After the age of majority? Multi-party governance and the Westminster model

摘要

The ‘Westminster family’ of democracies - the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand - share a history of majoritarian politics and two-party dominance. However, recent elections in each of these four countries have delivered legislatures with no single-party majority, following long-term trends towards greater pluralism in the party system. Despite their common heritage, when faced with the challenge of forming a government from a hung parliament, these four countries have followed rather different paths. The UK opted for full coalition government, while Canada from 2004 to 2011 was governed by a pure minority government. New Zealand and Australia fall somewhere in between these two extremes in terms of the extent of formal cooperation between parties. This variation can be explained by a range of factors, including the particular history of each country and the belief that multi-party governance is merely a temporary exception to majoritarian rule.View full textDownload full textKeywordsWestminster model, hung parliament, coalition government, minority government, multi-party governanceRelated var addthis_config = { ui_cobrand: "Taylor & Francis Online", services_compact: "citeulike,netvibes,twitter,technorati,delicious,linkedin,facebook,stumbleupon,digg,google,more", pubid: "ra-4dff56cd6bb1830b" }; Add to shortlist Link Permalink http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14662043.2011.615167