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This book on the pre-history of democratization shows how and why more modern attitudes to democracy started to emerge in the late eighteenth century. Focusing on the language of parliamentarians, the author reconstructs and compares debates on the political role and representation of the people in Britain and Sweden. His analysis demonstrates not only the persistence of the classical, pejorative, conception of democracy but also the gradual re-evaluation of the notion prior to the French Revolution. The author analyses the clash between British and French conceptions of democracy as well as the first definitions of the sovereignty of Parliament as the sovereignty of the people. Furthermore, by placing parliamentary discourse in the context of public debates, he reveals the previously ignored role that parliaments played in redefining the most crucial concepts in Western political theory.

Representative government and representation --- Parliamentary government --- Political representation --- Representation --- Self-government --- Constitutional history --- Constitutional law --- Political science --- Democracy --- Elections --- Republics --- Suffrage --- History --- Great Britain. --- Sweden. --- Sveriges riksdag --- England and Wales. --- 英國. --- Great Britain --- Sweden --- Kingdom of Sweden --- Konungariket Sverige --- Schweden --- Shvet︠s︡ii︠a︡ --- Suecia --- Suède --- Suwēden --- Sverige --- Svezia --- Szwecja --- Zviedrija --- Zweden --- スウェーデン --- Politics and government --- Political systems --- History of the United Kingdom and Ireland --- History of Scandinavia and Iceland --- anno 1700-1799

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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.

Representative government and representation. --- Representative government and representation