How sick is British democracy? : a clinical analysis
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
How sick is British democracy? : a clinical analysis
（Challenges to democracy in the 21st century）
Palgrave Macmillan, c2021
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Note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
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
1. Diagnosing the Health of the Body Politic
Democracy: a disembodied ideal
Anatomizing the body politic
Many symptoms of ill health
Potentially fatal symptoms
2. Elections the Heart of Government
Institutionalizing choice
Responsibility for government fixed
What voters make of their choice
3. Party as the Lifeblood of Government
Parties decide who can become an MP
Representing society in Parliament
Representing voters in Parliament
MPs can influence policy but not govern
4. A Single Brain in Downing Street
Parties decide who can become prime minister
What a prime minister can and can't do
Personality constant, popularity fluctuates
Two ways to become an ex-prime minister
5. Whitehall's Collective Brainpower
Cabinet ministers fill gaps left by Downing Street
Opening up with market for policymaking
Shuffling and reshuffling accountability
6. The Limbs of A Disunited Kingdom
Multiple Identities
A unitary Crown without uniformity
Four national party systems
The contingency of consent
7. An Unbalance Constitution
Politicians are the judges of what they can do
Constitutional rights are not politics as usual
Constitutional disputes need political resolution
8. Limits on Democratic Sovereignty
Governance creates interdependence
No island is an island unto itself
Brexit: a domestic foreign policy
9. A Mixed Bill of Health for British Democracy
What Britons think of democracy
Diagnosis: Intermittent ills, none fatal
Prescriptions for treatment
Coda
by "Nielsen BookData"