Product Description: Benjamin Disraeli famously said, "England does not love coalitions," but 2010 saw the first peace-time coalition in Britain since the 1930s. The coalition, moreover, may well not be an aberration, for there are signs that, with the rise in strength of third parties, hung parliaments are more likely to recur than in the past...read more

Product Description: A stellar collection of contributors consider each British post-war Prime Minister and examine how they have dealt with Britain's changing role, domestic and overseas, since the end of WWII. Even at the start of the 21st century, Britain remains in a state of transition, between a world which is dead and one still struggling to be born...read more

The British constitution, long considered entrenched by tradition and history, has, since 1997, undergone a process unique in the democratic world: piecemeal transformation from uncodified to codified status. This process, spear-headed by the Human Rights Act and devolution to the non-English parts of the UK (at present there exists neither the political will nor the consensus to go further) has created a new constitution, characterized by the limitation of the powers of Parliament. The Human Rights Act and the devolution legislation, having the character of fundamental law, in practice limit the rights of Westminster as a sovereign parliament, and establish a constitution which is quasi-federal in nature. And though these reforms, together with Britain's membership of the EU, do little to secure more popular involvement in politics, they nevertheless serve to replace one constitution by another. The next phase of constitutional reform is likely to involve the creation of new forms of democratic engagement, so that Britain's constitutional forms come to be more congruent with the social and political forces of the age. The end-point of this piecemeal process might well be a fully codified or written constitution which declares that power stems not from the Queen-in-Parliament, but, instead, as so many constitutions do, from 'we the people.' This new book, by one of Britain's most respected and experienced constitutional commentators, charts the emergence and significance of these reforms, and evaluates their success as part of a larger historical shift towards the constitutionalizing of British democracy. While opinion is sharply divided as to the way forward, the author argues that former Prime Minister Tony Blair's most permanent legacy may well prove to be his championing of a new British constitution. Those seeking an authoritative insight into the state of that constitution need look no further. This eagerly awaited text - by Vernon Bogdanor, the UK's leading expert in this area - will be an invaluable source of information for scholars, students, politicians, journalists, and policy-makers.

Product Description: These essays analyze "joined-up government", consider its history, and evaluate the consequences for British institutions such as the Cabinet, the civil service and local authorities. The Labour government, first elected in 1997, decided that intractable problems such as social exclusion, drug addiction and crime could not be resolved by a single department of government...read more

Product Description: This is the first scholarly survey of the British constitution in the twentieth century. Indeed, it fills a very real gap in the history of Britain during the last hundred years. The book is a product of interdisciplinary collaboration by a distinguished group of constitutional lawyers, historians and political scientists, and draws where possible on primary sources...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Hailed by the American Library Association as an 'Outstanding Reference Source', this book elucidates the terms, concepts and ideas central to the study of politics, with in-depth articles written by many of the world's leading political scientists...read more

Product Description: This book places recent developments in the United Kingdom in their historical context by examining the political and constitutional aspects of devolution in Britain from Gladstone's espousal of Home Rule in 1886 right up to the 1998 legislation governing the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly...read more

Product Description: Increasingly, in contemporary British politics, the spotlight is being thrown on issues of constitutional change and reform. The varied contributions in this book, from leading scholars in the fields of politics and constitutional law, tackle the key questions troubling politicians and observers of politics in this time of acute constitutional change...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: A constitution forms the basis of the legal order of the state, but it is also a "power-map" tracing the normative relationships between the government and citizen. This work presents a collection of essays which offers a political scientist's view of the British constitution...read more

Product Description: A political scientist and a comparative lawyer have joined forces to produce a revised and expanded version of the late F. E. Finer's classic Five Constitutions. Their book gives the present texts of four important constitutions, the American, German, French, and Russian...read more

Explains terms and concepts used in the study of politics, covers forms of political organization, and includes profiles of important political scientists

This book was first published in 1983. Since 1945, British politics has been dominated by a two-party system. Yet this has been challenged with the electoral performance of the two major parties declining since years ago when, between them, they secured over ninety-five per cent of the popular vote. The purpose of Multi-part Politics and the Constitution is twofold: first to examine the reasons for the growth of multi-party politics in Britain, secondly to consider its constitutional consequences. In the first part of the book, Vernon Bogdanor considers the challenges to the two-party system and analyses the role of the Liberal-SDP Alliance as part of that challenge. The second part evaluates the consequences for British politics of hung parliaments where no one party can claim an overall majority. Such situations are likely to occur with increasing frequency if multi-party politics persists. The role of the monarch and the working of coalition and minority governments are discussed and the argument is illustrated by examples from British history and from continental, especially Scandinavian, experience.

Product Description: Leading political scientists from Britain and the United States discuss the impact of recent changes in the role of political parties in both countries and offer radical appraisal of their role in a modern democracy.

Product Description: Originally published in 1983, Democracy and Elections analyses the main electoral systems of modern democracies, and places them in their institutional and historical context. A distinguished group of contributors provide interpretations of the electoral systems of the EEC countries and Japan, and assess the ways in which different electoral systems affect the political practice of each country...read more

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.