A General Theory of Party, Opposition and Government, 1688–1832

Datos Bibliográficos

ID8957490
AutoresJ C D Clark (Westinghouse Electric (United States), autor de correspondencia)
Año1980
Volumen23
Número2
Páginas295-325
Fecha de publicación1980-06-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Historical Journal (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0018-246X • E-ISSN: 1469-5103
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0018246x00024298
OpenAlexW1975352358
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas6
Referencias citadas58

England has not known a simple two-party system, or a party system of any sort. The lineage of English parties is fragmented and discontinuous. Most of the apparent continuities, like the myth of a long-standing two-party system, have been invented in retrospect by politicians and publicists seeking the justification of a pedigree. Party itself has not been a constant phenomenon, which could be defined by the political scientist and then searched for by the historian. The English experience, rather, is of a succession of discontinuous two-, three-, even four-party systems whose components both develop and relate to each other through changing conventions. Often the fiction of the ‘two-party system’ has disguised the reality of three or more parties; parties which, themselves, can be the vehicles for a wide range of issues. It is a commonplace, which was evident to Hume and Bolingbroke, that whigs and tories exchanged many of their policy commitments in the early eighteenth century; but the same suggestion has been made of the Conservative and Labour parties today. The content of a party's programme has always been almost infinitely flexible; except in respect of the questions raised by a small number of threats, challenges or problems. The existence and endurance of party systems has usually articulated the ideological polarity which such challenges induce

Democracy · Epistemology · Ideology · Law and economics · Opposition (politics · Party platform · Phenomenon · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Australian History and Society · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Law · Philosophy