The English ConstitutionCosimo, Inc., 2007 M04 1 - 368 páginas Chronicling the past is much easier than chronicling the present, which was exactly Walter Bagehot's project when writing The English Constitution, first published in 1873. His ambitious undertaking was to describe the British government as it actually worked during 1865 and 1866. Government as it functions is very different from the government as it is spelled out on paper. Many factors, including the mindset of the people and the habits of those already in government, affect how a country is run. Political scientists and historians will find Bagehot's commentary on the living English government and invaluable tool in understanding the politics of the era. British journalist WALTER BAGEHOT (1826-1877) was an early editor of The Economist and was among the first economists to discuss the concept of the business cycle. He is also the author of Physics and Politics (1872) and The Postulates of English Political Economy (1885). |
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Página viii
... speaking , it describes its working as it was in the time of Lord Palmerston ; and since that time there have been many changes , some of spirit and some of detail . In so short a ... speak viii INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION ,
... speaking , it describes its working as it was in the time of Lord Palmerston ; and since that time there have been many changes , some of spirit and some of detail . In so short a ... speak viii INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION ,
Página ix
Walter Bagehot. was attempted to be taken . I proceed to speak of the changes which have taken place either in the Con- stitution itself or in the competing institutions which illustrate it . It is too soon as yet to attempt to estimate ...
Walter Bagehot. was attempted to be taken . I proceed to speak of the changes which have taken place either in the Con- stitution itself or in the competing institutions which illustrate it . It is too soon as yet to attempt to estimate ...
Página xvii
... speak out . Many , perhaps most of the intelligent Conservatives , were fearful of the consequences of the proposal ; but as it was made by the heads of their own party , they did not like to oppose it , and the discipline of party ...
... speak out . Many , perhaps most of the intelligent Conservatives , were fearful of the consequences of the proposal ; but as it was made by the heads of their own party , they did not like to oppose it , and the discipline of party ...
Página xxxv
... speak mathemati- cally , we may easily miss the permanent course of the political curve if we engross our minds with its cusps and conjugate points . Nor , on the other hand , can I sympathise with the objection to life peerages which ...
... speak mathemati- cally , we may easily miss the permanent course of the political curve if we engross our minds with its cusps and conjugate points . Nor , on the other hand , can I sympathise with the objection to life peerages which ...
Página xlix
... speak their minds to one another ; they maintain an atmosphere of unreality , and every one always lives in an atmosphere of suppressed ill - feeling . It is the same with nations . The parties concerned would almost always be better ...
... speak their minds to one another ; they maintain an atmosphere of unreality , and every one always lives in an atmosphere of suppressed ill - feeling . It is the same with nations . The parties concerned would almost always be better ...
Contenido
vii | |
1 | |
No II | 33 |
No III | 57 |
No IV | 89 |
No V | 130 |
No VI | 176 |
ITS SUPPOSED CHECKS AND BALANCES | 219 |
No VIII | 254 |
No IX | 272 |
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Términos y frases comunes
administration American arguments aristocracy assembly authority better Bill cabinet government chamber choose committee constitutional monarch critical Crown defect despotic difficulty discussion duty eager educated effect elected electors England English Constitution evil executive Executive Government fact feeling foreign free government function George George III give greatest head hereditary House of Commons House of Lords House of Peers imagine influence interest judgment king leader legislation legislature liament look Lord Palmerston matter ment mind minister ministry monarch nation nature never opinion organisation Parlia Parliament parliamentary government party peculiar peers perhaps persons plutocracy political popular premier present President presidential government presidential system principle Queen Reform Act royalty rule rulers Sir George Lewis society sort sovereign speak statesmen stitution sure theory things thought tion Tory treaty truth vote Whig whole wish
Pasajes populares
Página 75 - Secondly, having once given her sanction to a measure, that it be not arbitrarily altered or modified by the Minister. Such an act she must consider as failing in sincerity towards the Crown, and justly to be visited by the exercise of her constitutional right of dismissing that Minister.
Página xxxix - Commanding-in-Chief downwards ; she could dismiss all the sailors too ; she could sell off all our ships of war and all our naval stores ; she could make a peace by the sacrifice of Cornwall, and begin a war for the conquest of Brittany. She could make every citizen in the United Kingdom, male or female, a peer ; she could make every parish in the United Kingdom a " university ;" she could dismiss most of the civil servants ; she could pardon all offenders.
Página 76 - To state the matter shortly, the sovereign has, under a constitutional monarchy such as ours, three rights — the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn.
Página 11 - The efficient secret of the English Constitution may be described as the close union, the nearly complete fusion, of the executive and legislative powers.
Página xxiv - But in all cases it must be remembered that a political combination of the lower classes, as such and for their own objects, is an evil of the first magnitude; that a permanent combination of them would make them (now that so many of them have the suffrage) supreme in the country; and that their supremacy, in the state they now are, means the supremacy of ignorance over instruction and of numbers over knowledge.
Página 34 - The nature of a constitution, the action of an assembly, the play of parties, the unseen formation -of a guiding opinion, are complex facts, difficult to know, and easy to mistake. But the action of a single will, the fiat of a single mind, are easy ideas : anybody can make them out, and no one can ever forget them. When you put before the mass of mankind the question, " Will you be governed by a king, or will you be governed by a constitution?
Página 15 - A cabinet is a combining committee — a hyphen which joins, a buckle which fastens, the legislative part of the state to the executive part of the state.
Página 138 - Commons - now that it is the true sovereign, and appoints the real executive - has long ceased to be the checking, sparing, economical body it once was. It now is more apt to spend money than the minister of the day. I have heard a very experienced financier say, 'If you want to raise a certain cheer in the House of Commons make a general panegyric on economy; if you want to invite a sure defeat, propose a particular saving.
Página 143 - Efficiency in an assembly requires a solid mass of steady votes; and these are collected by a deferential attachment to particular men, or by a belief in the principles those men represent, and they are maintained by fear of those men— by the fear that if you vote against them, you may yourself soon not have a vote at all.
Referencias a este libro
Institutional Theory in Political Science: The 'new Institutionalism' B. Guy Peters Sin vista previa disponible - 2005 |