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The book is of interest for anyone trying to gain an understanding of Parliamentary procedure, as it contemporises procedure as opposed to historical procedure, and it will be useful for those British scholars who are interested in the changing procedure of Westminster.
Political Studies Review 05/2016

Palonen paints a very useful picture of the procedural evolution of Parliament, helping us to understand the roots of the procedural politics which Members of Parliament still play in the House today.
Parliaments, Estates and Representation, 18.02.2016

Das Buch lädt dazu ein, angebliche parlamentarische Gesetzmäßigkeiten kritisch zu hinterfragen. Eine weitere Stärke des Sammelbandes liegt in der internationalen Ausrichtung der Beiträge - die Autor_innen stammen aus acht Ländern. Da sie auf verschiedenen Ebenen argumentieren, ist es lobenswert, dass die Herausgeber die Artikel in einer Einleitung und einem Epilog zueinander in Beziehung setzen.
Portal für Politikwissenschaft, Pw-portal.de, 30.07.2015

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Currently, parliament as a political institution does not enjoy the best reputation. This book aims to recover less known political resources of the parliamentary mode of proceeding. The parliamentary procedure relies on regulating debates in a fair way and on constructing opposed perspectives on the agenda items. The British House of Commons provides the closest historical approximation for the parliamentary ideal type of politics. This book deals with the formation and conceptual change in the Westminster procedure, based on the way they are interpreted in the tracts on procedure. The tracts illustrate the changing parliamentary self-understanding from the 1570s to the present and the growing political role of procedural disputes. The parliamentary style of politics, as discussed in the tracts, can be divided into two genres: the politics of agenda-setting and the politics of debate. The book analyses their formation and overall conceptual change as well as the procedural responses to the increasingly scarce parliamentary time from the period after the 1832 parliamentary reform. It insists that in spite of claims on urgency and on government´s leadership the procedural resources of the House of Commons contribute to maintaining the debate-centred parliamentary style of politics.

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Kari Palonen, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Centre of Political Thought and Conceptual Change, Editor of Redescriptions, and Co-founder of the History of Political and Social Concepts Group, University of Jyväskylä, Finland

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