The Changing British Party System 1945 1979

The new edition of this successful book provides a comprehensive and up-to-date overview and account of the changing nature of party politics in Britain today. Webb and Bale draw on models of comparative politics in conducting a wealth of new empirical analysis to map and explain the ways in which the party system has evolved, and the parties have adapted to a changing political environment. Themes covered include the nature and extent of party competition, the internal life and organizational development of parties, the varieties of party system found across the UK, and the roles played by parties within the wider political system. The book also addresses the crisis of popular legitimacy confronting the parties, as well as assessing the scope for potential reform. While parties remain central to the functioning of Britain's democracy, public disaffection with them is as high as it has ever been; reform of the system of representation and party funding is warranted, but there are unlikely to be any panaceas.

`This is an excellent text which charts a safe path for students through the minefield that is contemporary British party politics in a wonderfully efficient yet engaging way.'---Colin Hay, University Of Sheffield --

Providing a complete up-to-date overview of the changing nature of contemporary party politics in Britain, this book draws on models of comparative politics and the latest empirical analysis to explain the capacity of British parties to adapt to a changing political environment. A number of broad themes include: the nature and extent of party competition; the internal life and organizational development of parties; the variety of evolving party systems in the United Kingdom; and the links between parties and the wider political system. The current weaknesses of party performance are addressed, and the scope of reform explained and examined. Contrary to claims of 'decline', however, the book demonstrates that party politic

This title is a revised and extended replacement for the same author's text on Elections and Voting Behaviour in Britain in the same series. The book provides comprehensive coverage of all aspects of electoral politics today and of its evolution in the post war period. Two entirely new chapters focus on electoral reform and on the main theoretical approaches to the study of elections and voting.

First Published in 2004. The most striking change in British politics, during the seventies and early eighties, was the undermining and then the end of the post-war British consensus. That consensus had been long in decline before the final seals were set by Mrs Thatcher’s victories in 1979 and 1983. The consensus, and the end itself, had profound effects on the British polity: they unsettled the distribution of power within the political parties (and hence the working of the institutions of the government); the direction of economic policy, the character of local government, and relations between government and interest groups were transformed. What accounts for the ending, in the mid-1970s of the ‘policy consensus’ which characterised British politics for most of the post-war period? The essays in this collection seek to explore the causes, and some of the consequences, of this breakdown.