Presidencies of parliamentary and representative institutions (XV-XXI centuries)
An international conference, entitled Presidencies of parliamentary and representative institutions (XV-XXI centuries), will take place in the Jean Monnet House in Bazochessur-Guyonne (France) on 8, 9 and 10 July 2020, to address the study of the presidents/speakers of parliamentary and representative institutions. The objective is to analyse the role played at different times in our history by the presidents of the chambers, états généraux, juntas de brazos, revolutionary assemblies, etc., as well as the role played by the presidents of the working committees of those institutions (permanent or provisional committees).
The intention is to analyse, from the end of the Middle Ages to the present day, the
following themes and issues:
– the criteria for the election of presidents
– the duties and tasks conferred on presidents at ordinary and/or extraordinary
times,
– the tasks that presidents undertook in and outside the legislative field,
– the control that presidents exercised over the information that reached the
legislative power,
– the weight that presidents held in legislative debates,
– the relations of presidents with the permanent or provisional working committees
set up by the cortes, assemblies or parliaments,
– the tensions that presidents unleashed through exercising their tasks and duties,
– the political struggles that occurred at the time of their election,
– the contacts that presidents had with other powers and public or private
institutions.
Another aim of the conference is to draw attention to the presidents of the working
committees, taking as a starting point the fact that in some fields and historical periods working committees played a leading role in elaborating laws and designing the political, economic and social order that was being configured. Finally, one section of the conference will be dedicated to those biographical and prosopographical studies that are being undertaken on the speakers of parliamentary and representative institutions in the legislative sphere.