New Perspectives on British Local Government

It is both humbling and encouraging to recall notions that Americans once entertained of the British political system. Critics of F.D.R. looked enviously at the British Parliament for its reputed ability to hold the executive firmly accountable for its actions. Somewhat later, observers on both sides of the Atlantic supposed that Britain was blessed with an absence of pressure groups. Would-be reformers of the American party system further implied that British voters cast their ballots according to the content of party programs, and that party cohesion was the result of discipline imposed by a centralized party organization able to deny renomination to recalcitrant M.P.'s. Careful analyses of intra-party workings, pressure-group activity, and voting behavior have now dispelled these and other mistaken impressions, and it seems likely that the contours of our understanding of these subjects have now been established. However, additional frontiers of knowledge of the British political system remain to be charted; one of these is government at the local level

Cohesion (chemistry · Government (linguistics · Parliament · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Recall · Sociology · Voting · Law · Philosophy · Political Systems and Governance · Psychology · Public Administration

• Political Change in Britain

  Open Access•David Butler, Donald Stokes•Political Change In Britain•1971

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• The Parliamentary and Presidential Systems

  Don K Price•Public Administration Review•1943

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• Pressure Groups and Parties in Britain

  Open Access•Samuel H Beer•American Political Science Review•1956

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