The Decline of Majoritarianism in the UK and the Fixed-term Parliaments Act

• Petra Schleiter ^[1] ; Valerie Belu
  1. [1] University of Oxford

     University of Oxford

     Oxford District, Reino Unido

     
• Localización: Parliamentary affairs: A journal of representative politics, ISSN 0031-2290, Vol. 69, Nº 1, 2016, págs. 36-52
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • In 2011, the coalition government enacted the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, which constrains the prime minister's discretion to dissolve parliament. This article argues that the Act not only reflects the secular decline of majoritarianism in the UK, but is also contributing to its further erosion. While this makes the legislation controversial, its repeal would be unlikely to secure a return to the majoritarian politics of the 1950s and 1960s. Moreover, in the absence of voter choices that regularly produce single-party majorities, a return to flexible election timing may not be appropriate.