Ebook dd211 Book2 E1i1 n9781780079585 l3

DD211 Understanding politics: ideas and institutions
in the modern world
Understanding Politics: Ideas and

Institutions in the Modern World
Book 2
Edited by Richard Heffernan and Edward Wastnidge
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ISBN 978 1 7800 7958 5
1.1
Contents
Block 4 Political institutions in liberal democracies

Chapter 13 How the UK and the US political systems
differ 1
Richard Heffernan
Chapter 14 Institutional differences between UK prime

ministers and US presidents 35
Richard Heffernan
Chapter 15 Elections and parties in the UK and the US 69

Richard Heffernan
Chapter 16 Group politics in the UK and the US 101

Richard Heffernan
Block 5 Thinking globally

Chapter 17 The globalisation of world politics 131
Edward Wastnidge
Chapter 18 The European Union 163

Edward Wastnidge
Chapter 19 Culture, rights and justice in global politics 197

Edward Wastnidge
Chapter 20 Challenging the state: terrorism in global

politics 229
Edward Wastnidge
Index 261
Block 4
Political institutions in liberal
democracies
Chapter 13
How the UK and the US
political systems differ
Richard Heffernan
Contents
1 Introduction 5
2 The UK has a parliamentary system and is a
unitary state, but the US has a presidential

system and is a federal state 6
3 How federal and unitary states differ 11
3.1 Unitary government in the UK 11
3.2 Federal government in the US 13
4 How the UK unitary and the US federal systems

differ in structure and function 15
5 The constitutions of the UK and the
US compared 21
5.1 The UK constitution 22
5.2 The US constitution 25
5.3 What are the political impacts of the US and the UK
political systems? 27
6 Conclusion 31
References 34
1 Introduction
1 Introduction
This chapter explores the ways in which the UK parliamentary system
and unitary state differs from the US presidential system and federal
state. It compares and contrasts the UK’s fluid, flexible constitution
with the fixed, inflexible constitution of the US. And it then explores
the political impacts of these very different systems and states. The
difference between these two examples of liberal democratic systems
and states arises because parliamentary and presidential, unitary and
federal systems reflect distinct constitutional arrangements. Each
system therefore throws up very different institutions:
1 The executive, the elected government that recommends and
implements rules, is headed by a prime minister in the UK and a
president in the US.
2 The legislature, or representative assembly, in the UK is Parliament,
comprising the House of Lords and the House of Commons, which
is very different from the US Congress, comprising the House of
Representatives and the Senate. Both the Lords and the Commons,
the House and the Senate make the rules by enacting laws.
3 The US judiciary, unlike the UK judiciary which enforces the will of
the UK Parliament, is the ultimate legal authority and can enforce
constitutional rules that determine what the executive and the
legislature can and cannot do.
This chapter thus explores how the UK parliamentary and unitary
system and state provides for a different form of government from
that of the US presidential and federal system and state.
5
Chapter 13 How the UK and the US political systems differ
2 The UK has a parliamentary system

and is a unitary state, but the US has a
presidential system and is a federal
state
Within a parliamentary system like that in the UK, ‘the chief executive
power must be supported by a majority in the legislature and can fall if
it receives a vote of no confidence … [T]he executive power (normally
in conjunction with the head of state) has the capacity to dissolve the
legislature and call for elections’ (Stepan and Skach, 1994, p. 120).
Under a presidential system such as in the US, however, the ‘legislative
power has a fixed electoral mandate that is its own source of legitimacy
… [and t]he chief executive power has a fixed electoral mandate that is
its own source of legitimacy’ (Sartori, 1996, p. 84). In the UK’s
parliamentary system, the prime minister is not elected by the people.
He or she heads the government by being the party leader who
‘emerges’ from within the legislature by virtue of his or her party
commanding a majority of the seats in the House of Commons (or,
should there be no party majority, by forming a coalition). By contrast,
the US president popularly enjoys a ‘national constituency, a fixed term
of office, and an electoral and political independence from the
legislature’ (Foley, 2000, p. 11). A system is presidential only if
the head of state (the president) (i) results from popular election,
(ii) during his or her pre-established tenure cannot be discharged
by a parliamentary vote, and (iii) heads or otherwise directs the
governments that he or she appoints. When these three
conditions are jointly met, then doubtlessly we have a pure
presidential system.
(Sartori, 1996, p. 84)
This is the case in the US where the president is directly elected.

Parliamentary systems require the fusion of the executive and the
legislature; presidential systems require their strict separation.
The UK thus has a parliamentary system which fuses the executive (the
government) and the legislature (parliament) and provides for executive
leadership of the legislature and for legislative predominance over the
6
2 The UK has a parliamentary system and is a unitary state, but the US has a presidential system and is a federal state
judiciary. UK politics are primarily conducted between the executive

and the legislative branches, against the ever-present important
backdrop of public opinion and electoral outcomes. The executive,
headed by the prime minister, is not elected by the people. Rather it
emerges from the elected part of parliament, the House of Commons,
by having the support of a majority of MPs. The UK’s judicial branch
is formally ‘non-political’ (even if judges have their own personal
political preferences). Its role is largely confined to implementing
whatever legislation is passed by parliament, but the judiciary can
interpret the meaning of parliamentary law when it is vague or where
one law conflicts with other laws. The power of judicial review in the
UK enables judges to interpret the expressed or implied intent of
parliament where it is unclear or contradictory. Judges can decide
whether ministers exceed the powers granted them by parliament. They
do not, however, make or change law. While providing for legislative
predominance over the judiciary, the UK model of democracy
facilitates executive dominance over the legislature (provided the
executive has a parliamentary majority) and gives the legislature
ultimate authority over the judiciary. Purely unitary states, explored
below, place final power at the centre, even if formal and informal
political demands require the centre to respect some degree of local
autonomy.
The US has a presidential, federal system. Federal systems separate
power within the central government, and between this central
government and local states. In the case of the US there are 50 states
of the union. The US central government is based on separated, shared
powers between the executive (the presidency) and the legislature
(Congress). Each institution is separately constituted by different
arrangements: the head of the US executive, the president, is directly
elected by the people, and there are separate elections for the two
different houses of the Congress: the House of Representatives and the
Senate. The executive and the legislature are therefore separate, not
fused. No individual can simultaneously be a member of more than
one branch. Thus, to become president once he had been elected,
Barack Obama had to resign as senator of the state of Illinois; by
contrast, David Cameron could only become prime minister by being a
member of the House of Commons. Each of the three branches of the
US government is granted distinctive and different governmental
functions. Simplifying a little, we can say that the US executive is
responsible for rule proposal and implementation, the legislature for
rule making, and the judiciary for rule adjudication.
7
The US has a limited government that is governed by an inflexible

constitution. Laws passed by the president and Congress (and by the
state governments) are subject to judicial review; their constitutionality
is determined by federal courts and a constitutional court, the Supreme
Court. The judiciary has the power to strike down legislation or public
actions that are not provided for in the US constitution. It is appointed
by the president with the agreement of the Senate. Judges can serve
for life and cannot be removed for political reasons; they are wholly
autonomous of all other executive and legislative actors. Only when a
judge willingly vacates the bench can their replacement be nominated.
Thus, compared with the UK, the US has a much more decentralised
political entity.
Figure 1 The ‘Stars and Stripes’ of the US’s federal state (the ‘united’
states) and the Union Flag of the UK’s unitary state
The UK’s parliamentary system operates within a unitary state and

under a fluid, easily changeable constitution, but the US presidential
system is located within a federal state and under a fixed constitution
that is very difficult to change (see Table 1). These are the two
8
2 The UK has a parliamentary system and is a unitary state, but the US has a presidential system and is a federal state
fundamental differences between the UK and the US political systems.

These differences reflect the peculiar histories of the two nations and
their very different political cultures. Put at its crudest, the US places
far less trust in its state and government compared to the UK. As a
result the US political system reflects the country’s preparedness to
place significant restrictions on its government and its eagerness to
limit the power of the state. The UK political system empowers its
government by being willing to expand the power of the state. This
has the following implications.
Table 1 The key institutional differences between the UK and the US
UK US
The UK parliamentary state fuses The US presidential state strictly
its executive and legislature and, separates powers between its
while the judiciary is able to executive, legislature and judiciary
interpret the intention of the
legislature when its law is unclear
or contradictory, the judiciary is
subordinate to both
The UK unitary state has The US federal state separates
traditionally centralised power within power vertically between the federal
a central state run by government government and each of the 50
and that state can delegate power states that comprise the US in a
should it so choose (which it has federal system
done in regard to the Scottish
Parliament, the Welsh Assembly
and the Northern Ireland Assembly)
The UK constitution empowers the The US constitution provides
state to determine which powers citizens with ‘unalienable rights’ with
citizens have, and when they are which the state and the government
valid cannot interfere
Broadly speaking, the US political system seeks to prevent the

possibility of the abuse of state power by frustrating its use. It does
this by separating powers horizontally within the institutions of the
federal presidential system and vertically between the federal
government and the states. By contrast, the UK political system
historically enables the use of state power by investing it within a
parliamentary system inside a unitary state. Centralisation has been the
name of the political game in the UK; decentralisation is the ballpark
theme in the US, except for occasions of national emergency and
issues of national security, defence and foreign policy. As a result the
9
US has a limited government, while the UK has an unlimited

government.
10
3 How federal and unitary states differ

Within any given country there is a distinction between the centre and
the localities and this distinction finds expression in geographical,
economic, political and cultural terms. In strictly political terms, unitary
and federal states differ in the following terms:
. A unitary state centralises power in political institutions located at a
chosen central point, the ‘centre’; such institutions contain
representatives from all localities. A centralised unitary state, which
governs its people from a central sovereign parliament, excludes the
possibility of devolving any substantial powers to its territorially
based places and spaces. In contrast, a decentralised unitary state
does devolve some powers to regionally elected institutions while
ultimately maintaining the sovereignty of its central parliament.
. A federal state comprises several political units. These units are not
mere local or regional authorities subordinate to a dominant central
power, but instead are states with state rights themselves. As Elazar
(1997, p. 12) argues, ‘the very essence of federation as a particular
form of union is self-rule plus shared rule’. Sovereignty is shared
between the central government and the state governments and
each government enjoys a degree of constitutional independence
and autonomy.
In a strictly unitary state all powers reside in a central sovereign
parliament. Power is not shared. In a strictly federal state constituted
by sovereign units, power is divided between one central government
and other regional governments. Thus federal systems divide power
between the centre and the locality, limiting the reach of the federal
government over matters constitutionally reserved to the relevant state
authority. Unitary states do no such thing, even if formal and informal
political requirements require the centre to respect some degree of
local freedom and discretion.
3.1 Unitary government in the UK

It is largely because of historical experience, tradition and political
culture that the UK has had a unitary state while the US has a federal
state. The key historical feature in the political governance of the UK
has been the governmental role played by a central authority. First, the
monarch governed from the capital, London, or wherever he or she
11
was residing. Second, in the modern age, Westminster (the legislature)

and Whitehall (the executive) have been the location of the central
government.
From the personal rule of the monarch and his or her court through
the emergence of parliamentary rule, the UK fashioned a centralised,
unitary political state. But the UK is a unitary state composed of a
union of four national parts – England, Scotland, Wales and Northern
Ireland – following various unions between, and partitions of, historical
nations. In regard to these nations, especially Scotland, the UK unitary
state has always had some features of localism; not all power has been
exercised by the centre. From 1999, however, significant changes saw
the Westminster Parliament devolve much of the domestic governance
of Scotland and Wales to the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh
Assembly. Similar changes were enacted in Northern Ireland
from 2007. There have long been institutional differences between the
political governance of the UK nations (Scotland having distinctive
educational, legal and religious institutions), but government from the
centre had previously been the rule. Now 15 per cent of UK citizens –
those living in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – have certain
local matters such as health, education, transport, personal social
services and tourism determined by national parliaments or assemblies.
This means they are now governed by elected representatives sitting in
Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast respectively, as well as from Whitehall
and Westminster in London.
The power of Whitehall and Westminster has been thus qualified – in
certain areas – by devolution in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Economic policy, foreign and defence policy, EU policy, welfare and
immigration continue to be the preserve of the Westminster
Parliament, in which Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs continue
to sit. Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast remain theoretically subordinate
to Westminster. Thus the September 2014 Scottish referendum on
independence, which produced a majority vote for the continuation of
the union, was organised by the Scottish Parliament, but authorised by
the Westminster Parliament. Following that vote, should further powers
be granted to Scotland (or to Wales and Northern Ireland) then it will
be for Westminster, following the lead of Whitehall, to provide such
powers.
The changes wrought by Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish devolution
have changed the nature of the UK’s unitary state. For the present,
however, such changes, whilst profound in respect of the governance
12
of the 15 per cent of UK citizens who live in Scotland, Wales and

Northern Ireland, have brought about no change for the 85 per cent
of the country’s population resident in England. England, by far the
largest component of the UK’s union state by population, presently
continues to be governed by the unitary state in the same way as
before. Nevertheless, as power in regard to Scotland, Wales and
Northern Ireland has been institutionally divided between the centre
and these localities, this means the UK has become a less unitary state
than it was previously. With future changes to the UK’s unitary state
likely in the wake of Scotland’s decision to preserve the union, such
reforms indicate how relatively easily the UK can change its political
institutions should it wish to do so.
3.2 Federal government in the US

If the UK state is the product of its beginnings under the rule of an
absolute monarch, then the US republic reflects the fact that 13 newly
independent colonies, eager to cooperate for their individual and
collective advantage, became states and formed a political union. In
winning their revolutionary war, the states had become independent of
Great Britain, and they remained independent of each other. Having
cooperated with each other by means of creating a Continental
Congress and raising a congressional army to pursue the War of
Independence, the states had now to decide if they could continue to
cooperate with one another. If they were to cooperate, how would they
do so? Each state had its own system of popular government and each
elected (after some democratic fashion) those that governed it. Each
state wanted to protect its autonomy, but also wanted to form a union
with others. To this end, to forge a union embracing all states, each
state sent delegates to a constitutional convention in Philadelphia in
1787 to design a new US constitution. The resultant constitution, once
ratified by all 13 states, created the United States of America, within
which the states were brought together in a collective union or
republic. From existing independent political units at various localities
was fashioned a new political unit at the centre. The federal
government was charged with representing both the individual interests
of the ‘states’ and the collective interests of the citizens of the ‘United
States’. The new nation located its capital, Washington, DC, in a
geographic space – the ‘District of Columbia’ – independent of all
states, carved out of the territory of the states of Virginia and
Maryland.
13
Since its inception, then, the US has been governed by two political
authorities: the governments of the states (first 13 states and increasing
as more states joined, so, by 1959, there were 50) and the federal
government. The powers of each government are established by the
state’s own constitution and by the US constitution and, as we shall
see, the US constitution can only be changed by super majorities (two
thirds majority) of both the federal government – the House and the
Senate – and three-fourths of the states.
14
4 How the UK unitary and the US federal systems differ in structure and function
4 How the UK unitary and the US

federal systems differ in structure and
function
Federal and unitary systems prescribe different forms of executive and
legislature. In the UK, parliament is representative of the nation at
large because its elected chamber, the House of Commons, is presently
comprised of 650 members of parliament (MPs) elected from
constituencies of near equal size by population from the length and
breadth of the country. MPs, elected from the localities, come together
at the centre, in Westminster, to provide the government that governs
the localities. The UK’s unitary state may have recently devolved power
to the nations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but
Westminster remains the political capital and the centre of political
engagement.
Parliament is an asymmetrical bicameral institution. It is bicameral
because it is comprised of two legislative chambers, the elected House
of Commons and the unelected House of Lords; it is asymmetrical
because the two chambers are not coequal in terms of law making. The
Commons, being the elected and thus more legitimate chamber, is by
far the more powerful of the two; the Lords is a weaker institution,
subordinate to the Commons, charged with revising legislation while
having ultimately to defer to the will of the Commons. Parliament has
devolved certain, limited powers to places such as the Scottish
Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the European Union, but only
because it has chosen to do so. In theory at least, the Westminster
Parliament could reclaim powers it has passed elsewhere.
If the form of parliament, speaking with one voice, governing the
realm by means of the government supplied and supported by the
elected Commons, typifies the UK’s unitary state, then the US
Congress is the embodiment of the US’s federal system (Figure 2).
Congress is a symmetrical bicameral legislature: bicameral because it is
comprised of two chambers, the House of Representatives and the
Senate; and symmetrical because in terms of making laws both
chambers are coequal. (However, in terms of ratifying international
treaties, providing advice and consent to the president’s executive
appointments and his or her nominees to the judicial bench, the Senate
is the more powerful institution.) The House and Senate take the
15
New Hampshire
Washington Vermont
Montana North Minnesota Massachusetts Maine
Dakota
Oregon
South Wisconsin New Rhode
Idaho Dakota York Island
Wyoming Michigan
Iowa Connecticut
Nebraska Pennsylvania
Illinois New Jersey
Nevada Ohio
Indiana Delaware
Utah Colorado
Virginia Maryland
Kansas Missouri
California Kentucky Washington
DC
Oklahoma Tennessee
West Virginia
Arizona New Arkansas
Mexico North Carolina
Alabama
Texas Georgia South Carolina
Florida
Mississippi
Alaska Louisiana
Hawaii
(a)
Scotland
Northern
Ireland
Wales
England
(b)
Figure 2 Maps showing: (a) the 50 states of the US; (b) the four nations of the UK
16
forms they do because they represent the US and its federal nature.
Under the terms of the constitution, the House has to be comprised of
some 435 representatives drawn from across the country.
Representatives are allocated to states on the basis of population size.
This means that the state of California, the largest state with a
population of 37,000,000, returns 53 members to the House, but the
smallest state, Wyoming, which has a population of 500,000, returns
only one member. Seats in the House represent population, but seats
in the Senate represent each state equally. Every state, California and
Wyoming alike, has two senators. States, irrespective of population size
or of political or economic importance, therefore have equality in the
US Senate. This is because the Senate is representative of the states per
se, not their populations. California, the most populous state of the
union and the most powerful in terms of economic clout, therefore has
53 votes in the 435-strong House of Representative, but only 2 votes
in the 100-strong Senate.
The impact of the federal/unitary distinction reinforces the fact that
the UK’s unitary state empowers the UK parliamentary executive and
legislature while the US’s federal state restricts the powers of the US
presidential executive and legislature. In the UK, provided the
government has a Commons majority and enjoys a degree of popular
support, the executive can authoritatively act. Drawn from and
accountable to parliament, the government derives its powers from the
fact that power first passed from an absolutist monarchy to a
constitutional monarchy governing through parliament. Power then
passed to parliament itself, and then to a parliamentary executive from
within the elected part of the parliament, an executive comprised of
leaders able to command a partisan majority of the contemporary
parliament. By contrast, the US federal state restricts the power of the
central government because, for reasons explored below, the central
government cannot act in those policy areas in which the constitution
grants competences to the states.
Such is the stamp of authority that the UK’s unitary state grants its
central government that Tony Blair’s Labour government could
radically alter the relationship between the centre and some parts of
the locality by introducing devolution in Scotland and Wales in the
late 1990s. Parliament, led by the government, introduced a referendum
in each nation to ask the people of Scotland and Wales if they wanted
devolution. As both Scotland and Wales voted yes, the Westminster
Parliament then created the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly
17
and provided those institutions with the powers they possess. Similarly,
parliament permitted the Scottish executive to ask the Scottish people
by referendum in September 2014 if they wished to become
independent or to remain within the UK.
By contrast, it is wholly beyond the power of the US federal
government to reform any of the 50 states of the union, to change
their boundaries, or to reallocate their policy responsibilities. Nor could
the government suspend, say, the state government of Alabama or of
any other state. The US president cannot determine what powers are
exercised at which level, or determine how state authorities should
pursue local policies. The UK prime minister, working with cabinet
colleagues and having the support of parliament, can do this because
UK centre–locality relations are a constitutional matter and the UK
constitution, being uncodified and flexible, can be added to and
subtracted from by a parliamentary bill produced by the executive and
enacted by the legislature. Thus the UK executive – led by the prime
minister – can prescribe changes to the political system through its
leadership of its legislature. In contrast, the US constitution prevents
the federal government from interfering in or changing the rights
provided to the states.
18
Figure 3 National power, state power and shared powers in the US
Each of the 50 US states – thanks to ‘states’ rights’ – has certain

governmental powers and responsibilities which the federal government
cannot abridge (Figure 3). The federal government has no say on how
local state taxes are raised in each state; this is entirely a matter for the
individual state to determine. And the US government has no say on
the ways in which the states choose to spend the money they raise
(even if, by providing funding in the form of federal grants,
Washington can exert some small influence over state policy). By
contrast, in the UK the central government can compel local
governments to comply with certain practices, be they altering
education policy, building or selling council housing, hiving off
functions to the private sector, or reforming internal structures and
management processes. The central government decides the form that
local revenue raising takes and determines many of the functions for
which it is to be put (and often the rate at which it is set). Whereas
the UK Parliament called into existence the London mayor (following
a referendum of London electors) and provided the mayor with his or
her powers, the US federal government cannot (and would never want
to) determine the form that municipal government should take in cities
such as New York, Chicago or Los Angeles.
19
US federalism is protected by the US constitution. Neither the US

presidential executive nor the US legislature can alter the political
arrangements set out in that constitution without the agreement of a
super majority of the states. The form and function of the relationship
between the federal government and the states can only be altered by a
constitutional amendment. This requires a proposal by a 66 per cent
majority of both the House of Representatives and the Senate (not the
president), followed by ratification (or approval) by 75 per cent of the
50 states. In the UK, however, a simple act of parliament was
sufficient to call into existence Scottish and Welsh devolution and to
alter the responsibilities discharged by local government.
20
5 The constitutions of the UK and theUS compared
5 The constitutions of the UK and the

US compared
Constitutions set out the relationship between the state and society,
between actors who rule and citizens who are ruled. They also
establish the rules governing how the state operates, which institutions
comprise it and how these institutions relate to one another. A
constitution determines which powers these institutions have and do
not have. Constitutions are therefore rule books. Modern constitutions,
invariably the product of preparation where a constitution is designed
from scratch, have been the norm since the late eighteenth century.
This reflects the Enlightenment experience when, building on the work
of theorists such as John Locke, Charles de Montesquieu and others, it
was prescribed that constitutions should be written, codified legal
documents (essentially a codified rule book), which would provide
fixed rules with which people were familiar and by which the state
would have to abide. In each national case, constitution making was
the product of national historical experiences, but modern
constitutions were mostly enacted when the previous constitutional
arrangements collapsed, usually because of extensive social dislocation,
often as a result of defeat in war, occupation and/or liberation, or
social revolution. Modern constitutions forged as the result of social
upheaval include those of these three nations:
. the United States of America – prompted by revolution and the
winning of independence from Great Britain, 1775–87
. Japan – prompted by defeat in war and occupation, 1945–49
. Germany – prompted by defeat in war and occupation, 1945–49.
From 1789 social upheavals in France saw the rise and fall of two
monarchies, two empires, five republics and one proto-fascist
dictatorship. Germany had five separate constitutions in the twentieth
century alone. Each time the constitution changed because the old
order collapsed: in 1919, as a result of defeat in war and social
revolution; in 1933, owing to political revolution by way of the Nazi
seizure of power; after 1945, following the destruction of the Third
Reich, the occupation of Germany by the four Allied Powers (the US,
the UK, the Soviet Union and France) and its division into East and
West; in 1990 the reunification of Germany saw the West German
political system embrace the former East Germany.
21
Generally speaking constitutions fall into one of two categories:

. changeable, flexible constitutions such as that of the UK which can
be easily and speedily amended
. fixed, inflexible constitutions such as that of the US which are
difficult to change; they can be formally amended only by a super
majority (a predetermined majority above that of 50 per cent
plus 1).
Federal systems, because they have to have fixed rules allocating
powers between the centre and the various peripheries, operate fixed,
inflexible constitutions. This means that the form of power sharing
agreed between the centre and the peripheries cannot be easily changed
and can only be changed with the agreement of both the centre and
the majority of the periphery. Unitary states can operate easily
changeable, flexible constitutions (but not all do) because it falls to the
centre – itself representing the peripheries – to determine what the
government does.
5.1 The UK constitution

Because the UK has had no single moment of settlement or collapse
of an order, as, say, in the US in 1787 or Germany in 1919 and 1949,
the UK constitution has changed slowly, historically, and has been
reworked incrementally in response to changing circumstances. Unlike
constitutions that are completely written down, listing rules and
regulations in one codified and legally binding document, the UK’s
constitution is partially unwritten and is therefore uncodified. It is not
codified because, being built organically over time, it is found in
several very different places. It is not written down in any single legal
document, but is comprised of four very diverse sources, which are
commonly agreed to provide the UK constitution (because the
constitution is not codified it is possible for other sources to be
suggested, but all constitutional scholars agree on these four sources):
. Statute law: Acts passed by parliament.
. Common law: law prescribed by the judiciary where parliament has
not made any ruling by enacting legislation. or where the judiciary
has interpreted the intention of parliament where statute law is
contradictory or its meaning is unclear.
22
. Custom and convention: well-established rules of procedure and

precedent to which all are expected to comply.
. Authoritative and scholarly works: works written as attempts by
scholars to semi-codify the constitution and define its rules, such as
Erskine May’s Parliamentary Practice (first published in 1844 and
now in its 24th edition. comprising 45 chapters), Walter Bagehot’s
The English Constitution (1867) and, most famous of all, Albert
Dicey’s Introduction to the Study of the Law of the
Constitution (1885).
These four sources of constitutional law in the UK mean that the UK
constitution is to be found on the various shelves of an academic
library, not hung on the wall of a national museum (Figure 4). UK
constitutional practice is the product of a historical experience with
laws, customs and conventions being added to and subtracted from
over time as circumstances dictate. This means that the UK
constitution is flexible, rather than fixed (King, 2007).
Figure 4 The British Library is where one would have to go in search of

the wholly uncodifed UK constitution
Of these four sources the most important by far is statute law, which is
law that has been passed by parliament and is enforced by the courts.
Statute law remains in force until it is changed – and thereby repealed
– by the same or a successor parliament. New statute law supersedes
all other considerations. Because the sovereignty of parliament is at the
heart of UK constitutional practice, parliament can make and unmake
23
any constitutional law it wishes; no act it passes can be

unconstitutional. ‘No person or body is recognized by the law of
England [sic] as having a right to override or set aside the legislation of
parliament’ (Dicey, 1959, p. 40). Government in the UK is predicated
upon the rule of law and parliament has the unfettered right to make
the law. There is no higher national authority than parliament, so no
other institution may regulate its actions except electors, who can
retrospectively judge its decisions and alter its political composition at
a subsequent election. Since 1973, however, parliament has voluntarily
qualified this authority in regard to policies that fall under the rubric of
the European Union (EU). Here it is accepted that, where there is a
conflict between the two, EU law takes precedence over domestic law.
However, in regard to the EU, the UK parliament has pooled, but not
necessarily surrendered, its sovereignty. The UK is constitutionally free
to leave the EU should it so wish, although practical considerations
and economic reasons might well make withdrawal from the EU
problematic. (By contrast the US Civil War, 1861–65, established the
firm precedent that no state or collection of states may leave the
United States.)
How is the constitution changed in the UK? The UK constitution is
easily changed by a parliamentary majority, most usually in response to
urgent public demands or perceived national need. For instance, the
constitution was incrementally altered between 1832 and 1970 to
gradually extend the electoral franchise for the House of Commons to
all UK citizens at the age of 18 irrespective of class or gender.
Parliament also incrementally whittled the power of the monarch down
to nothing, and it called into existence the Scottish Parliament, Welsh
Assembly and Northern Ireland Assembly. The constitution has been
altered organically because, being flexible, it is easily amendable.
Constitutional reform is ultimately facilitated by majoritarian politics –
the will of the majority in parliament (whatever checks and balances
might be brought to bear upon them) – even if it is sometimes
prompted or motivated by other factors. Because, subject to the
ultimate will of the electors expressed at a general election, parliament
regulates itself, the courts can only hold the government accountable
to parliament’s own laws.
There is, therefore, no procedure to render a parliamentary Act
unconstitutional: by their very nature, all parliamentary Acts are
constitutional. Courts can only interpret the intention of a statute law
passed by parliament when its meaning is unclear or contradictory.
24
However, courts can use one statute passed by parliament against

another statute. Being charged with enforcing the will of parliament
means the UK courts can interpret the meaning of a statute where it is
unclear and, should statutes be contradictory, the courts can prioritise
one statute over another. Should the courts so intervene they can thus
exercise some form of political influence beyond their traditional and
established role in the UK’s parliamentary democracy. This has recently
been evidenced in the preparedness of the courts to use the Human
Rights Act 1998 as a standard to which all other statute law has to
comply. But, if this is unusual, it falls to parliament to enact new
statute law preventing the courts from so acting, perhaps by repealing
or amending the Human Rights Act.
The UK’s flexible, easily changeable constitution lies at the heart of the
UK’s majoritarian political system. It provides governments with the
power to take authoritative decisions, subject to the support of
parliament, which itself reflects the support of the people expressed at
a general election. Within parliament, all power lies. But parliament
can, for whatever reason, delegate powers to other bodies such as the
EU, the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern
Ireland Assembly. Thus can changes to the UK’s unitary, union state be
enacted by a parliament unencumbered by a fixed, inflexible
constitution that prescribes what it can and cannot do.
5.2 The US constitution

