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Introduction (Ivan Sablin & Egas Moniz Bandeira) (DOI 10.1080/02606755.2022.2049097) (OPEN ACCESS)
Abstract:
This special issue explores concepts and practices related to parliamentarism in the imperial and post-imperial transformations of the Qing and Russian Empires, as well as their successor states. It demonstrates that representative institutions were a crucial factor in the establishment of modernized empires or post-imperial states. In particular, the issue explores how the ‘mining’ of own imperial past and present for concepts and practices was used in combination with the globally circulating forms of representation in the development of parliamentary institutions, how particular interest groups defined through ethnicity, region, religion, or class were represented, and, ultimately, how the parliamentary developments informed the formation of single-party regimes in the post-imperial settings.
Elections as recommendations: a historical analogy in China’s early discourse on democracy, 1860s-1910 (Joshua Hill) (DOI 10.1080/02606755.2022.2039456)
Abstract:
At the end of the nineteenth century, the first generation of Chinese intellectuals to advocate parliamentarianism re-appropriated terms and concepts from China’s own lengthy history of debates about political selection. The terms that they chose—the phrase ‘local recommendation’ in particular—brought with them their own associations and implications about the nature of parliamentary elections. This article traces the intellectual lineage of Chinese discourse on ‘local recommendation’ during the dynastic era and argues that the conflation of this classical practice with voting for parliamentary representatives created a series of misaligned expectations for elections in China and thus contributed to the failure of experiments with competitive elections during the first years of the twentieth century.
Parliamentary options for a multi-ethnic state: sovereignty, frontier governance, and representation in early twentieth-century China (Egas Moniz Bandeira) (DOI 10.1080/02606755.2022.2039454) (OPEN ACCESS)
Abstract:
This article reconstructs two modes of parliamentary representation of (post-)imperial diversity in early twentieth-century China. One model foresaw a differentiated representation of the borderlands in the nascent parliamentary institutions, using upper house seats to garner loyalty from the nobility at the same time as it denied electoral participation. The second model stipulated electoral equality between the borderland regions and the inner provinces. While the first model parliamentarized imperial forms of governance, it was also informed by and partially conformed to global models of governance. The second was informed by notions of undivided national sovereignty. In the late Qing Empire, the government decided against the second model, for it was deemed to presuppose a degree of national integration not given in the Empire. The challenges posed by the proclamation of the Republic of China, in particular the declarations of independence of Mongolia and Tibet, led to a strong emphasis on the newly-founded state’s unity and the swift adoption of the second model. This choice, however, was neither uncontested nor was its implementation complete.
The State Conference in Moscow, 1917: class, nationality, and the building of a post-imperial community (Ivan Sablin) (DOI 10.1080/02606755.2022.2039455)
Abstract:
The State Conference in Moscow, a one-time quasi-parliamentary assembly of over 2,500 delegates, was intended to help the Provisional Government resolve the military, political, and economic crises of the First World War and the Russian Revolution by building a broad public consensus. Due to the inadequate representation at the conference, its duration and procedure, and the radically divergent platforms of major political forces, the assembly functioned as a political rally rather than a parliament. The attempt to resolve the crises by (re)constituting a Russian political community failed due to the conflicts formulated in terms of class and nationality and the contradictions between coercive discipline and self-organization as the principles of state- and nation-building. Even though the idea of the Russian nation prevailed at the conference, its participants did not agree if a post-imperial political community was to be homogeneous or composite, inclusive or exclusive, and if it was to be organized in a top-down or bottom-up manner.
The Anfu Parliament in Republican China. The life and death of a failed single-party state, 1918–20 (YanQ Quan & Ernest Ming-tak Leung) (DOI 10.1080/02606755.2022.2039458)
Abstract:
The Anfu Club, which governed China in 1918–20, has often been seen as a factionalist grouping of corrupt and incompetent politicians handpicked by the military and kept afloat by Japanese loans and state subsidies. The fact that they had achieved domination in parliament through vote-rigging was often seen as sufficient to write off their achievements. This article argues that Anfu, which was East Asia's first single-party state, oversaw one of the most accomplished periods in the legislative history of the Republic of China. It was a highly efficient legislature which passed much-needed laws, thanks to rigorous inner-party discipline. It had an internationalist diplomatic line and it hoped to participate in planning for the post-war international order. Due to a lack of consensus in the military over how a single-party state should be run, however, Anfu found itself abused and scapegoated frequently and fought back using constitutional means, impeaching officials including the Premier, slashing the military budget by 20 per cent, and demanding cabinet appointments appropriate to its status as the parliamentary majority. Eventually this caused a rupture between it and its rival forces in the military, leading to the 1920 civil war that precipitated Anfu's collapse.
Parliamentarism in one party: the trade union debate of 1921 in the Bolshevik party as a semi-parliamentary practice (Timofey Rakov) (DOI 10.1080/02606755.2022.2039457)
Abstract:
The Bolshevik trade union debate of 1921 could be seen as a semi-parliamentary practice both in its form and content. Various groups and platforms participated in this discussion, using it as a tribune for spreading their views among the members of the party. This article examines the course of the discussion in the Petrograd party organization: especially, its form, representation, and the conflicts that it produced. Petrograd Bolsheviks saw the discussion not only as a space for a free circulation of opinions but also as a place for propaganda and political conflict. During debates, both of the rival platforms in the city (the supporters of Vladimir Lenin and the supporters of Lev Trotskii) tried to impugn the actions of each other. The party press also acted not as an impartial observer of the controversy but actively formatted a vision of the domination of Lenin’s adherents in the discussion. Such a process brought discussions in the Bolshevik party close to the practice of a parliamentary debate, and produced a situation that I term ‘semi-parliamentarism in one party’.
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