From antagonist to protagonist: 'Democracy' and 'people' in British parliamentary debates, 1775–1885.
'Democracy' is a central word of our current political lexicon, often defined as 'the power of the people'. However, in 19th century Britain, 'democracy' was not characterized by the rule of the 'people' but by the power of lower classes, of the 'populace' and the 'mob'. In political discourse, and...
| Publicado en: | Digital Scholarship in the Humanities Vol. 35; no. 4; pp. 759 - 776 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Oxford University Press / USA
Dec2020
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=146804853&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 146804853 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 2055768X JEO9 jtl: Digital Scholarship in the Humanities issn: 2055768X maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Dec2020 vid: 35 iid: 4 pid: 622 pub: Oxford University Press / USA artinfo: ui: 146804853 10.1093/llc/fqz082 ppf: 759 ppct: 17 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 653KB tig: atl: From antagonist to protagonist: 'Democracy' and 'people' in British parliamentary debates, 1775–1885. aug: au: Bonin, Hugo affil: Department of Political Science, Université du Québec à Montréal , QC, Canada su: Corpora Debate Democracy Eighteenth century British history United Kingdom sug: subj: United Kingdom Corpora Debate Democracy Eighteenth century British history ab: 'Democracy' is a central word of our current political lexicon, often defined as 'the power of the people'. However, in 19th century Britain, 'democracy' was not characterized by the rule of the 'people' but by the power of lower classes, of the 'populace' and the 'mob'. In political discourse, and especially in parliamentary debates, the 'people' were an antagonist of 'democracy', not its protagonist. To support these statements, this article analyses British parliamentary debates between 1775 and 1885, through both a 'distant reading' with the help of corpus linguistics tools and a closer examination of certain key debates and actors. After a brief overview of the methodology, three crucial periods of British political history are analysed. (1) The end of the 18th century, where the impact of the French Revolution on democratic vocabulary is measured. (2) The debates surrounding the 1832 Reform Act, in which the explicit differentiation between the constitutional 'people' and the democratic 'mob' is drawn out by Whigs and Tories alike. (3) The Second Reform Act (1867), also presented as a 'popular' measure, and not a step towards 'democracy'. In conclusion, the adoption of the democratic vocabulary by British Members of Parliament is traced to the 1880s, notably with the emergence of the idea of 'Tory democracy'. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: © 2019 EADH: The European Association for Digital Humanities. item: Digital Scholarship in the Humanities holder: Oxford University Press / USA dt: @attributes: year: 2020 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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