Competing Models of Political Debate: Popular Representation in the Late Nineteenth-Century Meeting Hall

Abstract The high profile elections, parties, and petitions have acquired has placed public meetings at the lower end of the historians’ research agenda. The study of political meetings, however, offers an important addition to the diverse institutional landscape of the history of democracy. In the nineteenth century, meetings were regarded as an opportunity for political representation and a place where citizens and representatives of the people met. The meeting hall was a place where two political repertoires competed: Was the popular assembly a continuation of the political conventions of the streets, or should parliamentary rules of debate lead the way? This contribution demonstrates how the commitment to a fair and regulated debate was not only the effect of a top-down disciplinary strategy but was also actively demanded by participants in the meeting themselves. A case study of a public meeting on compulsory education in Amsterdam in 1889 makes clear how questions of access, regulation, and representation were continuously negotiated. As such, this contribution offers insight into nineteenth-century political representation and the participation of ordinary citizens in the political arena.