Parliament the Mirror of the Nation
Representation, Deliberation, and Democracy in Victorian Britain

The notion of 'representative democracy' seems unquestionably familiar today, but how did the Victorians understand democracy, parliamentary representation, and diversity?

Gregory Conti (Author)

9781108450959, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 16 January 2020

432 pages
15 x 23 x 2.5 cm, 0.62 kg

'In Parliament the Mirror of the Nation: Representation, Deliberation, and Democracy in Victorian Britain, Gregory Conti guides us through this Victorian conversation with skill and erudition.' Philip Harling, Victorian Studies

The notion of 'representative democracy' seems unquestionably familiar today, but how did the Victorian era - the epoch when the modern democratic state was made - understand democracy, parliamentary representation, and diversity? In the famous nineteenth-century debates about representation and parliamentary reform, two interlocked ideals were of the greatest importance: descriptive representation, that the House of Commons 'mirror' the diversity that marked society, and deliberation within the legislative assembly. These ideals presented a major obstacle to the acceptance of a democratic suffrage, which it was widely feared would produce an unrepresentative and un-deliberative House of Commons. Here, Gregory Conti examines how the Victorians conceived the representative and deliberative functions of the House of Commons and what it meant for parliament to be the 'mirror of the nation'. Combining historical analysis and political theory, he analyses the fascinating nineteenth-century debates among contending schools of thought over the norms and institutions of deliberative representative government, and explores the consequences of recovering this debate.

Acknowledgments
Notes on the text
List of abbreviations
Introduction
1. Diversity without democracy, the theory of the variety of suffrages, Part 1: Institutions and sociologies
1.1. Mirroring and electoral diversity before the First Reform Act
1.2. Institutions and Sociologies
1.3. The Decline of the variety of suffrages
2. Diversity without democracy, the theory of the variety of suffrages, Part 2: Values and criticisms
2.1. Justice
2.2 The rule of public opinion
2.3. Deliberation
2.4. Stability
3. Democracy, diversity, and contestability: democracy against the variety of suffrages
3.1. Diverse democracy
3.2. Radical or undescriptive democracy
4. Diversity with democracy? Proportional representation, Part 1: Concepts and techniques
4.1 The pre-history of PR in Britain
4.2. The institutional and conceptual core of Victorian PR
5. Diversity with democracy? Proportional representation, Part 2: The debate on PR's moral and political effects
5.1. The moral benefits of PR
5.2. Millian rebuttals: the local constituency and the threat of stagnation
5.3. The problem of parties
Conclusion
Select bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Political science & theory [JPA], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], British & Irish history [HBJD1]