Benvolgudes, benvolguts,

Ens plau informar-vos de la publicació del llibre : Presidencies of parliamentary and representative institutions, 1500-2000, coordinat per Maria Betlem Castellà i Pujols, Martí Grau Segú i Mikel Urquijo.

Aquest llibre és el resultat de la col·laboració científica que mantenen una part dels membres del COMMINET (Committees and Commissions Research Network) i de la ICHRPI (Comissió Internacional de la Història de les institucions parlamentàries i representatives).

Esperem que la seva lectura sigui del vostre interès.

INTRODUCTION

The present volume includes sixteen academic papers, which have been composed with the aim of focusing on the study of the presidencies of parliamentary and representative institutions. It covers the fifteenth century to the present day, in different European territories, and both ordinary and extraordinary periods of time.

Many studies have been carried out on the role of the presidents of parliamentary and representative institutions. Lawyers have worked for decades, if not centuries, on defining their functions and powers, and contemporary historians have not hesitated to analyse the roles they may have played while exercising their functions and powers, as well as the biographical and prosopographical profiles. However, there are few works that attempt to analyse the functions and powers of the presidents of the parliamentary and representative institutions throughout the centuries, from the late Middle Ages to the present day, approaching the presidencies of parliamentary and representative institutions from distinct European territories and in both ordinary and extraordinary times. This book includes studies focused on institutions of Scotland, Ireland, Catalonia, the Basque Country, Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, and Europe.

With the purpose of addressing the role of the presidencies of the parliamentary and representative institutions from the Middle Ages to today, the papers included in this volume explore what the criteria for their election were, the functions that were conferred on them in ordinary and/or extraordinary times, the work that they undertook from within and outside of the legislative sphere, speeches given, the control they exercised over the information received through the legislative branch, the weight they had in parliamentary debates, their relationship with working commissions established by the Cortes, assemblies, or parliaments, whether such commissions were permanent or provisional, their link with the executive branch, the tensions that could be unleashed with the exercise of their missions or powers, the political struggles that may have occurred at the time of their election, the contacts they may have had with other powers and public or private institutions, the duration of their mandate, and the causes of an early dismissal at the will of the assembly.

In order to explore these questions, the papers included here present a great diversity of analytical perspectives and methodologies. Some of them are conditioned by the sources that are available. There are works that analyse the presidencies of a territory over the centuries while others analyse them over the course of one century or a particular moment. There is even a comparative analysis across two centuries and in four different territories. There are studies that analyse the presidencies in ordinary times and others in utterly extraordinary times (Scotland at the time of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, France in the midst of revolution, Ireland at the time of its independence). There are studies that focus on presidential functions and powers and others on the individuals who occupied the presidential chair, whether on their origins, their professional careers and/or on their social and cultural context, on the speeches they gave or the work they carried out once in office. There are studies that approach the presidencies from the perspective of biography, others prosopography, and others gender.

Although it is true that the portrait of the presidencies of the parliamentary and representative institutions presented in this book is multifaceted, and the aspects analysed vary in each, there are aspects that are dealt with, to a greater or lesser degree, in most of the papers. These themes are: the election of the president, and the relationship of the presidents of the parliamentary and representative institutions (Cortes, assemblies, or parliaments) with the executive branch. These two questions can be traced clearly from the fifteenth century to the present day.

In relation to the book, it should be noted that it came about from an initiative promoted by the COMMINET network (Committees and Commissions Research Network). This network was formed by sixteen European researchers who, within the context of their work, study and analyse the working commissions (committees and commissions) of the parliamentary and representative institutions over the centuries and mostly within a European context. The COMMINET network is linked to the Grup d’Estudi de les Institucions i de les Cultures Politiques (segles XVI-XXI) (GEICP) at Pompeu Fabra University of Barcelona, and to the Biography & Parliament group at the University of the Basque Country.

Finally, this book has seen the light of day thanks to the economic support of the Biography & Parliament group of the Universidad del País Vasco, the Istituto di Studi Federalisti Altiero Spinelli, and the European Observatory on Memories (EUROM). Without their valuable contribution and absolute generosity, this book, which aims to analyse the presidencies of the parliamentary and representative institutions from the end of the Middle Ages to the present day, would not have been possible.