The US constitution, unlike the UK one, is the product of a ‘big bang’
moment, an occasion when, having cast aside the past, political leaders
had therefore to devise a new constitution from scratch. It was
designed by one group of individuals, meeting in one place at one
time. Having cast aside the previous constitutional order by securing
independence from Great Britain, the founders of the US had to
construct a new constitution to bring the 13 newly independent states
together in some form of collective union within which each would be
willingly bound. The ‘founding fathers’ were the framers of the US
constitution, representing each of the 13 states (Figure 5). They
assembled in Philadelphia in 1787 to produce a constitution, written
down in a single document, which was subsequently ratified by all the
states to form the constitution of the newly formed United States of
America. The original of this document, signed by each of the
25
delegates to the constitutional convention, may be viewed in the

National Archives in Washington, DC.
(a) (b)
Figure 5 (a) The US founding fathers at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia; (b) the
document they created: the US constitution
There are thus only two sources of the US constitution:

. the original written, codified constitution signed in 1787, ratified by
all 13 states by 1790, and subsequently formally amended 27 times
. the opinions of successive Supreme Courts which have reviewed
the meaning of the constitution and determined which actions to
permit.
The purpose of the US constitution is to restrict government in order
to expand liberty. It seeks to reconcile governmental authority with
individual rights. Born of a fear of what governmental power might be
exerted, the constitution deliberately frustrates the use of such power
by enshrining individual rights and preventing governmental activity
from interfering with, or otherwise restricting, such rights.
How is the constitution changed in the US? Neither the US executive
nor the legislature can alter its own fixed constitution, nor change
political arrangements set out in that constitution. Constitutional
amendments can only be proposed by a 66 per cent super majority of
both Houses of Congress, not by the president, and such amendments
26
can only be ratified if they gain the support of the super majority of 75
per cent of the 50 states of the union.
In 1791, the first ten amendments to the constitution – known as the
Bill of Rights – were passed. These set out explicit freedoms to be
enjoyed by all citizens of the US such as freedom of religion, freedom
of speech, a free press and free assembly; the right to keep and bear
arms; freedom from unreasonable search and seizure; and guarantee of
a fair public trial before a jury of one’s peers. Such amendments were
intended to significantly restrict the powers of both the state and
federal governments by legally empowering citizens with rights that
cannot easily be abridged other than by similar constitutional
amendment. The constitution is thus placed ‘above’ politics (even if it
remains highly political). It falls, under the US system, to the courts to
enforce the rules set out in the constitution and to uphold the rights it
grants citizens.
The custodian of the US constitution is the Supreme Court. The court
is comprised of nine justices, each of whom, once nominated by the
president and endorsed by the Senate, serves for life or until they
choose to vacate their position. Justices cannot be removed from the
court, save should they commit an impeachable offence. The Supreme
Court is a constitutional court; it has the power to enforce the
constitution and to interpret its intention. It can strike down decisions
of the president and Congress if it deems them unconstitutional. For
instance, the second amendment to the US constitution asserts that
‘the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed’;
this means that the Supreme Court will not permit the president and
Congress (nor any state) to completely ban the ownership of firearms.
In the UK, by sharp contrast, there is no such judicial review because
there is no higher constitutional standard by which parliament is
judged.
5.3 What are the political impacts of the US and

the UK political systems?
One key principle of US political culture is the belief that ‘a
government which is big enough to give you what you want is big
enough to take away what you have’. This view, attributed to the
second US president, Thomas Jefferson, was popularised by the thirty
eighth president, Gerald Ford. It lies at the heart of the US belief that
government has to be limited and the rights of citizens extended. This
27
culture is present within the US political system, where political

authority is controlled and restrained by its being fragmented. The use
of state power is frustrated in two ways: first, by its being separated
amongst different institutions at both the centre (the federal
government) and the locality (the 50 states) and separated between the
centre and the localities; second, by providing legally enforceable rights
that courts have to uphold and which government cannot abridge.
The US system of government, being separated into competing
institutions, is replete with many veto players and many veto points.
The structure enables government to check and balance itself. Power
within the federal government is divided between the president and
Congress. The president was given legislative power in order to act as
a check upon the legislature, and Congress was given executive power
in order to act as a check upon the actions of the executive. The
legislative power was further checked by the division of Congress into
two independent chambers with legislation having to pass both the
House of Representatives and the Senate and by the president being
able to veto such legislation (which can be overridden by a two-thirds
vote of Congress). The division of legislative and executive power
between two independent branches of government profoundly affects
the way that the political system operates. With president and Congress
able to veto the other (and both chambers of Congress able to veto
each other), cooperation – and compromise – is essential if legislation
is to be enacted and administered. Without cooperation, the potential
for legislative and executive action is considerably reduced.
Majoritarianism is therefore not possible: it is tempered by the need to
secure agreement (sometimes by super majority) across different and
independent branches of government. Of course, should president and
Congress reach agreement to enact a law, then it eventually falls to the
Supreme Court to determine if that law contradicts the enforceable
rights the constitution provides to US citizens.
By contrast, the UK executive is empowered as a powerful
government, even if it takes the unusual form of a two-party coalition.
This executive, armed with a Commons majority, is therefore able to
alter the constitution as it chooses and in ways electors tolerate, but
only with parliamentary approval.
The rights citizens possess in the UK are those granted them by the
state. This reflects the UK’s historical development in which people
living in England, Wales, Scotland and (for a time) Ireland (now
Northern Ireland) were ‘subjects’ of the ‘Crown’. All owed allegiance
28
and loyalty to the monarchical state and their reward was to be given
rights and favours by the monarchical state in return
(Goldsworthy, 1999). In the present day, civil, political and social rights
are conferred upon the people by parliament. In theory, because
parliament confers such rights, parliament can remove such rights;
there is no higher authority that can prevent parliament from acting. In
practice, however, there are several factors that constrain parliament’s
theoretical power to act. Some statute law passed by parliament has
become so entrenched in the country’s DNA that parliament, even if it
wished to, would not be able to revoke it. Statutes providing for liberal
freedoms such as the right to vote in elections have essentially the
status of a ‘super’ statute; it is impossible to imagine that a future
parliament would rescind this right provided by an earlier parliament.
For instance, the long and arduous road that saw parliament
incrementally extend the franchise from some two per cent of men in
1832 to all men and women from the age of 18 in 1970 has been a
one-way street: in theory parliament could, say, take away from women
the right to vote, but in practice it would not do so for political
reasons. Statutes such as those providing the right to vote have the
character of a constitutional Rubicon: once crossed they are irreversible
and no parliament would dream of interfering with them. This is
because parliament, if theoretically free to act, has always to practically
consider the likely reaction of citizens; it has to anticipate such
reactions and act accordingly. This is especially so because members of
its dominant chamber, the Commons, have to seek re-election and any
government is keen to retain or increase its majority.
In the US, the principle of the separation of powers presumes that
liberty is best protected where three different sets of people are
responsible for rule making, rule application and rule adjudication. In
the UK, the fusion of the executive and the legislature blurs the
distinction; especially when parliament is ultimately responsible for rule
adjudication, a role which falls to the judiciary in the US. If, over time,
the needs of modern government have seen the US presidency become
much more important and powerful than was ever envisaged by the
founding fathers who invented the US political system, then the
powers of that presidency, compared to those of the UK executive,
remain qualified by the need for the presidential executive and the
legislature to together engage in bargains and compromises in the
formation of public policy. Should such bargains and compromises
breach their constitutionality, the fact of their legality will be
determined by the Supreme Court, which is charged with enforcing the
29
rules of the constitution and upholding the rights it confers upon US

citizens.
30
6 Conclusion
6 Conclusion
There are therefore three key structural features of the political systems
of the UK and the US, which provide for two principal powers for
each system (see Table 2).
Table 2 Structural features and principal powers of the UK and the US

political systems
UK US
Structural Parliamentary system Presidential system

features
A unitary, union state which, A strictly federal state
having presently delegated
certain powers to certain
parts of the union, is less
unitary than it was in the past
A flexible, easily amendable A fixed constitution that is
constitution difficult to formally amend
and that is enforced by a
judiciary which has the power
to decide what is and what is
not permissible under the
constitution
A Westminster parliamentary A separated executive and
executive, able to lead a legislature, each elected
legislature which is charged differently, both autonomous
with supplying and of the other, and both having
supporting, as well as to work together to enact
checking and balancing, that legislation and to check and
executive balance the other
Principal Majoritarian political system Consensus political system
powers
Centralised, strong Dispersed, weaker
government government where the
powers and authorities of the
federal government are
separated between president,
Congress and the Supreme
Court
31
A powerful executive Federal authority which is

(provided, of course, as we shared between the centre
have seen, that the executive and the 50 localities
has a reliable majority in the
House of Commons) which is
more supplied and supported
by its parliamentary majority
than it is checked and
balanced by it
The US political system is predicated upon a general suspicion of

strong government, a populist instinct to check political elites, and a
belief in having multiple centres of power within the federal
government and between that government and the separate states of
the union. Thus the US has a limited government. It makes it hard for
the president and Congress to pass laws, pursue a policy agenda and
enact political change. By contrast, the UK has a theoretically unlimited
government. This makes it far easier for the prime minister and
parliament to pass laws, pursue a policy agenda and enact political
change.
Political actors in the US are subject to significant formal restrictions
on their power to act; political actors in the UK largely face only
informal restrictions. Such informal restrictions mean that, as it is
subject to re-election, the UK government has to take heed of public
opinion, to some degree. For instance, the people of Scotland wanted a
parliament, so the Westminster Parliament created one. It would be
unwise for any government to act in such a fashion that would cause
citizens to throw it out of office when asked at a subsequent election
to render a judgement on its record in office. Thus checks and
balances in the UK tend to be more informal rather than formal; they
are much more political than they are legal. But parliament, if
persuaded that a sufficient number of citizens support it, is far freer to
act than is the US President and Congress.
The political system of the US is predicated upon a federal state and a
fixed, inflexible constitution which provides for a circumscribed
government; the UK has a strong, authoritative government
empowered by a reformed unitary state and a fluid, flexible
constitution. The primary political impact of the UK constitution is to
empower parliament and grant authority to a government that is able
to command a majority within that parliament. The US constitution
limits the power of both the president and Congress. It prescribes the
rights of the citizens which no state or federal authority can abridge.
32
6 Conclusion
Majoritarian (such as the UK) and consensus (such as the US)

democracies impact the conduct of politics in the most profound,
significant ways. The very nature of UK politics is bound up in the
fact that a majoritarian model, which is heavily influenced by tradition
and hierarchy, predicated upon a strong, authoritative state, provides
for the centralisation of power. The politics of the US is bound by the
consensus model of checking and balancing – diluting and qualifying –
power (Lijphart, 1992, 1999). In the UK, this is a quid pro quo for the
powers of a stable and authoritative government, something provided
for by the structures of an easily reworked constitution and its
parliamentary system. In the US, the constitution provides for limited
government and the federal system requires the federal government to
share powers and competences with the states.
33
References
Bagehot, W. (1867) The English Constitution, London, Fontana (this
edition 1963).
Dicey, A. V. (1885) Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution,
London, Macmillan (this edition 1959).
Elazar, D. (1997) Exploring Federalism, Tuscaloosa, University of Alabama
Press.
Foley, M. (2000) The British Presidency, Manchester, Manchester University
Press.
Goldsworthy, J. (1999) The Sovereignty of Parliament, Oxford, Oxford
University Press.
King, A. (2007) The British Constitution, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Lijphart, A. (1999) Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in
Thirty-Six Countries, New Haven, Yale University Press.
Lijphart, A. (1992) Presidential and Parliamentary Government, Oxford, Oxford
University Press.
May, E. (2011) Parliamentary Practice, 24th edn, London, LexisNexis (first
published 1844).
Sartori, G. (1996) Comparative Constitutional Engineering: An Inquiry into
Structures, Incentives and Outcomes, London, Macmillan.
Stepan, A. and Skach, C. (1994) ‘Presidentialism and parliamentarism in
comparative perspective’, in Linz, J. J. and Valenzuela, A. (eds) The Failure of
Presidential Democracy, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press.
34
Chapter 14
Institutional differences
between UK prime ministers
and US presidents
Richard Heffernan
Contents
1 Introduction 39
2 The US president is directly elected;
the UK prime minister is indirectly elected 40
3 The US president is separate from and
autonomous of the US legislature; the UK
prime minister is drawn from and accountable
to the UK legislature 45
4 The US president is not the leader of his or
her party; the UK prime minister is the leader of
his or her party 50
5 The US president is the head of a personalised
executive; the UK prime minister is the head of
a collegial executive 54
6 The US president operates within a federal
state with a limited government; the UK prime
minister operates within a unitary state with an
unlimited government 59
7 Prime ministers and presidents differ because
the former is a parliamentary chief executive,
while the latter is presidential chief executive 61
8 Conclusion 66
References 67
1 Introduction
1 Introduction
The UK prime minister and the US president, operating in very
different political systems, face very different leadership opportunities
and constraints. This owes much to the fact that the prime minister,
being indirectly elected, usually emerges from the party commanding a
majority within the UK parliament, whereas, by contrast, the president,
being directly elected by the people, is separated from the US
Congress. This chapter explores the following five institutional
differences between the prime minister and the president.
1 The US president is directly elected; the UK prime minister is
indirectly elected.
2 The US president is separate from and autonomous of the US
legislature, but the UK prime minister is drawn from and
accountable to the UK legislature.
3 The US president is not the leader of his or her party, but the UK
prime minister is.
4 The US president is the head of a personalised executive, but the
UK prime minister is the head of a collegial executive.
5 The US president operates within a federal state with a limited
government, but the UK prime minister operates within a unitary
state with an unlimited government.
These five differences reflect the fact that the UK prime minister is a
parliamentary chief executive, while the US president is a presidential
one. Thus the respective political systems of the UK and the US
clearly determine and shape the ways in which the two heads of
government operate. Each one is the chief executive of their respective
country; they are the leading politician and the chief diplomat. But they
are very different types of chief executive. To put it simply, the UK has
a parliamentary system, so it has a parliamentary chief executive; the
US has a presidential system, so it has a presidential chief executive. To
understand these different types of chief executive we need to explore
the political systems from which they emerge.
39
Chapter 14 Institutional differences between UK prime ministers and US presidents
2 The US president is directly elected;

the UK prime minister is indirectly
elected
The US constitution requires the president to be over the age of 35, to
be a US citizen, and to have been born within the territory of the US.
The UK constitution imposes no such similar obligations on the UK
prime minister, but it is now a well-established constitutional
convention that he or she must be an elected member of the House of
Commons (it used to be the case that the prime minister could sit in
either the Commons or the House of Lords). In regard to moment and
mode of election, then, prime ministers and presidents differ
considerably, each subject to different arrangements that differently
empower and constrain them.
Put at its simplest, the US president is directly elected, while the UK
prime minister is indirectly elected. US citizens elect the person who is
to serve as the president; the president’s name (alongside his or her
vice-presidential ‘running mate’) is on the ballot and citizens choose
them by their vote. Under the US constitution, the electoral college of
the 50 states, in which each state has an apportioned vote in line with
its population size, elects the president when one candidate wins a
majority of that college (which might not be a majority of the popular
vote cast across the US). By contrast, the UK prime minister is never
specifically elected as prime minister, but elected only as an MP in one
of 650 constituencies. No UK citizen therefore makes the direct choice
as to who should be prime minister (even if some citizens cast a vote
for a party in the hope that the leader of the party they vote for will
emerge as prime minister once the election has been conducted). Prime
ministers become prime minister because their party makes them party
leader and because their party has a parliamentary majority (by itself or
as part of a coalition).
The US constitution prescribes that the US president is elected on a
prescribed date – ‘the first Tuesday after the first Monday in
November’ (or the first Tuesday after 1 November) – and takes office
at 12 p.m. EST on 20 January of the year following their election.
Presidents are able under the constitution to seek re-election only
once; most usually find themselves a ‘lame duck’ late in their second
term as attention turns to the race determining their successor. No
40
2 The US president is directly elected;the UK prime minister is indirectly elected
similar restrictions apply in the UK. Prime ministers can serve for so
long as the country grants their party a Commons majority at an
election (or they can form a coalition government with another party
should their party be the largest party, but lack a Commons majority)
and that Commons majority permits them to lead their party. There is
no formal prime ministerial term limit and prime ministers can try to
remain in office for as long as the country permits them or their party
allows them.
Prime ministers and presidents differ not only in their appointment to
office, but also their removal. Post-war UK prime ministers have left
office in one of three ways:
1 by resigning the party leadership and thereby the premiership:
Winston Churchill in 1955; Anthony Eden in 1957; Harold
Macmillan in 1963; Harold Wilson in 1976; Tony Blair in 1997
2 by being essentially removed from the premiership by being
successfully challenged as party leader: Margaret Thatcher in 1990
3 by resigning as prime minister following their party’s loss of a
Commons majority at an election: Clement Attlee in 1951; Alec
Douglas-Home in 1964; Wilson in 1970; Edward Heath in 1974;
James Callaghan in 1979; John Major in 1997; Gordon Brown
in 2010.
While six of these post-war prime ministers left office following defeat
at a general election, seven prime ministers resigned when their party
still had a partisan majority. Two prime ministers left office not of their
own free will: Thatcher was essentially sacked by her own
parliamentary party after being successfully challenged as party leader,
and Blair felt obliged to resign at a moment of his choosing rather
than risk being challenged by Brown, his chancellor. The same could
perhaps be said for Churchill, Eden and Macmillan. Only Wilson went
without any pressure being applied to him and when no one expected
him to step aside.
Prime ministers, even if there is no formal restriction on their term of
office, have to retain their office by both having their party re-elected
at a general election and retaining the loyalty of their Commons
majority. Prime ministers can often ensure they have the support of a
large majority of their party MPs by delivering the electoral, political
and career goods those individual MPs desire and the party requires. A
significant tenure in office is thus more likely than not, so prime
ministers sit more firmly in their office than is sometimes thought,
41
particularly when compared with US presidents (Thatcher lasted 11.5

years and Blair 10; both longer terms of office than is possible for the
modern US president, who cannot serve any more than two four-year
terms).
Of course, even if a prime minister is unseated by their party in the
Commons, the partisanship of their party ensures that a Labour
majority in the Commons will replace him or her with a Labour prime
minister (for instance Brown replaced Blair), and a Conservative
majority will retain a Conservative prime minister (Major replaced
Thatcher).
In the US, however, presidents enjoy an enviable security of tenure
denied the prime minister. Post-war presidents have left office in these
five ways:
1 having served the one term they were elected to: Harry Truman in
1953; Lyndon B. Johnson (having served out John F. Kennedy’s first
term) in 1969; Jimmy Carter in 1991; George H. W. Bush in 1993
2 having served two terms: Dwight Eisenhower in 1961; Ronald
Reagan in 1989; Bill Clinton in 2001; George W. Bush in 2009
3 having been assassinated in the midst of their first term: Kennedy
in 1963
4 having been forced to resign in the midst of their second term:
Richard Nixon in 1974 (Figure 1)
5 having failed to be elected in their own right following the
expiration of their predecessor’s first term to which they had been
appointed as vice president: Gerald Ford in 1977.
42
2 The US president is directly elected;the UK prime minister is indirectly elected
Figure 1 Richard Nixon is the only US president who has been forced to
resign
The Congress cannot remove a president for political reasons.

Presidents cannot be sacked, although they can be impeached should
they be deemed to have committed a ‘high crime or misdemeanour’.
Short of something like Kennedy’s assassination or Nixon’s resignation,
presidents serve out the term to which they are elected. Only if the
president is thought to have broken the law can Congress remove him
or her. Even then a legislative super majority is required for
impeachment; on being charged by a vote of 50 per cent plus one in
the House of Representatives, the president can only be impeached by
a vote of 66 per cent plus one in the Senate. Impeachment has only
been attempted twice, most recently in the case of Clinton during
1998–99, and it has never been successfully implemented, although in
1974 Richard Nixon did resign before he would have been removed
from office.
Prime ministers clearly lack the personal mandate conferred upon the
president by virtue of his or her being personally elected to the office
they occupy. But Congress can claim its own mandate because it, too,
represents the people. The president is confined by law to serve only
two terms and to seek re-election only once; he or she can thus be
weakened in office during the last two years of a second term (if
elected to one). Then they can be considered a ‘lame duck’ and be
unable to pass any significant legislation because the political class are
43
awaiting the election of their successor. Prime ministers, because they

face no formal restriction in the time they can spend in office, can be
more authoritative in office for longer. Should the president cease to
be president in his or her term of office then he or she, by
constitutional law, can only be replaced by the vice president, who is
the next in line of presidential succession. By contrast, the prime
minister, if vacating the premiership in between an election, will be
replaced by whichever MP is chosen by the party to become party
leader in his or her stead.
44
3 The US president is separate from and autonomous of the US legislature; the UK prime minister is drawn from and
accountable to the UK legislature
3 The US president is separate from

and autonomous of the US legislature;
the UK prime minister is drawn from and
In the UK, electors elect the legislature from which the prime minister
led executive emerges; the prime minister can only be prime minister
by commanding a majority in the House of Commons. Parliamentary
systems require the non-separation of powers between the executive
and the legislature. The indirectly elected prime minister usually heads
a single-party government which, having a Commons majority, can
usually very effectively lead the legislature. Of course, as in the case of
David Cameron between 2010 and 2015, prime ministers can lead a
coalition government when there is a ‘hung parliament’, following an
election in which no party has a majority and a single-party
government cannot therefore be formed.
Be it a single party or a coalition government, the UK executive that
the prime minister heads has considerable intra-legislative powers. The
House of Commons provides the government, enacts its legislation and
supports its continuation in office, but it also has to oversee its work,
scrutinise its activity, and hold it to account. Such contradictory
functions, the very product of the non-separation of powers between
government and parliament, sharply conflict. As a result, the Commons
majority invariably prioritises providing and supporting the government
over its responsibility to check and balance it. In supporting the
government in office, the Commons cannot easily check and balance
the government’s activities because the party majority invariably agrees
with what the government is doing. Legislative losses are therefore
extremely rare.
The UK executive is thus far more able to rely upon its Commons
majority to enact its policy. In the UK all governments have
occasionally to make compromises, mostly of a marginal nature, but
sometimes major. Keeping one’s parliamentary troops reasonably happy
is all part of the governing game. The Major government of 1992–97,
boasting a small, unreliable majority, withdrew plans to privatise the
Post Office in light of strenuous objections from many of its
backbenchers. Party whips impose the party line, which is determined
45
by the parliamentary leadership, but they clearly also report the

privately expressed views of backbenchers upward to that leadership,
making them aware of parliamentary opinion and the impacts
government proposals are likely to have. The Blair and Brown
governments of 1997–2010 had large Commons majorities, but
occasionally amended legislation in light of backbench criticism and
pressure. Cameron’s coalition was sometimes obliged to change course
because of similar criticism and pressure.
If in the UK the prime minister is guaranteed a legislative majority, the
US president has no such guarantee. The UK prime minister can only
be prime minister if he or she has a partisan Commons majority. But
the separately elected US president will hold their office even if the
opposing party holds power in Congress. Bill Clinton, a Democrat,
faced a Republican-controlled Congress for six of the eight years he
spent in the White House; Democrat Barack Obama has had to work
with a Republican House for much of his presidency; and Richard
Nixon, a Republican, had to work with an entirely Democrat-controlled
Congress (as did his successor, Gerald Ford). As Congress is elected
separately from the president (and as some members are re-elected at a
midterm election two years after each presidential election), it is
significantly – often very sharply – independent of the president in a
way that the UK parliament is not at all independent of the prime
ministerial-led UK executive (Figure 2).
46
(a) (b)
Figure 2 (a) The UK Palace of Westminster; (b) the US Capitol Building, home of the two Houses of
Congress
In addition, even should the president’s party have the congressional

majority, the president can find that Congress will not work with them.
Clinton’s biggest defeat in Congress, on health care reform, came when
the Democrats held both the House and the Senate. A president often
cannot rely on the backing of their own parties in the House and
Senate. Although Democrat presidents Lyndon B. Johnson, Jimmy
Carter and Bill Clinton (for two years) had Democrat majorities in
both the House and the Senate, only Johnson was able to pass his
legislative programme largely unscathed, and then only in
1965 and 1966 when the Democrats had a two-to-one majority in both
the House and the Senate (and when the legacy of John F. Kennedy
could be used to argue for civil rights). The president has the right to
veto legislation presented to him by Congress, but Congress can
override a presidential veto by a vote of two-thirds of its members
(such power is rarely used). The president thus has the right to
approve legislation, but he or she cannot force Congress to do what it
does not want to do. To influence the making of laws, the president
has to bargain and negotiate with an independent and autonomous
Congress. All federal programmes and spending proposals require the
support of Congress, and all senior governmental appointees, judicial
nominees and international treaties need Senate approval. The
president is therefore engaged in a constant process of persuasion.
47
The institutional separation of powers between the executive and the

legislature best explains the US president’s lack of legislative purchase.
Although elected at the same time as every member of the House of
Representatives and one-third of the Senate, the US president is elected
in a different election race, separate from representatives and senators,
all of whom are elected for different representative units, and who are
therefore accountable to very different constituencies. Although
congressional races have been nationalised as never before, elections
are still disaggregated. Legislators and would-be legislators prioritise
their own issues, respond to their own electors, and have always to
bear in mind what is happening in their district or state. As a result,
enacting the wishes of a president to whom they are not likely to be
politically beholden is rarely a priority and is never a requirement for
advancement within Congress. Other than informal appeals for
partisanship, the president can offer few carrots or sticks to require
congressional support for their legislative wishes.
In the UK, however, where the political fates of the executive and its
parliamentary majority are intertwined, the very opposite is true.
Because partisanship and executive patronage are the glue further
binding the executive and the legislature together, the prime minister
has many carrots and sticks to wield. Supporting the party line is the
primary means by which a backbench MP works his or her ticket to
the party frontbench. The party leader – the prime minister – is the
principal gatekeeper determining entry into the government, working
with party whips and officials who talent spot on his or her behalf. In
the case of the opposition, it is the party leader who decides which
MPs are in the shadow government. This provides the prime minister
and opposition party leader with considerable (but never
overwhelming) troop-gathering powers. In addition to deciding who is
on the frontbench, the party leader also decides what post they should
hold. Patronage is never unfettered, and often the prime minister is
obliged to placate would-be foes and to advance able persons, not
simply reward loyalists and friends. In addition, discarded former
ministers (and those who never were appointed ministers) can oppose
the prime minister and his or her policy, which can undermine any
party leader, particularly one who is underperforming.
Short of a national emergency (such as the Great Depression following
the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the Japanese invasion of Pearl Harbour
in 1941, or the events following 11 September 2001), no similar
opportunities for legislative management present themselves to the US
48
president. While accountable to and removable by the legislature, the

prime minister is usually defended by his or her Commons majority.
Parliamentary parties have removed their particular prime minister
whilst retaining their party in government, as discussed earlier, but
provided the prime minister commands the support of his or her party,
he or she remains the de facto leader of the legislature. The president
has no such privileges. Indeed, translated into US terms, the prime
minister could be described as possessing the functions of the two
most powerful US legislative officials: the speaker of the House of
Representatives and the Senate majority leader. These two posts are
combined into one in the UK’s legislature, in which the Commons also
has more clout than the unelected Lords. Patronage may not save the
underperforming prime minister who is unable to deliver the electoral
spoils and policy successes his or her parliamentary party craves, but it
confers the ability to ‘win legislative friends and influence legislative
people’. It also helps focus the minds of other members of the
executive, all of whom, in some form, find that further preferment
within government can often be more easily secured by being onside
with the prime minister.
Having served as the equivalent of the ‘electoral college’ returning the
government, UK MPs often feel obligated to their party leadership, but
US representatives and senators are not similarly obligated in their
presidential system. US presidents can rarely lead Congress. In
domestic policy terms, a US president is often unable to persuade
Congress of the merits of his or her case, so they can find they are
unable to secure their political objectives and are enjoying ‘office
without legislative power’. The UK parliamentary executive,
underpinned by its Commons majority, holds both office and legislative
power, even if, for reasons explored below, that power is diffused
among a number of players within government. Presidentialism could
not provide a stronger UK executive government. In legislative terms,
were the UK prime minister a president, he or she would be a far
weaker, not a stronger, chief executive.
49
4 The US president is not the leader of

