A changing democracy: contemporary challenges to the British political tradition

Matthew Hall, David Marsh and Emma Vines

Policy Studies, 2018, vol. 39, issue 4, 365-382

Abstract: A series of authors including ourselves have argued that there is a dominant, if contested, political tradition (the BPT), that is a particular conception of democracy, that underpins to institutions and processes of British politics. However, here we argue that the BPT has never been more contested or vulnerable, focusing upon three contemporary challenges, the Scottish question, the rise of anti-politics and the demands to leave the European Union (EU), culminating in BREXIT, although we recognise there are others. At the same time, we contend that the BPT still plays a key role in how the political elite reacts to these challenges; its first response remains to preserve as much of the BPT as possible in changing circumstances. As such, the key question we address here is whether we are witnessing the beginnings of a fundamental shift in the nature of British political democracy, or whether, as so often before, the BPT and its adherents will adapt to, and accommodate, these challenges.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/01442872.2018.1451504 (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:39:y:2018:i:4:p:365-382

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

DOI: 10.1080/01442872.2018.1451504

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 ().