Political Tradition of Great Britain - Essay Example

The political tradition of the Great Britain contains two components: continuity, which is traced during the long periods of time, on the one hand and variability, constant adaptation to changing conditions of this or that historical epoch on the other hand. In the first case we deal with such fundamental features of legal model of the British state system, as the general suffrage, multi-party system, the rule of the law, separation of powers, regular elections, frequent replacement of political forces in power, i.e. issues that gives legitimacy to the state, and stability to political system. The reverse side of the British political tradition is ability to modernization of political system, creation of new political institutes for further development of a society and the state. The newest cycle of political modernization in the Great Britain has begun in 1970s years, but its most dynamical stage has fallen to the period from 1997, when the Labour party led by Toni Blair has come in. Till now from the formal point of view the United Kingdom of the Great Britain and Northern Ireland was considered as the unitary national state with the one centre in London, possessing the inseparable sovereignty. At the same time administrative-territorial division of the country includes four regions: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which long since possessed rather wide autonomy. Initially England was the state-forming nation, which has annexed or has entered the unions as the senior member with nations adjoining it. Long time, the leading position of England in a state order and governance was expressed in the fact that its name was a synonym of the name of whole country. At the same time the English nationalism was not ethnic, but civil, it became the basic source of formation of concept "British public". The British Empire, which has reached culmination of its power in the nineteenth century, became a primary factor in accumulation of the phenomenon of "Briticism", which long time was the basic identification for inhabitants of United Kingdom. However in second half of the last century after the empire came apart, situation has changed. In the British regions except for England national movements became more active, more and more number of people named themselves not British, but Scots, Welshmen or Irish. The growth of national consciousness in the British regions of so-called "Celtic peripheries ", and also a number of other factors, has led to the fact that to elections of 1997 the Labour party has come with the wide program of devolution, i.e. handover of a part of powers by the centre to national regions. As a result in 1998-1999 the parliament of Scotland, Holyrood, liquidated in 1707 after the contracting with England has been recreated, the assembly of the Wales, the Senned for the first time is organized, and the activity of legislative Northern Ireland Assembly, Stormont, interrupted in 1972 after the introduction of governance from London on the background of civil war, is renewed. The uniqueness of devolution is that it is not just a decentralization of power. In narrow sense of the word it is a delegation of a part of the state sovereignty to selected by inhabitants of regions legislative and executive organs of authority, at which the principle of the sovereignty of central British parliament based on the unwritten constitution of the country, remains secure. Theoretically Westminster has reserved the right to withdraw laws about devolution and to stop the work of regional authorities. However in practice it is extremely improbable, considering that legitimacy of regional authorities is considerably superior to that of local ones. Their election was preceded with referenda of inhabitants of regions. In case of Ulster the government has moved even further. It has recognized the right of the province to separation in case in the future the majority of its inhabitants will express in favour of separation on the referendum. Moreover, the Good Friday Agreement, which have originated in April 1998 devolution of Northern Ireland, includes not only federal, but also confederative elements as a result of its incorporation in the international British-Irish agreement. At the same time the specificity of the situation in Ulster, consisting in numerous complexities the process of peace settlement has faced, more than once led to the fact that already after the devolution London renewed the direct control of the province. As a result of the listed changes the unitary form of state order of the Great Britain actually was replaced on quasi-federal with elements of confederation. It has became more obvious that Britain is not the homogeneous national state, but multinational state, which experiences federalization in post imperial epoch. In near future Britain can become the fifth federation in structure of the European Union together with Germany, Belgium, Spain and Austria. The other feature of this process is its asymmetry. The parliament of Scotland is endued with the primary legislative right, i.e. the right to legislate in the fields of activity carried to its jurisdiction, including education, public health services, economic development, agriculture, tourism, legal proceedings, transport, sports, etc. Besides the parliament can change the rate of the surtax on 3 %. The Assembly of the Wales has the right of only secondary legislative initiative, i.e. right to legislate by-laws accepted by Westminster. It has no prerogative to change tax rates. The powers of parliament of Northern Ireland are close to Holyrood. However if in Scotland and Wales we observe majority democracy, in Ulster it is consociative, i.e. there operate the mechanisms of quotation under the national attribute. At last England, being the largest territorial-administrative unit where lives 80 % of inhabitants of the country, has no regional authorities at all. It is divided into nine internal regions, only some of which apply for creation of own legislative assemblies. The special case