his or her party; the UK prime minister
is the leader of his or her party
The legislative purchase of the prime minister, provided for by the fact
that the prime ministerial-led executive has a Commons majority which
supplies and supports it, is reinforced by the fact that the prime
minister is the leader of his or her party. By contrast the president is
merely a leader of his or her party, not the leader. For the most part,
UK political parties are tight hierarchical parties managed and
controlled by the leadership (plural) and the leader (singular); leaders
lead and others thereafter usually follow. By contrast, US parties are far
less hierarchical. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans elect a
party leader; the president is only ever the party’s nominee for the
presidency. For instance, President Barack Obama is not the leader of
the Democrats in either the House or the Senate; instead the
Democrats in both the House and the Senate elect their own legislative
leadership who, should the Democrats hold the congressional majority,
also provide the congressional leadership.
Being only a party leader restricts the power of the president in
contrast with that of the prime minister who is the leader of his or her
party. In the UK, party government is ensured because the executive
and the legislative majority are led by the same persons and each
shares the same agenda and objectives. This is clearly the case with
single-party government, but so, too, with coalitions which can still rely
on their partisan majority within the Commons – a majority composed
of two or more parties – to support them in office and pass much of
their legislation. Ideological and geographic differences among
members of the same party within the US Congress dilutes partisan
loyalty, further separating the president from his or her congressional
party. While partisanship is certainly present in both the House and the
Senate, the autonomy of the legislature from the executive means that
holding office is more a matter of a personal, not simply a party,
mandate. Elected in their own right, members of Congress owe less to
their party affiliation compared to their UK counterparts, and little to
the president heading the party ticket. This is not the case in the UK
where general elections are national affairs in which electors vote for
parties in support of their national appeal, policy record and,
increasingly some say, in support of their candidate for prime minister.
50
4 The US president is not the leader of his or her party; the UK prime minister is the leader of his or her party
The US president (or his or her senior White House staffers) can exert
some formal influence (by using the presidency as a ‘bully pulpit’ or
directing the party’s national committee), but he or she has to rely on
informal influence, usually exerted though informal networks with
senior legislators and party figures. In the UK, party leaderships run
their political parties from the centre: parties serve, first, the needs of a
popular and successful leadership, foremost among which is the party
leader; second, the parliamentary leadership as a whole; and, third,
local affiliates.
British parliamentary parties, then, provide a support mechanism for
their leaders that is at times fractious, often eager, but sometimes
unwilling. For instance, many MPs in Labour’s large majorities believed
they owed their parliamentary careers to Tony Blair’s ability to attract
and retain those who had been non-Labour voters. MPs who toe the
party line, that line being set by the leadership, do so out of a
combination of partisan disposition, careerist self-interest and policy
agreement. Although many parliamentary rebellions against Blair’s and
Gordon Brown’s policies took place, parliamentary loyalty was more
often in evidence. Although the Labour government had to amend
legislation and make other concessions to recalcitrant backbenchers, it
lost only four of the 3089 Commons votes held during the 10 years of
Blair’s premiership. Despite many rebellions, the government was able
to rely on backbenchers supporting proposals they probably would
have opposed had they had a free or a secret vote. The parliamentary
party is the mechanism that provides the executive with control over
the legislature; no US president has such resource.
In the UK the nature of party dependence can work both ways,
however, and party leaders and prime ministers are aware they have
only a leasehold, not a freehold, on their party leadership. This is quite
different from the US situation. Throughout the twentieth century,
sitting presidents who have sought their party’s nomination for another
term have been granted this – although Gerald Ford fought off a
challenge from Ronald Reagan in 1976, Jimmy Carter from Ted
Kennedy in 1980 and George H. W. Bush from Pat Buchanan in 1992,
all of these proved only one-term presidents. Although prime ministers
have been unseated in midterm, no serious attempt has been made to
replace them in the run-up to an election. It was an element within the
parliamentary party, however, not the electorate directly, which
unseated Margaret Thatcher as prime minister. And Tony Blair, pressed
to stand aside in favour of Gordon Brown by Brown and his
51
supporters, chose to leave office at a time of his choosing rather than

risk being unseated by his own party. MPs opposed to Gordon Brown
tried three times to unseat him, but failed each time. Prime ministers, if
secure in their office, can more often than not lead their party. They
know, however, that they are dependent on their party within both the
executive and the legislature. John Major observed that ‘Every leader is
leader only with the support of his party’ (Major, 1999, p. 626), and
Margaret Thatcher acknowledged that a ‘Prime Minister who knows
that his or her Cabinet has withheld its support is fatally weakened’
(Thatcher, 1993, p. 851). And Thatcher should know, having fallen
from grace in November 1990 (Figure 3).
(a) (b)
Figure 3 (a) Margaret Thatcher (seen here with Ronald Reagan) was
ultimately undone by her own party; (b) by contrast, George W. Bush served
out the two terms to which he had been elected
In the UK, then, although the party can be a prime ministerial

constraint, it is more usually a significant resource. It is, however, a
leadership resource, not just the leader’s resource. In terms of its policy
formation, campaign agenda and personnel selection, the party is
subordinate to the leadership elite as a whole, even if not always
beholden to the prime minister alone. UK parties are mechanisms to
elect a party government, not only the party leader as prime minister.
Provided prime ministers are electorally popular and politically
successful they can, in concert with senior ministerial colleagues,
dominate their parliamentary party. Of course, an ability to
52
4 The US president is not the leader of his or her party; the UK prime minister is the leader of his or her party
predominate within the party elite enables the party leader to dominate
the party. Should the prime minister’s record not come up to scratch,
however, he or she runs the ever-present risk that their party – or their
ministerial colleagues – may come to dominate them or to dismiss
them from office. Although party association can be the seed of
weakness, however, for the more powerful prime minister it is more
usually a significant and additional source of authority. The party
presents no such resource for the US president. As Congress,
irrespective of party control, is independent of and separate from the
president, it is far more likely to be both an obstacle and an
impediment.
53
5 The US president is the head of a

personalised executive; the UK prime
minister is the head of a collegial
executive
The White House dwarfs Downing Street in terms of political and
administrative resources. For instance, the president’s staff number
some 2000 officials in policy-making roles, while the prime minister
has only some 140-odd staff, including secretarial staff, although this
number greatly expanded under Blair, Brown and Cameron. Yet,
whatever its size, the Prime Minister’s Office is second to none in
terms of its political centrality within UK government. The powerful
UK Treasury comes close to its policy reach, but only then in terms of
domestic policy.
The key institutional difference between the US president and the UK
prime minister is that the US president, the formal head of state, heads
up an administration named after him or her (e.g. the Bush
administration; the Obama administration), while the UK prime
minister leads a government referred to by its party label or, less
commonly, prefixed by the prime minister’s name (e.g. the Labour
government; the Blair government; the Conservative government; the
Major government). Such distinctions demonstrate that parliamentary
systems have collective, collegial executives, and presidential systems
have personalised, individualised executives. Within any parliamentary
executive, the ‘prime minister’s position can vary from pre-eminence to
virtual equality with other ministers, but there is always a relatively
high degree of collegiality in decision making’ (Lijphart, 1992, p. 3). In
contrast, ‘members of presidential cabinets are mere advisers and
subordinates of the president’ (p. 3). While the purpose of US cabinet
members is to discharge the duties of their departments or agencies in
the name of the president, UK cabinet ministers have legal powers to
act in the name of the Crown or the government as a whole. The
prime minister has no statutory definition, legal powers being vested in
the various ministers he or she appoints. However, in reality ministers
are accountable to the prime minister, who hires and fires them, while
the government as a whole is accountable to parliament.
54
5 The US president is the head of a personalised executive; the UK prime minister is the head of a collegial executive
In the age-old cliché, the prime minister remains ‘first among equals’,
surrounded and supported by cabinet colleagues whom they can in
theory lead, hire and fire, and over whom they can exercise powers of
proposal and veto. Provided they select from among members of the
House of Commons (or, for lesser ministerial positions, the House of
Lords), prime ministers are formally free to appoint whomever they
choose to government positions. Legislative approval is not needed,
but informal party considerations can determine who is appointed to
what position. In this regard, however, prime ministers are never as
free in practice as they are in theory. They have to appoint a cabinet
which is reflective of the party, reward friends and appease would-be
foes. Ensuring some form of gender and geographical balance has
become increasingly important in recent years. In 1997, informal party
considerations ensured that Tony Blair (Figure 4a) appointed Gordon
Brown (Figure 4b) chancellor of the exchequer. Similar considerations
meant John Major could not have shifted Kenneth Clarke from the
chancellorship during 1993–97 or Michael Heseltine from the deputy
prime ministership during 1995–97. And David Cameron, who tied
himself to the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg to become prime
minister in a Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition, had to ensure
that women are represented in the cabinet to a greater extent than was
previously the case. In the US, although executive appointments have
to be confirmed by the Senate, presidents can nominate anyone they
choose (provided they pay their taxes and have no personal skeletons
in their closets) and so have a much freer hand in making their
appointments to their government than does the prime minister.
55
(a) (b)
Figure 4 (a) Tony Blair; (b) Gordon Brown: when Tony Blair became prime
minister he appointed Gordon Brown as chancellor of the exchequer and
Brown thereafter waited to succeed him
A core collegiality means the UK prime minister has to work with and
through senior ministers in his or her cabinet; he or she can lead them,
but cannot command them. By contrast the US president commands
his or her executive. Cabinet members serve at the pleasure of the
president. Their role is to advise him or her; the president’s role is to
make decisions on the basis of their advice. In the UK, because they
lack the president’s personal control of the executive, prime ministers
cannot command their government but they can sometimes dominate
it, should they be electorally popular and politically successful
(Heffernan, 2003, 2005, 2013). Prime ministers usually do so only with
the compliance of a clique of senior ministers. In the past 50 years,
traditional forms of collective government have largely been
circumvented as prime ministers have limited what should be a
‘relatively high degree of collegiality in decision making’ (Lijphart,
1992, p. 3). The cabinet is now merely a sounding board for the prime
minister and his or her allies, not a deliberative or decision-making
body, and the prime minister has been able to place him or herself at
the hub of government. This is something which has been encouraged
by the emergence of a de facto prime ministerial department, a
government centre embracing Downing Street and the Cabinet Office.
56
5 The US president is the head of a personalised executive; the UK prime minister is the head of a collegial executive
Yet, for even the most powerful prime minister collegiality remains the
impediment preventing them from acting in a ‘presidential fashion’. As
the political scientist George Jones long ago demonstrated, the prime
minister ‘who can carry his colleagues with him can be in a very
powerful position, but he is only as strong as they let him be’ (Jones,
1985, p. 124). Presidents, working with political appointees lacking a
base independent of the chief executive, always carry their subordinate
colleagues with them. Prime ministers, whatever resources they possess,
have to work with and through politicians with such a base. While
prime ministers can assert their preferences, compromise is often the
name of the game. They can, of course, successfully lead and instruct,
but have sometimes to coerce, cajole, entreat, and perhaps plead with
their colleagues to pursue some matter. This is because parliamentary
executives are composed of semi-autonomous political actors drawn
from the legislature, each of whom could replace the prime minister as
head of the government. Presidential executives, however, are
composed of non-autonomous actors who cannot rival or replace the
president.
All UK cabinet ministers are in theory potential rivals for the prime
minister’s job, but in practice only some provide viable alternative
candidatures. When asked who would replace him if he were to ‘fall
under a bus’, then-prime minister Harold Wilson is said to have
replied, ‘probably the person who was driving the bus’. All real or
potential prime ministers have come from within the cabinet (or have
served within it), or from its oppositional counterpart, the shadow
cabinet. Vice-presidents aside, not only has no member of any
presidential cabinet become president in the US since 1945, but very
few have seriously tried to do so, Robert Kennedy being the principal
exception. In this regard, then, the UK prime minister is weaker within
his or her executive than is the US president. The Conservative prime
minister David Cameron (Figure 5a), finding himself in the unusual
position of leading a peacetime coalition government, had to work with
and sometimes defer to his veto-wielding Liberal Democrat deputy
prime minister, Nick Clegg (Figure 5b).
57
(a) (b)
Figure 5 (a) David Cameron; (b) Nick Clegg
Tony Blair was at times significantly constrained by his chancellor,

Gordon Brown. No such relationship equalling that of Blair and
Brown would be permissible in the US. No president would have their
policy determined by a member of their cabinet. As such, if the UK
‘cabinet continues to be the major constraint upon the prime minister
and the prime source of alternative leadership’ (Foley, 2000, p. 349),
the prime minister cannot be remotely likened to a US president. The
cabinet does no such thing in the US system. Certain formidable intra
executive constraints can at times be brought to bear upon prime
ministers, but no such intra-executive constraints face any US
president. By contrast, however, unlike the prime minister, the
president faces considerable – often insurmountable – constraints
between the executive and legislature.
58
6 The US president operates within a federal state with a limited government; the UK prime minister operates within a
unitary state with an unlimited government
6 The US president operates within a

federal state with a limited government;
the UK prime minister operates within a
unitary state with an unlimited
government
One key institutional factor that empowers the prime minister, but
disempowers the president, is the structure of the state: the US
president presides over a federal system; the UK prime minister
presides over a unitary state, albeit a union state with some features of
localism, most recently in regard to the domestic governance of
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Federal systems divide power
between the centre and the locality, limiting the reach of the federal
government over matters constitutionally reserved to the relevant state
authority. Unitary states place power at the centre, even if formal and
informal political requirements require the centre to respect some
degree of local autonomy.
In UK local government there is a tradition of central government
intervention and direction. Over time the central government in
Whitehall and Westminster (the executive and the legislature) has
forced down local spending levels and compelled local authorities to
comply with certain practices, be they altering education policy,
building or then selling council housing, hiving off functions to the
private sector, or reforming internal structures and management
processes. The form of local revenue raising and many of the functions
to which it is to be put (and often the rate at which it is set) is
determined by central government. For instance, the Thatcher
government replaced the rates, a tax to fund local government based
on the rateable value of property, with a per capita tax called the
Community Charge, but commonly known as the poll tax. However,
the poll tax proved both unpopular and uncollectable, so the
government led by Margaret Thatcher’s successor, John Major, replaced
it with a revised form of property tax, the council tax. No such central
government intervention would be possible in the US, where the
federal government has no say (nor would it wish to exert any form of
central control) over the form of local revenue raising or spending at
the state level.
59
Thus, in comparison with the powers of the UK prime minister, the

US president’s powers are circumscribed in many areas because the
fixed US constitution limits government, preventing it from doing
certain things. Being charged with upholding certain constitutional
rights that no federal or state government can abridge, the Supreme
Court both interprets and applies the constitution, striking down
federal and state legislation it deems unconstitutional. The Supreme
Court, not the president or Congress, is the custodian of the meaning
of the constitution, so it can rule on what presidents can and cannot
do under the constitution. Thus the Supreme Court has ruled that
abortion is permissible under the right to privacy granted by the
constitution. It upholds and defends gun ownership because the right
to bear arms is established in the constitution. The UK parliament, led
by successive prime ministers, has passed laws providing for abortion
and restricting the right to own guns. In the UK the judiciary cannot
strike down legislation passed by the legislature. It can merely interpret
the meaning or intent of such legislation where it is unclear or
contradictory. It is the role of the court to uphold the will of
parliament. In the US, however, the court restricts the will of the
president and Congress where this will is deemed to conflict with the
rights of citizens – and the responsibilities given to the states – as
established by the constitution. Working with and through the
executive and legislature, then, the UK prime minister is able to help
change political practice in ways a president cannot.
60
7 Prime ministers and presidents differ because the former is a parliamentary chief executive, while the latter is a
presidential chief executive
7 Prime ministers and presidents differ

because the former is a parliamentary
chief executive, while the latter is a
Both the UK prime minister and the US president operate in very
different political systems. Table 1 compares and contrasts the two
types of chief executive.
Table 1 Comparing and contrasting the UK prime minister with the US

president
Prime minister President

Elected directly by a No Yes
national vote
Emerges from the Subject to having a
Commons majority, majority of the electoral
being the party leader college allocated by
heading a single party state and determined
government or of the by popular vote
largest party in
coalition with another
Has to be a member of Yes No
the legislature
Must, by convention, Cannot be a member
be a member of the of the legislature owing
House of Commons to a strict separation of
powers between
executive and
legislature
Placed in office by Yes No
legislative majority
Emerges from the Elected separately and
House of Commons, is independently of
wholly dependent on legislature
his party majority (or
else a coalition of two
or more parties) and is
accountable to it
61
Can be removed by a Yes No

simple vote of the
legislature for political Can be removed May only be
reasons should a single-party impeached for ‘high
government lose its crimes and
Commons majority or a misdemeanours’ for
coalition government which a super
fall apart. The prime legislative majority is
minister can also be required
removed from the party
leadership by his or her
own MPs
Term limited No Yes
Can serve for so long Can only be re-elected

as their party permits once, serving two four
them to remain in office year terms in total
or their party retains a
Commons majority by
itself or in coalition with
others
Executive form Collegial Individualised
Being ‘first among Cabinet members have

equals’, the prime to report to the
minister appoints president and, while
ministers and leads the able to confer advice,
government. Ministers, must follow his or her
particularly senior preferred policies. No
ministers, being member of the
politicians in their own executive can replace
right, work with but the president, save the
may not necessarily be vice-president should
instructed by the prime the president be
minister. All ministers incapacitated, resign or
may replace the prime be impeached
minister, provided they
obtain the support of
the parliamentary party
to do so
The UK prime minister, being able through their partisan Commons

majority to lead the legislature, can therefore often be far more
powerful than any president. Prime ministers and their ministers matter
because they have influence over the legislature; but prime ministers
matter more when they have more power and influence within their
executive. Presidents are wrongly deemed to automatically dominate
62
their national polities simply because they dominate their executive; the
most powerful president lacks the purchase over the legislature that is
enjoyed by even the weakest of prime ministers (Figure 6). Should the
UK prime minister be electorally popular and politically successful,
then he or she will be subject to far fewer checks and balances than
his or her US counterpart (Heffernan, 2003, 2013). Being prime
ministerial can afford a wider authority and influence. US presidents
are sometimes able to lead congressional opinion: Franklin D.
Roosevelt was able to enact his New Deal reforms during 1933–35
(but not during 1937–40); Lyndon B. Johnson could pursue the war in
Vietnam, enact civil rights reforms and introduce the Great Society
programme of 1964–66; Ronald Reagan introduced a radical budget in
1981; and both George H. W. Bush (senior) and George W. Bush
(junior) were able to make use of military force against Iraq during
1990–91 and 2003. Such examples are exceptions, however, not the
rule. Prompted by national emergency and urgent social concern, these
occasions largely reflect a ‘window of opportunity’ that impelled the
president to lead and compelled Congress to follow.
(a) (b)
Figure 6 Thanks to the UK political system, more political influence is found in (a) Downing Street
than in (b) the White House
In the UK, a strong executive government based on majority rule,

plurality elections, and the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty creates
the two keystones of the political system:
1 a centralised government
2 executive power, provided, of course, that the executive has a
reliable majority within the House of Commons either as single
party or as a coalition government.
63
In comparative terms, the UK executive is extremely powerful, so

therefore the UK prime minister can be powerful. A parliamentary
regime is often described as a system of ‘mutual dependency’ between
the executive, the legislature and the judiciary (Stepan and Skach, 1994,
p. 120). In regard to executive–legislative relations in the UK, however,
this is not the case. While dependent on the legislature in theory, a
popular and well-resourced prime ministerial-led executive armed with
a substantial Commons majority is not dependent on the legislature in
practice. Where Bagehot claimed England is ruled by the House of
Commons (1867), the UK is actually ruled by the government acting
through the House of Commons, not by the Commons itself.
The UK thus calls into question Sartori’s suggestion that ‘parliament is
sovereign. Thus parliamentary systems do not permit a separation of
power between government and parliament: they are all based on
legislative–executive power sharing’ (1996, p. 84). Parliament may
ultimately be sovereign, but the UK political system does not share
power between the executive and the legislature. Provided it has a well
resourced and supportive Commons majority, the prime minister-led
executive will dominate the legislature. In theory, the UK parliament is
one of the most powerful legislatures in the world, able to make and
break governments at will, dismissing them from office by a vote of no
confidence. In practice, although it is a sharp-toothed tiger, the UK
legislature is weak and reactive; a legislature that chooses never to bite.
The tiger is muzzled by partisan politics – the preparedness of the
majority party (or parties) to support its government eagerly and
unwillingly, in good times and bad.
In assessing the role of any chief executive we can see that two
phenomena determine the extent of their political influence:
1 their authority within the executive
2 their dominance over the legislature.
Working within a divided government, the US president possesses the
first resource, but given the autonomy of the US legislature, he or she
invariably lacks the second. In the UK, the executive as a whole enjoys
the second resource and the prime minister can – but might not –
possess the first. This is because the prospect of prime ministerial
influence clearly begins with the executive’s domination of the
legislature, while the opportunity for prime ministerial influence is
determined by the prime minister’s ability to exercise influence within
and over the executive.
64
Clearly, power ‘does vary from prime minister to prime minister, and
… according to the political strength that a particular prime minister
has at any given time’ (Lawson, 1994, p. 441). The ability of the prime
minister to lead the executive varies according to political context and
each prime minister’s strength is determined by his or her personal
resources (and the use to which they are put) (Heffernan, 2003, 2005).
Any prime minister may lay claim to legitimate authority and public
prestige, institutional knowledge and expertise, the ability to alter the
preferences of other actors and institutions, and a high degree of
agenda control. However, to make the most of these institutional
resources he or she needs to make good use of whatever personal
power resources they can muster. Such personal resources include
identified objectives or political mission, reputation, skill and ability,
association with actual or anticipated political success, public popularity
and high standing in his or her party. Such resources, when possessed,
provide the prime minister with considerable, if never overwhelming,
intra-executive authority and influence, and the opportunity to be a
stronger, but not the only, element within the core executive. These
resources largely result from the environment within which the actor is
located, and they may be provided or stripped away by the political,
electoral, ideational and socio-economic context in which they operate
(Heffernan, 2003, 2005).
65
8 Conclusion
The US political system ensures that the president will be in firm
control of their executive, but can often have little clout with Congress.
Thus the presidential executive, knowing that it loses more legislative
battles than it wins, has often to fight with Congress; more often than
not, the president, unable to get his or her way, has to bargain and
compromise with Congress (and more often than not will still not get
his or her way). For the policy that is agreed to by president and
Congress to then be enacted, it has finally to pass muster with the
Supreme Court, which is charged with determining whether such policy
is permissible under the rights and responsibilities set out in the US
constitution. By contrast the UK political system can enable a well
resourced, popular UK prime minister to use a secure parliamentary
majority, a supportive, pliant executive, and a unified party to
accumulate far more unchecked power than can any US president.
Prime ministers have to share a degree of power with other executive
actors, but provided they are electorally popular and politically
successful (Heffernan, 2003) they are, being better resourced in terms
of their functions and executive–legislative arrangements, more
authoritative than any US president.
66
References
References
Bagehot, W. (1867) The English Constitution, London, Fontana (this

edition 1963).
Press.
Heffernan, R. (2003) ‘Prime ministerial predominance? Core executive politics
in the UK’, British Journal of Politics and International Relations, vol. 5, no. 3,
pp. 347–72.
Heffernan, R. (2005) ‘Exploring (and explaining) the prime minister’, British
Journal of Politics and International Relations, vol. 7, no. 4, pp. 605–20.
Heffernan, R. (2013) ‘There is no need for -isation: the prime minister is
merely prime ministerial’, Parliamentary Affairs, vol. 66, no. 3, pp. 634–45.
Jones, G. W. (1985) ‘Cabinet government’, in King, A. (ed) The British Prime
Minister, London, Macmillan.
Lawson, N. (1994) ‘Cabinet government in the Thatcher years’, Contemporary
Record, vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 440–7.
Lijphart, A. (1992) Presidential and Parliamentary Government, Oxford, Oxford
University Press.
Major, J. (1999) The Autobiography, London, Harper Collins.
Stepan, A. and Skach, C. (1994) ‘Presidentialism and parliamentarism in
comparative perspective’, in Linz, J. J. and Valenzuela, A. (eds) The Failure of
Presidential Democracy, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press.
Thatcher, M. (1993) The Downing Street Years, London, Harper Collins.
67
Chapter 15
Elections and parties in the
UK and the US
Richard Heffernan
Contents
1 Introduction 73
2 Political parties in the UK and the US 74
2.1 Choosing election candidates:
modern party structures 76
2.2 Differences in party leaderships 78
3 Political parties and partisan politics 81
4 Political parties and electoral choices 86
5 Parties and personalisation:
presidentialisation in the UK? 93
6 Conclusion 97
References 99
1 Introduction
1 Introduction
A liberal democratic state such as the UK or the US is linked to
society by free and fair elections, which produce an executive and a
legislature at each level of government. This enables politicians elected
to public office to ‘speak’ and ‘act’ on behalf of the people and means
they can be held accountable for their actions by the people. Thus, in
Abraham Lincoln’s famous formulation, ‘government of the people, by
the people, for the people’ can take place. Elections in the US and the
UK are framed by the political systems within which they take place
and in which political parties operate: the UK’s parliamentary system
and unitary state, and the US’s presidential system and federal state.
This chapter therefore sets out to:
. comment on the function of UK and US political parties, and the
form such parties presently take, and explore their differences
. compare and contrast the US and UK party systems
. briefly explore how electors make their electoral choices.
73
Chapter 15 Elections and parties in the UK and the US
2 Political parties in the UK and the US

For elections to take place, political parties must exist. Parties present
candidates and programmes for the consideration of electors, so
electors can choose between the parties that compete for their vote.
Parties, for better or worse, are thus indispensable to the working of
liberal democracy. This is because they facilitate political recruitment
and link citizens to political institutions, thereby enabling representative
government. Obviously, not every citizen can serve in an executive or a
legislature; citizens have to select those who will ‘represent’ them and
‘speak’ and ‘act’ for them. Political parties thus provide the choice
between alternative and competing representatives. By offering
candidates and policy programmes they help determine which actors
hold what legislative and executive posts at national, regional and local
levels. These matters are often discussed at party conventions in the
US (Figure 1) and at party conferences in the UK.
Figure 1 A US party convention
Parties began life within legislatures as loose organisations of like

minded individuals who banded together to cooperate and try to
influence the decisions of the legislature in their favour. But, as the
franchise was gradually extended to provide for the popular election of
legislatures and leaders, parties had to reach out beyond the closed
world of the pre-democratic legislature to seek votes by persuading
74
electors to return their candidates to the legislature. Parties thus

operate – and elections are organised – within the following
environmental contexts:
. the institutional environment: the constitutional rules, the political
system, the electoral rules
. the electoral environment: the party system, the electoral strength,
status and standing of parties
. the ideological environment: ideological appeal and relevance.
In terms of ideas, parties help formulate public policy by presenting
competing programmatic alternatives at an election. Parties are
composed of like-minded individuals who broadly share the same
world view (with certain differences) in terms of ideas and ideologies.
They tend to be liberal, conservative or socialist, but they can also be
nationalist or regionalist. In the UK and the US the principal fault line
dividing the parties is between left and right. In the UK, the main
parties variously embrace some form of liberalism, conservatism or
socialism (with these ideologies often being blurred and liberalism
finding reflection to some extent in every party); in the US the dividing
line between the parties is between liberalism and conservatism –
socialism in the US has very much been a fringe interest.
Parties exist to mobilise support for their ideas and to secure the
return of their candidates at an election. The form that parties take,
their structure and organisation, has changed radically over the past
hundred or so years. This form reflects the political system – and often
the political culture – within which the parties operate. Modern UK
and US parties are functionally different because the political systems
of the UK and the US are different.
UK parties are hierarchical. They are elitist and centralist. Parties such
as Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats reflect the
UK’s parliamentary, unitary state. They also now reflect the union state,
with the Scottish and Welsh parts of each of these unionist parties
being given greater autonomy to manage their own affairs north or
west of the border with England. Throughout the UK, those members
of the ‘party in office’ (the party’s parliamentary representatives) play
the leading role within the party. From among these representatives,
the party leadership (plural) has the greatest influence on the policy
and programme of the party. Within this leadership (plural), the party
leader (singular) has become the most significant actor in the party. By
75
contrast, US parties are flatter rather than being so hierarchical. Such

parties have no leader (singular), only many leaders (plural) operating
within the different branches of the federal government and among the
50 states of the union.
UK parties remain membership organisations. Any citizen who is able
to pay the membership fee is free to join a party, participate in its
work, and perhaps seek to become an elected representative. US
parties, however, have supporters rather than members. Citizens who
register as a supporter of a party can play some part in selecting party
candidates for office, but they cannot join that party because it has no
membership. In theory, any citizen identifying with the Republicans or
the Democrats can seek the party’s nomination for any elected office.
In practice, those seeking public office need connections and a great
deal of money with which to campaign. In the UK, party members
play a role in selecting candidates and electing party leaders, but some
98.5 per cent of the UK population do not belong to a political party
(Gamble and Wright, 2002, p. 123). Today’s younger, better-educated
citizens are now much less likely to join a political party than were
previous generations. The handful of new members who do join tend
to be inactive and often allow their membership to lapse. Party
membership has been falling precipitously for the past 60 years, as the
following membership figures show:
. Conservative: 2,900,000 members in 1951; 134,000 in 2014
. Labour: 1,000,000 members in 1951; 193,000 in 2014
. Liberal Democrats: 73,000 in 2001; 43,000 members in 2013.
2.1 Choosing election candidates:

modern party structures
In the UK, declining membership encourages the further
professionalisation of the party ranks. The thinning ranks of ‘amateur’
party members can be increasingly distinguished from the ‘professional’
party members: young, ambitious, would-be politicians, many working
as party officials, special advisers or parliamentary staffers, or else
employed by think tanks, trade unions or the growing number of
political consultancies. It is these ‘professional’ party members who
increasingly populate party structures. The professionalisation of MPs,
where middle class, university-educated career politicians carve out a
niche in public life before becoming MPs, is not only a modern fact of
76
the parliamentary scene, but a key feature of the modern political party.
This owes much to the fact that parties with fewer and fewer members
become more and more unrepresentative of the electorate at large.
Thus, in the UK, party members, with considerable gatekeeping by the
party leaderships, select and provide the candidates for public office by
voting at local meetings (Figure 2). MPs must, in practice, be members
of a political party; only two truly independent non-party candidates
have been elected to the House of Commons since 1945. Given that
only 0.4 per cent of the UK electorate are members of any political
party, this means that some 99.6 per cent of citizens are (in practical
terms) ineligible to become an MP (even if in theory they are entitled
to become one). Not only has the number of party members fallen to
an all time low, but the number of members taking part in the
selection of parliamentary candidates is lower still. Take the case of
Labour MP Jack Dromey, who was selected to fight the seat of
Birmingham Erdington by the votes of 65 party members to 47
in 2010. As Erdington was a very safe Labour seat with a guaranteed
Labour majority, Dromey duly won the seat at the election. Thus the
combined votes of some 112 Labour party members sufficed to put
Dromey in parliament, on a turnout of 53 per cent, with a majority
of 3277. This is not an unusual situation.
Figure 2 Candidates for public office may be selected at a Labour Party

local meeting like this
By contrast, nearly all party candidates in the US are chosen in direct

primary elections involving registered voters who have declared their
77
support for that particular party. They vote to choose – in a

competitive election – the party’s candidate to fight the election in the
autumn. Party voters, not the parties themselves, therefore choose the
candidates. Over time, the selection of candidates has become less
centralised. Previously, party organisations often ‘fixed’ the ticket, but
modern primary elections cannot be so fixed (even if, because they
cost such a large amount of money to fight, they enable the
participation of only those who are wealthy, professional and well
connected). Individual candidates, associating themselves with a
particular party are responsible for securing the resources required to
run an election campaign, with support from their ‘state’ and ‘national’
parties.
In the UK, once a candidate is selected it is the party, not the
candidate, that provides the resources needed to fight the election.
Most resources are acquired and spent by the national parties, which
fight a national campaign at each general election to the tune of no
more than £20 million. In the US congressional and presidential
elections of 2012, parties and campaigns spent some $6 billion.
2.2 Differences in party leaderships

