With the rise in the professional politician many prefer to remain loyal in order to gain power and move up in the hierarchy as opposed to become a rebel who remains in the back benchers. This can be seen after the vote on tuition fees and the liberal democrats. Despite the fact that they had campaigned for this cause endlessly only 26 (including a few Conservatives) chose to vote against the bill. Whips play an important part in removing efficiency from Parliament. By having whips who ensure that MPs behave in accordance to the decisions of the executive both Parliaments ability to scrutinise and hold the executive to account is diminished, but also their role as representatives of their individual constituency is also compromised.
The railways, particularly the Trans-Siberian railway, also gave Eastern Russia a link to Europe and Western Russia a link to the Pacific Ocean, which made it easier to export Russian goods. Therefore the Russian governments’ investment in railways was extremely successful in promoting economic growth. The Russian government was also successful in improving Russia’s heavy industry through the introduction of tariffs on imports. This clearly helped Russian heavy industry to expand as steel production increase eightfold from 1880 to 1905 and petroleum production increased over 2500% during the same time period. These tariffs, introduced by Vyshnedgradsky and continued by Witte, both increased revenue for the government and made
However despite all of these changes in attitudes Britain was still primarily ruled and governed by the upper and upper-middle-class aristocracy. At this time the House of Commons was elected by only 4.16% of the population. The lack of response from the government to these social changes only increased the thirst of the public for a fairer democracy ultimately leading to the second reform act of 1867, which increased the size of the electorate to 2.5
How far do sources A,B and C agree as to the unfairness of the pre-1832 electoral system in Britain? After a quick analysis it is obvious that all the sources agree as to the unfairness of the electoral system in regards to the small electorate. Source A informs us that the town of Old Sarum “which contains not three houses” sends two MPs to parliament whilst Manchester “which contains upwards of sixty-thousand souls” is not allowed to send any MPs due to the fact that it is not a borough. This is supported by Source B where we can clearly see that only approximately nine voters took part to in the election in the Borough of Gatton. This is supported even further by Source C “I was unanimously elected by one elector to represent this ancient borough in Parliament”, this not only agrees with the previous sources but also highlights a variety of issues, for example, corruption and uncontested, or in this case nonexistent, elections We can assume that many of the voters were intimidated or bribed into agreeing with the decision, making it appear 'unanimous', It is also worth noting that the extract is from the writings of Sir Phillip Francis himself, we can extrapolate several pieces of information from this.
Assess the strengths of representative democracy as it operates in the UK. (25) Representative democracy in the UK is elected MPs, Peers, parties and pressure groups effectively mobilising the views in the best interests of the country. A representative democracy is arguably government Representative democracy in the UK is elected MPs, Peers, parties and pressure groups effectively mobilising the views in the best interests of the country. A representative democracy is arguably government for the people where citizens interests are at the focal point of representative’s minds. Representative democracy has been able to flourish in recent years as elected individuals who make decisions are arguably more knowledgeable than the electorate themselves.
However it could be argued that Wilhelm II’s aims to crush socialism in response to Caprivi’s tolerance for Socialism in his years as chancellor disagree with this view as it suggests he is aiming for more of an autocratic state where he holds state control. Another notable factor which suggests Germany was a parliamentary democracy is Wilhelm II could ignore the views of the centre party; failed attempts to previously dismiss them such as the Kulturkampf were a failure because the party’s strong political views are extremely influential, and they have always had a substantial amount of seats in the party. This in turn meant the government was influenced by the parliament. However, there were many events which demonstrate the Kaiser
Before any of these Acts were passed, the old system was corrupt in many ways, perhaps the biggest issue was the way members of parliament were elected. The two types of franchise were boroughs and counties. A lot of the boroughs at the time were considered, "Rotten Boroughs" where before the city was vastly populated, but over time for whatever reason the population had decreased, but there were still two MPs regardless of the size or population. An example of a borough such as this would be Old Sarum, where there were only three houses and a population of 15 people. As only a few of these could vote due to the varied voting qualification such as a man only being able to
The problems with the way in which the electoral system worked, meant that the majority people wanted change and therefore pushed for electoral reform. Many constituencies were left underrepresented; As Thomas Paine explains in his book “Right of Man”, cities with thousands were receiving the same representation in parliament as small villages “The town of Old Sarum, which contains not three houses, sends two members; and the town of Manchester, which contains upwards of sixty thousand souls, is not admitted to send any. Is there any principle in these things?” The new industrial towns were also facing troubles with the services in the areas, as there was not enough to of it to cover the rising population the fact that they couldn’t not then bring this issue up due to lack of representation also led to the need for reform. The lack of representation was not the only injustice people felt with the electoral system, suffrage was also corrupt, in many cases powerful landlords in control of small constituencies knows as pocket or nomination boroughs would manipulate inhabitants with such tactics as bribery, force or even their wealth, as usually they were part of nobility, to vote for who they wanted in power. Examples of this can be seen when the Earl of Lonsdale brought 14,000 miners and made then freemen outside their
Second, the fact that they were imposed on ordinary Tanzanians makes them quite inexplicable. This occurrence led to a large part of the population turning to a more familiar yet very convincing repertoire to explain those inequalities (Sanders, 2001, p.177). Witches are also thought to have access to wealth; therefore, they allow the elites or the “new riches” to draw on their power to gain better status at the expense of others. Shaw (1997) describes the image of a prosperous city, where aspects of modernity (Mercedes-Benzes, electronic stores selling TVs, VCRs and recently computers) are present (p.
One can create an e-petition about anything that the government is responsible for and if it gets at least 100,000 signatures, it will be considered for debate in the House of Commons. Referenda and other forms of direct democracy could be argued to be more democratic than the opportunity to vote in elections because of the fact that general turnout for referenda exceeds the turnout for a general election. Direct democracy also allows citizens to contribute actively to decisions on how they are governed and important issues such as tax. An example of this could be the Croydon council poll in 2001. Direct democracy also overcomes flaws in the mandate theory.