International Commission for the History of Representative and Parliamentary Institutions

The International Commission for the History of Representative and Parliamentary Institutions is recognized as an Affiliated Society with the American Historical Association. Its scholars have participated in AHA annual meetings since 2020.

The International Commission was founded in Lausanne in 1936 and has been continuously active throughout the world since 1945. The International Commission publishes the Journal of Parliaments, Estates and Representation three times a year.  Please see www.ichrpi.info/ for further information regarding the history of the organization and its purposes. The following two topics have been designed to solicit the interest of scholars who work in the areas of political and parliamentary history. The AHA deadline to submit panel participants for these two panels is 15 February 2023. The 2024 annual meeting of the AHA will take place in San Francisco. For further details on this point see www.historians.org/annual-meeting/future-meetings. Please note: it is the intention of the International Commission to include papers that the AHA does not accept in the International Commission panels it will host at San Francisco during the AHA 2024 annual meeting. Put another way, if you propose to the AHA via the International Commission and the AHA rejects the panel, the International Commission will – in all likelihood – accept the panel. So there’s little ‘if' as in 'if you’re going to San Francisco’ … We'll see you there. 

Please contact Dr. Peter J. Aschenbrenner, National Convenor (US) for further information. We also welcome the interest of scholars wishing to serve as panel chairs and/or commentators.  

Topic:

Autocratic regimes and legislative assemblies in South Asia, post-World War II.

In South Asia – in the post-World War II era – what were the avenues (methods, means) by which autocratic actors or parties exploited the conventional forms of parliamentary democracy to maintain their grip on power?  How did legislative assemblies reinforce claims to legitimacy (asserted by autocratic regimes) to the extent that they were able to conduct elections for seats in these assemblies?