Sovereignty, Authority, and Power

United Kingdom

• is sometimes called a “country of countries,” in which four separate nations of people are united under one constitutional monarchy.

• The United Kingdom is a “country of countries,” comprising the nations of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

• Britain is a unitary state, with political power firmly concentrated in London in a single political institution, the House of Commons, which is elected by British voters every five years (or less often in certain circumstances).

• Modern Britain is increasingly a devolved unitary state, with certain political powers granted by “acts of Parliament” to lower-level regional assemblies.

Geographic Influences on Political Culture

• Geography has a substantial impact on the historical development of the political culture of a nation of people.

  • This is more evident in Britain than in most countries.

• Britain is in a cold and wet part of the temperate zone, with a short growing season that makes providing enough food for the island’s people a struggle.

• The need for natural resources further pushed the British to create a world-class navy and colonize distant parts of the planet, in essence exporting British culture all over the British Empire, which once spanned a quarter of the world’s territory and population.

• British political history has displayed two distinct trends over the course of its development.

• The first of these trends is traditionalism and gradualism, in which the British political structure has adhered to longstanding political traditions, while at the same time modernizing these traditions through gradual reforms and generally not through rapid revolutionary upheavals.

• The other dominant trend in British politics is one of constitutionalism, or adherence to a set of understood limitations on the power of the state.

  • Constitutionalism commitment to the rule of law and the principles expressed in a constitution

Early Traditions

• House of Lords the upper house of Britain’s Parliament, which has very limited powers as a result of gradual reforms

• The Lords forced King John to sign the Magna Carta in response to what they felt were excessive taxes for his military expeditions, and it marked the beginning of a long tradition of constitutionalism and rule of law for the monarch.

  • Magna Carta an agreement made between England’s king and nobility in 1215 that established limitations on the power of the king; an early example of constitutionalism

• The House of Commons was created in the fourteenth century in response to the emergence of a growing commercial class as towns in England developed.

  • House of Commons the lower house of Britain’s Parliament, where political power is concentrated

• English Civil War (1642–1651), in which King Charles I attempted to govern and raise revenue without Parliament until he could no longer do so.

• James II fled the country, and the bloodless coup organized by Parliament came to be known as the Glorious Revolution.

• English Bill of Rights, which ensured the role that Parliament would be guaranteed to play in the British state, and further identified rights that could not be violated against British citizens by the monarch.

Emergence of the Labour Party

• Britain’s traditional political party structure consisted of the Conservative (Tory) Party, and the Liberal (Whig) Party, and it was similarly transformed by reform.

  • Conservative (Tory) Party Britain’s center-right party; one of the main competitors for power in Britain’s two-party system

• The Labour Party was formed in 1906 to represent the interests of the newly enfranchised working classes, and emerged as the chief challenger to the Tories by the end of World War I.

  • Labour Party Britain’s center-left party; one of the main competitors for power in Britain’s two-party system

Collectivist Consensus

• The political divisions were further altered in the aftermath of the Great Depression and World War II with a period.

• Beveridge Report, which recommended sweeping changes to guarantee at least a subsistence income to all British citizens no matter what.

• National Health Service (NHS), which provided all British citizens with the guarantee of medical care free of charge.

  • National Health Service (NHS) Britain’s public health service system, which provides health care to all British citizens at taxpayer expense

• Mixed economy an economy in which the government plays a strong role of ownership and operation of industries, regulation, and provision of welfare-state benefits while preserving a role for the market

Crisis in the 1970s and Thatcherism

• The collectivist consensus was challenged in the 1970s as nationalized industries became increasingly inefficient, and required large sums of taxpayer money to subsidize their losses and high wages for militantly unionized workers, which seemed to some British to be on strike more often than they were working.

• The country responded in 1979 by electing the Conservative Party, led by Margaret Thatcher, to take the country in a definitively rightward direction.

• Thatcherism an economic policy agenda that emphasized neoliberal reforms, such as privatization of state-owned enterprises, reductions in welfare-state spending, and deregulation of business

• The core tenets of Thatcher’s reforms, known as Thatcherism, included:

  • privatization of industry

  • reductions in the welfare state

  • reducing the power of labor unions

  • returning to market principles

• The moniker “The Iron Lady” came to define her legacy.

