous and fostered native German solutions. Sweden only adopted Western political models after major confrontations, but reforms saw it embark on its path to Social Democracy. In Finland, competing Russian revolutionary discourses and German- and Swedish-inspired appeals to legality brought about the deterioration of parliamentary legitimacy and a civil war. Only a republican compromise imposed by the Entente, following a royalist initiative in 1918, led to the construction of a viable polity.

Parlamenter demokrasinin ortaya çıktığı 17. ve 18. yüzyıllardan liberal demokrasinin güçlendiği 20. yüzyıla gelindiğinde parlamentarizmin bir temsil sorunuyla karşı karşıya kaldığı görülmektedir. Bu sorunun temelinde yatan unsur, kamusal tartışmanın parlamento için ehemmiyetini yitirmesi ve parlamentonun rasyonel doğruyu bulmakla ilgisi kalmamış belirli çıkar gruplarının pazarlıklarını perdeleyen bir kuruma dönüşmesidir. Yani parlamento, politik kararın temelinde duran kuram olmaktan çıkmış, kulislerde alınan kararları formalite olarak onaylayan bir yer haline gelmiştir. Buradan hareketle, Alman düşünür Carl Schmitt, Parlamenter Demokrasinin Krizi başlıklı eserinde "parlamento kurumunun nihai özünü bulmak" amacıyla parlamentarizm ile demokrasi arasında bir ayrıma gider. Schmitt açısından demokrasinin tek imkanı parlamentarizm değildir. Chantal Mouffe'a gelindiğinde ise "çoğulculuk" fikrinin öne çıktığından bahsetmek mümkündür. Bu makalede, parlamenter demokrasinin içerisinde bulunduğu kriz durumu Carl Schmitt'in ve Chantal Mouffe'un parlamentarizme dönük fikirleri çerçevesinde sınırlandırılarak ele alınacak, her iki düşünürün de yaklaşımlarının analizi yapıldıktan sonra, parlamentarizmin geleceğine dönük soru işaretleri masaya yatırılacaktır.

Küçükler, Suat Kutay. "Schmitt ve Mouffe Arasında Parlamentarizmin Çıkmazları". Ennoia Dergisi. 1 (2019): 5-14.

Almost ten years have passed since the memorable 'Autumn of Nations'. Such concepts as 'socialist camp', 'world revolutionary process' or 'directing force' (that is, the communist party) have faded into history. The Soviet Union no longer exists, the Cold War has ended. The former communist countries have embarked on a course of fundamental changes. The pace and nature of these, the features specific to each country and the more general patterns are undoubtedly subjects worth careful observation and analysis. Today, the post-communist transformation already has its own history, marked by three distinctive turning points. The so-called peaceful change of 1989 was the first of them. The collapse of communist governments was accompanied by no bloodshed, except for Romania. In other countries, strikes and huge mass protests led by the democratic movements brought down communist leaderships by peaceful means. The appearance of a 'nostalgia syndrome' in the early 1990s constituted the next turning point. The syndrome was caused by the high social costs of transformation, but also by difficulties with adaptation to the new market conditions and the immaturity of the new political class. It brought about a yearning for the 'good old days' and hopes that the former elites would do better. In effect, after a few years of rule by the former anti-communist opposition, the post-communist parties returned to power in free, multiparty elections in several East-Central European countries; in several others the nationalists, former (communist) party activists and open communists still exercised power. The third turning point was created by the 'second wave' of revolutions that emerged in 1996. This concerned both states where
communists had never lost power (the new Yugoslavia and, de facto, Romania) and where they were severely persecuted (Albania), as well as states where they won democratic elections (Lithuania and Bulgaria). That revolution, too, had mainly economic roots, apart from political, social and nationalistic aspects. However, this time it was not the costs of reforms - such as unemployment and decline in living conditions for some people, but rather the costs of lack of reforms - the overall ruin of the national economy, that resulted in social dissatisfaction.

The “Politics of Dissensus” inverts the traditional perspective on the study of parliamentary politics by focusing on its less obvious and less well-known aspects. Dissensus instead of consensus becomes the condition for the intelligibility of parliamentary politics. Such politics is indebted to the rhetorical culture of addressing issues from opposite perspectives and debating the alternatives pro et contra: no motion is approved without a thorough examination of, and confrontation among, imaginable alternatives. Establishing the openness of political debating, parliamentarism has become a distinctive historical contribution to the rise of parliamentary democracy. ”Parliament in Debate” refers to the paradigmatic institution for political deliberation, the debates surrounding its legislative activity, as well as the supervision of government and administration. Parliament has become a fascinating object of scrutiny as a political institution adopted and developed by different political traditions. In a nutshell, the book retrieves the study of parliamentary politics to present political theory and action in the parliamentary mode. It is a book on the relevance of parliamentarism to the study of politics and a book on the comparative conceptual and institutional history of parliamentary politics.

In het vorige nummer beschreef Corné hoe de staatscommissie parlementair stelsel op twee gedachten hinkt: de commissie doet het voorkomen alsof zij allerlei radicaal nieuwe voorstellen doet die elk een grote verbetering voor het parlementaire stelsel met zich meebrengen, terwijl zij tegelijkertijd een aantal relatief beperkte wijzigingen voorstelt die we enkele tientallen jaren al hebben gehoord. In deze aflevering van de NOVUM wil ik een ander onderdeel van het rapport van de staatscommissie onder de loep nemen, namelijk het stuk waarin de commissie ingaat op de wenselijkheid van constitutionele toetsing.

I will discuss the role of armed struggle for radical social transformation. The primary context of discussion is the current Maoist upheaval in India. Given the Maoist experience of last four decades, is armed struggle an instrument of resistance at all? Suppose, as with most thinkers of the Left in India, it isn’t. Just which aspect of Marxist theory is affected with the rejection of armed struggle?

While national parliaments in the European Union have learned to internalize new opportunities for influence given to them by the Lisbon Treaty, European integration has evolved and places ever more serious demands and constraints on domestic legislatures. Following the euro crisis, key decisions about national macro-economic policies are taken in the European Council and the European Semester. These are the issues traditionally at the heart of both democratic governance and citizens’ concerns. Relating these developments to the key functions national parliaments ought to perform, we develop the normative argument that a redirection of national parliaments’ resources away from less salient matters and particularly the Early Warning Mechanism toward the European Council and European economic governance would be welcome.