Parliamentary parties may appear to be more collective, collegial
organisations than parties that elect presidents, but parliamentary
parties are actually far more cohesive and unitary actors. Such are the
realities of modern politics that UK parties have fallen increasingly
under the control of a predominant leadership. This need not mean
that this leadership is omnipotent, but it has become ever more
powerful, especially when the party is electorally popular and
considered to be politically successful. In the UK the party leadership,
the members of the party who have been elected to ‘public office’, is
now the key feature of contemporary party politics. Parties retain some
appearances of a mass party – they can theoretically offer some form
of internal democracy in regard to electing the party leader – but their
practical power structure reflects the unassailability of its parliamentary
leaders (once elected). And it is these leaders – observed by their own
MPs – who decide the party’s strategy, tactics and policy. The
leadership, provided it retains the tacit support of the ballast or bulk of
the parliamentary party (not necessarily a formalised majority), possess
a very firm purchase over its political direction. This is because:
78
. the leadership runs the permanent election campaign across each

parliament
. the leadership is in charge of policymaking and the party manifesto
and runs the campaign once the election is called
. even if other party voices are heard, it is the leadership which
formally speaks for and on behalf of the party through the news
media
. local campaigns tend to be mere adjuncts of the leadership-led
national media-focused campaign where professional politicians as
candidates represent the ‘centre’ in the locality, not merely the
‘locality’ in the centre
. party resources are controlled by the leadership-led centre, not the
locality.
Thus, because the parliamentary leadership is strong, the extra
parliamentary party – party members throughout the country – have
become far weaker. The control of the leadership over the party is
strengthened as the party’s extra-parliamentary executive or
administrative board works to the party leader and his or her extended
private office. Thus the UK parliamentary party, the party at
Westminster, has become ever more important than the party at large
in the country.
US parties are very different institutions. For instance, each UK party
elects a leader who becomes the prime ministerial candidate, while US
parties have no single leader but many leaders. This is because US
parties are divided by state and by federal institution. For instance, in
September 2014 the president, Barack Obama, by heading up the
executive branch, was a leader of the Democratic Party, not the leader.
So, too, was the majority leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, and the
minority leader in the House, Nancy Pelosi. This is because US parties
are disaggregated institutions that reflect the separation of powers
within the federal government and between that government and the
50 states. US parties, while they contain like-minded representatives
(broadly speaking, right-wing people are Republicans, and centrist and
left-leaning people are Democrats), are looser and less hierarchical
institutions than their UK counterparts. Thus the president, unlike the
prime minister, is never the party leader; he or she is only a party
leader. Hence, as power is centralised in UK political parties, parties
79
often follow their leader, but as power is decentralised in US parties,

leaders often find it difficult to make their party follow them.
80
3 Political parties and partisan politics

Parties in the UK – and the governments they form – reflect the
unitary state and the fusion of the executive and the legislature. Parties
in the US – and the federal and state governments they form – reflect
the federal state and the separation of the executive and the legislature.
US parties are much weaker than UK parties because they are divided
by institution. There is essentially a separate Republican and Democrat
party in each of the House and the Senate. Parties have things which
unite them, but there are things that divide them. The president merely
heads up the executive branch; he or she cannot head up the two
legislative branches of the party. Beyond Washington, DC, each state
has its own version of the Republican and Democratic Party, too.
Because they feel they owe much to their locality for their election,
representatives and senators look to their state and district more than
they do to their national parties. Meanwhile, in the UK, MPs look
much more to their national parties than to their region or
constituency. This means that US parties are far more pluralistic
organisations. They represent the local as well as the national. Election
to the UK House of Commons owes everything to the party affiliation
of a candidate and much less to the personal attributes of that
individual. Once elected, an MP’s preferment owes a great deal to his
or her partisan activity. Loyalty to the party leadership, in addition to
some degree of ability, is rewarded. Rebellion, perhaps simply an
independence of mind, is not rewarded, and is sometimes even
punished. UK political parties, unlike US parties, are powerful
leadership resources because, being uniform, unitary actors, hierarchical
in form, they usually display an unusual loyalty and deference toward
their leaders.
The political difference between parties in these two nations is
illustrated by the different roles that are played by the party manifesto
in the UK and the party platform in the US. National manifestos mean
nothing in the US, where each federal office seeker issues a personal
manifesto in line with their own policy predilections and the local issue
agendas favoured by their state or district (local office seekers in each
of the 50 states differ as much). Thus for the Democrats and the
Republicans there is no real national party platform in US elections,
but instead one presidential platform and 468 individual congressional
platforms (each of the 435 members of the House and the 33 of the
81
100 members of the Senate being up for election every two years). A
liberal Democrat who is elected to the House for Massachusetts would
run on a policy platform very distinct from that of a conservative
Democrat elected in Texas. Candidates from the same parties tend to
be more conservative if they hail from southern, midwestern and more
rural states than candidates from north-eastern, western or urban
states. Candidates in each area run for election on very different policy
platforms from each other. US parties share policies and preferences
between campaigns and candidates, and are happy to act as a clearing
house of ideas and issues, but they cannot impose policies (moreover
they do not even try to do so). The opposite happens in the UK,
where the prime ministerial candidate, his or her staff and senior party
associates direct the policy stance on which legislative candidates seek
election. Candidates have no say in the drawing up of the party
manifesto, even if the party membership may sometimes be consulted.
UK party manifestos tend to be the product of deliberations by the
party’s collegial leadership; a discussion in which the view of the party
leader (the prime minister or the prime minister designate) is inevitably
paramount (Figure 3).
Figure 3 Michael Foot holding up the Labour Party manifesto in 1983
The reality is that divided government in the US produces parties that

are divided. Congressional parties organise themselves as parties and
they can act as a bridge between the two branches of government, but
82
can only ever provide a weak bridge, and often they fail to provide any
bridge. This is because they are too weak – and the separation of
powers between political institutions is too strong – for parties to fulfil
this function effectively or consistently . Representatives and senators
are much more likely to follow their own conscience and the perceived
will of their district or state than their party whip. Parties may permit
mass participation in the selection of candidates, but party structures
do not enable party members to exert much, if any, influence over the
party; it is the individual politicians, pursuing their own aims and
careers, who are the central actors in congressional processes, not the
parties themselves. Managing legislative affairs is therefore extremely
difficult in the US. This is because it involves ‘building and maintaining
the connection between two constitutionally separate entities – the
executive and legislative branches – on issues of presidential concern’
(Patterson, 2000, pp. 14–15). Being in a separated executive, the
president has few carrots and hardly any sticks with which to persuade
legislators of the same party to enact his or her preferred policies; the
president has neither carrot nor stick to entreat legislators of the
opposing party to help pass his or her policies into law.
By contrast, unified government in the UK positively encourages party
line voting in parliament. There might be an increasing propensity on
the part of a minority of MPs to rebel against the party line, but the
party line is usually enacted in some form. To form the executive in
the UK, a party (or a coalition of parties) must have a majority in the
House of Commons. Whereas the separated US legislature merely
checks and balances the US executive, it falls to the UK legislature to
both supply and support the executive and to check and balance it.
The Commons majority, if having to choose between supplying and
supporting the executive or checking and balancing it, always prioritises
supply and support. In Congress the majority party often has to secure
some support from the minority party to enact legislation. In the time
honoured phrase, parties have to ‘reach across the aisle’ for support. In
the UK parliament, however, not only is there no aisle to reach across
in a chamber where government and opposition parties sit separately
opposite one another, but the government majority rarely if ever needs
to seek support from the opposition. Opposition MPs oppose; that is
their job (as well as to propose an alternative policy). As one former
Labour MP, Austin Mitchell, remarked, the opposition has nothing to
do but ‘heckle the government steamroller’.
83
For the most part, despite the efforts of opposition parties, the
Commons majority often has little interest or incentive to do anything
other than cheerlead (or occasionally carp at) the prime minister and
his or her ministerial team. Government MPs back ‘their’ government
for one of four reasons:
1 Party MPs strongly agree with the policy proposed by their
leadership. This is the principal reason explaining the cohesion of
UK parliamentary parties. Thus the most rebellious Labour MP of
the 2005–10 Labour government still voted with the Labour whip
in 90 per cent of Commons divisions.
2 MPs consider themselves delegates of their party, elected to
represent the party, not themselves, and so feel honour-bound to
vote the party line whatever their personal reservations.
3 MPs use every vote to prove their party loyalty in the hope of
having their ambition rewarded by being promoted up the
ministerial (or shadow ministerial) ranks by the prime minister or
opposition leader.
4 MPs are fearful of punishment by the party for being disloyal.
Ministers and shadow ministers face dismissal from the front bench
(the ministerial or shadow ministerial ranks of the party) if their
vote is contrary to the party line, while backbench MPs may be
keen to avoid other forms of punishment.
For the prime minister, then, his or her party majority in the
Commons is a very effective legislative tool. This is not to say he or
she can entirely ignore the opinions of MPs: leaders can lead MPs, but
they have sometimes to negotiate with, cajole, coerce or plead with
them to support government policy. On rare occasions the prime
minister has to back down, accept unwelcome amendments or, perhaps
more often, make some concessions to win parliamentary support.
Parties therefore play different functions within parliamentary and
presidential systems. UK parliamentary parties are far more unified and
cohesive than US congressional parties. Congressional parties are
becoming more cohesive, especially in the House of Representatives,
largely as a result of an aggressive form of partisan politics presently
evident in the US; still, they remain far less cohesive than their UK
counterparts. This means that the US president, having little control
over his or her party in a system which separates the executive from
the legislature, has at best only law-making influence (and such influence
is too often negligible). The UK prime minister, however, being the
84
leader of the party in a system in which the executive is guaranteed a

strong and usually supportive party majority, is more often than not
able to lead the partisan Commons majority. This is something which
grants the prime minister – and his or her executive – considerable
law-making power. And it is the possession of such power that owes
much to the workings of political parties in the UK and the US.
85
4 Political parties and electoral choices

A party system is ‘the system of interaction resulting from intra party
competition’ (Sartori, 1996, p. 44). This interaction reflects the political
system, but particularly the key societal differences which previously
served to politically divide the community. Parties therefore reflect
historically important cleavages in society. In European societies such
cleavages, expressed in party differences, take different forms in
different countries:
. centre versus periphery
. state versus church
. land versus industry
. owner versus worker.
History, then, is writ large in the contemporary forms that parties take.
In the UK it was the fourth cleavage, that of owner versus worker,
that found expression in the emergence of Conservative and Labour as
the major parties in the early twentieth century. The division broadly
reflected this distinction: Labour being for the ‘worker’; the
Conservatives for the ‘owners’. Even if both parties drew support from
other social groups – the Conservatives always enjoyed significant
support among conservative (small ‘c’) working class electors. In the
US, the modern Republican and Democrat parties can clearly trace
their antecedents back to the formation of the Republic in 1776, but
they mainly reflect US politics as it has played out since the American
Civil War (1861 to 1865). This, the above cleavages being present in
US society and finding some expression in the party system, has meant
that the Republicans have historically stood to the right of the
Democrats. But US parties, reflecting US exceptionalism, remain
distinctive from European parties. The Democrats may have been far
more sympathetic to federal government intervention in the economy
than Republicans, but they have been far less sympathetic to such
intervention compared to European parties of the centre-left, such as
the UK’s Labour Party. On social issues, which remains the key fault
line in contemporary US politics, the majority of Democrats have
become far more liberal than nearly all Republicans (Figure 4).
86
(a) (b)
Figure 4 (a) The US Democratic Party symbol is a donkey; (b) the

Republican Party uses an elephant
According to the Lijphart model, the US is an example of a classic

two-party system (a majoritarian system), but the UK now has a much
changed ‘three-party plus others’-party system’ (a consensus system). In
regard to party systems, both the UK and the US deviate from the
Lijphart model. In the UK from 1945, setting aside the particularities
of Northern Ireland, the party system has taken the following forms:
. 1945–70 period: the classic era of two-party majoritarianism,
characterised by the fact that Labour and the Conservatives won an
average of 90.3 per cent of the vote between them.
. 1970–97 period: perhaps best described as the emergence of a ‘two
party plus others’ system, as the dominance of Labour and the
Conservatives was challenged by the emergence of the third party,
the Liberal Democrats (and their predecessor parties, the Liberals
and the short-lived SDP), and also by the growth of nationalist
parties in Scotland and Wales.
. Post-1997 period: the final demise of the two-party system and its
subsequent fragmentation into a ‘three-party plus others’ system,
and the emergence of distinct party systems in elections to the
Scottish Parliament and the Welsh assembly.
By contrast, the US, if essentially a consensus democracy according to
most of Lijphart’s criteria, has a very majoritarian two-party system.
Since 1861 either the Republican or the Democratic Party has provided
the president and the congressional majority in both the House and
the Senate. Serious third-party candidates for president emerged in
87
1912, 1948, 1968 and 1992, but on three of those occasions (1912,
1948 and 1968) that third party represented a break away from one of
the two established parties. In contemporary congressional elections
some 98 per cent of votes cast are for Republican or Democratic
candidates. In the past 40 years, but with three unusual exceptions,
both parties have provided every member of Congress. This two-party
system may have previously ‘hidden’ a four-party system of sorts – of
liberal Republicans, conservative Republicans, liberal Democrats and
conservative Democrats – but the US certainly retains the most ‘pure’
two-party system in the world.
Political culture, historical experience and electoral politics (especially
as determined by the electoral system) structure the prevalent party
system in the UK and the US. These provide the electoral environment
within which enfranchised citizens choose to cast their vote.
Such is the political culture of the US that electors often define
themselves according to their ideology. Conservatives tend to vote
Republican and liberals tend to vote Democrat. Voters are often
willing, however, to cast their vote for an individual conservative or
liberal candidate first, and for a party second. By contrast, UK voters
tend to vote for parties first, and for individuals second. This
important distinction helps to reinforce the unity and cohesiveness of
UK parties compared to US ones. That important distinction
notwithstanding, political scientists have proposed three models to
explain electoral behaviour in the UK and US over time:
. The sociological model examines the relationship between social
characteristics and vote. It is also known as the social voting model,
in which social class, reflecting one’s employment, explains voting
behaviour. Working class UK electors were said to be more likely to
vote Labour and middle class electors, Conservative. Urban US
blue-collar workers were more likely to vote Democrat.
. The social-psychological model examines the relationship between
voters’ partisan self-images and vote, and is also known as the party
identification model. Party identification suggests that electors
enduringly identify with one party rather than another and – by
being socialised as electors – form an enduring identity as being a
‘Conservative’ or a ‘Labour’ voter; a ‘Republican’ or a ‘Democrat’.
. The issue-voting model examines the relationship between voters’
preferences and the vote. It is also known as the present day
88
‘valence’ voting model which suggests electors make their choice

based upon their perception of issues, party appeal and,
increasingly, their estimation of party leaders.
In the past 50 or so years, these three models have been advanced to
help explain electoral behaviour. Each model retains some validity, but
empirical evidence suggests that the first two models now clearly lack
the purchase of the third. Social class is no longer the predictor of
party support it once was. Some working class voters may still
habitually vote Labour in the UK or Democrat in the US, but by no
means do all. And far fewer contemporary electors can now be
classified as strong party identifiers, firmly committed to supporting
one party over another at each and every election. The existence of
many strong, stable partisan voters, not weak occasional ones, lay at
the heart of the party identification model. Over time, then, the
number of floating voters, those unattached to a specific party by
either social class or partisanship, has substantially increased. There are
still voters who vote following what they consider to be their class
interest, and many others still who support a party they strongly
identify with, but electoral behaviour in both the UK and the US has
become increasingly changeable. As a result, both the class and the
party identification voting models, in spite of their having some
continuing merit, no longer provide all-encompassing explanations of
how UK and US citizens vote (Figure 5).
89
Figure 5 People queuing to cast their vote in the referendum on Scottish

independence, 18 September 2014
Instead of electors and parties being linked by continuing ties of

attachment, contemporary voters increasingly make electoral decisions
based upon how they, their families and their neighbourhoods have
been and could be affected by major contemporary conditions and
their assessment of how successful – or not – the government has
been in either creating or tackling those conditions. This notion of
issue voting argues that voters are more likely to vote for a party of
government when it has been economically successful and has
delivered prosperity to them as individuals. By rewarding a government
by re-electing it, electors believe that that government – rather than the
opposition – would be better able to secure economic success for them
– and for the country – in the future. Elections are thus increasingly
determined by what are called ‘valence politics’, in which voters share a
common preference on certain issues. This suggests that voters agree
about what the government should be elected to do. They believe it
should manage the economy; secure economic growth; achieve and
maintain low rates of inflation and unemployment; ensure national and
local security and the rule of law; and provide a wide range of well
funded, efficient and effective public services. Voters, because they
focus on such ‘valence issues’, vote for the political party (but also,
increasingly, the party leader, prime minister or president) they consider
can do the job of government best and deliver what electors want.
90
From this perspective, voters support one party rather than another
because of the evaluation they make of that party’s ability – or that of
its leader – to deliver on the policies they value. They can also punish
those parties – usually the party in government – that have not
delivered on these policies. Voter identification can be either positive
or negative; it can, obviously, change over time in response to political,
economic and social trends. Valence politics encourage voters to
evaluate the government party’s actual record and the opposition
parties’ potential: ‘It radically reconceptualises party identification,
seeing it not as long-term psychological attachment to a party, but as a
running tally of a government’s performance’ (Pattie and Johnson,
2009, p. 468). Governments, as a result, lose elections when electors
feel that their delivery has not been satisfactory and when the
opposition is considered to offer a credible alternative; this is when
‘potential’, say, wins over ‘performance’, because the government’s
‘performance’ is considered by enough voters to be woeful. Electors –
and parties seeking votes – increasingly pay attention to party leaders:
Leadership is a valence issue in that few of us would want to elect

a prime minister with no leadership skills. Perceptions of
leadership competence have independent effects on party choice,
even after controlling for factors such as underlying party
identification and evaluations of the economy. [UK] Leaders
matter, and can be an electoral asset for their party (as Blair was
for Labour in 1997) or a liability (as, arguably, Gordon Brown
rapidly became in early 2008). Other valence issues of importance
in influencing party choice include voters’ evaluation of
competence in handling major public services such as the NHS
and education, benefits such as pensions, and public problems
such as crime and security.
(Pattie and Johnson, 2009, p. 470)
This model argues that UK electors make judgements before casting

their vote, and that such judgements, even if they are made for
personal, egocentric reasons, help explain the electoral choice that
voters make:
Our analyses indicate that British electoral politics over the past
forty years can be best understood using an individual rationality
framework. The three major predictors of electoral choice –
91
leadership images, partisanship, and evaluations of economic

performance – are key elements of the valence model. Analyses of
turnout demonstrate the explanatory power of cost–benefit
calculations that are augmented by assessments of overall benefits
to the political system in general – which are elements of the
general incentives model. Beyond electoral participation, satisfaction
with the democratic process itself depends primarily on assessments of
institutional and policy performance – that is, on valence
judgements.
(Clarke et al., 2004, p. 16)
The valence politics model thus posits a significant shift from identity
to evaluation as a core consideration of how electors make choices and
cast their votes. As a result, election campaigns – which in both the
US and the UK now essentially range across the entirety of the
presidential, congressional or parliamentary term preceding the election
– matter more than ever. Parties have to – and they clearly perceive
that they have to – compete with one another for votes – and office –
by convincing an ever more sceptical electorate that they have a more
attractive set of leading politicians and policies than their opponents.
92
5 Parties and personalisation:presidentialisation in the UK?
5 Parties and personalisation:

presidentialisation in the UK?
The US’s personalised form of election means that voters have had
always to evaluate the personality of candidates. After all, at a
presidential election they are asked to choose between the claims made
by two or more competing individuals. In the UK, past arguments that
leaders matter little electorally have been successfully challenged by
findings suggesting they have become key political actors driving vote
choice (Clarke et al., 2004, 2009; Poguntke and Webb, 2007). There
remains much debate about the extent to which UK ‘parliamentary
party leaders have become electoral influences in their own right in
what were once party-based general elections’ (Mughan, 2009, p. 415),
but the fact that they matter more than previously is not in doubt.
Attention has rightly switched from establishing that leaders matter to
analysing the degree to which they do matter (Mughan, 2009). Of
course, even if many electors make their electoral choice on issues
other than their evaluation of the party leader, the fact that parties –
and the professional pundits who help organise opinion – increasingly
consider that leaders affect the choice of electors has significantly
reinforced the leader-centric way in which contemporary party politics
is enacted.
In both the US and the UK, party image and appeal, not least that of
the party leader, now forms the heart of a party’s electioneering
strategy. Parties have to – or perceive they have to – compete with one
another for votes – and office – by convincing an ever more sceptical
electorate that they have a more attractive set of both leading
politicians and policies than their opponents (Denver and Garnett,
2014; Clarke et al., 2004, 2009). The two major parties have been
adversely affected by these facts, but party leaders can be positively
advantaged by becoming the principal means by which their party
electioneers. Changes in campaign strategy thus reflect the centrality of
the party leader; but the centrality of the party leader prompts further
changes in campaign strategy. This is the case not only for the formal
campaign period following the dissolution of parliament, but for the
entire parliament.
UK party campaigns, being pitched toward the needs of televisual
media, now project policy through party personalities (none more so
than the party leader). Elections have been subject to the impact of
93
television since 1959, so there is nothing intrinsically remotely new in

this but, as evidenced by the televised party leader debates at the UK
2010 and 2015 elections, personality, and the character of party leaders,
is becoming more and more central to the national media-centred
postmodern campaign.
Are UK parties, then, becoming more like US parties? Clearly party
forms, reflecting the respective political systems of the UK and the US,
remain very distinctive. But it is certainly the case that UK parties,
believing that political leadership is the key ‘medium of political
discourse and information’ (Foley, 2000, p. 230), now, more than ever,
build themselves around their party leaders. Prime ministers cast a
larger shadow over modern politics than ever before. In modern
politics the UK party leader (especially when prime minister) has been
– in Michael Foley’s (2000) illuminating phrase – ‘stretched’ away from
other party figures. This usually empowers the party leader, but can
also disempower him or her; being praised in good times means one
can be blamed in bad times. For some political scientists such political
‘personalisation’, reinforced by the media focus on party leaders,
encourages some form of UK ‘presidentialisation’. The premiership of
Tony Blair (Figure 6) saw it suggested that Blair had become so
powerful he had become a ‘president’. Some argued that the UK prime
minister had outgrown the parliamentary system. Presidentialisation
enabled some scholars to theorise that the party leader, when prime
minister, had become more ‘powerful’ over time (Foley, 2000; Poguntke
and Webb, 2007).
94
5 Parties and personalisation:presidentialisation in the UK?
Figure 6 Such was Tony Blair’s public profile, some suggested the ‘prime
minister’ had become a ‘president’
The case for presidentialisation, however, is overblown – even if it

illuminates many aspects of UK politics. Blair, for instance, while
powerful, was never as powerful as was often suggested. Having to
work with and through his chancellor, Gordon Brown, Blair never
commanded his executive in the manner in which even the weakest US
president can routinely do. Presidentialisation, which had argued that
the prime minister is always powerful, fell from favour after Blair’s
resignation, when Brown proved a weak and less-effective prime
minister. Few – if anyone – suggested Brown had become a president.
Fewer still, given the realities of coalition government, referred to
David Cameron in such fashion when he had to share some degree of
power – over both the choice of policy and of ministerial personnel –
with the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg.
In fact, much as a dog cannot become a cat, a prime minister can
never become a president. The UK prime minister, largely thanks to
the cohesiveness and unity of their party, can, by means of their
partisan Commons majority, be often far more powerful than any
president. Contemporary politics cannot make the UK prime minister a
95
‘president’, because, being a parliamentary chief executive, an

authoritative prime minister is more influential (Heffernan, 2005).
96
6 Conclusion
6 Conclusion
Political parties are a key element in securing parliamentary democracy,
but they are not the only element. Institutional rules on holding
elections and on voting greatly influence political outcomes. In the
UK, electoral politics strongly contributes to creating a powerful party
government dominance, but in the US electoral politics is weakened by
the institutional separation of power within the federal government and
between the federal government and the 50 states (subject to the
limitations on government action imposed by the fixed constitution).
The US retains a two-party system, but the traditional two-party system
in the UK has considerably fragmented during the past 40 years with
three-party politics the norm (and ‘four parties plus others’ politics in
Scotland and Wales) and with other parties such as UKIP emerging in
spite of the continuing fact that only the two largest parties are likely
to ever be able to form a single-party government following
Westminster elections.
The UK party system has clearly undergone a series of significant
changes during the past 30 or so years. The UK’s record of returning
Labour or Conservative single-party governments in each election since
1945 ended in 2010 when the electoral system for the first time failed
to ensure that one party held all executive power. The Conservative–
Liberal Democrat coalition was formed by virtue of its being able to
command a two-party Commons majority. Generally speaking, the
emergence of coalition politics at Westminster notwithstanding, the
party face of the UK executive and legislature means that the executive
– even when formed by a two-party coalition – faces fewer checks and
balances than would be the case if a coalition was formed of three or
more parties, as frequently happens in other European countries. It
also faces far fewer checks and balances than those faced by the US
presidential executive. This remains another structural feature of the
UK majoritarian politics, part of the ‘club ethos’ of Westminster
politics. It previously granted power to a strong, authoritative single
party government, but then empowered a strong, authoritative two
party coalition government. At the 2015 election a single-party
government was once more returned.
In terms of elections and parties, the UK model of parties and
elections concentrates power in the hands of a plural majority,
empowering fewer political actors and fewer political institutions. The
97
UK has long prioritised strong government over effective

