The British Parliament and Foreign Policy in the Twentieth Century

The British Parliament and Foreign Policy in the 20th Century explores the ways in which parliaments in Britain and internationally have affected and democratized foreign policy since World War I. This latest special issue by Parliamentary History includes six essays by expert historians on the positive and negative implications of increased parliamentary involvement in foreign policy. The essays discuss minority protection under the League of Nations, the atomic question in the aftermath of World War II, the Falklands War, parliamentary debates during the Iraq War, and relationships between the UK and European Parliaments. The contributors use these subjects as starting points to consider a broad range of topics and questions, such as increased participation by MPs, parliamentary procedure, extra–parliamentary networks, effects of constitutional changes, and the rise of transnationalisation. Using new data from recent analysis of parliamentary debates, archival sources, and media accounts, this is an insightful examination of the complex and evolving nature of parliamentary politics.

Pasi Ihalainen is Professor of Comparative European History at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. His research focuses on the secularization of the concept of the political party, the modernization of national identities, and the redefinition of democracy and parliamentarism in the eighteenth and early twentieth centuries. His books include The Discourse on Political Pluralism in Early Eighteenth–Century England (1999), Protestant Nations Redefined (2005), Agents of the People (2010), and the co–edited volumes Scandinavia in the Age of Revolution (2011), Language Policies in Finland and Sweden (2015), and Parliament and Parliamentarism: A Comparative History of a European Concept (2016).

Satu Matikainen is Departmental Coordinator at the Department of History and Ethnology at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. She has published several articles and a monograph on the history of minorities, parliamentary history, and 20th–century international history. She is the co–editor of Small Nations on the Borderlines of Great Powers (2013).