  • While many workers and ordinary British citizens experienced great difficulty making ends meet as a result of Thatcher’s policies, the Conservatives did revitalize the British economy in the 1980s and restored a new sense of optimism to the future of Britain.

• Devolution the transfer of political power down from a central or national level of government to a local or regional level

New Labour

• In 1992, Labour chose a new party leadership, headed by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

• Tony Blair recast the Labour Party as a center-left party that embraced the positive effects of Thatcher’s market reforms on Britain, while remaining left of center on issues of the welfare state, public investment, and taxation.

• One of the most significant symbols of this change in Labour’s approach was the party’s decision to remove Clause IV of the party manifesto, which expressed support for the nationalization of industry.

• Labor reforms:

  • eu human rights compatibility

  • Devolution

  • Decentralization

  • lords reform

  • judicial reform

• Irish Republican Army (IRA), used violence to agitate for secession from Britain, in the hopes of uniting Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland.

• In 1998, Blair’s government negotiated the Good Friday Agreement between the conflicting factions, creating a peace that has generally held since.

The Return of the Tories

• The Conservative leader, David Cameron, negotiated the formation of a coalition government with the Liberal Democratic Party, making Cameron the new prime minister.

• Coalition government in parliamentary systems, a situation where multiple parties partner to construct a majority and form a government

• In exchange for participation in the coalition, the Conservatives (also known as the Tories) gave the Liberal Democrats several positions in the new cabinet; in particular, the Liberal Democratic leader, Nick Clegg, was named deputy prime minister.

• They also promised to stage a referendum on the Alternative Vote (AV), a proposed reform to Britain’s first-past-the-post (FPTP) system.

• First-past-the-post (FPTP) an election system in which the candidate with the most votes wins representation of a geographic district in the legislature; losing candidates or parties do not receive any representation

• In response to Britain’s significant budget deficits in the aftermath of the financial crisis, Cameron’s government imposed a series of austerity measures to reduce government spending and balance the budget.

• The 2015 election gave Conservatives a clear majority in the Parliament.

• During the campaign, David Cameron had promised a referendum on Britain’s membership in the European Union, referred to colloquially as Brexit, to appease the Euro Skeptical elements of the Conservative Party.

Citizens, Society, and the State

Social Class

• Many of Britain’s wealthiest citizens come from a long history of inherited wealth from generations back, and those in the upper classes typically dress distinctively from the lower classes, participate in different leisure activities, speak in a different English dialect, and generally don’t interact much with lower classes.

• The concept of noblesse oblige, which centuries ago, referred to a nobleman’s responsibility to care for the serfs and common people under his care.

• Noblesse oblige a concept from medieval times of the nobility’s responsibility to care for their serfs, reimagined during the collectivist period as the wealthy’s responsibility to pay for welfare-state benefits to care for the poor

• The concept was reimagined during the Collectivist Consensus to mean that the wealthy had a certain social responsibility to accept higher taxes in order to fund the welfare state for the middle and lower classes.

Nation

• England has long been the dominant player of the United Kingdom, in which over 80 percent of the population resides, and where most of the country’s wealth and political power are concentrated, not to mention the fact that it is the English royal family’s monarch who reigns as head of state over all of the nations.

• This has engendered resentment of the English by other nationalities at times, exemplified most notably in recent years with Scotland’s failed (but nearly successful) referendum in 2014 for independence from the United Kingdom.

Ethnicity

• More than 80 percent of the British are white; however, there are a growing number of ethnic minority populations in Britain that are increasingly Muslim.

• Most common among these are Pakistanis, but there are many others from the rest of Europe, Asia, and Africa as well.

Civil Society

• Civil society is alive and well in Britain, almost completely unrestricted in its formation.

• One estimate places the number of civil society organizations in Britain at over 900,000.

