Author : Thomas Quinn
Publisher : Springer
Page : 164 pages
File Size : 31,85 MB
Release : 2012-02-07
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0230362788
The Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats each allow their members to participate in the selection of the party leader. It also examines the consequences of all-member ballots in leadership elections. It looks at how parties remove leaders, showing that each of the major British parties sought to make it harder to evict incumbents.
Author : Jasper Miles
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 249 pages
File Size : 39,65 MB
Release : 2023-03-09
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0755640705
The issue of electoral reform has divided the Labour Party since its inception, but only for a brief period in the early 20th century has the Party been committed to reforming first-past-the-post (FPTP). Now, having suffered four successive general election defeats, the Labour Party will have to reconsider its electoral strategy if it is, once again, to become a party of government. For some, a commitment to electoral reform is an indispensable step to widen support, transform the Party, and unlock British Politics. For others, the present system still offers the best hope of majority Labour governments, avoiding deals with the Party's rivals and the watering down of Labour's social democratic agenda. This book explores the Labour Party's approaches towards reforming the Westminster electoral system, and more widely, its perception of electoral pacts and coalition government. The opening chapters chart the debate from the inception of the Party up to the electoral and political impact of Thatcherism. From there, the book takes a closer look at significant recent events, including the Plant Report, the Jenkins Commission, the end of New Labour, the Alternative Vote Referendum, and closing with the Labour leadership containing the matter at Party Conference, 2021. Importantly, it offers an assessment of the pressures and environment in which Labour politicians have operated. Extensive elite-level interviews and new archival research offers the reader a comprehensive and definitive account of this debate.
Author : Peter Dorey
Publisher : Palgrave MacMillan
Page : 432 pages
File Size : 45,52 MB
Release : 2008-06-17
Category : History
ISBN :
This book examines the Labour Party's approach to constitutional reforms in historical context, and how these have been pursued more to 'modernize' political institutions, rather that radically transform them. Dorey explains the reasons for this constitutional conservatism, and the debates which specific reform proposals have prompted in the Party.
Author : Martin Pugh
Publisher : Random House
Page : 490 pages
File Size : 37,56 MB
Release : 2010-03-24
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1407051555
Written at a critical juncture in the history of the Labour Party, Speak for Britain! is a thought-provoking and highly original interpretation of the party's evolution, from its trade union origins to its status as a national governing party. It charts Labour's rise to power by re-examining the impact of the First World War, the general strike of 1926, Labour's breakthrough at the 1945 general election, the influence of post-war affluence and consumerism on the fortunes and character of the party, and its revival after the defeats of the Thatcher era. Controversially, Pugh argues that Labour never entirely succeeded in becoming 'the party of the working class'; many of its influential recruits - from Oswald Mosley to Hugh Gaitskell to Tony Blair - were from middle and upper-class Conservative backgrounds and rather than converting the working class to socialism, Labour adapted itself to local and regional political cultures.
Author : Vernon Bogdanor
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 300 pages
File Size : 20,27 MB
Release : 1981-09-10
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780521242073
This book offers a comprehensive critique of the historical debate on the referendum and electoral reform in British politics from the nineteenth century to 1981. The book falls into two parts. First, the role of the referendum in political debate since the beginning of the century is discussed and a detailed analysis of the referendums of the 1970s is presented. Vernon Bogdanor then clarifies both the benefits and the difficulties involved in the wider use of the referendum. In the second part of the book, he examines proposals for electoral reform since 1830 and considers the attitudes of the parties towards it today. The different forms of proportional representation are discussed and the consequences of adopting them in Britain assessed. The People and the Party System is written in clear, non-technical language and is intended for the general reader. It makes an important contribution to a vital debate and will be of interest to all those concerned with British politics.