representation. Its electoral system (unless it is changed) continues to
advantage fewer parties rather than more and it continues to facilitate
‘three parties plus others’ politics, even if between 2010 and 2015 it
failed to produce a single-party government. The US model does the
opposite, sharing and dispersing power among a greater number of
actors and institutions elected at a variety of federal, state and local
elections.
98
References
References
Clarke, H., Sanders, D., Stewart, M. and Whiteley, P. (2004) Political Choice in
Britain, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Clarke, H., Sanders, D., Stewart, M. and Whiteley, P. (2009) Performance
Politics and the British Voter, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Denver, D. and Garnett, M. (2014) British General Elections since 1964,
Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Press.
Gamble, A. and Wright, T. (2002) ‘Commentary: is the party over?’, Political
Quarterly, vol. 73, no. 2, pp. 123–4.
Heffernan, R. (2005) ‘Why the prime minister cannot be a president:
comparing institutional imperatives in Britain and the US’, Parliamentary
Affairs, vol. 58, no. 1, pp. 53–70.
Heffernan, R. (2009) ‘Political parties’, in Flinders, M., Gamble, A., Hay, C.
and Kenny, M. (eds) The Oxford Handbook of British Politics, Oxford, Oxford
University Press.
Mughan, A. (2009) ‘Partisan dealignment, party attachments and leader
effects’, Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, vol. 19, no. 4,
pp. 413–31.
Patterson, B. (2000) The White House Staff: Inside the West Wing and Beyond,
Washington, DC, Brookings Institution Press.
Pattie, C. and Johnson, R. (2009) ‘Voting and identity’, in Flinders, M.,
Gamble, A., Hay, C. and Kenny, M. (eds) The Oxford Handbook of British
Politics, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Poguntke, T. and Webb, P. (eds) (2007) The Presidentialization of Politics: A
Comparative Study of Modern Democracies, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
99
Chapter 16
Group politics in the UK and
the US
Richard Heffernan
Contents
1 Introduction 105
2 How groups participate in liberal democracies 107
3 How cause groups are becoming more popular 110
3.1 Non-governmental organisations 112
4 Groups and the state 113
4.1 Protest and dissent 115
5 How political systems affect groups and social
movements 117
5.1 The US has a federal and the UK a unitary political
system 118
5.2 The US Congress is independent of the government,
but the UK Parliament is much more subservient to
the government 119
5.3 US elections are much more expensive to fight than
UK elections 120
5.4 Paid, professional lobbyists can wield considerable
power in the US Congress, but their UK counterparts
are far less influential 121
5.5 The US has a ‘fixed’ constitution stopping government
from doing things, whereas UK has a ‘flexible’
constitution enabling government to do things 122
6 Groups have both positive and negative impacts125
7 Conclusion 128
References 129
1 Introduction
1 Introduction
This chapter looks at politics beyond the state by exploring how
interest groups and movements can provide informal links between the
state and society, beyond free and fair elections. They ‘make present’
the claims that collectively organised individuals can make of the state.
Interests and movements contribute to the pressures of events and
opinions that require states to react to social demands. Political opinion
is represented within the state by a number of actors and activities,
foremost among them the political parties and electoral processes, but
also by pressure and interest groups and by corporate interests. In
addition, the news media, being both free to interpret critically the
activities of government and to transmit information and opinion to
citizens about government, acts as a check on the power of the state
with regards to civil society.
Politics is often a contest of power and values within and between
political communities, so the question arises of how the political
community arrives at the decisions it takes. This is important to the
workings of politics because, if the idea of politics assumes some kind
of diversity or the holding of different views on how such problems
should be tackled or solved, the expression of differences and of
conflicts is part of the political process. A liberal democratic state such
as the UK or the US, being the primary structure for the accumulation
and exercise of power in contemporary societies, is considered
‘legitimate’. This is because it contains political institutions which, first,
enable citizens to participate politically and, second, provide for
conflict resolution and for binding decisions to be taken and enacted.
Institutions such as elected assemblies and political parties help provide
both participation and conflict resolution, but political participation
between and beyond formal elections is also channelled through a wide
range of informal and formal groups operating in civil society. Such
groups originate and largely operate outside of the state, but they exist
to make various demands of the state. Looking only at how politicians
operate or how citizens vote can therefore miss the other important
types of participatory activities that enable citizens or interest groups
to present specific issues to the state, or else have the state provide
redress for particular grievances. This chapter looks at how interests
and movements form groups, the role they play in liberal democracies,
105
Chapter 16 Group politics in the UK and the US
and how the distinctive political systems and states of the UK and the
US help structure the ways groups operate.
106
2 How groups participate in liberal democracies
2 How groups participate in liberal

democracies
Interest groups and movements speak for both ‘interests’ and ‘causes’
and they seek attention in many ways: some prefer low-profile, discreet,
personalised, professional lobbying of ministers and officials; others
provide expert policy advice which is valued by decision makers; still
others engage in large-scale, mass protests. Supporters of some groups
variously write letters, sign petitions and attend demonstrations; some
help make policy; often they merely express their opinion to friends
and workmates; others engage in ‘chequebook participation’ by making
a donation to the organisation they want to support or the cause they
associate with. Groups, by usefully giving some citizens the means to
speak to policymakers, therefore play some role in representative
democracy (and can play an important role). Some groups seek to
conserve the status quo, but others seek to change existing policies or
challenge social and political structures. Such participation therefore
involves a combination of assent and dissent, with both activities being
both essential and beneficial for democratic governance.
Groups of various types, representing a vast range of issues, have long
been a fact of political life. Today, however, being better resourced,
increasingly professionalised and having modern means of
communications afforded by the internet and other forms of social
media, such groups can now, more than ever, ‘make present’ their
demands. How, then, when they ‘make present’ their demands are
interests made manifest? By what political mechanisms are they
organised? The key category here is that of the ‘representation’ of
interests and opinions. Thus, in addition to election outcomes and the
other ways by which public opinion is expressed, non-electoral forms
of political participation help liberal democracy function and secure the
responsiveness (or not) of the elected state to the citizens it governs.
Participation takes many forms, from lobbying to protest, but opinion
is often shaped and represented by:
. organised and professional interest, advocacy and pressure groups
. broader social and political movements which champion all sorts of
human claims.
Group activity champions various demands and communicates them in
various ways. This is because representative democracy cannot itself
107
ensure the state operates in the interest of society. The public may
elect – and, crucially, can replace – politicians, but interest and pressure
groups, alongside public opinion and the critical reportage of the news
media, help to check and balance government. Such groups, be they
large or small, professional or amateur, contribute to ‘national
conversations’ in both the UK and the US. They operate at the local,
national and international level and make all sorts of representative
claims in all manner of policy areas. They organise opinion, mobilise
elements of the public and, from time to time, make government
account for its actions and sometimes even change its behaviour.
If opinion matters, organised opinion, communicated effectively,
matters more. Campaigns and causes seek attention in many ways,
from mass protests or marches to discreet lobbying by professionalised
organisations. Groups of various types now penetrate ‘the corridors of
government and occupy the nooks and crannies of civil society … [T]
hey greatly complicate, and sometimes wrong-foot, the lives of
politicians, parties, legislatures and governments’ (Keane, 2009,
p. xxvii). Few groups lobby government because they are happy with
its record or wish to congratulate ministers and officials on their
achievements. Groups often loudly and continually complain to – and
about – government because their members – or the professionals they
employ – are angry with it and want it to ‘do something’ or to ‘stop
doing something’. This, for Keane, contributes to something he
describes as ‘monitory democracy’, where pressure groups – alongside
other forms of social organisations – are involved in ‘the continuous
chastening of those who exercise power’ (2009, p. xxvii). Such groups
thereby contribute to monitoring, perhaps controlling, power thus
enabling civil society to check and balance, sometimes to qualify (even
perhaps erode), the power of government. In contrast to the classic
concept of pressure groups as lobbyists of the state, such groups now
increasingly lobby the public, so embarrassing the state into action as a
secondary effect.
Groups chastise those who exercise power, persuade them of their
case, or challenge the case made by others. Thus groups and
movements can offer some form of check and balance to governing
elites; they can certainly require such elites to justify their actions and
can arraign them (and their practices) in front of the ‘court’ of ‘public
opinion’, thus perhaps influencing electoral behaviour. Interests can
compete with each other to influence the policymakers of the
hierarchical state. Political systems differently determine the access that
108
2 How groups participate in liberal democracies
groups are able to obtain to policymakers and the political or policy

impacts they can have, as the comparison between the UK and the US
in Section 5 demonstrates.
109
3 How cause groups are becoming

more popular
Contemporary politics is becoming more issue-led and such issues
increasingly focus on things like quality of life, human rights,
environmental protection, global justice, racial equality, and lesbian and
gay rights. The advocates of these issues are more likely to be young,
economically secure and well educated. ‘Old school’ professional
interests such as professional bodies and trade unions have long been
supplemented by ‘cause groups supported by reformist members of the
middle class’ (Grant, 2000, p. 33) which spoke out on issues such as
religious toleration, women’s suffrage, temperance and animal welfare.
Causes, however, increasingly lie at the heart of group activity. Vested
interests representing business continue, naturally, to exert a
considerable influence, not least because of business’ indispensable
economic role, but promotional groups have come further to the fore
in the past 30 or so years. Cause groups, described above as
promotional, pressure groups, have increased in number since the
1960s; they supplement older-style associational groups, but also
increasingly supplant them.
The growth of cause groups owes much to the successful work of
emergent social movements based upon ‘identity’ politics. Social
movements have traditionally formed around issues such as gender,
sexuality, disability, race, the pursuit of peace, and the defence of the
environment. They are, largely, radical movements which protest
against the status quo and argue to change it. Such movements are
socially liberal and tend to be of the left or strongly influenced by the
left. Having emerged (or, in the case of women’s rights, re-emerged) in
the 1960s in pursuit of a cultural politics beyond labour rights and
economic questions, cause groups have become an entrenched and
vital part of civic and political life. The social and civil rights that such
movements sought have won widespread support. Social movements
have therefore become an established, some say pervasive, feature of
contemporary political life. Of course, these social movements, while
innovative, should no longer be carelessly described as ‘new’. Feminist
politics, for instance, in different forms, have long been an established
feature of the political scene and arguments for gay equality have been
prominent in public discourses for over 30 years.
110
3 How cause groups are becoming more popular
Over time, social movements have exerted an indirect, exhortatory

influence over policymakers. They have explicitly rejected the
hierarchical, professionalised forms of pressure group activity focused
on elite-based, private petitioning. Instead they have embraced radical
forms of ‘in your face’ public campaigning, which subverted the
prevailing climate of opinion. Some social movements, by challenging
the status quo, have been more concerned with consciousness raising,
and only then with securing changes in public policy. Such tactics,
largely reflecting the political radicalism of the 1960s, were intended to
raise the consciousness of the ‘oppressed’ while rallying public opinion
at large. They were designed to challenge the elite, not merely speak to
them. Rights were not to be negotiated about or lobbied for, but to be
loudly and aggressively asserted. And, when won, these rights had to
be defended.
One example of a cause promoted by a social movement entering the
mainstream in both the UK and the US is the claim for gay equality.
This campaign prompted – but was also the beneficiary of – profound
changes in public attitudes toward different sexualities from the ‘norm’.
The case for gay rights ‘sprang’, it is said, ‘not from argument but
from attitude. Pleading had turned into demand’ (Parris, 2009).
Matthew Parris rightly argues that the securing of gay rights reflected ‘a
very, very gradual shift in informal and formal public attitudes in the
west that had been completely unanswered by any formal or legal
change’ (2009). These shifts in public opinion, brought about by the
individual and collective actions of lesbians and gay men, as well as
their heterosexual supporters, reflected the fact that public, organised
campaigns for gay equality were both cause and effect: ‘sails’, as Parris
colourfully suggests, ‘were put up to a gathering wind: they caught
energy; they got motion; and the momentum became
unstoppable’ (2009). In entering the mainstream some social
movements, as they have helped change the climate of opinion in their
favour, have professionalised themselves. One such UK group,
Stonewall, uses moderate, often discreet forms of lobbying in an effort
to persuade policymakers to support its case. For Stonewall, its
advocacy of gay rights requires it to be a professional organisation
operating in the mainstream. In addition to lobbying for legal change,
the organisation challenges the continuing cultural and attitudinal
values that allow discrimination to flourish by advising ‘the employers
of five million people, from IBM and Barclays to the Royal Navy’ on
gay issues (Summerskill, 2009). The campaign for gay equality suggests
that changing political attitudes and values is a multi-generational
111
strategy rather than something that can be fixed by legislation or a

short-term government initiative; change, pursued by groups and
movements, reflects a bottom-up, not a top-down approach.
3.1 Non-governmental organisations

Cause groups can also be seen at work in the form of non
governmental organisations (NGOs) which, working on a specific issue
or in a particular policy field, help supplement the work of the state.
NGOs are private, civil society organisations funded by themselves or
by the public, not public organisations funded directly by the state.
They are essentially private-interest associations concerned with
campaigning and propagandising for a particular purpose (Figure 1).
(a) (b) (c)
Figure 1 (a) Oxfam, (b) Amnesty International and (c) Greenpeace are all active and influential NGOs
NGOs are increasingly transnational. Examples include Greenpeace,

Oxfam, Amnesty International, Age UK, Save the Children, the Red
Cross and the Red Crescent. Their objective is to change public policy
(either to persuade governments to do something or to stop doing
something), usually by mobilising public opinion and putting pressure
on the established policy frameworks from the outside. They also,
working in their field of expertise, often do something themselves; for
instance, charities both collect and dispense developmental aid. NGOs
therefore speak directly to the problems of power, inequality and
difference. They can be ‘bottom-up’ organisations, speaking directly for
the disadvantaged and forgotten.
112
4 Groups and the state

In both the UK and the US, government is charged with steering the
state by making use of its fiscal reach and legal powers. The
government, subject to electoral opinion, governs hierarchically, but
has always to anticipate the likely reaction of the public and powerful
interest groups. The more powerful the interest, the more likely the
state is to respond to its claims. With occasional exceptions, however,
the relationship between groups and government is asymmetrical. This
is for the following reasons:
. Government possesses power and authority even if it possesses less
power than it did before. Citizens still consider it to be the
mechanism to deal with issues and resolve problems.
. Groups have thus to try to influence (or at the very least to shout
loudly at) government.
. Government, however, often decides which groups it wishes to
listen to or work with (or has to acknowledge).
In terms of policymaking, it is, in the final analysis, government that
decides because groups merely advise (or, in the case of some, despise
what government has done or intends to do). These groups have to
engage with traditional politics. The state – not least the government
charged with its affairs – remains – alongside national and international
economic and social processes – the ultimate arbiter of what happens
in the UK. Groups cannot ignore or bypass the state, but have instead
to try to persuade it, plead with it or challenge it to respond to their
issue or cause. They often use the media to publically make their case
and attract public support. Groups can also try to coerce the state.
Naturally not all groups are equal. Some are more powerful than
others. Groups are strong or weak, large or small, professional or
amateur. They can also be ‘elite’ or ‘non-elite’. Certain interest groups
can garner special privileges. They have better access to decision
makers and, if never guaranteed to have their interest advanced, they
are at least given a hearing within government. This is because certain
groups have particular access to power and influence; such groups may
be constituted by economic power, by personal wealth or by status.
Alternatively, they may be class based, sharing a common political and
cultural outlook. In liberal democratic societies these groups are
sometimes known as ‘the establishment’. For instance, business
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interests often have powers and privileges denied others, owing to the
central role the economy plays in the generation of the national wealth
on which both private and public life depends. In the context of both
the UK and the US, they involve those men (less often women) with
financial or industrial muscle who network with politicians, and those
in top administrative positions in the government and within the state.
One example of an elite group, then, would be top business people, a
kind of financial–industrial oligarchy, whose activity is to manage much
of the economic resources of a country (Figure 2). Economic clout,
personal ties and a shared cultural outlook means they wield a great
deal of power, perhaps unaccountable power. In addition, in as much
as they share convictions and similar outlooks with political elites, they
can influence – some would say unduly influence – political processes
as well.
Figure 2 Members of the New York Stock Exchange are one elite group
As we have seen, the means by which groups approach the state, the
modus operandi they choose, is structured by the prevailing political
system. Groups are invariably influenced by the status they have been
granted by – or have been able to demand from – government. Here
the following distinction between different types of associational or
promotional groups is useful:
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. An insider group is one that operates ‘inside’ the state and which
has its views sought out by government. They are included within
policymaking networks and communities and are frequently
consulted by government ministers and agency heads. For instance,
in the UK such insider groups include the British Medical
Association and the National Farmers’ Union, who make their
representations known directly by bargaining and negotiating with
policymakers, necessarily making concessions and compromises. In
the US, the American Medical Association, the American Federation
of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) and
the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America have
some similar access to policymakers, but few interests enjoy an
insider status.
. By contrast an outsider group is one not routinely consulted by
ministers or by agency heads. Instead they make representations,
should they choose to do so, indirectly and usually by mobilising
public support for their cause. Outsider groups, like Greenpeace
and Friends of the Earth, or human rights campaigners like Liberty
in the UK or the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in the US
jealously guard their independence. They are not prepared to make
concessions nor compromise on their policy demands.
Broadly speaking, promotional groups tend to be outsiders and
associational groups are more likely to be insiders. Promotional groups
have to be ‘popular’, but associational groups need not necessarily
reflect a ‘climate of opinion’; they need only be powerful or else
relevant to the governmental policy community.
4.1 Protest and dissent

For some outsider groups, especially radical groups influenced by the
politics of the far left or right, protest is a key activity. Those who seek
to challenge the state and oppose government policy often employ
strategies of dissent. The physical obstruction of public spaces or
chaining oneself to the railings outside public buildings has been a
feature of protest from the time of the women’s suffrage movement in
the early twentieth century, through to the peace movement of the
1950s to the 1980s, and protests by students, supporters and
opponents of abortion rights and disability activists in the 2000s. Such
groups tend to be less organisationally coherent and often involve a
collection of groups affiliated together as a social movement. Whereas
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most associational groups tend to accept the formal rules of political

participation and seek to change policies and laws by parliamentary
means, promotional groups, especially those involved in social
movements, are often more willing to engage in extra-parliamentary
action and even civil disobedience. The activity that groups engage in
is largely prompted by their attitude to the state:
. If the group accepts the legitimacy of the state, its ‘means’ (the way
in which it operates) and the ‘ends’ it seeks (the policies that it
pursues), its activities will be moderate, sober and supportive of the
political system.
. If the group accepts the legitimacy of the state and its ‘means’, but
objects to the ‘ends’ it seeks, its activities will be assertive and it
will seek, by ‘playing the game’, to change the system and the
policies it objects to either from the inside, by lobbying, or from
the outside, by campaigning and protesting.
. If the group rejects the legitimacy of the state and its ‘means’, and
objects to the ‘ends’ it seeks, its activities will be aggressive and it
will refuse to ‘play the game’ and seek only to change the system
and the policies it objects to from the outside, by campaigning and
protesting, by challenging both the means and the ends of the
political system, and by proposing alternative means and ends.
Not all groups pursue these three forms of activity, but radical protest
groups are much more likely to pursue the second and the third. These
forms of activity can involve actions beyond legality such as civil
disobedience, but such actions still reject the use of violence and the
illegality associated with activities such as terrorism. Most associational
and promotional groups accept (even if they question) the legitimacy
of the state, even when challenging its specific proposals. They have to
confine their activity to peaceful, non-violent and (mostly) lawful
means. Even the small protest groups most influenced by the far left,
which seek to subvert the status quo, invariably pursue reformist, not
revolutionary, objectives; they may work outside and around the state,
but they know they have not a chance of overthrowing the state.
Groups engaged in violent, extremist activity, like the loose, often
incoherent groups which associate themselves with Islamist extremism,
need to be studied under different, narrower criteria.
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5 How political systems affect groups and social movements
5 How political systems affect groups

and social movements
The UK still sits at the end of Lijphart’s scale, which distinguishes the
ideal-type majoritarian democratic system from its consensus
counterpart. UK politics is enacted within a majoritarian, power
hoarding democracy (Lijphart, 1999). Such a democracy, Lijphart
argues, has a pluralist interest-group system which features ‘a
competitive and uncoordinated pluralism of independent groups in
contrast with the coordinated and compromise-orientated system of
corporatism that is typical of the consensus model’ (1999, p. 171). In
the case of the UK, Flinders (2009) finds that this was not changed by
recent Labour governments which only lightly modified the
majoritarianism of the executive minded Westminster model. The US,
if it is largely a consensus, power-sharing democracy, exhibits elements
of majoritarianism in terms of its electoral system and its competitive,
uncoordinated and wholly pluralistic interest-group universe. Groups
matter in the US and they can play the system more effectively than
groups can in the UK. This is because groups and movements
advocating interests and claims have to operate within the prevailing
political structures thrown up by the political system. And so, because
the political systems in operation in the UK and the US are so
different, then the modus operandi of both groups and movements
differs significantly in the UK and the US.
Accessing the state – and having the state respond to claims – in the
UK and the US is very different for the following reasons:
. The US has a federal, presidential political system, while the UK
has a unitary, parliamentary system.
. The US Congress is independent of the US executive, but the UK
Parliament is much more subservient to the UK executive.
. US elections are much more expensive to fight than UK elections,
so US politicians are more receptive to certain interests and claims.
. Paid, professional lobbyists can wield considerable power in the US
Congress, but their UK counterparts are far less influential.
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. The US has a ‘fixed’ constitution often preventing government

from doing things, whereas the UK has a ‘flexible’ constitution
enabling government to do things.
5.1 The US has a federal and the UK a unitary

political system
The US, being a federal, presidential polity, offers a great many
opportunities for interest groups to access the system. The US divides
governmental power two ways: first, vertically between all 50 states of
the union and the federal government which represents all the states;
second, horizontally within the federal government (and each of the
state governments) by separating the powers of the presidency, the
Congress and the Supreme Court (the executive, the legislature and the
judiciary), so enabling each branch of government to check and
balance each other. Interest groups can thus seek to influence each or
all of the three branches of the federal government (and those of the
50 states). From the local to the national, the state to the federal level,
there are therefore numerous points by which groups can access the
system. A Californian interest group, say, can lobby the California
governor and representatives at the state level in the State House of
Representatives and the State Senate; it can lobby the mayors and
assembly persons of cities and towns; or it can approach the chief
executives of counties and local governments. At the federal level, the
group can approach California’s two US senators and 53 US
congressmen. The group can then lobby the relevant part of the
executive branch or, should it seek to have the federal government
intervene in a Californian matter, it can try to influence the other 383
members of the US House of Representatives or the other 98
members of the US Senate.
In contrast, within the UK’s unitary, parliamentary system there are far
fewer access points for interest groups. Scottish, Welsh and Northern
Irish devolution has created new forums within which groups can
operate, but the reach of these forums only encompasses some 15 per
cent of the UK population and often their policy competences lend
little to groups. Whitehall (the executive) and Westminster (the
legislature) remain the focus of attention for those groups seeking to
speak for the remaining 85 per cent of Britons (alongside the
European Union where it is granted competence by its member states).
Local government, beyond lesser, local issues, does not count. Groups
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in the UK (beyond those exclusively operating in Scotland, Wales and

Northern Ireland), have to seek access at Whitehall and Westminster.
There are therefore far fewer points by which to access the state in the
UK compared to the US.
5.2 The US Congress is independent of the

government, but the UK Parliament is much more
subservient to the government
The US presidential system restricts the power of the president by
empowering an independent and powerful Congress. Groups can lobby
both the proactive House of Representatives and the Senate, which are,
unlike in the UK, separate from, and independent of, the government.
They can lobby congressman and senators alike, secure in the
knowledge that these elected officials can respond to their concerns
and, if supportive and sufficiently senior, take up their case.
With the House of Commons being a much more important lawmaker
than the Lords, there is in the UK essentially only one really effective
legislative chamber for interest groups to lobby; the Lords is a revising
chamber with far less impact on public policy, which has fewer
opportunities to hold the government to account. However, because
the UK government, unlike the US presidency, makes use of its
parliamentary majority to pursue its legislative programme according to
its chosen timetable, the Commons is a reactive, not a proactive,
legislature. Government, by means of its Commons majority, is in
charge of lawmaking. This means that MPs, being divided into
frontbench and backbench, opposition and government, are less well
placed than the more autonomous, independent US senator or
congressman to help a group advance its cause by making law. Unlike
the US minority legislator, whose support is often needed to make law
in the US Congress, the opposition backbench Westminster MP can at
best only raise or state the interest group’s case, not pass laws on its
behalf. Ministers, not MPs, tend to make the most important decisions.
In the US, interest groups can have congressmen and senators enact
laws on their behalf; or, more pertinently, they can have them stymie
efforts by their critics to act against their interest by preventing them
from acting.
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5.3 US elections are much more expensive to fight

than UK elections
The US and the UK differ considerably in the way groups use money
to highlight their interest or cause by influencing electoral politics.
Interests and causes have less opportunity to enter the electoral arena
in the UK in comparison with the US. Campaign finance is the
lifeblood of the US election campaign; candidates and campaigns have
to raise a great deal of money to be elected. In 2008 the average
House race cost the winning candidate some $1.1 million and a Senate
race cost $6.5 million. Candidates for all parties collectively raised and
spent $1.6 billion. In their race for the presidency in 2008, Barack
Obama raised and spent $533 million and John McCain, $379 million.
At the 2005 UK election, in stark contrast, £41 million was spent by
the political parties, £1.7 million by third parties such as campaign
groups and £14 million by individual candidates. The average
parliamentary candidate locally spent just under £4000 (Electoral
Commission, 2006). At the 2010 UK general election, total reported
national campaign expenditure by all political parties across the UK
was £31.5 million, and 33 registered campaign groups spent a reported
total of £2.8 million (Electoral Commission, 2010). By contrast, the US
federal elections in 2012 saw some $7 billion spent by candidates,
parties and outside groups; it was estimated that candidates spent
about $3.2 billion of the total $7 billion, parties spent another $2
billion and other outside political committees spent more than $2.1
billion (Politico, 2013).
Elections are expensive in the US. Candidates and campaigns need to
raise vast sums of money from both citizens and from interests. In
October 2014, CBS News reported that in the US federal elections in
2014, ‘Republicans and conservative-leaning groups are expected to
narrowly outpace their counterparts on the left, spending a projected
$1.92 billion to the Democrats’ and progressives’ $1.76 billion.
Combined with over $300 million in administrative costs on both sides,
the final tally should be just under $4 billion’.
Spending such vast sums of money is not possible in the UK. Party
finance is tightly regulated by law. Parties are prevented from buying
paid television advertisements, so they need not seek such funds to
expend. Interests in the US are able, legally, to funnel money to US
parties and candidates in large measure. They need not necessarily ‘buy’
a candidate, merely reward those who agree with their cause (opposing
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those candidates who do not), ensuring their cause is promoted by

their favoured candidate. This cannot happen in UK elections, and it
gives interests an ‘in’ with candidates and campaigns.
5.4 Paid, professional lobbyists can wield

considerable power in the US Congress, but their
UK counterparts are far less influential
In the US, professional lobbyists are ‘guns for hire’ for special
interests, boasting an unrivalled insider knowledge of the political
system. They identify – and help exploit – entry into that system by
facilitating exchanges between companies, interests and politicians.
They themselves form a multi-million-dollar industry. When President
Obama and Congress were reforming health care in 2009, health care
industry groups were estimated to spend $1.4 million per day to lobby
members of Congress on health care reform (Common Cause, 2009);
some $3.5 billion in total was spent by US lobbyists in 2009.
In the UK, however, if the number of professional lobbyists has
increased recently, employing some 14,000 people (compared to the
90,000 or so people who are paid to influence the US federal
government), lobbyists have far less power or purchase than their US
counterparts. They do not spend such sums of money and, because
they cannot access campaigns and candidates in the way that US
lobbyists and interests do, they do not exert anything remotely like the
clout of their more powerful US counterparts. UK lobbyists target
policymakers indirectly by means of the news media. They usually take
the form of public relations firms or public affairs consultants, such as
Weber Shandwick, Portland Communications and Bell Pottinger. Most
large-scale corporate concerns, while prepared to seek advice from
public relations professionals, usually have their own in-house lobbying
arm. Cause groups rarely, if ever, use professional lobbyists largely
because funds are tight and they also prefer to lobby themselves. UK
political lobbyists, while growing in influence, remain relatively small
beer compared to those in the US.
Lobbying scandals in the UK usually involve former MPs seeking to
make money on their past connections. In 2010 three former Labour
ministers, Patricia Hewitt, Stephen Byers and Geoff Hoon, were caught
on film attempting to parley their cabinet experience into consultancy
cash. Of course no real consultancy, only a bogus one set up for a
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television sting, would wish to make use of ex-Labour MPs when a