Political Institutions

Linkage Institutions

ELECTIONS

• Elections in Britain are generally regarded as completely free and fair, consistent with expectations of a liberal democracy, and British history has consistently progressed to expand access and participation for the average citizen.

• British citizens today participate in elections of officials at three different levels.

National Elections

• The most important of these elections is at the national level to choose the Members of Parliament (MPs) who will act as the national government in Westminster and choose the prime minister and the cabinet.

• Fixed-Term Parliaments Act of 2011 a law passed by Parliament that established a fixed five-year election cycle starting in 2015; the prime minister retains the power to call snap elections but now needs a two-thirds majority instead of a simple majority

• Historically, the prime minister had the power to call for elections whenever he would choose, though he had to do so within five years of the last election.

• The United Kingdom is divided into 650 constituencies that each elect one single MP to represent them in Parliament.

  • This is called a single-member-district system (SMD)

  • Single-member-district (SMD) an election system in which one representative is chosen to represent each geographic constituency in a legislature

• The single winning candidate in each district is the one who wins the most votes—a plurality.

  • A plurality is not necessarily a majority, since a majority is more than 50 percent.

  • Plurality a condition of receiving the most votes, though not necessarily a majority, for elective office

• Vote of no confidence a vote by the legislature in a parliamentary system to force the resignation of the prime minister and cabinet and call for new elections

Supranational Elections: The EU Parliament

1. As part of membership in the European Union, every five years, a direct election was held to send members to the European Parliament.

2. The EU parliamentary election rules vary from nation to nation, but in Britain they were all conducted in a proportional representation (PR) format rather than through an SMD.

Local/Regional Elections

• Since the creation of devolved national assemblies in the late 1990s, elections have been held for members of the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, and the Northern Ireland Assembly.

• The Scottish and Welsh elect their members with a hybrid of SMD and PR party list systems, while the Northern Irish system uses a single transferrable vote, allowing voters to rank two preferred candidates.

POLITICAL PARTIES

• Britain’s electoral system lends itself to the creation of a two-party system.

• Historically, the government has always been operated by one of two major parties in its time—originally Liberals versus Conservatives, now Labour versus Conservatives.

Conservative

• The Conservative Party (nicknamed the “Tories”) is the more right-leaning of the two parties.

• They are generally a pragmatic rather than an ideological party, but the internal debate within the party on the proper role of government in the economy often results in factional divisions.

• Noblesse oblige, which is the idea that the upper classes have a responsibility for the care and welfare of those in lower classes.

• “Thatcherite wing,” which adheres to the economic philosophy of Margaret Thatcher, believing in the rolling back of the welfare state, reducing government controls and regulation, and expanding the role of markets.

Labour

• The Labour Party began in 1906 as a means for members of the working class to advance workers’ rights in the political sphere.

• It soon surpassed the Liberals electorally and has since been one of Britain’s two dominant parties.

• The modern Labour Party portrays itself as the defender of the British middle class and working class against a Conservative Party that seeks to make the economic climate more favorable to business and investors, as opposed to “regular” British employees who have seen their wages stagnate despite economic recovery.

Liberal Democrats

• Liberal Democratic Party a national “third” party in Britain with a centrist ideology

• Liberals were once the opposing major party to Conservatives, but after the 1920s they never held control of government again, losing their position to the Labour Party.

• Lib-Dems are regularly the biggest victim electorally of the single-member-district system.

• Lib-Dems are the most vocal advocates of election reform in the United Kingdom, pushing for integration of more proportional representation into the system that would make their power in government reflective of their votes won.

  • Proportional representation (PR) an election system for a legislature that gives each political party a percentage of seats in the legislature approximately equal to the percentage of the vote the party received in the election

U.K. Independence Party

• One of Britain’s newest parties, the U.K. Independence Party (UKIP), is fundamentally Euroskeptical, calling for a British exit from the European Union.

• They currently have the most representation among British parties in the European Parliament, controlling twenty-three of Britain’s seventy-three seats, and they won 12.6 percent of the vote in the 2015 general election, though this only translated into control of one seat in the House of Commons.