Author : Norm Kelly
Publisher : ANU E Press
Page : 200 pages
File Size : 26,17 MB
Release : 2012-05-01
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1921862882
Australia has a proud history of being an international leader in electoral administration, and Australian electoral commissions continue to have a professional, non-partisan approach to the management of elections. Yet their independence is constrained by the electoral laws they need to administer, and parliamentary committees charged with the oversight of the conduct of elections do so with a clear partisan bias. Elections are all about winners, but who decides who the winners will be? Voters definitely have a big say, but it is the electoral system that determines how votes translate into seats in parliament. Any changes to the electoral system require the support of those in power, and it is important to question who benefits from electoral reforms. It is not surprising that partisanship plays a role and that governing parties usually benefit, although that is not always the case. This book assesses Australian electoral reforms of the past 30 years using personal interview data and parliamentary debates, to provide a picture of the reform process as well as the outcomes. These issues, such as who gets to vote, the use of postal voting, party registration and vote weighting, have a profound impact on who wins elections. The book also examines Australia's electoral administration, testing for professionalism, independence and integrity.
Author : M. Evans
Publisher : Springer
Page : 396 pages
File Size : 16,40 MB
Release : 2003-10-15
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0230502261
Since coming to power in 1997 the Labour government 's programme of constitutional reform represents an historic challenge to both British constitutional doctrine and Labour Party orthodoxy. Mark Evans examines the nature and extent of this challenge and argues that the New Constitutionalism is a key element of a policy agenda that in its most crucial aspects reflects the continuing transformation of the British industrial-welfare state into a competition state. Constitution-Making and the Labour Party analyzes key areas of reform under the Blair government from the perspective of Labour Party history and contemporary policy analysis.
Author : Erik S. Herron
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 1017 pages
File Size : 16,14 MB
Release : 2018-03-15
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0190258675
No subject is more central to the study of politics than elections. All across the globe, elections are a focal point for citizens, the media, and politicians long before--and sometimes long after--they occur. Electoral systems, the rules about how voters' preferences are translated into election results, profoundly shape the results not only of individual elections but also of many other important political outcomes, including party systems, candidate selection, and policy choices. Electoral systems have been a hot topic in established democracies from the UK and Italy to New Zealand and Japan. Even in the United States, events like the 2016 presidential election and court decisions such as Citizens United have sparked advocates to promote change in the Electoral College, redistricting, and campaign-finance rules. Elections and electoral systems have also intensified as a field of academic study, with groundbreaking work over the past decade sharpening our understanding of how electoral systems fundamentally shape the connections among citizens, government, and policy. This volume provides an in-depth exploration of the origins and effects of electoral systems.
Author : Duncan Tanner
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 528 pages
File Size : 19,81 MB
Release : 2003-02-13
Category : History
ISBN : 9780521530538
Dr Tanner utilises extensive data from the respective party records to examine the nature of the Liberal and Labour parties prior to 1914.
Author : Alan Renwick
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 353 pages
File Size : 18,64 MB
Release : 2016
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0199685045
One of the key shifts in contemporary politics is the trend towards greater personalization. Collective actors such as political parties are losing relevance. Citizens are slowly dealigning from these actors, and individual politicians are therefore growing in importance in elections, in government, within parties, and in media reporting of politics. A crucial question concerns how this new pattern could be restructuring politics over the long run - notably, whether the personalization of politics is changing the institutional architecture of contemporary democracies. The authors show that the trend towards personalization is indeed changing core democratic institutions. Studying the evolution of electoral systems in thirty-one European democracies since 1945, they demonstrate that, since the 1990s, there has been a shift towards more personalized electoral systems. Electoral systems in most European countries now allow voters to express preferences for candidates, not just for political parties. And the weight of these voters' preferences in the allocation of seats has been increased in numerous countries. They examine the factors that appear to be driving this evolution, finding that the personalization of electoral systems is associated with the growing gap between citizens and politics. Politicians and legislators appear to perceive the personalization of electoral systems as a way to address the democratic malaise and to restore trust in politics by reducing the role of political parties in elections. The book also shows, however, that whether these reforms have had any success in achieving their aims is far less clear. Comparative Politics is a series for students, teachers, and researchers of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are characterised by a stress on comparative analysis and strong methodological rigour. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research. For more information visit: www.ecprnet.eu. The Comparative Politics series is edited by Emilie van Haute, Professor of Political Science, Universite libre de Bruxelles; Ferdinand Muller-Rommel, Director of the Center for the Study of Democracy, Leuphana University; and Susan Scarrow, Chair of the Department of Political Science, University of Houston.