Conservative government was expected to be elected. It is also hard to
see what pay-off an interest or cause could get by hiring a lobbyist to
lobby sitting MPs (as opposed to lobbying ministers and officials).
Their issue would be raised, but the UK parliament, because it
processes the legislative agenda set by the government (even by a
coalition government), is reactive, not proactive. By themselves,
shackled by the pro- or anti-government partisanship which pervades
all aspects of the work of the Commons, MPs cannot make law in the
way their US counterparts can.
Concern has been expressed about the influence of UK lobbyists and
public affairs consultancies, but while greater regulation and
transparency is needed, there are few concrete examples of access
leading to influence. It is naturally difficult to offer a definitive
judgement when lobbying takes place privately and discreetly. The
attempt in 1997 to exempt Formula One from the initial ban on
tobacco advertising owed more to Labour rewarding a financial donor
than to lobbying on behalf of Bernie Ecclestone, chief executive of the
Formula One Group. In contrast, US political watchers can cite
numerous examples of political scandal arising from the interface of
lobbyists, interests and members of Congress; several have gone to jail
for taking bribes in return for providing favours. In the UK the
biggest, most significant ethical scandal affecting the House of
Commons, the 2009 furore over MPs’ expenses aside, was when two
Conservative MPs were paid money to ask questions in parliament
in 1994. They were paid simply to ask questions, note, not to provide
the preferred answer to a question. This, it is safe to say, is a state of
affairs US ethics advocates can only dream about and something which
would make most US lobbyists and their clients (and some past and
present members of Congress) laugh.
5.5 The US has a ‘fixed’ constitution stopping

government from doing things, whereas UK has a
‘flexible’ constitution enabling government to do
things
The US system is engineered to limit the power of government.
Government is prevented by the US constitution from abridging
certain legal rights, so interest and pressure groups can seek to pursue
122
their interests by trying to enforce citizens’ rights in federal and state

courts. Congress and the president might, conceivably, say, enact law to
ban the private ownership of guns, but lawyers instructed by the
National Rifle Association (Figure 3) would challenge this in the
Supreme Court, which would have to uphold the second amendment
of the US constitution – providing the right to bear arms – by
overturning the law. Groups can ‘lawyer up’ and make use of the law
in the US. By doing this, interest groups can stop things from
happening.
Figure 3 Gun ownership – a right enshrined by the US constitution – is

defended by the National Rifle Association, which lobbies on behalf of gun
owners and enthusiasts
In the UK, however, it is parliament, being unable to bind its

successor, which makes and unmakes the law – the requirements of
EU membership aside. Courts can only interpret parliamentary intent
where it is unclear or contradictory; they are not involved in making
law, so interest groups have much less opportunity to use the courts to
insist upon their rights. This has changed significantly in recent years
thanks largely to the Human Rights Act (HRA) of 1998. UK advocacy
groups campaigning for civil liberties and human rights can now use
the rights set out in the HRA to have the courts overturn government
policy. Lawyers working with human rights groups have been able to
challenge the use of control orders to deal with suspected terrorists
123
and have successfully opposed the government’s right to deport

terrorists to places where they could be in danger of mistreatment. In
July 2010, Medical Justice, which provides medical and legal advice to
people facing removal, persuaded the High Court to declare unlawful
the fast-track deportation of foreign nationals refused permission to
remain in the UK. This is because the HRA asserts the human rights
set out in the Act, which are interpreted equally to apply to citizens,
residents and aliens, and so establishes the higher standard to which
the courts can hold all other statute law and any governmental
decisions. UK courts, lacking the ultimate political authority possessed
by their US counterparts, have thus recently been provided with
powers regarding human rights which UK promotional groups have
been quick to use.
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6 Groups have both positive and negative impacts
6 Groups have both positive and

negative impacts
The political system provides the playing field on which groups – of
whichever kind – operate. UK and US groups therefore have different
ways of operating. The UK government now, especially in regard to
routine policymaking and implementation, works within and through a
series of small networks in Whitehall and Westminster, supplemented
by networks in Edinburgh, Cardiff, Belfast and Brussels. UK interest
groups have therefore to try to enter – or at the very least influence –
these networks by seeking out and making use of the few entry points
that enable access to the political system. Groups and movements
clearly have less opportunity to access the state in the UK compared to
the US. The opportunity for UK groups to influence and effect,
therefore owes much to the UK political system, while also being
heavily influenced by the salience of the group’s issue. There are far
more entry points enabling interest groups to access the US political
system than there are in the UK. This is because the US political
system, being more diffuse, is far more porous.
All sorts of US interests, each of which can counterbalance the other,
can enter the political system. With so many actors involved in the US
legislative process at so many levels of government, different groups
can seek access and so block each other from the pursuit of their
interest. For instance, in the case of the issue of abortion, for every
pro-choice lobby there is a pro-life lobby, and those who advocate for
the right to own a gun face off against supporters of gun control; each
group has their cheerleaders in Congress and in the state assemblies.
This reinforces the US propensity for gridlock and deadlock because it
makes it harder for things to happen.
It is harder to enact political change in the US compared to the UK.
This is especially so because groups are empowered by the Bill of
Rights and the ability of the courts to act politically in upholding and
enforcing such constitutional rights. Groups might therefore have less
access to government in the UK than in the US, but if they obtain
access, they can arguably exert more pressure on government. It may
be harder to get into the closed system in the UK, but the interest
group, if it can successfully persuade ministers or officials to support
its cause, will usually find redress of some form forthcoming.
125
Groups, whether promotional or associational, have become important

actors in liberal democracies. As such they have both positive and
negative effects on politics. Clearly groups enable citizens to participate
in politics, especially for the vast majority of citizens who are not
members of political parties (and participation may take active forms
such as attending a demonstration (Figure 4) or more passive forms
such as chequebook participation). Since parties no longer effectively
integrate citizens into the political system, groups and movements have
become more important. Groups often have access to the detailed
information that is crucial to policymakers who devise policies and
initiatives that will achieve desired objectives. These groups are
consulted, for they provide useful channels of communication for
governments. Such groups specialise in particular policy areas,
acquiring a substantial level of expertise which can improve policy
proposals and propose alternatives. They can also keep a close check
on the activities of governments in areas of policy and administration
that affect their members or are relevant to the cause they promote.
They can act as whistleblowers and draw attention to the unintended
consequences of specific policy proposals.
Figure 4 Public demonstrations are usually the most obvious form of non
electoral participation
Groups have a varying amount of influence and some sections of

society are more adequately represented than others. Groups
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6 Groups have both positive and negative impacts
representing business and professional interests are exceptionally

influential, while those representing consumers, the unemployed and
migrants are usually less influential (as a result of organisational factors,
it is easier to coordinate manufacturing organisations than consumers).
Group leaders are usually appointed rather than elected. In addition,
the decision making of pressure groups often lacks transparency and
the leaders rarely have to justify their actions to their members or the
wider public. Thus a group may claim to speak for (or represent)
citizens (or rather groups of citizens), but often the group speaks more
for itself. Participation rates in group activities are not always as
inclusive or as representative as they might seem. Participation is often
confined to the well educated and the economically comfortable, not
the lesser educated and the poor. Groups are, some suggest,
increasingly organised ‘for’ citizens, but are not ‘of ’ citizens (Stoker,
2006, p. 105). The increasing professionalisation of associational and
promotional groups means political activity is more likely to be the
preserve of professional activists, not interested or concerned citizens.
Groups can too often encourage the prioritisation of ego-tropic
considerations (‘This suits me; it is what I want or need’) not build
support for socio-tropic considerations (‘This benefits society; it is in
our interest’).
As a result, groups can further reduce the trust other citizens have in
the representative democracy, particularly in regard to government’s
capacity to deal with the causes they care about and deliver the goods
they need. This is because associational and (especially) promotional
groups can, as Peters et al. argue, increase ‘the demands made on the
political system to deliver without aiding any understanding of the
need to balance competing demands’ (2009, p. 331). They can,
therefore, raise expectations which might not be met. If so,
disappointment can lead to disillusionment when groups generate
public complaint that government is incompetent, indifferent, non
responsive or uncaring (and perhaps downright venal). If government
cannot – for whatever reason – respond constructively and positively
to the group’s demands or needs, interest and pressure group activity
may, conversely, further encourage political disengagement.
127
7 Conclusion
Groups strive to capture the attention of policymakers. UK groups try
to ‘push’ policymakers in their preferred direction from outside of
Whitehall and Westminster rather than ‘pull’ them in it from inside; US
groups do both. Of course, because such groups are better resourced
than before in terms of their work, they increasingly push or pull
loudly and more and more vociferously. Nonetheless, in both the UK
and the US, such groups make some significant contribution, according
to John Keane, to the monitory mechanisms which help ‘call into
question the abuse of state and corporate power across borders. The
global uproars that accompanied the American invasion of Iraq, and
the devastation of the Gulf of Mexico caused by the criminal
negligence of BP, are pertinent examples of monetary democracy in
action’ (Keane, 2010, p. 6). One might ponder whether, as the left
suggest, it is only ‘state and corporate power’ which merits monitoring,
but the monitoring of government by groups clearly has the
considerable potential to impact the ways in which we do politics. Such
groups tend, however, to be self-selecting and they can often lean, in
the UK (if not in the US), toward the liberal end of the spectrum;
their causes are invariably selective. Groups can, by usefully giving
some citizens the means to speak to policymakers, advantage
representative democracy, but they can also help further reduce the
trust other citizens have in the representative democracy, particularly in
regard to government’s capacity to deal with the causes they care about
and deliver the goods they need.
128
References
References
CBS News (2014) ‘2014 midterm election projected to be most expensive
ever’, October 23 [Online]. Available at www.cbsnews.com/news/2014
midterm-election-projected-to-be-most-expensive-ever/ (Accessed 4
November 2014).
Common Cause (2009) ‘Legislating under the influence’ [Online]. Available at
www.commoncause.org/press/press-releases/legislating-under-the-influence.
html (Accessed 20 August 2014).
Electoral Commission (2006) ‘Details of general election 2005 campaign
spending published’ [Online]. Available at /www.electoralcommission.org.uk/i
am-a/journalist/electoral-commission-media-centre/news-releases-corporate/
details-of-general-election-2005-campaign-spending-published? (Accessed 20
August 2014).
Electoral Commission (2010) UK General Election 2010: Campaign Spending
Report [Online]. Available at www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/
pdf_file/0011/109388/2010-UKPGE-Campaign-expenditure-report.pdf
(Accessed 20 October 2014).
Flinders, M. V. (2009) Democratic Drift: Majoritarian Modification and
Democratic Anomie in the United Kingdom, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Grant, W. (2000) Pressure Groups and British Politics, London, Palgrave
Macmillan.
Keane, J. (2009) The Life and Death of Democracy, London, Simon and
Schuster.
Keane, J. (2010) ‘Bridget Cotter interviews John Keane’ [Online]. Available at
http://johnkeane.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/csd-bulletin-volume-17
Jk_15-qxd.pdf (Accessed 4 November 2014).
Lijphart, A. (1999) Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in
Thirty-Six Countries, New Haven, Yale University Press.
Parris, M. (2009) ‘Are we over the rainbow’, The Times, 27 June.
Peters, B. G., Pierre, J. and Stoker, G. (2009) Debating Institutionalism,
Manchester, Manchester University Press.
Politico (2013) ‘$7 billion spent on 2012 campaign, FEC says’ [Online].
Available at www.politico.com/story/2013/01/7-billion-spent-on-2012
campaign-fec-says-87051.html (Accessed 20 October 2014).
Stoker, G. (2006) Why Politics Matters: Making Democracy Work, London,
Palgrave Macmillan.
Summerskill, B. (2009) ‘Why I quit the new human rights and equality
watchdog’, The Times, 27 July.
129
Block 5
Thinking globally
Chapter 17
The globalisation of world
politics
Edward Wastnidge
Contents
1 Introduction 135
2 The world of states 137
3 Globalisation 142
3.1 Economic globalisation 142
3.2 Political globalisation 145
3.3 Cultural globalisation 146
3.4 The globalisation debate: myth or reality? 147
4 How do we understand world politics?
Approaches from International Relations theory 150
4.1 Realism 150
4.2 Liberalism 152
4.3 Constructivism 154
5 International Relations theory and globalisation 157
5.1 Realism 157
5.2 Liberalism 158
5.3 Constructivism 159
6 Conclusion 160
References 161
1 Introduction
1 Introduction
If we think about what politics means globally, a political map of the
world might be a good starting point, highlighting a world divided into
the states that many today will identify as major political actors on the
world stage. Maps have of course been used for millennia – from the
first Babylonian world map, to those charting the far-flung territories
of colonial empires that still have echoes on today’s political map of
the world – taking different forms to explain the relationship between
a location and the world around it. But what about things that are not
mapped so easily? In your own lifetime you will have seen how the
world has changed around you – for example, the development of
communications technology means that habits, customs and ideas are
all now far more interconnected. By way of explanation, this chapter
draws attention to the notion of globalisation and invites you to think
about the term and its applicability to the study of global politics.
Globalisation, at its simplest, can be seen as the process that has led to
an increasingly interconnected world, one in which global rather than
purely national perspectives are increasingly important. Therefore are
we living in a world purely defined by the states that make up its
political units and the international relations between those states, or
are other actors and relationships just as important? These other actors
and relationships can range from areas such as human rights and the
related activities of campaign groups and ‘international’ non
governmental organisations (iNGOs) such as Amnesty International, to
the role and influence of transnational companies in the global
economy, to global terrorism in its various guises.
This chapter begins with an exploration of how the current system of
nation states came into being. It then explores the idea of globalisation,
looking at its political, economic and cultural aspects, before
highlighting the contested nature of the term itself. It then looks at
one way in which we can understand and analyse global politics,
introducing three key theoretical traditions within International
Relations (IR) – realism, liberalism and constructivism – which are
used as explanatory frameworks to help us make better sense of the
complexities in extrapolating the study of politics up to the global
level. Finally, we return to the notion of globalisation and this time
approach it through the different lenses of IR theory to show how
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Chapter 17 The globalisation of world politics
these approaches can aid our understanding of a sometimes contested

idea, or process, that characterises global politics.
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2 The world of states

When looking at today’s world political map (Figure 1), we can see
that, on the face of it at least, it is a world made up of states. These
are sovereign entities that in the classic explanation of German
sociologist and political thinker Max Weber (1919, p. 78) are defined as
‘a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the
legitimate use of physical force within a given territory’. The state has
instruments to enforce such a monopoly, such as a police force or
military, and importantly it derives its legitimacy to do so from the
people it governs. The notion of a given territory is key here, too, as
the state claims to be dominant (it claims to say what goes) within a
defined territory, or within a country’s borders. The conventional view
in studies of international politics refers back to the Peace of
Westphalia in 1648 as the starting point for the international system we
recognise today, with sovereign states at its core. The Peace of
Westphalia was the result of treaties negotiated by states that had
previously formed part of the Holy Roman Empire to gain absolute
sovereignty. The treaties that led to the ‘Westphalian system’ contained
a range of stipulations given to the political units that we would
recognise today as crucial to a modern state, namely the rights to
declare war and peace, make laws, keep a standing army, and make new
alliances without the consent of the Emperor (Elden, 2014, p. 228).
Essentially states were left alone to do as they pleased within their
borders. From this point, starting with Britain and France, the
sovereign entities of Europe become increasingly nationalised, which
saw political identity and loyalty fixed to the state, and increasing
competition between national entities, as states sought to secure their
positions economically and militarily vis-à-vis their rivals.
The colonial empires of the European powers were characterised by
interconnectedness, not only with their far-flung imperial possessions
scattered around the globe, but also with each other, be it through war
or alliance against common foes. This international interconnectedness
may go back even further, though, as the empires of ancient Rome,
Greece and Persia (to name but three) all rose and fell on the basis of
their connections with other places, be they through trade or war.
From around the time of the Peace of Westphalia, European powers
began to dominate the globe on account of their trade and economic
wealth, military technology and sophisticated ideas that saw the
emergence of capitalist modernity. By this we mean the emergence and
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Figure 1 World political map, 2014
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ultimate success of industrial capitalism and the combination of

scientific, civic and territorial developments that led to the nation state
as we recognise it today.
Thus we come to the world of ‘nation states’ that is displayed on the
world political map. The states that make up the map above only tell
part of the story, though. Certainly, it would be wrong to assume that
all the states are hermetically sealed entities, devoid of contact with the
world around them – despite the sometimes extreme efforts of
dictators and despots who have pockmarked world history. The
colonial empires of the European powers, such as those of Britain,
France and Spain, were characterised by their exploratory zeal and
desire to find new lands and map the world. Commerce was key to
their expansion and the subsequent defence of imperial realms,
something that was aided by the advances in technology throughout
the Industrial Revolution. States had started competing in a global
economy, and were intent on expanding their colonial possessions as a
means of securing their national wealth. Figure 2 shows how global
commercial interests were crucial in Britain’s thinking during colonial
times; the annotations detail the resources available from each colonial
possession for the use and ultimate benefit of the home country. Areas
of the globe that were not part of the empire at the time are also
marked out as either great potential markets, as in the case of China,
or as hostile, owing to the imposition of high tariffs on exports from
there, as in the case of the US, or because of their potential designs on
Britain’s own imperial possessions, such as with Russia’s ‘advance on
India’. This shows us that despite their national focus, the local needs
of a country such as the UK have long coexisted with wider global
influences and pressures.
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Figure 2 Colonial-era map of the British Empire from Library and Archives Canada, 1906
The experiences of European colonialism, happening alongside the

Industrial Revolution, can be seen as an important precursor to the
phenomenon that we understand today as globalisation. The
technological advances in transport from the mid-nineteenth century,
the increased cultural interactions that were enabled by this ease of
transportation and advancements in communications, and the
development of a global economic system can all be seen as features of
contemporary globalisation. Furthermore, the rise of US economic and
military power following the two world wars led to the subsequent
dominance of global capitalism. The Cold War, which pitted the US
and its allies in the West against the communist Soviet Union and its
own allied states, temporarily checked the march of global capitalism,
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but with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 global capitalism became
the predominant economic model and a key engine of globalisation.
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3 Globalisation
You may well have come across the term ‘globalisation’ before, perhaps
in your previous studies or in debates across the media, but what do
we actually mean by the term? Held et al. (1999) provide a useful
definition to start with, stating that ‘Globalisation may be thought of
initially as the widening, deepening and speeding up of worldwide
interconnectedness in all aspects of contemporary social life, from the
cultural to the criminal, the financial to the spiritual’. As such,
economic, political and social activities are no longer confined to the
local or even national level, rather they have expanded to become
organised and understood at the global level, too. As a result, recent
decades have arguably seen an intensification of economic integration
and the reinforcement of what we can term a ‘global market economy’,
a rise in the activities and influence of transnational corporations
(TNCs), and the development of a global communications
infrastructure that has enabled a proliferation of non-state actors to
connect and influence developments in world politics. One only has to
look at the activities of non-governmental organisations and other
actors, from activist groups such as Greenpeace to terrorist groups like
al-Qaeda, to see how this has enabled organisation on a global scale.
We will now take a look at some different aspects of globalisation and
how they are important to the study of global politics, starting with
perhaps the most influential, that of economic globalisation.
3.1 Economic globalisation

‘Money makes the world go round’, or so the old adage goes, and this
is a suitable starting point for looking at a key theme of, and what is
arguably the driving force behind, contemporary globalisation. The
interdependence and the interconnectedness of national economies,
and their susceptibility to the boom and bust of the global market
economy, is often cited as a primary example of globalisation. The
term interdependence is often used in this context as a means of
denoting the mutual dependence between states in the global economic
system (Keohane and Nye, 1977). This interdependence combined with
increasing interconnectedness has led to a world in which borders have
become increasingly porous.
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The global economy is also one of international institutions, upholding

the liberal economic order that was led by the US in the midst of and
following the Second World War. The 44 nations that made up the
soon-to-be-victorious allied powers met in 1944 at Bretton Woods in
the US to plan a new, liberal world economic order, which would have
free trade and monetary stability at its core. This was in contrast to the
previously dominant ‘protectionist’ tendency of national economies,
whereby states protected their economies through high tariffs and trade
barriers. The agreements that were put in place sought to avoid further
conflict, rebuild Europe’s shattered economies and avoid another Great
Depression. Two key institutions emerged from these meetings: the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. The IMF was
originally tasked with promoting international monetary cooperation
and exchange rate stability, and has gone on to become one of the
main institutions offering financial assistance to developing countries
and economies in difficulty. Its member states contribute a quota to
the institution relative to the size of their economies. The World Bank,
initially named the International Bank for Reconstruction and
Development, was set up to aid post-war reconstruction, and now
concentrates on providing financial aid for developing countries.
Another feature of what would become known as the ‘Bretton Woods
system’ was the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT),
which was set up as a forum for trade liberalisation negotiations. This
was replaced by the World Trade Organization (WTO), which was
formed in 1994 and acts as the main international organisation that
facilitates global free trade.
The above are all institutions of a liberal economic system that has
historically been led by the US. They can be seen as helping to
stimulate economic globalisation through their adherence to breaking
down trade barriers and thus stimulating the increasing
interdependence among states. This has been further aided by
advancements in transport, such as air travel and the use of shipping
containers, which fostered greater interconnectedness and the transport
of ever-increasing volumes of goods globally. The digitalisation of
communication and monetary transactions has also helped speed up
the pace of global economic interconnectivity. Transnational companies
are another key feature of economic globalisation; one only has to look
at the preponderance of international brands and their symbols that
span the globe, from McDonald’s to Adidas, to see how companies
now have a global reach.
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Proponents of the global market economy point to the economic

growth that this form of globalisation has stimulated. However, such
developments can also lead to inequality. Interdependence does not
necessarily mean an equal relationship, and in the global capitalist
system there will always be winners and losers. During the 1970s, the
perceived imbalance in favour of developed nations fuelled discontent
among developing countries, which wanted greater representation in
world economic institutions and a fairer trading system. This was
followed by the rise of the neo-liberal agenda in the 1980s, which
prescribed further free trade liberalisation, deregulation of markets, and
privatisation of nationalised industries. As this agenda gained currency
among developed nations, the international financial institutions
followed suit, attaching stringent conditions to membership and for
access to their loans, which further increased inequality in developing
nations that were reliant on Western-backed financial institutions.
The perception of growing inequality has been one of the key
platforms for the anti-globalisation movement. While hard to define, as
it combines a wide range of different activist groups holding various
positions and political allegiances, the anti-globalisation movement’s
overall aims are to redress the perceived imbalances of global
capitalism. The global financial institutions such as the IMF and the
World Bank are seen as tools of the powerful, promoting corporate
interests and increasing inequality. In their defence, these institutions
claim that they are aiding development through their commitment to
free markets, pointing to the increases in income, decline on poverty
and increased access to basic necessities.
The global economic crisis of 2007–08 further brought into focus the
power of the global financial elite that had long been the target of the
anti-globalisation movement. The role of banks and perceived
complicity of governments that had allowed unsustainable levels of
debt to build up became the focus of the globally networked Occupy
movement. This group chose the slogan ‘We are the 99%’ in response
to the consolidation of wealth by the global financial elite.
While the primary force behind globalisation has been an economic
one, there have also been other currents of globalisation, namely
political and cultural, which we will now briefly look at in turn.
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3.2 Political globalisation

Politics has traditionally been associated with nation states and their
respective political systems, with responsibility for the security and
welfare falling to national governments. However, states no longer have
a monopoly on the way the world and its economy is governed. As
economic, environmental and other issues become global in scope, so
too do attempts to manage them, which has meant that states have
increasingly acted in cooperation with one another through
intergovernmental organisations such as the United Nations (UN) (and
the IMF and World Bank as mentioned previously), and regional
groupings such as the European Union (EU). The proliferation of
iNGOs can also be seen as forming part of a process of political
globalisation. Groups such as Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund
are political actors on the world stage in their own right, lobbying
governments on causes and seeking to change or enact certain policies
– something that once was the sole preserve of national governments.
We can identify three areas of political globalisation, which will crop
up again as you work through this block:
. intergovernmental institutions – such as the EU, UN and WTO –
which involve states pooling their sovereignty and cooperating with
each other
. cooperation over human rights and humanitarian intervention –
such as through the UN Declaration of Human Rights, affiliated
UN bodies and peacekeeping missions – and adherence to
international law agreements
. non-state actors – such as iNGOs – including local and
transnational networks campaigning on a range of issues from the
environment to human rights, and terrorist networks.
Political aspects of globalisation can be seen as ‘the extension of
political power and political activity beyond the boundaries of the
modern nation-state’ (Held et al., 1999, p. 49), hence we can see a
move from a system of territorialised nation states to one of global
governance. To speak of global governance does not mean a ‘world
government’ in terms of a single political authority for the world;
rather it points to the importance of transnational institutions and the
relationships between them. Therefore global governance can be
thought of more as a cooperative endeavour that involves a multiplicity
of actors on the world stage and their responses to global issues. An
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example might be on an issue such as the environment, where states

may cooperate within intergovernmental institutions such as the UN
and with non-governmental organisations to tackle a shared, global
problem.
3.3 Cultural globalisation

Advances in information technology and international travel have
provided the means for people and cultures to interact in ways that
were not possible just 50 years ago. This has enabled a diffusion of
cultures across the globe seen through symbols and global media
operations, to name but two. Symbols of globalisation are often
equated with Western, primarily US-led, companies and cultural
products. Such predominance could lead us to question whether this is
globalisation or in fact Americanisation. This is tied in with the
continuing dominance of a liberal economic order and associated
practices of a consumer lifestyle. But is cultural globalisation a purely
one-way street? Critics might point to the increasing homogenisation,
or coming together of popular culture in which the West remains
dominant. However, there is a paradox at the heart of cultural
globalisation in the sense that the tools that have enabled this
homogenisation to occur (i.e. communication technology and global
media) also help us understand the heterogeneous or divergent strands
of different global cultures. One only has to look at the different
international news channels that broadcast in the UK, such as Al-
Jazeera and Russia Today, to see how different perspectives on
developments in the world are now accessible. Also, one can point to
an associated process of globalisation – that of ‘glocalisation’. This is
where particular local characteristics are simultaneously incorporated
into universalising or globalising tendencies. An example might be seen
in the way that a global fast-food chain adapts its menu to serve local
tastes in different parts of the world, or a business may tailor its
advertising to appeal to local cultural norms.
Migration has also played a major role in cultural globalisation.
International migrants can be seen as important agents in enabling
globalisation owing to the networks they create between their places of
origin and subsequent settlement. Migration has been further enabled
by the proliferation of cheaper air travel between countries. A typical
UK city might now offer a whole range of foods from around the
globe, have shops selling Chinese medicine, and host concerts of
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3 Globalisation
international performers. Therefore we are exposed to a range of

global cultures that can help us challenge the assumption that the
world is moving towards a consumer-led, Western-inspired norm.
Indeed, there is a long tradition of resistance to perceived Western
cultural imperialism. This can be seen in countries such as Iran, where
Western satellite broadcasts have been officially banned by the state for
fear of promoting un-Islamic cultural norms. However, the ban is
widely ignored, and broadcasts – such as by BBC Persian – from
Iranian diaspora communities in the West, many of whom are living in
exile, have a wide audience within Iran.
Social media has also played a significant role in bringing global events
to wider public attention. Such advances in communications
technology allow ever greater exposure to things that may once have
seemed far off and distant but are now brought to us in real time. This
has allowed once disparate groups to find common cause and share
ideas, and techniques, for political action. The Occupy movement, for
example, was influenced by the actions of protesters taking part in the
Arab Spring, and found common cause with them, despite their having
differing agendas.
3.4 The globalisation debate: myth or reality?

