Minority government and marginal members: new issues for political and policy legitimacy in Australia

Brenton Prosser and Richard Denniss

Policy Studies, 2015, vol. 36, issue 4, 434-450

Abstract: A steady decline in major party support in Commonwealth nations has resulted in changing parliamentary compositions, including the growing prevalence of minority government. Such situations pose new questions for notions of government legitimacy within Westminster systems. For instance, is negotiation with cross-benchers an example of government illegitimacy? What is the legitimate role of non-ministerial members when the composition of parliament gives them the final say on the enabling legislation for public policy? What is the legitimate response of the public sector regarding policy-making in the context of minority government? In this paper, we reflect on how a ‘marginal member’ concept can provide new insights into such issues and their implications.

Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/01442872.2015.1073247 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:cposxx:v:36:y:2015:i:4:p:434-450

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/cpos20

DOI: 10.1080/01442872.2015.1073247

Access Statistics for this article

Policy Studies is currently edited by Toby James

More articles in Policy Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().