New Special Issue of Parliamentary History: Settler Colonialism and Parliamentary Democracy – Histories and Legacies

David Thackeray
University of Exeter

Our new special issue of Parliamentary History, ‘Settler Colonialism and Parliamentary Democracy- Histories and Legacies’, co-edited by me and Amanda Behm, emerges at a time of acute public interest in the practices of settler democracy. In 2023 efforts to establish an ‘indigenous voice to parliament’ in Australia were defeated in a referendum but drew attention to a long history of contestation of the national constitution by indigenous peoples and their allies. In New Zealand ongoing efforts by the coalition’s minority partner to reform the legal status of the Treaty of Waitangi have been met by protests and claims of historical amnesia by opponents of the bill. The papers in this special issue seek to offer a better understanding of the practices which connected supporters and opponents of settler democracy across and beyond the British empire.

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