Games of Contingency

This book offers reflections and applications of politics as an activity. It focuses on a selection of Kari Palonen's work over the last 15 years. It is linked to the complex world of parliaments from rhetorical and procedural perspectives, originally inspired by Max Weber and Quentin Skinner as well as by older books on British parliamentary rhetoric and procedural commentaries. The volume illustrates the methodology and the practices of both textual analysis and of using political imagination - also in contexts, which do not immediately appear as political. It's divided into three sections, the first dealing with typical conceptualisations, the second analysing debates and texts in parliament and beyond, the third looking at politicisation in different levels and contexts, especially around the European Union.

Introduction by Claudia Wiesner. - I CONCEPTUALISING POLITICS. - 1 Paradigms for Political Action. - A draft for a repertoire. - 2 Football as Political Action. Analysing conceptual disputes. - 3 Politics at Distance: Parliamentary politics in the face of new challenges. - II POLITICS IN DEBATES. - 4 Conceptual Explorations around `Politics . - Thematising the activity of politics in the plenary debates of the German Bundestag. - 5 `We Politicians : Translation, rhetoric and conceptual change. - 6 POLITIIKKA. - Politics in Finnish. Unpublished translation from `Politiikka by William Hellberg. - III POLITICISATIONS. - 7 European Union as an Agency of Politicisation. - Redescriptions 17, 2014: 133 139. - 8 Parliamentarisation as Politicisation. - 9 Politicisation as a Speech Act. - A repertoire for analysing politicisation in parliamentary plenary debates. - POSTSCRIPT.