So far this chapter has presented a picture of a changing world heading
towards ever-increasing interconnectedness, economic interdependence
and cultural interaction. However, big ideas or phenomena such as
globalisation are rarely left alone without challenge and critique. As
such, it is important to note that the notion of globalisation, or at least
certain explanations of it, is not universally accepted, despite the
proliferation of the term ‘globalisation’. As mentioned above, some
people have opposed aspects of globalisation via the anti-globalisation
movement. But what if we look at the concept itself ? Is this a process
that can be just accepted as part of the world we live in, or is it
something that has been exaggerated or perhaps serves the interests of
the global economic market that drives it? Historically, two main
schools of thought can be discerned in the study of globalisation: the
so-called ‘hyperglobalists’ and the ‘sceptics’. Naturally there are
divergent strands within the two camps. A synthesised overview of the
key arguments is set out below.
Adopting the hyperglobalist perspective, scholars such as Ohmae
(1995), Fukuyama (1992) and others have tended to focus on the
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perceived ‘victory’ of neo-liberalism, celebrating the emergence of a

single global market economy. This has subsequently led to a
‘borderless’ world where economies are ‘denationalised’ through the
establishment of transnational networks. The result is that national
states become less meaningful, as they are merely cogs in the
machinery of the global economy, with TNCs becoming increasingly
important and in many cases more powerful than states. This is
accompanied by the spread of institutions of global governance such as
the WTO and IMF, which further erode the importance and ultimately
the sovereignty of the state. Liberal democracy also forms part of this
emerging ‘global civilisation’ with market principles at its core. As such,
Fukuyama (1992) famously referred to the ‘end of history’ in
proclaiming the universal triumph of Western liberal democracy
following the end of the Cold War and saw this as the ultimate
culmination of the ideological struggles that have characterised human
history.
One of the most prominent sceptic critiques of the hyperglobalist
perspective, which has sometimes been termed the ‘globalisation
hypothesis’, comes from the work of Hirst and Thompson (2009), who
argue that the idea of globalisation as a major transformational process
requiring national economies to ‘obey the market’ is something of a
myth. They argue that rather than being more interconnected, the
world is actually less interconnected than it was during the highpoint
of European colonial empires in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, which we discussed previously. Like the hyperglobalists, Hirst
and Thompson also focus on economic processes, but in doing so
highlight what they perceive as an exaggeration of the globalisation
trend. Despite the supposed transformational power of capitalism, the
argument is that the developed world is still in command and financial
investment and trade are concentrated in the states of three blocs in
particular: North America, Japan and Europe. They also note that the
much-trumpeted TNCs are not always global in their reach, and many
still operate from national bases. Instead they argue that the current
trends can be seen more as increasing ‘internationalisation’ rather than
globalisation.
How then is internationalisation different from globalisation? Both
ideas point to an increase in interconnectedness; however, as we have
seen, globalisation is viewed, by hyperglobalists at least, as leading
towards one global economy where borders become meaningless, and
nation states are subservient to global market forces. On the other
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hand, internationalisation can be seen as the growing interdependence

between nation states (hence the international), who remain as the
primary actors in world affairs. Thus the sceptical standpoint takes the
view that governments are actually the key drivers of a process of
internationalisation and that they are still the actors most capable of
setting the agenda through instituting varying policies.
For others, such as Rosenberg, ‘globalisation’ is seen as no longer a
relevant term, and will in time just become another word for
interdependence (Rosenberg, 2005). This view continues the sceptical
tradition of questioning the transformationalist aspects of globalisation,
seeing the term as a ‘conceptual folly’ owing to the fact that attempts
were made to cast a theory out of a concept that was fundamentally
descriptive and empirical, rather than explanatory. This means that the
concept purely described what had been occurring rather than
explaining how it came about and why it is important. You might like
to consider whether the earlier descriptions of economic, political and
cultural globalisation were descriptive or explanatory.
Up to this point we have been discussing the idea of globalisation and
highlighted how it does not necessarily need to be taken as a ‘given’.
When we look at global politics it is possible to see how there are
many different interpretations of the processes and events that
constitute its analysis. The preceding sections have demonstrated that
studying world politics is about more than just relations between states.
However, nations remain some of, if not the most important, actors in
global politics. The discipline of IR provides us with some useful
analytical tools to help understand how states interact and why they
may act in certain ways, and we will now explore these further.
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4 How do we understand world politics?

Approaches from International Relations
theory
Political concepts and ideologies are borne out of a need to make
sense of and explain the world around us. The same can be said for
the theoretical approaches that stem from the academic discipline of
IR, insofar as they serve as a tool to help us understand and explain
real world events and issues. This is an area of study whose subject
matter can be changed rapidly by events. Therefore it is important to
be able to analyse the contemporary world rather than just describe
what is going on. But this is not just a case of offering abstract models
or theories, either. Using theoretical frameworks allows us to analyse or
interpret events. The ‘real world’ of global politics, incorporating, as it
does, states, institutions and a multiplicity of non-state actors, is a
messy and contested affair. As a result IR theorists have sought to
provide theoretical frameworks as a means of making sense of it all.
While the focus has traditionally been on the interactions and
behaviour of states at the international level, the discipline has evolved
to incorporate a global perspective comprising a range of actors while
maintaining the centrality of states.
Historically, two main schools of thought – realism and liberalism –
have been the sources of the key arguments within the discipline of IR.
These have been joined by a third, more recent school: constructivism.
While some abstraction is necessary here, each theory has been
illustrated with the ‘real world’ example of China–US relations to help
you see how these ideas can be interpreted in practice.
4.1 Realism
Realism draws on the works of leading twentieth-century IR scholars
such as E. H. Carr (1939) and Hans Morgenthau (1949). It upholds the
centrality of the state in international affairs. Realists argue that a
condition of ‘anarchy’ exists beyond the boundaries of the state, so the
international system is described as ‘anarchic’. Anarchy, in international
relations, does not refer to disorder or chaos, but rather to the absence
of a legitimate central authority. A second key feature of the
international system for realists is the idea of a ‘balance of power’.
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4 How do we understand world politics?Approaches from International Relations theory
This is the principle by which states, fearing the potential threat of

other states’ military capabilities, balance with and against one another
to ensure their security.
Burchill (2001, p. 86) notes that for realists ‘the search for power and
security is the dominant logic in global politics, and that states, as the
primary actors in the international arena, have no choice but to
accumulate the means of violence in the pursuit of self-preservation’.
From this statement we can discern three core elements of realism –
‘statism’, ‘survival’ and ‘self-help’ – so let’s try and pull these out when
unpacking the statement:
. Statism: Note what the quote says about states being the primary
actors in the global arena. States are seen as the legitimate
representatives of the people and their national interests. In
conditions of anarchy, where there is no overarching order,
sovereign states consider themselves to be the highest authority.
. Survival: Think about the point on ‘self-preservation’. Because the
international system is seen as anarchic, states cannot guarantee
their survival. Therefore maintaining survival is the primary national
interest of states, and as such determines their actions.
. Self-help: The points about security and means of violence are key
here. In the absence of a world government, states are responsible
for maintaining their own security and should not rely on other
states or international organisations to do so for them.
As a result, realism is viewed by some as inherently pessimistic, with its
onus on competition and actual or potential inter-state conflict, and as
overly state-centric, thus overlooking other variables in international
behaviour. Military and strategic issues affecting the balance of power
are given primacy, and are seen as the main issues dominating world
politics. The basic motive driving states is survival or the maintenance
of sovereignty.
A realist interpretation of US–China relations

Keeping the above information in mind, how might you interpret
relations between the US and China through the prism of realism? You
have seen that the realist approach emphasises anarchy and the balance
of power. It also holds the state and its national interests as key, which
translates into thinking about how states maintain their security.
Therefore a realist analysis of US–China relations might emphasise the
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competition between the two states in military and economic terms, or

in relation to their relative influence over other states. US security
alliances with Japan, South Korea and Taiwan – all in China’s
neighbourhood – show its wish to contain China’s influence. China is
the rising power of our time and therefore the US, as the pre-eminent
power, will naturally look to maintain its position against possible
competitors. The fact that both states view each other as threats (even
if only in theory) or competitors, and the conditions of anarchy in the
international system, mean that there is no overarching authority to
stop them becoming embroiled in, say, an arms race or a struggle for
access to resources such as oil. This need not result in outright
confrontation, however. Through power balancing, both states may be
able to maintain peace as conflict may prove too costly to either side.
4.2 Liberalism
Liberalism in international relations emphasises cooperation in relations
between states. It posits that there is an international community of
states that enables nations to cooperate with each other according to
agreed rules and in shared institutions. Thus, in contrast to realism,
liberalism is viewed as more optimistic, with greater emphasis on
cooperation. Liberalism as a model of international relations is based
on three assumptions: that basic actors are individuals and private
groups; that state preferences represent the interests of some subset of
these individuals and groups; and that state behaviour is determined by
the interdependence of state preferences across the international
system.
The liberal tradition in international relations draws its roots from
liberal philosophers such as John Locke and Jeremy Bentham who
emphasised individual liberty and the state’s enabling role in this – in
contrast to realists who see the state as an instrument of power
(Jackson and Sørensen, 1999). Liberalism holds a strong belief in the
power of human reasoning and therefore the ability to cooperate to
achieve mutually beneficial outcomes. This is translated to relations
between states, and thus emphasises cooperation and the existence of
peace between liberal states, which lays the basis of an important
theory drawing on the liberal tradition: the ‘democratic peace theory’.
This approach focuses on the fact that democratic states tend not to
go to war with one another. The shared commitment to liberal
democracy, human rights and interdependence among democratic states
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means that they are less prone to resort to war and equally
demonstrates why non-democratic states are more likely to do so
(Doyle, 1995).
A key feature of liberalism, therefore, is the emphasis on international
institutions, evidenced by the creation of the League of Nations during
the inter-war period. This was considered as a key moment for liberal
thinking in international relations. Following the First World War, then-
US president Woodrow Wilson sought to preserve the new-found
peace through establishing an association, or league, of nations which
would protect the interests of all liberal democratic states and promote
self-determination of all nations. In practice, the League of Nations
was something of a failure with the self-interest of states becoming
once again the determining feature of global politics, but it is seen by
many as the precursor to the United Nations, perhaps the ultimate
symbol of international cooperation. Liberals point to the existence of
a range of cooperative, international institutions in which states
collaborate and pursue shared interests. You might consider some of
the institutions mentioned already in this chapter in the section on
economic globalisation as good examples, building as they do on the
liberal economic heritage.
A liberal interpretation of US–China relations

Take the example of US–China relations again. What might a liberal
interpretation of this relationship emphasise? As liberalism is more
optimistic than realism, the focus could be on the potential avenues for
cooperation between the two states. For example, the world’s two
largest economies have now become heavily interdependent (Figure 3).
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Figure 3 President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping with US

President Barack Obama, 2014
China has one of the largest and fastest-growing economies in the

world, and its integration into the global capitalist system has helped
make it a major player. Therefore liberals would emphasise integrating
China into global economic institutions in the hope that this will
ultimately lead to a domestic political transformation. A China that is
integrated and active in global institutions that have liberal thinking at
their core is less likely to act aggressively if its interests are tied to
those of other states; even more so, a potentially democratic China
would be less likely to go to war with other democracies as the
democratic peace theory purports.
4.3 Constructivism
Constructivism came about in response to the material emphases on
power and wealth seen in mainstream IR theories such as realism and
liberalism. These theories arguably left little room for considering how
ideas could shape the identity and behaviour of states, reducing their
aims to pure material gains. Constructivism draws its intellectual
heritage from the move towards social constructivism in the social
sciences, which views the social world as constructed by humans – it is
therefore socially constructed. When translated into global politics, this
allows space for ideas, norms and values to be introduced as important
features in international relations. States are seen as socially
154
constructed actors, and are therefore born of their cultural

environment. The way that states behave towards one another at the
international level can also help construct their identities and interests.
Thus, in contrast to realism, say, a state’s interests are not purely
determined by its own self-interest but by the interactions it has with
others.
Scholars such as Alexander Wendt (1992, 1999) have proposed that
there needs to be a greater emphasis on issues of culture and identity
when analysing international affairs. Material interests are still
important but they cannot be isolated from the ideas and the identities
that states have. As Wendt (1999, p. 255) notes, ‘five hundred British
nuclear weapons are less threatening to the US than five North Korean
ones because of the shared understandings that underpin them.’ This is
because the US and the UK share common political values and
traditions which subsequently form their shared strategic interests.
Wendt accepts that anarchy is part of the international system, but
claims that it is based on ideas rather than material factors (i.e. states
looking after their own in the absence of world government). Anarchy
is therefore ‘what states make of it’ (Wendt, 1992). As such, there are
three roles that states can play in international relations dependent on
how they conceive other states, those of ‘enemy’, ‘rival’ and ‘friend’.
This means that the UK and US can be considered ‘friends’, whereas
the competing ideas and, importantly, the contrasting rhetoric that has
historically coloured relations between the US and North Korea,
classes them as ‘enemies’.
A constructivist interpretation of US–China relations

Returning to US–China relations again, how might a constructivist
analysis view this relationship? Remember, the potential for conflict or
cooperation rests on how the states view each other. One optimistic
angle might focus on how China has changed its identity from that of
a communist state with a centrally planned economy, to one that is
now fully integrated into the global economy with its embrace of
capitalism. Therefore a shared identity may be discernible in terms of
states acting together as partners in global economic institutions, and
adhering to international norms. From the US perspective, continuing
interaction (be it through economic, cultural or political channels) may
have the knock-on effect of fundamentally changing the identity of
Chinese decision makers. In effect, China will have to become, or is
becoming, ‘socialised’ into the international community as it opens up.
155
China has a long-standing preference for bilateral relations, although it

is becoming increasingly involved in multilateral relationships. This
preference may manifest itself in focusing on bilateral links with the
US and building its relationship on the basis of common interests.
A slightly more pessimistic constructivist take might focus on the
importance of identities in China’s relations with its neighbours. Take
Japan–China relations, for example, where issues of identity are key in
how the two nations perceive one another. Relations between the two
are clouded by centuries of mistrust, in part owing to China’s
experience under Japanese colonial rule. If relations were to take a bad
turn to the point of hostilities, the US might well have to step in, in its
role as a guarantor of Japan’s security (a position it has maintained
since its defeat of Japan in the Second World War).
156
5 International Relations theory and globalisation
5 International Relations theory and

globalisation
The theoretical approaches discussed above gave some examples of
how they might help us to understand events or problems in politics
on the world stage. What we can do now is use these approaches to
appraise the idea of globalisation. Think of these as different
theoretical lenses through which to view a particular issue, problem or
idea. As you will see, some will emphasise certain features while
ignoring others. As with the globalisation debate, there is not
necessarily a right or wrong answer here; it is about using the approach
that does the best job of explaining things for you.
5.1 Realism
Most realists would argue that globalisation does not change the fact
that the division of the world into territorial states is still the
predominant feature of world politics. Furthermore, they argue that the
globalisation that has occurred has been a primarily Western
experience, and is not necessarily a universal phenomenon. As such,
realists tend to agree with the sceptical view that globalisation is
overplayed, pointing to higher levels of economic interdependence (for
example in terms of capital flows/trade as a percentage of GDP)
historically than we are experiencing now.
In addition, a realist perspective might point out that although social
and economic interconnectedness may have increased, the states that
make up the international system have not necessarily gone through
the same process. So thinking back to the hyperglobalist argument
about states becoming less important, realists posit that states have
maintained their sovereignty and the struggle for power between them
still continues. A contemporary conflict, such as the one between
Russia and Ukraine in 2014, gives us a compelling illustration of the
continuing struggle for power between states. As a result, states still
maintain the threat of force and seek to balance their power against
others’. So, the international system of states is not necessarily affected
in the realist viewpoint.
A further argument is that states still perform the key social, political
and economic functions that affect people’s lives. Sovereign states, after
all, are the ones that foster the conditions for economic advancement.
157
States can still command the allegiance of their citizens, nationalism

remains a potent feature of world politics, and war is still likely, despite
economic interdependence. Indeed, economic interdependence has not
prevented wars in the past, so why would it do so in the future? In
terms of transnational institutions, while a realist might agree that
some form of transnational governance may be possible in a
rudimentary form, they argue that this is still dependent on the
distribution of power. Think of the power of the EU in comparison to
the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and also
the distribution of power within such organisations. On the latter
point, despite its cooperative endeavours and features of government
and law that go beyond the state, the EU is still characterised by an
uneven distribution of power within it. Compare the relative power of
Germany, and its leadership role in the EU, to the power of smaller
countries such as Slovenia or Estonia, who arguably do not carry the
same clout within the organisation.
5.2 Liberalism
The realist view lies in stark contrast to that espoused by liberals,
which views globalisation as a transformative process in world politics.
In opposition to the realist view, liberals hold that states are no longer
the central actors. They argue that the power of capital has overtaken
that of the state, and that economic and technological
interconnectedness results in a very different world from one ruled by
states. Liberals might highlight the proliferation of free-trade-agreement
organisations that have come about through globalisation, and how
they provide developing economies with a means to overcome
hardships and modernise their economies. Tied in with this is the view
that the diffusion of technology and knowledge helps increase
opportunities for poorer countries.
Liberals often point to economic growth as the primary road to
development. The major increases in living standards and GDP of the
‘Asian Tiger’ economies (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and
Taiwan) since instituting neo-liberal economic reforms are often held
up as examples, and reinforce such a point – although to do so ignores
the protective practices of such economies on their road to
development. The liberal perspective on globalisation is not all one
sided, though. There is also a current of ‘radical liberalism’ that seeks
to challenge the neo-liberal defence of global economic institutions.
158
5 International Relations theory and globalisation
This view points to the fact that economic liberty and political equality
are often opposed. It also highlights the democratic deficit at the
global level by asking who elects the members of these global
economic institutions and how they are representative of normal
people. We may have seen increasing democratisation of states, but this
does not necessarily involve democratisation of the society of states
(Held et al., 1999). The argument is therefore that if there is greater
interconnectedness as a product of globalisation, it needs to be
managed through democratic institutions rather than those that just
serve an unelected elite.
5.3 Constructivism
Constructivists highlight how globalisation is often presented as an
outside or external force that cannot be challenged or shaped. They do
not agree with such an assumption as it means that leaders cannot play
a role in shaping and challenging globalisation. They claim that people
and politicians are capable of shaping globalisation, particularly through
cross-national social movements. Constructivists argue that our
understanding of what constitutes a legitimate world order is subject to
change, and that this is dependent on prevailing norms in world
politics. They point out that states will adopt certain practices because
of their international standing or acceptance. For example, the states
that gained independence from the Soviet Union and wished to
integrate with the EU, such as the Baltic states, set themselves on a
course for democracy and economic reform upon gaining
independence.
The ‘socialisation’ of states is seen as important to enable states to act
as members of a certain club. This is because constructivists believe
that states’ behaviour is shaped by international norms; for example,
adhering to accepted norms on human rights, trade or citizenship.
Globalisation has been shaped by values and ideas of different political
actors, be they states or otherwise, and it has in turn helped shape and
form new identities. In this sense constructivists might focus on the
idea of globalisation as its key feature, rather than the technological
processes that are often seen as underpinning it; for example, the
creation of discourses of globalisation, and their effect in influencing
the decisions taken by actors, and in the way that processes of
globalisation are communicated and coordinated (McGrew, 2005).
159
6 Conclusion
This chapter has presented a range of different ideas about global
politics, from processes to theoretical perspectives. In charting the
development of the world state system, beginning with the Peace of
Westphalia, it discussed how the rise of empires fostered greater
interconnectedness across the globe, be it through war and conquest or
trade and discovery. Paradoxically it was the development of that state
system, married with the expansion of colonial empires, that laid the
foundation for what we now understand as globalisation.
The post-Second World War order brought not only the Cold War but
also the establishment, and, some might say, eventual victory, of a US
led global economic order with a liberal commitment to market
capitalism at its core. Globalisation is now a given across numerous
academic disciplines in the social sciences, which have sought to
explain claims about a seemingly shrinking and increasingly
interconnected world which has been enabled by technological
advancements in transport and communications. Some have argued
that this signifies the end of the state as we know it, as we move
towards a single global market economy. However, some political
scientists have questioned the validity of such claims, arguing that the
transformative aspects of the contemporary globalisation debate have
been overplayed particularly in the economic sphere, and that the
world is far less interconnected in economic terms than it was during
the age of empire.
If we can see that a feature of global politics as seemingly pervasive as
that of globalisation can be contested, the way in which global politics
is analysed and interpreted by scholars is also important. The three key
theoretical perspectives that were introduced from International
Relations are not only useful in analysing events and relationships of
national, regional or global significance, but can also be put to use in
addressing and interpreting globalisation. To boil the debate down to
one between globalisation signifying the end of the state on the one
hand, and the state being immune to the pressures of globalisation on
the other, only leads to a sterile and potentially polemical debate. It is
in the nuances, myriad actors and issues where one can start to explore
and ultimately interpret what the study of global politics is all about.
160
References
References
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Linklater, A., Paterson, M., Reus-Smit, C. and True, J. (eds) Theories of
International Relations, London, Macmillan, pp. 70–102.
Carr, E. H. (1939) The Twenty Years’ Crisis, London, Macmillan.
Doyle, M. (1995) ‘On democratic peace’, International Security, vol. 19, no. 4,
pp. 164–84.
Elden, S. (2014) ‘Why is the world divided territorially?’, in Edkins, J. and
Zehfuss, M. (eds) Global Politics: A New Introduction, 2nd edn, Abingdon,
Routledge, pp. 220–44.
Fukuyama, F. (1992) The End of History and the Last Man, New York, Free
Press.
Held, D., McGrew, A., Goldblatt, D. and Perraton, J. (1999) Global
Transformations: Politics, Economics and Culture, Cambridge, Polity Press.
Hirst, P. and Thompson, G. (2009) Globalization in Question: The International
Economy and the Possibilities of Governance, 3rd edn, Cambridge, Polity Press.
Jackson, R. and Sørensen, G. (1999) Introduction to International Relations,
Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Keohane, R. O. and Nye, J. S. (1977) Power and Interdependence: World Politics
in Transition, Boston, Little, Brown and Company.
McGrew, A. (2005) ‘The logics of globalization’, in Ravenhill, J. (ed) Global
Political Economy, Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 208–34.
Morgenthau, H. (1949) Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and
Peace, New York, Knopf.
Ohmae, K. (1995) The End of the Nation State, New York, Free Press.
Rosenberg, J. (2005) ‘Globalization theory: a post mortem’, International
Politics, vol. 42, no. 1, pp. 2–74.
Weber, M. (1919) From Max Weber : Essays in Sociology, Abingdon, Routledge
(this edition 2009).
Wendt, A. (1992) ‘Anarchy is what states make of it: the social construction of
power politics’, International Organisation, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 391–425.
Wendt, A. (1999) Social Theory of International Politics, Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press.
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Chapter 18
The European Union
Edward Wastnidge
Contents
1 Introduction 167
2 How the EU developed:
from the ECSC to the EU 169
2.1 Widening 170
2.2 Deepening 172
3 What are the EU’s policy competencies? 173
4 How do we understand the EU?
Intergovernmental vs. supragovernmental

approaches 175
4.1 An intergovernmental model 175
4.2 A supranational model 177
5 Governance of the EU: institutions and political
actors 179
5.1 The European Council 179
5.2 The Council of the European Union 180
5.3 The European Commission 180
5.4 The European Parliament 182
5.5 The European Court of Justice 183
6 From intergovernmentalism to
supranationalism? 184
7 The European economy: from convergence to
crisis 188
7.1 Economic governance and the euro 189
8 Conclusion 193
References 195
1 Introduction
1 Introduction
Since 1945 Europe has been subject to the forces of regionalism,
which has involved a gradual integration among its states, culminating
in the European Union (EU) that exists today. Regionalism is a process
in global politics whereby states mutually agree to cooperate and work
together as a regional bloc, often coordinating trade and economic
policies. The EU provides us with perhaps the pre-eminent example of
this process in global politics. It is arguably the most advanced regional
bloc in terms of its institutional arrangements, policy coordination and
economic power. It is therefore an actor of global significance. While
smaller in geographical terms than North or South America, Asia or
Africa (the European continent would fit into the continental US
twice), the 28 member states of the EU form the world’s largest
trading bloc. In 2014 the member states had a combined population of
over 500 million and counting, nearly 200 million more than that of
the US. In addition, the EU’s combined gross domestic product (GDP)
is currently larger than that of the US. The Europe that has been built
since the formation of the European Coal and Steel Community
(ECSC) in 1952 symbolises the cooperation of a number of European
nation states prepared to work with each other in the common pursuit
of prosperity and security, encouraged by self-interest and an expanded
sense of a European identity.
No other international organisation has anything like the policy
responsibilities of the EU. To some extent, it provides for the
supranational regulation of the production, distribution and exchange
of goods, services, capital and labour, thus ensuring the free movement
of each across the borders of member states – although the latter can
be subject to temporary restrictions in relation to new member states.
It provides the euro currency, facilitates trade and intra-EU migration,
harmonises standards of production and exchange at both the national
and the European level, provides member states with a single voice on
trade policy, and transfers resources across regions and production
sectors by devices such as the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and
regional aid.
Thus we are presented with a significant actor in global politics,
because of its cumulative weight and influence. While many other
regional groupings have based themselves on the EU, no other has
anything like the EU’s institutional framework and pooling of
167
Chapter 18 The European Union
sovereignty. This chapter will present a detailed case study of the EU.
It will begin by looking at the processes that have characterised its
development, exploring how the EU has both ‘widened’ and
‘deepened’. It then moves on to explore the EU’s policy competencies.
Following this, the chapter looks at different ways of interpreting the
EU, highlighting two approaches to aid this understanding, those of
‘supranationalism’ and ‘intergovernmentalism’. This leads on to an
examination of the key institutions and political actors that make up
the EU, returning to the intergovernmental vs. supranational debate in
light of changes following the Lisbon Treaty, before finishing on the
European economy.
168
2 How the EU developed:from the ECSC to the EU
2 How the EU developed:

from the ECSC to the EU
The process of European integration can be linked to the changes that
the European continent has undergone since the Second World War.
Having to rebuild and start anew encouraged some states to pursue a
specifically European identity, one in which Europe was a definable,
specific place and a shared space. As a result, European cooperation
was prompted by European security concerns, political stability, socio
economic reconstruction and the political symbolism associated with a
club of Western European liberal democracies (Wallace, 1996, pp. 19–
20). These factors help explain why six European states cooperated as
‘Europeans’ after the end of the Second World War, and why an
increasing number of nations have continued to do so ever since.
Postwar Europe was divided into East and West following the defeat
of Hitler’s Germany. Western Europe lay firmly within an Anglo-
American sphere of influence, while the Soviet Union laid physical
claim to a great swathe of Eastern and Central Europe, an area
stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. Symbolised by the
division of Germany, this process created two spheres of influence that
persisted from 1947 to 1990, providing a territorial realisation of the
ideological divide of the Cold War. Western European states were
obliged to recognise the need for diplomatic cooperation to ensure
their individual and collective security. In addition, European states
(and the US) were increasingly keen to ensure that West Germany
would be bound firmly into Western Europe to protect the West from
the Soviet ‘threat’ and ensure that Germany itself would not repeat its
past aggression. While not a direct product of the Cold War, European
cooperation was certainly encouraged by it. Western European states’
recognition of their common interests as liberal democracies and
market economies prompted a need to promote a common association.
This led to the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community
(ECSC), following the signing of the Treaty of Paris by six nations:
Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the
Netherlands (Figure 1).
169
Figure 1 Signing of the treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel
Community, or the Treaty of Paris, 1951
2.1 Widening
Over time the membership of the EU (originally known as the
European Economic Community or EEC upon its formation in 1957)
has expanded from its original membership of six ECSC states in 1951
to 28 states in 2013, and is set to increase further in the coming years.
Applicants for EU membership have to be not only physically located
in Europe but must also be well-established liberal democracies with
stable and well-functioning market economies and a commitment to
upholding the rule of law. The principle of acquis communautaire
requires entrants to agree in advance to existing European treaties,
laws, policies and objectives, and enlargement requires unanimous
consent on the part of existing members (the acquis is the extensive
body of EU legislation, treaties and case law). The widening of the EU
has been further stimulated by the geopolitical changes that Europe
has undergone since the Second World War. As noted above, there was
a common purpose that led the initial integration, and while the
commitment to liberal democracy and market economics remains, the
existential threat posed by the Soviet Union is obviously no longer
relevant. Indeed, the fall of the Soviet Union was one of the most
significant engines for the increase in EU members from 15 in 1995 to
170
2 How the EU developed:from the ECSC to the EU
28 in 2013; the last 20 years have seen the most significant increase in
the number of member states in the EU’s history.
We can highlight the following stages in EU enlargement since its
inception:
. 1957 – founder members: Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy,
Luxembourg and the Netherlands
. 1973 – the first enlargement: Denmark, the Republic of Ireland and
the United Kingdom
. 1981 – the second enlargement: Greece
. 1986 – the third enlargement: Portugal and Spain
. 1995 – the fourth enlargement: Austria, Finland and Sweden
. 2004 – the fifth enlargement: Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia,
Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia
. 2007 – the sixth enlargement: Bulgaria and Romania
. 2013 – the seventh enlargement: Croatia.
In the coming years we may well see further expansion into the
Balkans, with the former Yugoslav states of Macedonia and
Montenegro already candidate countries at the time of writing (2015),
and Albania and Serbia having made official applications to join.
Iceland is also a candidate country. Turkey has been a candidate
country since 1999. It initially applied for associate membership in
1959 and signed up to a customs union in 1963 which did not come
into force until 1995. It applied for full membership in 1987, and
negotiations have been ongoing since 2005. However, Turkey’s
potential membership is complicated by a number of factors: the
ongoing dispute over Cyprus (where a Turkish-sponsored state has
operated in the north of the island since 1983 without international
recognition following its 1974 invasion); unease within some member
states about a state joining whose population is predominantly Muslim,
which would also mean the EU stretching into the Middle East; the
potential costs of incorporating the Turkish economy and its 75 million
inhabitants into the EU; and the recent decline in Turkish popular
support for membership. Norway has twice applied and been accepted
for membership, in 1970 and 1992, but on each occasion it turned
down membership following a national referendum.
171
2.2 Deepening
The ‘widening’ of the EU has been accompanied by a ‘deepening’: the
increased responsibilities granted to the EU by its member states
through international treaties. This deepening has seen the EU
gradually extend its policy responsibilities, from cooperation in the
production of coal and steel to the development of a common
monetary policy in the form of a single currency. Ever closer ties of
association have prompted these shifts, and these developments have,
in turn, led to ever closer ties of association.
The deepening process is best illustrated by the following key stages in
Europe’s historical integration, where the free trade area is the starting
point, and economic union the potential end result:
. free trade area: no visible trade restriction between members
. customs union: free trade area plus common external tariff
. single market: customs union plus free movement of goods (no
non-tariff barriers or other such state-imposed restrictions)
. common market: single market plus free movement of capital,
labour and services
. monetary union: a common market plus a common currency
. economic union: monetary union plus a common economic policy.
Deepening and widening illustrate a European economic and political
integration in which ‘ever closer union’ is defined as ‘forming,
coordinating and blending national economies and polities into unified
and functioning wholes’ (Peterson, 1999, p. 255). Yet the substance,
form and timing of integrationist objectives within the EU are a matter
of considerable debate. The building of the EU raises many pressing
and urgent questions of national sovereignty and autonomy in an age
of increasing national interdependence. The EU has developed as a
regional network of nation states that have agreed a series of
international treaties and to pool their sovereignty in a number of
instances governing direct relations between them.
172
3 What are the EU’s policy competencies?
3 What are the EU’s policy

competencies?
To begin with, the range of issues for which the EU has some
responsibility is quite unlike that of any other such organisation.
According to Hix (2011), the political system of the EU produces five
types of ‘policy output’:
1 regulatory policies, concerning the workings of the single market,
free movement of goods, services, capital and persons, and
environmental and social policies
2 redistributive policies, involving transfers of resources from one
group to another through the EU budget (for example, the CAP)
3 macroeconomic policies, including the role of the European
Central Bank (ECB) and its management of economic and
monetary union (EMU) and the common currency, the euro
4 interior policies, relating to the civil, political, economic and social
rights of the citizens of the EU
5 foreign policies, to ensure the EU speaks with a single voice on
the world stage, and including trade and foreign aid policies, the
Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and defence
cooperation.
In addition, the powers that have been delegated to the EU by its
member states are considerably more extensive than those found in
other international organisations. The EU has its own legislative body,
the European Parliament, which on some matters has the power of co
decision with the governments of the member states. The permanent
bureaucracy of the EU, the European Commission, has significant
powers of policy initiative and implementation. The Commission forms
one part of the EU’s executive, the other being the Council of
Ministers. Most strikingly of all, the EU has its own legal order
organised around the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and the corpus
of EU law. The European legal order, where it has the required
competency, has supremacy over the national laws of member states in
cases of conflict and can be directly invoked by the citizens of the
member states, against their own governments if necessary. (We will
explore how these competencies are translated into institutions in
Section 5.)
173
Finally, the EU has developed, and is continuing to develop,

responsibilities in areas of public policy that have traditionally been
regarded as the core of modern statehood: law, money, taxation,
security, the rights of citizens, and the right to represent the population
in the wider international system. We have already noted that the EU
legal order has supremacy over national law in some cases. In addition,
the move toward greater economic and monetary union has resulted in
a majority of members of the EU relinquishing their national
currencies and pooling decision making around a common currency,
the euro. Collectively, the states that have adopted the euro are referred
to as the ‘euro area’, although this is more commonly known as the
‘eurozone’. As of 2014, 19 of the 28 member states are using the euro,
with all post-2004 accession states obliged to join it in time. The UK,
Sweden and Denmark are not currently members of the eurozone, with
the UK and Denmark securing opt-outs under the 1992 Maastricht
Treaty, and Sweden’s voters having rejected joining following a
referendum in 2003. While control over direct taxation such as income
tax is still the preserve of national governments, the EU does have
competency in indirect taxation, as seen in the harmonisation of VAT
(value-added tax) systems across member states. The EU has also
developed competence in the field of the CFSP as well as in defence
cooperation. EU-wide cooperation on citizen policies in the field of
justice and home affairs is also developing. And on some matters, trade
for example, the EU represents the population of the EU in the wider
international community.
174
4 How do we understand the EU?Intergovernmental vs. supragovernmental approaches
4 How do we understand the EU?

