Part of the system is the introduction of proportional representation that meant parties in the Riechtag would gain seats depending upon the number of votes they got in the most recent election. The consequence of this was that it brought a number of parties together with the help of another key feature of the constitution, the “Bill of Rights”. This meant that parties could express their views, as the “Bill of Rights” was a law that gave people the freedom of speech. This union made representation of many opposing parties very open, which effectively made the Weimar constitution more democratic. However P.R made it difficult for a lot of parties to gain a majority of seats in the Reichstag, which made it harder for one major party to take control of the country.
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.
This is criticised because the current political party in power have the ability to make their own decisions for the UK before listening to what the people want. This then becomes a problem because they may make changes that the majority of the population will not agree with. However, near to the next election they may decide to listen to people as they want them to vote for them (the current political party in power) during the next election. Secondly, the UK has a hereditary monarchy and a house of lords, both which are not elected. This contradicts a democratic society and is seen as a dictatorship because elections are the cornerstone of a democracy.
It is difficult for a Backbench MP to influence government policy if a government has a large majority in Parliament. The power of individual backbench MPs is reduced making it harder to challenge the government. Also, the PM has powers of patronage which demand loyalty; few MPs want to cause a general election by defeating the government. Thus accepting their fate as lobby
How democratic was Britain by 1928? Democracy is a System of government “of the people, by the people, for the people” (Abraham Lincoln). In 1851, Britain was not a very democratic country since the vast majority of its adult population were disenfranchised. However, a number of reforms were passed which gradually helped Britain meet the 7 “hallmarks” of democracy. These include the franchise, a fair voting system, accountability, a choice of party, access to information, a national party system and participation – the right to stand for election to parliament.
Frederick William shared this view and was unwilling to potentially cause a war with such a powerful state. This caused the Frankfurt Parliament to fail because Prussia did not grasp the opportunity to unite and neither did the King, therefore Germany remained divided. Although he desired power, William IV was not willing to put himself and Prussia under control of the Frankfurt Parliament as he distrusted ‘the gentlemen of Frankfurt’. This meant that the Parliament had no real leader, and so lost support because people distrusted the parliament as an influential figure stated he would not be associated with them. This aided in causing the failure of the Parliament because with no real leader, no one could influence the masses or help to make decisions.
Analyse the view that the Labour and Conservative parties are dominated by their respective leaders. In recent years there has been much debate as to whether party leaders have too much power over their parties. Many do believe that the two main party leaders in the UK do not dominate their parties as the structure of their party does not allow them to do so, but many more believe that party leaders have great authority over their parties and are fully committed to driving their parties policy with little delegation or use of their cabinet ministers. Historically the Conservative Party leader has been more powerful than the Labour Party leader. People believe this is down to the party’s history; the Labour Party originated from the trade union movement at the turn of the 20th century and originally had a chairman of the Labour MPs in the House of Commons, but no leader.
However structuralists have argued that mass political movements in Germany were on the rise and did in fact influence politics. The power the Kaiser has was overwhelming because he didnt have to answer to neither the reichstag or the bundesrat, he ultimately has complete utter control over domestic and foreign policy. This would suggest that Wilhelmine Germany was an authoritarian state under the kaisers rule, but many historians such as Wehler suggested his own version of the argument which states that Wilhelmine Germany was in fact shaped by the elites (junkers) and the army which simply controlled the Kaiser from the shadows. In this essay i will discuss these interpretations offering the view that Wilhelmine Germany was an 'authoritarian' state under the rule of elites and ultimately the kaiser. Kaiser Wilhem II was an unpredictable, intelligent man with a poor judgement, hardly the kind of person you would give almost unchallenged political powers.
Since the subordination of the monarchy under parliament and the increasingly democratic methods of parliamentary government, there has been the question of whether parliament holds a supreme ability to legislate and whether it should or should not. Devolution is the transfer or delegation of power to a lower level, especially by central government to local or regional administration; it involves a large degree of self-governing and directly elected national assemblies. The passing of power to
At a glance it is obvious that a major part of UK democracy is parliamentary democracy as this is our chosen form of government, having the houses of parliament which consist of the house of commons and the house of lords. In the UK we have the government which is drawn from parliament as well as the monarchy who are now concerned primarily with ceremonial roles within governing the country. However it is key to note that although the monarchy does have a part in the governing of the UK it is not elected and so this damages the argument of the UK being fully democratic. However the majority of parliament is elected at least. In the UK parliament all members of the house of commons are elected in free and fair elections by their local