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Conceptual Explorations around “Politics”

Thematizing the Activity of Politics in the Plenary Debates of the German Bundestag

Kari Palonen

With this article, 1 I continue my long-term studies on the conceptualization of politics by analyzing the vocabulary of politicians in parliamentary debates. I use conceptual history both as an empirical study and as a medium of theorizing on

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The Sanctification and Democratisation of "the Nation" and "the People" in Late Eighteenth-Century Northwestern Europe

Proposing a Comparative Conceptual History

Pasi Ihalainen

This paper suggests that the study of the modernisation of European political cultures in the eighteenth century would greatly benefit from a comparative conceptual historical approach. is approach would effect the reconstruction of a variety of meanings attached to chosen political concepts in different national contexts through the side-by-side analysis of primary sources originating from each case according to the methodology of both historical semantics and pragmatics. A promising research topic is the continuity and change in the conceptualisation of national community, national identity, popular sovereignty and democracy in various European political cultures. e conceptual analyses of late eighteenth-century political sermons from five northwestern European countries, conducted by the author, for example, reveal that conceptual changes related to the rise of nationalism took place even within public religion, allowing it to adapt itself to the age of nationalism. Further analysis of the secular debates taking place in representative bodies and public discourse in late eighteenth-century Britain, the Dutch Republic and Sweden elucidates the gradual development of the notion that all political power is ultimately derived from the people and that such a system constituted a "democracy" in a positive sense within different parliamentary traditions and perhaps even before the French Revolution.

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Introduction

Citizenship in Europe after World War II—the Challenges of Migration and European Integration

Claudia Wiesner and Anna Björk

The concept of citizenship in Europe after World War II faces two major challenges: migration and European integration. This introduction precedes a group of articles examining debates and law-making processes related to the concept of citizenship in Europe after World War II. The introduction sketches the historical development of citizenship in European representative democracies, taking into account four basic dimensions (access to citizenship, citizenship rights, citizenship duties, and the active content of citizenship) for analyzing changes in the concept of citizenship.

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Democracy in the Plural?

The Concepts of Democracy in Swedish Parliamentary Debates during the Interwar Years

Anna Friberg

The article explores some of the composite concepts of democracy that were used in Sweden, primarily by the Social Democrats during the interwar years. Should these be seen as pluralizations of the collective singular democracy or as something qualitatively new? By showing how these concepts relate to each other and to democracy as a whole, the article argues that they should be considered statements about democracy as one entity, that democracy did not only concern the political sphere, but was generally important throughout the whole of society. The article also examines the Swedish parliamentarians' attitudes toward democracy after the realization of universal suffrage, and argues that democracy was eventually perceived as such a positive concept that opponents of what was labeled democratic reforms had to reformulate the political issues into different words in order to avoid coming across as undemocratic.

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Sovereignty versus Influence

European Unity and the Conceptualization of Sovereignty in British Parliamentary Debates, 1945–2016

Teemu Häkkinen and Miina Kaarkoski

sovereignty continues to draw attention. Using parliamentary debates, we will employ a qualitative analysis of historical political debates to ascertain how the concept of sovereignty has been defi ned and used in historical contexts with regard to the

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Accessing Citizenship

The Conceptual and Political Changes of the German Naturalization Policy, 1999–2006

Anna Björk

This article deals explicitly with the dimension of access in the concept of citizenship and is discussed from the point of view of migration. Access is analyzed in the context of the reform of German citizenship laws in 1999. The state of Hesse is singled out to be used as an example of parliamentary debate on the concepts of citizenship and integration. The point is to explicate the interrelations of the federal legislative reform and the conceptual implications thereof, using Hesse as a state-level example.

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The Concept of Citizenship in Danish Public Discourse

Uffe Jakobsen

This article traces the uses of the concept of citizenship in Danish public discourse in light of the theoretical framework of conceptual history. The author draws upon parliamentary debates, media articles, and debates on political subjects that are part of the textual corpus that served to create The Danish Dictionary in order not only to identify the different usages and conceptual changes of “citizenship” but also to identify the actors using the concept. In addition to mapping the use of “citizenship” in its traditional meanings, such as the entitlement to rights, political identity, civic virtue, and political participation, the Jakobsen encounters a new meaning, namely, citizenship as “free consumer choice.” This conceptual change, however, is only espoused by elected politicians, while ordinary people tend to preserve the traditional meanings of citizenship.

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From Empires of Nations to the Nation-State of Minorities

The Concept of National Minority in Russian Poland and the New Polish State 1900–1922

Wiktor Marzec

Abstract

The aim of this article is to investigate the concept of minority up to the temporary stabilization of its meaning in Polish concluded in the adoption of the March constitution of 1921. The history of the concept of national minority bore an imprint on the accommodation to the new political, territorial, and discursive circumstances after transition from empire to nation-state. The idea itself was well anchored in the liberal tradition, but the nationalist right also took it on board to protect the cultural hegemony of the Poles in the areas where they were a minority. Tackling the nexus of the emerging nation-state and the ensuing logic of minoritization sheds light on tiered visions of citizenship essential for understanding the 1921 debate. For this purpose, I use various available sub-corpora of texts—political leaflets, press, and parliamentary debates from the period 1788–1922.

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Molding Nineteenth-century Girls in the Cape Colony into Respectable Christian Women

Elizabeth Dillenburg

, parliamentary debates, census reports, and reports by labor and education commissions. However, what makes her book so engaging—and her argument so compelling—is not just the breadth of sources but her perceptive analysis of them, like her discussion of Caroline

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Something Happened to the Future

Reconstructing Temporalities in Dutch Parliamentary Debate, 1814–2018

Joris van Eijnatten and Pim Huijnen

over time. 10 Our data consists of parliamentary debates in the Netherlands between 1814 and 2018. A multilingual analysis would be desirable in due course, but for our initial foray into this area we have stayed close to home, exclusively using Dutch