is London, which from 2000 has own mayor and the assembly. Britain has selected the evolutionary way of construction of the special federation, which considers specificity of each region. The question of the further course devolution and political future of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland remains open. British scholars have two basic points of view. According to the first one, that strengthening of autonomy of regions has deprived nationalists of their main weapon - exploitation of discontent of local population by neglect of their interests. Moreover it has weakened centrifugal tendencies and has lowered the danger of separatism. According to the other point of view, Hume Rule has warmed nationalism up, has stimulated the development of Scottish and Welsh identity, and has facilitated the consolidation of national elites, which finally will lead to disintegration of the state. In Britain the modernization of political system goes in the direction of distribution of proportional system of voting. The proportional representation method of selecting parliament is widely used throughout Europe and contrasts with the older British and American electoral models, under which members of the legislature are elected in more or less independent regional (district) elections using plurality rule (Congleton, 2003:p. 59). Many decades Britain was an example of majoritarian system. According laws of a political science majoritaritarian system promotes formation of two-party political system. In the Great Britain long-term discussion about advantages and lacks of majority and proportional systems of voting has led to distribution of practice of use of last one or the combined systems. Their different variants are applied on regional, a number of local elections, on elections of Euro Parliament. The implementation of the proportional system is in line for House of Commons election. The main arguments in favour of proportional system are the more fair distribution of deputy mandates in legislative assembly, and also the struggle against the political apathy caused by the fact that political preferences of significant part of the population at majority system are not considered. As a result of expansion of types of elections and use of proportional system, the party-political system of the country is on the way of transformation from two-party to multi-party, that already for a long time became the fact on local and from 1999 on regional elections. Despite of the respectable age, the British democracy formally lags behind the standards of the democratic order in two areas . First of all it concerns the principle of separation of powers. It is well-known that in Britain there was a so-called system of checks and balances by the creation of the three separate and competing branches of government: executive, legislative, and judicial, which in practice means significant merge of authorities. For example, members of the government simultaneously are deputies of the House of Commons, and in conditions of the unwritten constitution and majority electoral system the executive power has powerful instruments of pressure on legislative one. Legislative and judicial branches of power are also the subject to significant merge. The House of Lords till now is the supreme judicial instance, and the institute of the Supreme court in the country is absent. In hands of the one person, Lord Chancellor, functions of the member of the cabinet, the speaker of the upper House of Parliament and Supreme Judge, which personally appoints new members of the judicial corps, are collected. In 2003 the government has declared the package of the constitutional reforms: abolition of the post of Lord Chancellor, creation of Supreme court, called to execute the functions of lords-judges in the House of Lords and of the independent commission on appointment of judges. Besides the reform on more clear separation of powers, modernization of the upper House of the British Parliament, the House of Lords, which main function is to supervise the quality of bills coming from the House of Commons, is carried out. The right to sit in the House on the basis of noble origin already for a long time was considered as a historical special case. In 1999 after the first stage of reform only 10 % of hereditary peers (92 persons) , and also 580 lifelong peers, majority of which are appointed by the monarch have kept their sits. At the second stage of reform laborists plan to make the House of lords partially or completely elective. It is obvious, that the final configuration of the House directly depends on results of development of the state system of the country. In conditions of the unitary state the principle of election of the upper House is difficultly difficult to apply. However in the process of federalization of Britain for the upper House the way of formation on the basis of regional representation, by the example of the German Bundestag, becomes natural. It is true that constitutional reform has achieved a prominent place on the political agenda of intellectual and political elites in recent years (Catterall, 2000: p.112). The newest phase of political modernization of Britain is connected with application of principles associatively democracy, on which is based for example the political system of Northern Ireland. Conceptually this model in political science has been developed by the American political scientist of Dutch origin, rend Rinehart. Its four main characteristics — grand coalition, mutual veto, proportionality, and segmental autonomy (Lijphart, 1997: ch.2) So, on analysing the constitutional reform in Great Britain since 1997 we may conclude that there is the development of plural multi-party democracy in the country. References: 1 Catterall, P. et. al. (2000). Reforming the Constitution: Debates in Twentieth-Century Britain. Routledge. 2 Congleton, R.D. (2003). Improving Democracy Through Constitutional Reform: Some Swedish Lessons. Springer. 3 Lijphart, A. (1977). Democracy in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. 4 Read More