2021

Palonen, Kari

Understanding politics as a contingent and controversial activity, politicisation refers to those activities that create or make visible the political quality in the phenomena in question. Parliamentarisation is a distinct strategy of politicisation. In this chapter, parliament refers to a certain procedural and institutional ideal type of acting politically. The parliamentary way of politicising acting and thinking forms a Gedankenbild, a mental image. It is an ideal type that one-sidedly accentuates and intensifies the political way of thinking. The parliamentary way of proceeding politically transcends the given polity: ‘parliament’ is not primarily a parliament ‘of’ a unit, such as the nation state, but concerns any polity level, from city councils to the worldwide institutions. The chapter discusses different analytically and historically relevant dimensions of parliamentary politicisation.