Patrick Weller
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780199646203
- eISBN:
- 9780191850424
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199646203.003.0007
- Subject:
- Political Science, Comparative Politics
If they are to keep their job, prime ministers need to maintain support in their party and a majority in the parliament. They need to actively work among their colleagues to keep them on side. In ...
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If they are to keep their job, prime ministers need to maintain support in their party and a majority in the parliament. They need to actively work among their colleagues to keep them on side. In Britain rebellion on the floor of the House reflects the divisions within ruling parties. In the other three countries, prime ministers can be assured that their MPs will vote with them but they can be assailed in the weekly party room meeting where criticisms can be fierce and where dissenting views will be expressed directly to cabinet members. This chapter explores how prime minister intersect with their parliamentary supporters and the ways they try to ensure continued support. It examines the way prime ministers prepare for that setpiece drama, prime minister’s questions. It shows how different institutional arrangements ensured a range of strategies, not all successful, were needed.Less
If they are to keep their job, prime ministers need to maintain support in their party and a majority in the parliament. They need to actively work among their colleagues to keep them on side. In Britain rebellion on the floor of the House reflects the divisions within ruling parties. In the other three countries, prime ministers can be assured that their MPs will vote with them but they can be assailed in the weekly party room meeting where criticisms can be fierce and where dissenting views will be expressed directly to cabinet members. This chapter explores how prime minister intersect with their parliamentary supporters and the ways they try to ensure continued support. It examines the way prime ministers prepare for that setpiece drama, prime minister’s questions. It shows how different institutional arrangements ensured a range of strategies, not all successful, were needed.
John R. Parkinson
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199214563
- eISBN:
- 9780191803321
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199214563.003.0006
- Subject:
- Political Science, Comparative Politics
This chapter continues the focus on assembly buildings, but this time from the requirements of public space. It argues that while assemblies were once extremely open to very limited demos, they are ...
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This chapter continues the focus on assembly buildings, but this time from the requirements of public space. It argues that while assemblies were once extremely open to very limited demos, they are increasingly inaccessible, in obvious and subtle ways. The obvious methods include security measures that quarantine visitors as a dangerous contagion. More subtle means include turning assembly buildings into museums and tourist attractions so that the work that goes on in them, or should go on in them, disappears from public view. These observations are used to make the first of several points on a recurrent theme in the book: that the buildings of the formal public sphere are increasingly and systematically excluding people as citizens, purposive publics, and privileging incidental or leisure publics. The chapter concludes making the following proposal: to create institution called Public Question Time in order to continue the focus on assemblies as working buildings where binding collective decisions are made, yet encourage purposive engagement with those decisions by active citizens.Less
This chapter continues the focus on assembly buildings, but this time from the requirements of public space. It argues that while assemblies were once extremely open to very limited demos, they are increasingly inaccessible, in obvious and subtle ways. The obvious methods include security measures that quarantine visitors as a dangerous contagion. More subtle means include turning assembly buildings into museums and tourist attractions so that the work that goes on in them, or should go on in them, disappears from public view. These observations are used to make the first of several points on a recurrent theme in the book: that the buildings of the formal public sphere are increasingly and systematically excluding people as citizens, purposive publics, and privileging incidental or leisure publics. The chapter concludes making the following proposal: to create institution called Public Question Time in order to continue the focus on assemblies as working buildings where binding collective decisions are made, yet encourage purposive engagement with those decisions by active citizens.
Keith Dowding, Aaron Martin, and Rhonda L. Evans
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- March 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780198835332
- eISBN:
- 9780191872945
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198835332.003.0004
- Subject:
- Political Science, Comparative Politics
Keith Dowding and Aaron Martin launched the Australian Policy Agendas Project (APAP) in 2012 under an Australian Research Council Discovery grant. Their work has resulted in ten publications to date. ...
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Keith Dowding and Aaron Martin launched the Australian Policy Agendas Project (APAP) in 2012 under an Australian Research Council Discovery grant. Their work has resulted in ten publications to date. Under the leadership of Rhonda L. Evans, the Edward A. Clark Center at the University of Texas at Austin began work on the APAP in 2014, collecting data on decisions of the High Court of Australia and front-page stories from the Sydney Morning Herald. This chapter outlines some features of the Australian political system; what was coded as part of APAP; and an example of how the data has been used by the authors.Less
Keith Dowding and Aaron Martin launched the Australian Policy Agendas Project (APAP) in 2012 under an Australian Research Council Discovery grant. Their work has resulted in ten publications to date. Under the leadership of Rhonda L. Evans, the Edward A. Clark Center at the University of Texas at Austin began work on the APAP in 2014, collecting data on decisions of the High Court of Australia and front-page stories from the Sydney Morning Herald. This chapter outlines some features of the Australian political system; what was coded as part of APAP; and an example of how the data has been used by the authors.
