Parliamentary 'Theatre', Dignity and the Public Side of Parliaments

The comparison between parliaments and theatre has often been used to criticize the superficial show that hides the real societal issues politics should be concerned about. In this contribution, the comparison between theatre and parliaments is a heuristic tool to show that parliaments really offer a certain form of theatre. The contribution concentrates on the use of theatrical metaphors in and around nineteenth-century British and French parliaments, that were then seen as the most important parliaments and certainly as the most important parliamentary ‘stages’. The ‘theatrical’ side of parl... Mehr ...