Commission Newsletter: 1997

SUMMARY

In this article Sandro Guerrieri discusses the parliamentary proceedings in France of 9–10 July 1940, which set up the Vichy State under the leadership of Marshal Pétain. He was then head of the government of the Third Republic and the motion of 10 July authorized him to consider and promulgate a revised constitution for the French state. In August 1944, these proceedings were formally declared to have been a coup d'état, and therefore legally null and void. It is shown that some of the politicians who voted in the National Assembly against the resolution of 10 July had already asserted this interpretation of the process by which the Vichy State was established. The article reviews the arguments that have developed around this subject, and suggests that while the actual motion, voted by the two Chambers acting as a National Assembly, could be seen as in accordance with the Constitution of the Third Republic, the manner in which it was used by Pétain and his advisers, particularly Pierre Laval, is open to legal challenge, and can be regarded as a usurpation of the powers granted by the National Assembly. Hence while it could be argued that what happened was not a coup d'état, in that the element of intimidatory violence over the legislature, usually seen as one defining characteristic of a coup, was absent, the proceedings can be characterized as at least a coup de force.     

Commission Newsletter: Winter 1981

I.A.A. Thompson: Crown and Cortes. Government, Institutions and Representation in Early‐Modern Castile (Variorum, Collected Studies Series CS 427, Ashgate Publishing, Aldershot, 1993, pp. 352; ISBN 0–86078–393–6; £49.50)

Janusz Mallek: Preußen und Polen: Politik, Stände, Kirche und Kultur vom 16. bis zum 18. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1992. Schriften der Mainzer Philosophischen Fakultätsgesellschaft Nr. 12, pp. 207; ISBN 3–515–05943–1; DM 58)

Cristiana Senigaglia: Il gioco delle assonanze: a proposito degli influssi hobbesiani sul pensiero filosofico‐politico di Hegel (Florence, La Nuova Italia, 1992, pp. 235)     

Commission Newsletter: Spring 2010

SUMMARY

In this article, Francesco Soddu analyzes the role of the first chamber of the Italian parliament, the Senato, in the era of Giolitti's political dominance. The Senato was a nominated chamber, with members appointed from a prescribed list of categories by the king, and who held office for life. Its position in the constitution had been laid down in the Albertine statute of 1848. The author analyses the composition and working practices of the Senato and describes its function in the legislative process. He then looks for instructive similarities and differences between the Senato and the British House of Lords in the same period, when the Lords last became the focus of a major constitutional crisis over their composition and powers in 1909–11.     

Commission Newsletter: Autumn 2012 Minutes of the 63rd Conference of ICHRPI/CIHAE,Cadiz

SUMMARY

The permanent imperial diet at Regensburg (1663–1806), one of the central institutions of the Holy Roman Empire, has been viewed in a negative light by historians for a long time. In recent decades there has been a fundamental re-evaluation of the diet by researchers. The diet is no longer seen as an institution which was incapable of action. Rather, in recent years the focus has been on its powers to maintain lawfulness and peace. One of the new research approaches is that the permanent imperial diet was an important forum for the courts of Vienna and Berlin in building and maintaining a loyal clientele and to gain the support for their own foreign and imperial policies from the imperial Estates. This became particularly obvious in phases of open conflict between Austria and Prussia. Both sides perceived the events at Regensburg increasingly as bipolar and this was especially the case in the Seven Years War (1756–63). If one visualizes the fiercely fought battles between the Partheyen that were dominated by Austria and Prussia, on stage and off stage, then it becomes obvious that it is high time to modify the one-sided old picture of the sleepy diet.