Parliamentary Obstruction and the “Crisis” of European Parliamentary Politics Around 1900

A t the end of the nineteenth century the crisis of the parliamen- tary system was a hotly debated topic. 1 The later crisis of interwar parliamentary democracy is already well known.The 1920s and 1930s, however, were not the fi rst time the parliamentary system was perceived as being in 'crisis'.Around 1900 the appearance of organized 'obstruction' in European parliaments was seen as the most prominent sign that 1 Cf. the chapter about parliaments in Jan Romein, The Watershed of Two Eras.Europe in 1900 (Middletown, Wesleyan U.P. 1978); among many other titles Jules Destrée, La fi n du parlementarisme.Discours pronounce à la séance solennelle de rentrée de l'Université Nouvelle de Bruxelles (Bruxelles 1901).This contribution is a revised version of Henk te Velde, 'Die parlamentarische Obstruktion und die "Krise" parlamentarischer Obstruktion in Europa um 1900', in: Andreas Schulz and Andreas Wirsching ed., Parlamentarische Kulturen in Europa.Das Parlament als Kommunikationsraum (Düsseldrof: Droste 2012) pp.267-283.I would like to thank James McSpadden, PhD candidate in parliamentary history at Harvard, for improving my English style.

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