Comparative Politics

This book explores how the governmental elites in Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa understand their Westminster system. It examines in detail four interrelated features of Westminster systems: firstly, the increasing centralization in collective, responsible cabinet government; second, the constitutional convention of ministerial and collective responsibility; third, the role of a professional, non-partisan public service; and finally, parliament's relationship to the executive. The book explains the changes that have occurred in the Westminster model by analyzing four traditions: royal prerogative, responsible government, constitutional bureaucracy, and representative government. It suggests that each tradition has a recurring dilemma, between centralization and decentralization, party government and ministerial responsibility, professionalization and politicization, and finally elitism and participation. The chapter goes on to argue that these dilemmas recur in four present-day debates: the growth of prime ministerial power, the decline in individual and collective ministerial accountability, politicization of the public service, and executive dominance of the legislature. It concludes by identifying five meanings of, or narratives about, Westminster. Firstly, ‘Westminster as heritage’ — elite actors' shared governmental narrative understood as both precedents and nostalgia. Second, ‘Westminster as political tool’ — the expedient cloak worn by governments and politicians to defend themselves and criticize opponents. Third, ‘Westminster as legitimizing tradition’ — providing legitimacy and a context for elite actions, serving as a point of reference to navigate this uncertain world. Fourth, ‘Westminster as institutional category’ — a useful descriptor of a loose family of governments with shared origins and characteristics. Finally, ‘Westminster as an effective political system’ —a more effective and efficient political system than consensual parliamentary governments. Westminster is a flexible family of ideas that is useful for many purposes and survives, even thrives, because of its meaning in use to elite actors.

Although there is no doubt that the constitution has been significantly reformed since the election of New Labour in May 1997 the degree to which these reforms have altered the nature of democracy in the United Kingdom remains highly contested. A major problem within this debate is that it has become polarized around a binary distinction between power‐sharing and power‐hoarding models of democracy when the contemporary situation is actually far more complex. This book draws upon theories and methods from comparative political analysis in order to argue and then demonstrate three central and inter‐related arguments. Firstly, that the distinctive element of ‘New’ Labour's approach to constitutional engineering is not that it has shifted the nature of democracy in the United Kingdom from one model to another but has instead sought to apply different models at the periphery and core: bi‐constitutionality. Secondly, that contemporary evidence of both increasing levels of public disengagement from conventional politics and falling levels of public trust in politicians, political institutions and political processes originate from the ‘expectations gap’. This ‘gap’ is created by the process of political competition artificially increases public expectations; only for these expectations to be dashed as the elected party either seeks to renege upon certain pre‐election commitments or fails to achieve them. Finally, democracy in the United Kingdom is currently drifting. The old rules do not appear to suit the new game, and yet the government continues to insist that the old rules still apply. The critical challenge for any future government, of any political complexion, will be to articulate a new form of constitutional morality with the capacity to clarify exactly what its reforms in the sphere of constitutional reform and democratic renewal are seeking to achieve.

After three hundred years, the Anglo-Scottish Union is in serious difficulty. This is not because of a profound cultural divide between England and Scotland but because recent decades have seen the rebuilding of Scotland as a political community while the ideology and practices of the old unionism have atrophied. Yet while Britishness is in decline, it has not been replaced by a dominant ideology of Scottish independence. Rather Scots are looking to renegotiate union to find a new place in the Isles, in Europe and in the world. There are few legal, constitutional or political obstacles to Scottish independence, but an independent Scotland would need to forge a new social and economic project as a small nation in the global market-place, and there has been little serious thinking about the implications of this. Short of independence, there is a range of constitutional options for renegotiating the Union to allow more Scottish self-government on the lines that public opinion seems to favour. The limits are posed not by constitutional principles but by the unwillingness of English opinion to abandon their unitary conception of the state. The end of the United Kingdom may be provoked, not by Scottish nationalism but by English unionism.

Have bureaucrats taken over the decision-making role of politicians? This book offers a direct assessment of the role of bureaucrats in policy-making by analysing how they shape policy in making decrees—laws that generally do not pass through full legislative scrutiny. These are often described as ‘secondary legislation’ and are known by a variety of names (including décrets, arrêtés, administrative regulations, Verordnungen, statutory instruments). Such decrees offer an important vantage point for understanding bureaucratic power not only because they account for a large proportion of policy-making activity within the executive, but also because they are made largely away from the glare of publicity. If bureaucrats have strong policy-making powers and use them in a way that minimizes political involvement in policy-making, we would expect to find these powers especially evident in this ‘everyday’ decision-making. The book is based on research examining fifty-two decrees produced between 2005 and 2008 in six jurisdictions: France, the UK, Germany, Sweden, the United States, and the European Union. The comparative perspective allows one to see how far different patterns of bureaucratic involvement in policy-making are characteristic of particular political systems and how far they are a general feature of modern bureaucracies. The book asks three main questions about how these decrees are produced. When do politicians become involved in making them? What happens when politicians become involved? And what happens when they are not involved? The answers to these questions are provided by examination of primary source material as well as interviews with over 100 officials.

In this provocative new study, Iain McLean argues that the traditional story of the British constitution does not make sense. It purports to be both positive and normative: that is, to describe both how people actually behave and how they ought to behave. In fact, it fails to do either; it is not a correct description and it has no persuasive force. The book goes on to offer a reasoned alternative. The position that still dominates the field of constitutional law is that of parliamentary sovereignty (or supremacy). According to this view, the supreme lawgiver in the United Kingdom is Parliament. Some writers in this tradition go on to insist that Parliament in turn derives its authority from the people, because the people elect Parliament. An obvious problem with this view is that Parliament, to a lawyer, comprises three houses: monarch, Lords, and Commons. The people elect only one of those three houses. This book aims to show, contrary to the prevailing view, that the United Kingdom exists by virtue of a constitutional contract between two previously independent states. Professor McLean argues that the work of the influential constitutional theorist A. V. Dicey has little to offer those who really want to understand the nature of the constitution. Instead, greater understanding can be gleaned from considering the ‘veto plays’ and ‘credible threats’ available to politicians since 1707. He suggests that the idea the people are sovereign dates back to the seventeenth century (may be fourteenth century in Scotland), but has gone underground in English constitutional writing. He goes on to show that devolution and the United Kingdom's relationship with the rest of Europe have taken the United Kingdom along a constitutionalist road since 1972, and perhaps since 1920. He concludes that no intellectually defensible case can be made for retaining an unelected house of Parliament, an unelected head of state, or an established church. This book will be an essential reading for political scientists, constitutional lawyers, historians, politicians, and the like.