Regional Parties

• These parties include the Scottish National Party (SNP); Plaid Cymru, which is based in Wales; and Sinn Fein, which is based in Ireland, but opposes Northern Irish union with Britain and consistently refuses to take the seats at Westminster that they win.

• Scottish National Party (SNP) a regional minority party concentrated in Scotland

• Sinn Fein a regional minority party, concentrated in Northern Ireland, that advocates Irish independence and rejects the authority of the British Parliament

• Plaid Cymru a regional minority party concentrated in Wales

Interest Groups

• Britain is a pluralist system in which interest groups and other civil society organizations group and act independently, competing for the attention of the state to influence policymaking.

• The state’s relationship to interest groups is particularly complicated in the case of quasi-autonomous non-governmental organizations (quangos), which refers to publicly funded bodies that operate as integrated parts of the private sector.

  • Quangos acronym for “quasi-autonomous non-governmental organizations,” semi-independent agencies with regulatory power over a particular policy area or industry

The Media

• Media in Britain are open and free in their ability to investigate and report on the activities of the government at every level.

• Much of British media, notably the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) were created by the state for the purpose of providing information to citizens.

• British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) a state-funded media company that operates and reports independently and free from state interference

State Institutions

The Monarchy

• Head of State, she does not hold any policymaking authority.

  • Head of state the individual in the executive branch who acts as the ceremonial symbol of the country at public events

• This stems from the history of gradual English reform, highlighted by a few key events such as the English Civil War, the Glorious Revolution, and the Reform Act of 1832 (each of which are covered in the section on political change in the United Kingdom).

• The role of the monarch these days is limited to presiding over the State Opening of Parliament where she gives a speech outlining the government’s agenda in Commons (though the speech is actually written by the prime minister), and inviting a party leader to attempt to form a coalition government and become prime minister if elections result in a hung Parliament, in which no party has received an electoral majority.

• Hung parliament a situation in which no party secures a majority in parliamentary elections and the parties are unable to agree on a combined coalition government; its result is new elections

The Parliament

• The British Parliament is composed of two houses: the House of Commons and the House of Lords.

• The House of Commons today is by far the more significant of the two in modern British politics, so we will begin there.

• The House of Commons is the dominant political institution in Britain.

  • The majority party in the House of Commons chooses the prime minister and cabinet to run the government.

• In the event that no party receives a majority, parties must ally together to form a coalition government.

• The House of Commons chooses the chief executive (the prime minister), and the rest of the government ministers (the Cabinet) who will be leading members of the majority party in the Commons.

• Prime Minister in a parliamentary system, the chief executive chosen by the legislature as the leader of the legislature’s majority party

• Cabinet a body of high-ranking officials in the executive branch that is responsible for advising the chief executive, implementing public policy, and managing bureaucratic agencies

• Backbenchers Members of Parliament (MPs) from the majority party who have less status and seniority than leaders and senior MPs; they sit in the benches farther from the floor in the House of Commons

• Loyal opposition the principal party in opposition to the party that forms the government; it is opposed to the policies of the government but loyal to the country and the regime

• Shadow cabinet leaders of the opposition party who would become the new prime minister and cabinet if their party won an electoral majority

• Speaker of the House in Britain, a member of Parliament chosen to preside over proceedings and maintain order in the House of Commons

• “Prime Minister’s Questions,” or PMQs, where the opposition party, backbenchers, and minor party MPs can submit questions to be answered by the prime minister on a live television broadcast.

  • Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) a televised event once a week where the prime minister responds to questions from the opposition leader and other MPs

• The House of Lords is known as the “upper house” of Parliament, but it certainly does not play the greater role in modern policymaking.

• “Lords Spiritual,” meaning they acquired their place due to their ecclesiastical role in the Church of England.

  • The rest of the Lords are considered “Lords Temporal.”

• Hereditary peers, meaning they inherited their title due to family lineage.

  • Hereditary peers members of the House of Lords who inherit their position by birth status

• Life peers, as they are appointed by the prime minister (with the official appointment performed by the monarch) to serve for life, without passing the title to their heirs, usually as recognition of lifetime achievement and contribution to the United Kingdom.

