Verifikace voleb v počátcích moderního parlamentarismu: rakouské císařství 1848-1849

• Authors: Pavel Fabini

Title variants

EN

The verification of elections at the beginnings of modern parliamentarism: the Austrian empire 1848-1849

• Languages of publication: CS

Abstracts

EN

The beginnings of modern parliamentarism in the Austrian Empire are connected with the events of 1848 and with the implementation of constitutional-legal norms influenced by the principles of liberalism and representative democracy. The legitimacy of the regime should no longer be based solely on the monarchist tradition, but should also be based on the consent of the citizen. In addition to the will of the monarch, who had so far ruled exclusively by the grace of God, the will of the ruled, expressed through the act of free election of parliamentary representatives, has also been newly exercised. However, the authenticity of the “revealed” collective will was undermined by the technical shortcomings of the electoral system, but especially by the efforts of competing actors and their supporters to interfere illegitimately in the electoral process, whether through corrupt practices, frauds or various forms of electoral violence. One of the instruments for purging the parliamentary body of illegitimately acquired parliamentary mandates, the duration of which could disrupt the legitimacy of the entire body and thus jeopardize the authority of state power, became the verification process taking place in parliament. The study examines the spectrum of electoral manipulations employed in the first parliamentary elections in the Austrian Empire and at the same time the form and practice of their verification in the beginnings of parliamentarism using examples of the Imperial Diet in Vienna and the Moravian Land Diet in Brno.

Keywords

EN

democracy; parliamentarism; legitimacy; elections; Fraud; violence; verification; Austrian empire

Discipline

• HISTORY: HISTORY

• Publisher: Institute of History, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Český časopis historický (The Czech Historical Review)
• Year: 2020
• Volume: 118
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 297-323
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Pavel Fabini

• Český časopis historický, redakce, Historický ústav AV ČR, v.v.i., Prosecká 76, 190 00 Praha 9, Czech Republic