Date: 2021
Type: Book
How sick is British democracy? : a clinical analysis
Cham : Springer Nature Switzerland AG, 2021, Challenges to Democracy in the 21st Century
ROSE, Richard, How sick is British democracy? : a clinical analysis, Cham : Springer Nature Switzerland AG, 2021, Challenges to Democracy in the 21st Century
- https://hdl.handle.net/1814/71607
Retrieved from Cadmus, EUI Research Repository
Forecasts of the death of democracy are often heard and the United Kingdom is on the death watch list. This book challenges such a gloomy view by carefully examining the health of the British body politic from Tony Blair’s time in Downing Street to the challenges of Brexit and the coronavirus pandemic. It finds some parts are in good health, for example, elections are free and losers as well as winners accept the results, unlike the United States. Other parts show intermittent symptoms of ill health, such as Cabinet ministers avoiding accountability. There is also a chronic problem of managing the unity of the United Kingdom. None of the symptoms is fatal. The book identifies effective remedies for some symptoms, placebos that offer assurance without cure, and perennially popular prescriptions that are politically impossible. Being a healthy democracy does not promise effectiveness in dealing with economic problems, but a big majority of Britons do not want to trade the freedom that comes with democracy for the promises of undemocratic leaders.
Table of Contents:
-- Part 1. Diagnosing the Health of the Body Politic -- Part 2. Elections the Heart of Government -- Part 3. Party as the Lifeblood of Government -- Part 4. A Single Brain in Downing Street -- Part 5. Whitehall’s Collective Brainpower -- Part 6. The Limbs of a Disunited Kingdom -- Part 7. An Unbalanced Constitution-- Part 8. Limits on Democratic Sovereignty -- Part 9. A Mixed Bill of Health for British Democracy
Cadmus permanent link: https://hdl.handle.net/1814/71607
Full-text via DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-73123-6
ISBN: 9783030731229; 9783030731236
Publisher: Springer Nature