Freedom Of Electoral Reform In The Nineteenth Century British Political Culture

This paper tries to discuss the discourse of capacity which liberals used during the period of British electoral reform through the analysis of the Hansard,the official report of parliamentary debates.Apart from the introduction, this paper is divided into 3 parts.The first part is a general introduction about liberalism and the discourse of capacity in 19th century. The second part is about the discourse of capacity during the period of British electoral reform, from 1830 to 1885. This part divided into 4 chapters:the Reform of 1832,the parliamentary debates from 1848 to 1865, the Reform of 1867, the Reform of 1884. And the Last part analysis the three cultural contexts which contributed to the success of the discourse of capacity:hierarchy,social mobility and the image of the middle class.