– The Political Transfer of English Parliamentary Rules in the French Assemblies (1789–1848), by Nicolas Roussellier, p. 239 – 248
Abstract:
France has often been perceived as the most resilient country to political transfers from abroad. This view does not withstand close scrutiny and political realities tell a different story. This article argues for a reinterpretation of the role of political transfers in modern French political life (since 1789). Through the study of the introduction of rules inspired by the British parliamentary system, this article seeks to show that transfers did take place and gave rise to controversy. The July Monarchy represents the best example. There was an effective transfer but the resistance to this transfer was also very effective. This resistance shows the structural specificity of the French parliamentary system. Political transfers are thus double edged: it is simultaneously an import into a system and a way of reorganizing the system that modifies the nature of the transfer (in this instance the ‘recipes' of the British parliament).
Balancing the Constitution: Bicameralism in Post-revolutionary France, 1814–31, Annelien de Dijn, p. 249
Abstract:
After the defeat of Napoleon, representative institutions were introduced in many European states. In France, as in other countries, this new institution was modelled on the English example: a bicameral legislature with an elective and a hereditary chamber. However, the Chamber of Peers failed to live up to its model: it soon became clear that it did not behave as an independent, aristocratic chamber capable of holding the balance between the king and the popular Chamber. Restoration liberals concluded on the basis of this failure that the English political model was simply unsuitable for a levelled society such as that in post-revolutionary France. In 1831, the hereditary Chamber of Peers was abolished. The experience of the French with the Chamber of Peers therefore seems to confirm the idea of a French ‘Sonderweg' developed by historians such as François Furet and Pierre Rosanvallon. However, it should be noted that even after 1831 the idea of a balance as such did not disappear from French political culture. French publicists suggested that the balanced constitution of the English could be imitated in France in different ways, without necessitating the creation of an aristocratic institution. Thus, the example of the French Chamber of Peers shows that institutional transfers had an important impact on French political culture.
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