Whatever happened to the Westminster Model? The 'Italianisation' of British politics

Bull, MJ

Abstract

The UK was once viewed by political scientists as embodying a distinct majoritarian form of politics – the ‘Westminster Model’ – that stood in contrast to the ‘consensus’ democracies found elsewhere in Europe. Several of the countries in the latter group, such as Italy, were often assumed to be inherently prone to instability in comparison to the UK. Yet as this article explains, politics in Westminster now has some striking similarities with the Italian approach that once invited scorn from British observers.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Oct 2, 2019
• Deposit Date: Oct 16, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 16, 2019
• Journal: EUROPP European Politics and Policy Blog
• Publisher URL: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2019/10/02/whatever-happened-to-the-westminster-model-the-italianisation-of-british-politics/
• Related Public URLs: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/