  • Life peers members of the House of Lords who are appointed for a lifetime term; their seats are not transferred to their firstborn child

• Law Lords a group within the House of Lords that acted as the highest appellate court in Britain until the creation of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom

• Supreme Court of the United Kingdom the highest appellate court, established to replace the Law Lords and demonstrate the separation and independent power of the judiciary

• Constituency a geographic area represented by a member in the legislature

• Parliament in Britain, the House of Commons and the House of Lords, together comprising the national legislature

• U.K. Independence Party (UKIP) a national British minority party that advocates withdrawing from the EU and other institutions that limit Britain’s national sovereignty

The Executive

• Executive power in the United Kingdom is exercised by the prime minister and the cabinet, who are chosen as the leaders of the majority party in the House of Commons.

The Prime Minister

• The prime minister is not the United Kingdom’s ceremonial head of state, but does act as the functional head of government.

  • Head of government the individual in the executive branch responsible for the day-to-day operation of the government

• In governing, he is considered “first among equals” with the cabinet.

• The prime minister generally exercises quite a bit of control over the legislation coming out of Commons, given his position as majority party leader.

The Cabinet

• The British cabinet consists of the prime minister and twenty-two ministers, each of which oversees a major government bureaucracy.

• The cabinet does not vote on questions that come before the House of Commons, but all members publicly support all policies of the government under the principle of collective responsibility.

• Collective responsibility a custom of British politics in which cabinet ministers hold themselves responsible to support all policies of the government collectively or to resign if they do not feel capable of doing so

• Cabinet ministers are generally subject to heavy influence from the bureaucrats they are supposed to oversee.

The Bureaucracy

• Bureaucrats are a powerful political force in Britain.

• Most bureaucrats make a career of their work and remain in their departments for decades.

• Many bureaucrats are empowered with discretionary power to decide how a particular law or executive branch policy is to be implemented.

The Judiciary

• Common-law systems such as Britain’s place a tremendous importance on precedent and consistency in the interpretation of law, giving judges more interpretive power.

  • Common law a legal system that enacts laws expressing general principles, allowing bureaucratic and judicial discretion in interpretation of the application of the law in specific cases, and adhering to precedents of court decisions regarding the interpretation

• Code-law systems place more emphasis on the specific text of the legal code.

  • Code law a legal system that attempts to exhaustively express the law in comprehensive legal codes when the law is first passed

• Parliamentary sovereignty, the idea that final authority should rest with decisions in the democratically elected House of Commons, rather than unelected officials in the judiciary.

  • Parliamentary sovereignty the British constitutional principle that acts of Parliament are considered supreme in law; courts do not possess the power of judicial review to overturn these acts

• Law Lords, who previously acted as the highest appellate court.

• Public schools in Britain, elite private secondary schools where students are trained for a future in public service

Health Care

• One of the most significant of these was the creation of the National Health Service, which centralized all health care provision into a single-payer system with the government providing access to all citizens free of charge.

University Tuition

• Tuition is part of the welfare-state structure in Britain, and is heavily subsidized by the state.

• Until 1998, no university student was charged tuition to attend a school they were accepted into.

The European Union

• EU integration has been a topic of intense debate in Britain since the European Community was first imagined.

• The European Union requires freedom of movement across state borders for European citizens to live, work, travel, and retire wherever they so please, but Britain was allowed to restrict immigration and travel into itself.

• European Union the political and economic union of more than a dozen European member states, all of which surrender some sovereign control over their own country in order to promote trade and cooperation among the member states

Terrorism

• Good Friday Agreement negotiated by Tony Blair, which led to the cessation of hostilities and the creation of the Northern Ireland Assembly, in addition to other devolved regional parliaments.

• The most significant terrorist attack in Britain occurred in 2005 when four British suicide bombers attacked the London transit system, killing 56 civilians.

  • In 2017, there were four more horrific attacks.

• British policymakers have tried to deal with this problem with new security measures, including broader surveillance in public places, and an educational program designed to dissuade young Muslims, who are one of the fastest growing segments of the British population, against the use of violence.