Barcelona, Spain, 1-4 September 2026

We are pleased to inform you that the 78th Conference of the International Commission for the History of Representative and Parliamentary Institutions (ICHRPI) will take place in Barcelona from 1 to 4 September 2026. The conference will be hosted by the Pompeu Fabra University, in collaboration with the Parliament of Catalonia, the Department of Humanities of the Pompeu Fabra University, the European Observatory on Memories (EUROM) of the Fundació Solidaritat UB, the Jaume Vicens Vives Institute of History (IUHJVV), and the Catalan Society for Historical Studies of the Institute for Catalan Studies (SCEH/IEC).

In this regard, we invite all researchers in the field to present their paper proposals. The languages of the conference will be: Catalan, Spanish, English, French, and German.

Conference themes

1) Parliamentary and representative institutions. From the peace and truce assemblies to the cortes of the Crown of Aragon.

2) Parliamentary and representative institutions. From the Middle Ages to the present day. Cities, states, nations, empires, colonies and supranational organizations.

3) Parliamentary and Representative Institutions in extraordinary contexts: Crises, wars, revolts, and revolutions.

4) The actors of parliamentary life and representative assemblies: biography, prosopography, sociology, political parties, groupings and convergences.

5) Procedures, parliamentary work and functioning of the assembly. External projection, transparency and corruption within parliamentary and representative institutions.

6) Parliamentary and representative institutions versus other powers (executive, judicial, economic, religious and media).

7) Parliamentary and representative institutions. Memory policies, conflicting contemporary narratives and (dis)memories.

8) Parliamentarism and Anti-Parliamentarism. Parliamentary speeches and hate speech.

Submission deadline for presenting papers to the conference

Abstracts of no more than 200 words, in English, French, German, Catalan or Spanish, referring to one of the themes proposed, should be submitted by 30 April 2026 to conference.ichrpi2026@upf.edu.

Notification of the acceptance of papers will be made by 31 May 2026.

The conference programme will be published by 7 June 2026.

Conference fees :

100 euros for members of the ICHRPI, of the UPF and for degree and postgraduate students

150 euros for other scholars

80 euros for accompanying partners