IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/polstu/v53y2005i3p457-476.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Duverger's Law, Penrose's Power Index and the Unity of the UK

Author

Listed:
  • Iain McLean
  • Alistair McMillan
  • Dennis Leech

Abstract

As predicted by Duverger's Law, the UK has had two‐party competition for long periods in most electoral districts. However, there are different patterns of two‐party competition in different districts and more than two effective parties in the Commons. Since 1874, parliament has always contained parties wishing to modify the Union and contesting seats only outside England. By calculating the Penrose power index for all parties in the House of Commons for all general elections since 1874, we identify when such parties were pivotal. We explain various legislative changes (for example the Crofters Act 1886, the first three Irish Home Rule Bills, the Parliament Act 1911) and non‐changes (for example the failure to enact female suffrage before 1914) by reference to the Penrose index scores. The scores also explain how and why policy towards Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland changed and did not change in the 1970s.

Suggested Citation

  • Iain McLean & Alistair McMillan & Dennis Leech, 2005. "Duverger's Law, Penrose's Power Index and the Unity of the UK," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 53(3), pages 457-476, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:polstu:v:53:y:2005:i:3:p:457-476
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2005.00539.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.2005.00539.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1467-9248.2005.00539.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Garrett, Geoffrey & Tsebelis, George, 1996. "An institutional critique of intergovernmentalism," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 50(2), pages 269-299, April.
    2. Dan S. Felsenthal & Moshé Machover, 1998. "The Measurement of Voting Power," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1489.
    3. Garrett, Geoffrey & Tsebelis, George, 1996. "An institutional critique of intergovernmentalism: erratum," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 50(3), pages 539-539, July.
    4. Ron Johnston & Colin Rallings & Michael Thrasher, 2002. "Electoral Success, Electoral Bias, and Labour Hegemony: Electoral System Effects in English Metropolitan Boroughs," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 34(7), pages 1303-1317, July.
    5. Dan S. Felsenthal & Moshé Machover, 2004. "A Priori Voting Power: What Is It All About?," Political Studies Review, Political Studies Association, vol. 2(1), pages 1-23, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Madeleine O. Hosli & Běla Plechanovová & Serguei Kaniovski, 2018. "Vote Probabilities, Thresholds and Actor Preferences: Decision Capacity and the Council of the European Union," Homo Oeconomicus: Journal of Behavioral and Institutional Economics, Springer, vol. 35(1), pages 31-52, June.
    2. Jonathan R. Strand & Kenneth J. Retzl, 2016. "Did Recent Voice Reforms Improve Good Governance within the World Bank?," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 47(3), pages 415-445, May.
    3. Keith Dowding, 2000. "Institutionalist Research on the European Union," European Union Politics, , vol. 1(1), pages 125-144, February.
    4. Matthew Braham & Manfred J. Holler, 2005. "The Impossibility of a Preference-Based Power Index," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 17(1), pages 137-157, January.
    5. Huber, Gerald & Kocher, Martin & Sutter, Matthias, 2003. "Government Strength, Power Dispersion in Governments and Budget Deficits in OECD-Countries: A Voting Power Approach," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 116(3-4), pages 333-350, September.
    6. Thomas Doleys, 2009. "Incomplete Contracting, Commission Discretion and the Origins of EU Merger Control," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47, pages 483-506, June.
    7. Borkowski, Agnieszka, 2003. "Machtverteilung Im Ministerrat Nach Dem Vertrag Von Nizza Und Den Konventsvorschlagen In Einer Erweiterten Europaischen Union," IAMO Discussion Papers 14887, Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO).
    8. Mareike Kleine, 2013. "Daniel Finke, Thomas König, Sven-Oliver Proksch and George Tsebelis. 2012. Reforming the European Union: Realizing the Impossible (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press)," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 8(1), pages 111-115, March.
    9. Gerald Schneider & Daniel Finke & Stefanie Bailer, 2010. "Bargaining Power in the European Union: An Evaluation of Competing Game‐Theoretic Models," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 58(1), pages 85-103, February.
    10. Brian Efird & Gaspare M. Genna, 2002. "Structural Conditions and the Propensity for Regional Integration," European Union Politics, , vol. 3(3), pages 267-295, September.
    11. John Coultrap, 1999. "From Parliamentarism to Pluralism," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 11(1), pages 107-135, January.
    12. Thomas König & Thomas Bräuninger, 1998. "The Inclusiveness of European Decision Rules," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 10(1), pages 125-142, January.
    13. Fabio Franchino & Camilla Mariotto, 2013. "Explaining negotiations in the conciliation committee," European Union Politics, , vol. 14(3), pages 345-365, September.
    14. Pavel Doležel, 2011. "Optimizing the Efficiency of Weighted Voting Games," Czech Economic Review, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, vol. 5(3), pages 306-323, November.
    15. Leech, D., 2000. "Members' Voting Power in the Governance of the International Monetary Fund," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 583, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    16. Robert Pahre & Burcu Uçaray-Mangitli, 2009. "The Myths of Turkish Influence in the European Union," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47, pages 357-384, March.
    17. Dan S. Felsenthal & Moshé Machover, 2015. "The measurement of a priori voting power," Chapters, in: Jac C. Heckelman & Nicholas R. Miller (ed.), Handbook of Social Choice and Voting, chapter 8, pages 117-139, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    18. Geoffrey Garrett & George Tsebelis, 1999. "More Reasons to Resist the Temptation of Power Indices in the European Union," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 11(3), pages 331-338, July.
    19. Thomas König & Bernd Luig, 2017. "The impact of EU decision-making on national parties’ attitudes towards European integration," European Union Politics, , vol. 18(3), pages 362-381, September.
    20. Kóczy Á., László, 2011. "Lisszaboni kilátások [Lisbon prospects]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(12), pages 1045-1058.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:polstu:v:53:y:2005:i:3:p:457-476. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0032-3217 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.