ABOUT BOOK

Parliaments are often seen as Western European and North American institutions ~and their establishment in other parts of the world as a derivative and mostly defective ~process. This book challenges such Eurocentric visions by retracing the evolution ~of modern institutions of collective decision-making in Eurasia. Breaching ~the divide between different area studies, the book provides nine case studies covering ~the area between the eastern edge of Asia and Eastern Europe, including the ~former Russian, Ottoman, Qing, and Japanese Empires as well as their successor ~states. In particular, it explores the appeals to concepts of parliamentarism, ~deliberative decision-making, and constitutionalism; historical practices related ~to parliamentarism; and political mythologies across Eurasia. It focuses on the ~historical and “reestablished” institutions of decision-making, which consciously ~hark back to indigenous traditions and adapt them to the changing circumstances ~in imperial and postimperial contexts. Thereby, the book explains how representative ~institutions were needed for the establishment of modernized empires or ~postimperial states but at the same time offered a connection to the past.