Intergovernmental vs.
supragovernmental approaches
The EU is a political system and structure of governance that spans
the domestic or national level, on the one side, and the
intergovernmental or international level, on the other. In so doing, it
challenges us to rethink our conventional ideas about governance. As
Wallace (1996, p. 100) writes, ‘the EU is an “in between” phenomenon,
both a transformation of country politics and a new form of
relationships between countries’. The EU undermines the idea that
governance in a member state is the sole responsibility of the
government of that state, since much of what happens politically
within the territories of the member states now depends on decisions
taken by the EU. By the same token, the relations between the member
states of the EU are no longer ungoverned, since much of their ‘inter
state’ interaction with one another is also structured by decisions taken
at the level of the EU. In addition, while it is clear that the EU has
been constructed by states – through a succession of international
treaties – much of the impetus for its ongoing development has come
from the essentially ungoverned processes of the international
economy.
How, then, can we characterise the governance of the EU? We can do
so by utilising two deliberately oversimplified models:
intergovernmental and supranational.
4.1 An intergovernmental model

The intergovernmental model regards the EU as a particularly
extensive as well as intensive form of intergovernmental organisation.
There are a number of intergovernmental organisations in the
contemporary international system, ranging from general institutions
such as the United Nations; through major single-purpose but
multilateral bodies like the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the
International Monetary Fund (IMF); regional associations such as the
North American Free Trade Association (NAFTA) and the Association
of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN); to specialist forums such as
the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the International
175
Telecommunications Satellite (Intelsat). These are organisations formed

by states to pursue the common interests of the membership, in which
specific powers may be delegated to the organisation and where
decision making on some issues may be shared or ‘pooled’ between the
member states, especially when those states are unable to achieve their
objectives by acting alone. The organisation may also encompass some
quasi-judicial mechanisms for resolving disputes between member
states.
In the contemporary international system there are hundreds of
intergovernmental organisations. Is the EU just one more to add to an
ever-expanding list? If we concede that the EU is an intergovernmental
organisation, it is certainly a very special one compared to others, given
the range of EU policies, the competence and powers of its
institutions, and its encroachment on the core aspects of modern
statehood.
In essence, intergovernmental interpretations of the EU argue that the
pooling of decisions related to statehood and the exercise of powers
delegated to EU-wide institutions – such as the European Parliament,
the Commission, the ECJ and EU law – along with decisions over
important issues such as the EU budget, remain under the collective
control of the governments of the member states. In this view, the
decisions of the EU and the authority of the EU’s ‘policy outputs’ are
derived directly from the joint authority of the member states and their
governments. Thus while the above institutions may have some
supranational characteristics (which you will find out more about in a
moment), an intergovernmental interpretation would claim that they
are ultimately subordinate to national governments, even if only in a
collective sense.
Intergovernmentalists reject the idea that an ever closer union between
nation states should bring about a truly sovereign European political
state, one founded on a common European citizenship and a sense of
shared destiny amongst the peoples of the different countries that
make up the EU. Intergovernmentalists do not believe that European
citizenship could or even should become deeply embedded in the
imaginations of the peoples of Europe, and point to the paucity of
evidence on the question of whether a feeling of shared political
membership and identity exists above the level of the nation state. For
instance, a poll in 2013 showed that 91 per cent of Europeans felt
‘attached to their country’, while only 46 per cent said they were
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4 How do we understand the EU?Intergovernmental vs. supragovernmental approaches
‘attached to the European Union’, with 52 per cent feeling ‘unattached’

(European Commission, 2013, pp. 9–10).
4.2 A supranational model

The second model of the governance of the EU argues that the
delegation of powers and the competence of the EU-wide institutions
have gone so far as to have created a form of supranational
governance. If there are decision-making mechanisms that can override
the objections of one or more member states and if the rulings of the
common authority have direct effect in the legal systems of the
members, the organisation is said to be ‘supranational’. In forming a
supranational authority, states collectively use their general rights of
sovereignty to limit the future exercise of their individual rights in
some areas, handing over jurisdiction in those areas to another body.
Ultimate sovereignty is not compromised, since the state can always
leave the organisation and repatriate the specific competences involved.
But as long as the supranational organisation persists, its provisions go
beyond the collective exercise of sovereignty that is pooled and
delegated for specific executive and administrative purposes, as a state
and its citizens could be bound by genuine and enforceable legislation
made by a relatively autonomous authority that claims jurisdiction for
the entire body in its designated areas of competence.
Two leading theorists of the EU as a form of supranational
governance, Alec Stone Sweet and James Caporaso, put the argument
as follows:
Whereas intergovernmentalists argue that integration is produced

by joint decisions taken by member state governments, we claim
that transnational interactions, as shaped by [EU] organizations,
are the crucial catalysts. Whereas intergovernmentalists
conceptualize the Commission and the ECJ as more or less
faithful agents of the member states, and by extension of the
Council of Ministers, we see them working in the service of
transnational society.
(Caporaso, 1998, p. 92)
And as Caporaso (1998, p. 335) has also pointed out, it may be helpful
to consider EU governance as a hybrid form:
177
The central conceptual device is not the isolated ideal type but
rather a continuum running from pure intergovernmental politics
… to a supranational polity in which [EU] institutions possess
jurisdiction and authority over the individual member states in
specified policy areas. The form of the supranational polity is an
open question. It could be organized along federal lines … it
could take the form of islands of regulatory authority
corresponding to discrete tasks … or it could take the form of a
strongly member state-driven process where delegated authority is
carefully circumscribed, monitored and controlled.
To the extent that the EU is a supranational form of governance, we

are entitled to ask about the source of its authority. If a supranational
political system is making, implementing and enforcing collectively
binding decisions for the citizens of the EU as a whole, on what basis
is this rule exercised, and how does it relate to the authority claimed by
the member states? This is a tension explored further in Section 6 in
examining moves towards increasing supranationalism.
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5 Governance of the EU: institutions and political actors
5 Governance of the EU: institutions

and political actors
Having explored the development and ways of interpreting the EU, it
is also worth examining its governance. We will now take a look at the
main institutions and political actors within the EU.
Historically, the formation of major legislation has been by
intergovernmental means by the signing of treaties but, once agreed to
by member states, the implementation and enforcement has been by
supranational means. We can see here that the terms used as
explanatory models above are now used to categorise the EU’s various
institutions:
. the main intergovernmental institution is the European Council
. the main supranational institutions are the Commission, the
Parliament and the ECJ.
The Council of the European Union (also widely referred to as the
Council of Ministers) has historically been seen as an
intergovernmental institution of the EU. However, following the
changes implemented after the 2007 Lisbon Treaty, it now has greater
supranational features and therefore is something of a hybrid between
the two. This will be explained further in Section 6.
5.1 The European Council

Today the intergovernmental European Council (Figure 2), which is
composed of heads of government, is the most important European
institution in determining the pace, direction and, indeed, feasibility of
integration. It decides strategic direction, the accession of new
members, the agreement to new treaties and the determination of
policy priorities. It is responsible for forging the Europe of tomorrow.
Since the Lisbon Treaty, the European Council has had its own
president, who is elected by the council for a period of two and a half
years (which can be renewed once).
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Figure 2 European Council ‘family photograph’, May 2012
5.2 The Council of the European Union

The Council of the European Union (often referred to as the Council
of Ministers, and hereafter referred to as such to avoid confusion), on
the other hand, involves ministers from member states acting in
different technical councils or configurations. These configurations or
councils include agriculture and fisheries, foreign affairs, and economic
and financial affairs. The leadership of the Council of Ministers is held
by each member state for six months on a rotating basis – with the
exception of the Foreign Affairs Council which, since the Lisbon
Treaty, is now headed by the High Representative for Foreign Affairs.
The European Council and the Council of Ministers have the power of
decision making as both executive and legislature. They set out EU
objectives, coordinate international policies, resolve differences among
member states and resolve differences between European institutions.
5.3 The European Commission

The European Commission (Figure 3) serves as the both the
bureaucratic arm and partial executive of the EU and can be
considered as one of the most supranational of EU institutions, in
some ways acting as a type of EU cabinet (McCormick, 2011). The
Commission is headed by the President of the Commission, who is
appointed for a five-year term by the European Council. Its ‘public
180
face’ can be found in its College of 28 Commissioners (one from each

member state) with responsibility for particular policy areas (all of
whom are nominated by their national governments but are obliged to
act as ‘Europeans’). It makes legislative proposals that the European
Council and Council of Ministers may accept, amend or reject. It also
guards and enforces existing treaties and legislation agreed to by the
European Council and Council of Ministers, administers and manages
the EU, and executes EU policies. In contrast with the European
Council and the Council of Ministers, the European Commission is
essentially a secondary executive. It makes proposals to the Council
and/or the Council of Ministers and implements Council decisions, but
has only the power of recommendation and oversight, not decision.
Figure 3 The European Commission headquarters, Brussels
The day-to-day work of the Commission is carried out by the 28

strong College of Commissioners, headed by the president of the
Commission, their personal staffs and the 38,000-strong Commission
bureaucracy, which is organised into specific policy areas such as
energy, economic and monetary affairs, agriculture, and internal market
and services. Generally speaking, the Commission’s formal powers have
been confined to influencing the deliberations of the Council and
discharging its will. Yet at particular times and under particular
circumstances, especially through its right to comment on Council
proposals and make recommendations to the Council, the Commission
181
can exercise considerable informal power. A proactive Commission can

significantly shape EU deliberations and decisions. Under the
presidency of Jacques Delors from 1985 to 1995, the Commission
encouraged member states to sign up to the 1986 Single European Act
and played an influential role in the deliberations leading to the signing
of the 1992 Treaty on European Union (also known as the Maastricht
Treaty).
5.4 The European Parliament

The European Parliament (Figure 4) has been directly elected since
1979 and, following the European Parliament elections in 2014,
comprised 751 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) drawn
from each member state based on population. It is the only directly
elected EU institution, and perhaps one of the most familiar owing to
its regular election cycle, with MEPs elected for five-year terms. MEPs,
once elected, are organised into cross-national political groupings based
on shared policy positions and ideologies (McCormick, 2011). In
contrast with the European Council, the Council of Ministers and the
Commission, the Parliament has traditionally had strictly limited
powers and could only exert an indirect influence on EU legislation in
its advisory capacity. However, since the Lisbon Treaty its powers have
increased. Subsequently, in terms of legislation, the great majority of
EU law is passed using something called the ‘ordinary legislative
procedure’ in which legislative power is shared by the Parliament and
the Council of Ministers, effectively making the two bodies ‘co
legislators’. The Parliament is also consulted on the appointment of
members of the Commission and its president and, through the power
of censure, can dismiss the Commission by a two-thirds majority vote.
182
Figure 4 The European Parliament
5.5 The European Court of Justice

The ECJ is responsible for the enforcement of the EU’s supranational
legal system, and interprets, applies and adjudicates EU laws that are
binding on all member states. For a great deal of the history of the EU
these interactive institutions have worked together: the Commission
proposing and recommending laws, the Parliament advising, the
European Council and the Council of Ministers deciding (with some
participation from the Parliament and the Commission), and the ECJ
enforcing.
183
6 From intergovernmentalism to
supranationalism?
Intergovernmentalism enables member states to pursue their own
national interests and exercise a veto on developments they do not
favour. Supranationalism limits their ability to exercise a national veto
and obliges them to follow decisions supported by a majority, or
qualified majority, of their fellow member states. Internal tensions
between member states and between member states and European
institutions over this intergovernmental versus supranational question
have been a key and recurring issue in the building of the EU. The
more supranational its procedures, the more integrated the EU
becomes (Sandholtz and Stone Sweet, 1998).
The day-to-day legislative and executive work of the EU is enacted by
the Commission together with the Council of Ministers meeting in its
various functional policy forums (agriculture, finance, trade and so on).
Yet, while national governments act on an intergovernmental basis
within the European Council, meetings of the Council of Ministers
have become more supranational and less intergovernmental since the
1986 Single European Act. When the Commission makes a
recommendation to the Council of Ministers, the ministers have two
choices. If it is a small or procedural issue, then they can utilise a
simple majority. For other, more pressing concerns, the council of
ministers use the qualified majority vote (QMV), which in effect means
more than just a simple majority.
In introducing QMV into the previously wholly intergovernmental
Council of Ministers, the EU took another step away from
intergovernmentalism and diluted the ability of states to veto proposals.
Each state holds a weighted vote related to its size, with the four
largest states – France, Germany, Italy and the UK – holding 29 votes
each, and the smallest – Malta – holding 3 votes. Of the total 352
votes in the Council of Ministers, 260 votes are needed to pass a
proposal (this number will be subject to change upon the ascension of
new member states as they will also gain voting rights relative to their
size). Since 2014 this has meant that 55 per cent of the votes, from at
least 15 member states (which together must contain 65 per cent of
the EU’s population), are needed to pass a proposal.
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6 From intergovernmentalism tosupranationalism?
In areas where QMV applies, the Council of Ministers is committed to

seek consensus rather than pursue a majority by virtue of an informal
agreement not to pursue a vote where fundamental disagreement exists
between member states. However, despite considerable (and
continuing) supranational encroachment in the form of an occasionally
proactive Commission, the introduction of QMV, the gradual
enhancement of the powers of the European Parliament, the
interactions between national governments, as well as those between
national governments and Brussels, remain key to understanding how
decisions are made regarding the future development of the EU. While
veto powers have been reduced since the introduction of QMV, states
can still veto decisions on sensitive areas such as security and external
affairs and taxation (European Union, 2014).
In regard to the relationship between national and supranational
governance mechanisms, there has been a steady movement toward
more governance functions migrating from the national level to the
EU level. For instance, attempts to introduce financial integration
demonstrate the way supranationalism can displace
intergovernmentalism as the modus operandi of EU economic decision
making. A sense of loss of national control over national economies in
a globalised economic market has encouraged states to pool together
to build a much larger and more powerful economic entity through the
EU. Here, national governments may not have abandoned altogether
their desire to exercise economic sovereignty but have tried to retain it
or regain it by ceding it to the supranational EU level. Of course, a
complex relationship operates between the national and the European
levels. It is not just a simple transfer of capacities from one level to
another. In the overall economic governance of Europe, however, there
has certainly been a shift away from the national to the supranational
level, but membership of the EU also serves to encourage sub-national
economic initiatives.
Therefore, if national borders become more and more permeable to
the globalisation of capital and the internationalisation of production,
cooperation and integration through regional governance is seen to
offer the nation state an opportunity to reassert some degree of
autonomy, but at the European level. Through the pooled capacity of
EU economic governance, EU-level market failures can be addressed.
The cost of relinquishing national policy sovereignty over economic
matters to EU-level authorities is traded off against the benefits yielded
from the more coherent EU policy approach required to manage an
185
increasingly integrated European economy. Given that market forces

have undermined certain forms of political control over the economy,
and hence the effectiveness of economic policy itself, a key purpose of
the EU’s economic and monetary union project is to reclaim ground
lost by political authorities in matters of European economic
governance.
The questions of the intergovernmental versus the supranational
characteristics of the EU, together with the relations between the
formal governance of the state and the informal governance of
economies and societies, have never been more important.
Developments after the Single European Act (1986) and the Treaty on
European Union (1992) not only considerably extended the role of the
EU in the governance of the member states, but also deepened the
EU’s involvement in questions of economic and social regulation. At
the same time, the end of the Cold War and the fall of communism in
Eastern Europe foreshadowed a major expansion of EU membership.
Enlargement poses a direct challenge to the delicate balance of
intergovernmental and supranational governance, for the more recent
members can be accommodated only through significant institutional
change to the governance of the EU or by allowing different groups of
member states to proceed with integration at different speeds – the
idea of a ‘two-speed Europe’, whereby an integrationist core pushes
ahead with an ever closer union, while newer and traditionally more
‘sceptical’ member states hold back. Further enlargement will also
potentially alter the character of economic and social integration in
Europe, as many will no doubt recognise following the last large-scale
enlargement in 2004.
There is clearly a long way to go before the EU becomes a sovereign
body in the eyes of its citizens – as the reference in Section 4 to a
majority of EU citizens feeling ‘unattached’ to the EU demonstrates
(European Commission, 2013). So if it is not popular public pressure,
what can be said to be driving the European Union forward to closer
union, drawing sovereignty away from the nation state with it? The
example of the project for a European constitution sheds some light
on this process. Constitutions are generally attached to modern nation
states, as in the ground-breaking example of the US constitution
from 1789. Now nearly all countries have a formal codified (written)
constitution, and it is generally held to be a key symbol of sovereignty.
Proponents of supranationalism within the European Union attempted
to develop a constitution for Europe involving a complex set of
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6 From intergovernmentalism tosupranationalism?
institutional frameworks and social and political rights for citizens.

That this attempt failed reflects the controversy that the sovereignty
project of supranationalism provokes throughout many European
countries.
The proposed European constitution of 2004, agreed to by the
European Council in June 2004 and intended to consolidate all existing
treaties into one, was rejected by France and the Netherlands in 2005.
This was due to opposition among the public of both states who voted
against adopting the constitutional treaty. As a provision had been
provided to ensure that one negative vote would scupper the treaty,
this was enough to ensure that it could not go ahead.
While this defeat may appear to be a victory for the intergovernmental
approach, in practice many of the proposed constitution’s provisions
were enacted in a less constitutional form via the Treaty of Lisbon.
One way of interpreting these developments is to see them reflecting
the emotional significance of one form of the distinction between de
jure (in law) and de facto (in practice) sovereignty. One could argue that
voters in some of the member states could not endorse the proposed
constitution’s statement of de jure or legal sovereignty involved in
formal constitutional arrangements. But they felt able to tolerate the
inclusion of some of the constitution’s provisions in the more practical,
political or de facto sense. Subsequent to the supposedly failed attempt
at a European constitution, the EU now nevertheless has a permanent
‘President of the European Council’ and a ‘High Representative of the
Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy’, effectively a president
and foreign minister for some key issues. These are positions that can
be seen as having clear supranational characteristics, despite being part
of the two key EU intergovernmental institutions (the European
Council and the Foreign Affairs Council of the Council of Ministers
respectively).
187
7 The European economy: from

convergence to crisis
Having explored the development of the EU, its competencies, how it
can be interpreted and its institutional make up, we come to the final
aspect of the EU that requires consideration – the European economy.
This provides one of the clearest examples of European integration.
The EEC aimed to create a single market where money, goods,
services and people could all move freely within its borders. As such,
economic imperatives have played an important role in the European
project and continue to form one of its most tangible features today in
the form of the euro.
The early stages of European integration took place against a
background of strong macroeconomic performance, marked by full
employment, low inflation and rapid growth. In many countries, this
was a ‘golden age’ of capitalism, one associated with the Keynesian
approach to macroeconomic policy: a regulatory order designed to
reform capitalism and govern the market order in the interests of
social justice. There was a broad consensus to regulate markets to
prevent them causing persistent mass unemployment, by maintaining
aggregate demand at a level sufficient to guarantee full employment.
Since the 1980s, public authorities such as the EU (as well as national
governments) have felt obliged to adopt ‘market friendly’ policies,
which complement and assist already powerful market forces. The
‘neo-liberal’ policy agenda that has since swept through Europe
represents the key factor in this move. Pressures have built up in
Europe to abandon overt regulatory management of economic activity
that restricts the market. Instead, public authorities adopt policies of
minimal regulation, such as deregulation, privatisation, marketisation
and liberalisation, and regulatory mechanisms that liberate the market,
working with it rather than against it.
In the past, there were considerable national differences in
macroeconomic policy, different models of capitalism, and distinct
economic regimes, cultures and institutions among EU member states.
While far from being homogeneous, similarities across member states
are now more likely to be found. Economic actors and governments
must pay increasing attention to economic decisions and developments
that occur within EU-level or Europe-level governance frameworks
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7 The European economy: from convergence to crisis
and, when necessary, adapt accordingly. For example, all member states
wishing to enter the single currency in 1999 had to meet convergence
criteria to ensure that economic development within EMU remained
balanced and to help avoid tensions between its members.
7.1 Economic governance and the euro

The EU, which has a continental-size economy, is a large and
prosperous player on the world economic stage. However, the new
members that have joined since 2004 are at a different level of
economic development from the longer-established members. Although
a pattern of ever closer economic integration can be discerned, Europe
has not automatically moved from a free trade area to a customs
union, to an internal commodity market, to a single common market.
Although integration has fashioned a European economic space, it
cannot be assumed that this space will become a single economic unit.
It is also not guaranteed that monetary union will result in a complete
economic union or political union. However, the globalisation of the
economy, and the reality of a European economic space, has
encouraged an internationalisation of decision making. This may be
born of a belief that the boundaries of nation states have become less
important and nation states less independent when a globalised
economy can be perceived to weaken the autonomy of the nation state,
but it is nonetheless a reality.
Perhaps the most visible reference point people have when they think
about European integration is the euro (Figure 5). While there are
other important features of the European economic space that are
worthy of attention (such as the CAP), it is the euro that has generated
the headlines and captured attention as the vanguard of the
integrationist project. The introduction of the single currency (the
euro) represents the strongest example of European integration.
Through monetary union, participating countries have replaced their
national currencies with a single common currency. European
monetary union has had far-reaching implications for the conduct of
economic policy in general, and monetary and fiscal policies in
particular, for these are now determined and conducted to a large
extent at the supranational level. The objective of monetary union is to
further facilitate the creation of a European economic space, removing
the remaining barrier to the cross-border movement of capital, goods
and services. In addition, the single currency has established another
189
continent-sized economy, one that has the potential to act as a

counterbalance to the power of the US in the international system.
Figure 5 The euro is a potent symbol of European economic integration
Monetary union naturally entails a diminution of national economic

sovereignty. Having relinquished their capacity for a national exchange
rate policy by joining the fixed exchange rate of the exchange rate
mechanism (ERM) after 1979, members of the single currency have
abolished their national currencies and transferred formal authority
over monetary policy to the ECB, which was created in May 1998.
This independent central bank is based in Frankfurt and is responsible
for managing the single currency. The ECB sets interest rates, regulates
the money supply and oversees the exchange rate of the single
currency. It must submit annual reports to both the European
Parliament and ECOFIN (EU Committee of Economic and Finance
Ministers) on its activities, and therefore comes under some form of
political scrutiny.
Of course, there are both economic and political impacts of a single
currency. Given that there is but one exchange rate shared with all
participating countries, rates are fixed and capital is freer to move from
one place to another within the single currency area. Currency unions
require a common monetary policy. The ECB’s independence means
that national governments have no direct leverage over its decisions.
As a result, monetary union invariably requires governments to
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7 The European economy: from convergence to crisis
coordinate their national fiscal policies with this ECB-determined

monetary policy. While the coordination of fiscal policies remains the
executive competence of member state governments, governments are
no longer able to wholly pursue independent fiscal policies.
As mentioned above, in addition to completing the single market, the
stated purpose of monetary union is to make Europe an ever more
powerful region on the international economic stage. Proponents of a
single currency argue that it provides collective policy options that
would be unavailable to individual member states by helping fashion a
truly integrated European economy, establishing a common regulatory
framework, cementing the internal market, facilitating the common
determination of many aspects of economic policy, and creating a
major world currency. However, it is very important to acknowledge
that, while very much a reality, at present European monetary union
remains a project still in the making. At the time of writing (2015) 19
of the 28 member states of the EU were members of the eurozone,
with all post-2004 accession states obliged to join the euro. The UK,
Sweden and Denmark are not members, with the UK and Denmark
holding formal ‘opt-outs’ enshrined in the Maastricht Treaty. While the
primary motive behind the euro’s launch was economic, political
considerations were also important. As McCormick (2011, p. 343)
notes, ‘it was designed to extend European integration not just into the
pockets and bank accounts of Europeans, but also into global financial
markets’. The euro is now the world’s second reserve currency after
the US dollar, and is firmly entrenched as a major player in
international foreign exchange and financial markets.
The global economic crisis, beginning in 2007, had a significant impact
on the member states of the EU, and prompted deep reflection on the
EU’s integrationist project. In what has become known as the
‘eurozone crisis’, several member states required bailouts from the EU
to rescue their ailing economies: Greece required the bailout as a result
of massive public overspending; Ireland because of its banks having
financed an unsustainable housing bubble; Portugal owing to a
combination of unsustainable public spending and risky investments;
Spain as a result of its own large-scale bank bailouts following the
bursting of its own housing bubble; and Cyprus as a result of the
exposure of its banks to the Greek crisis.
The crisis had major political implications across the EU, with several
national governments falling as a direct result (including all the above
bar Cyprus). Many saw in the crisis the potential demise of the euro,
191
which would have had far-reaching implications for the European

project. The EU’s response to the crisis was not without controversy.
The bailouts created a Europe of debtors (the countries requiring
bailouts) and creditors (Germany being the largest). Germany has led
those states who managed to maintain budget surpluses, and who were
less badly affected by the crisis, in proposing tighter regulation and
greater European fiscal oversight to avoid similar crises in the future.
While the EU was shaken by the crisis it has come out intact. The
crisis showed how susceptible its economies were to wider global
economic forces. The result is that its own economies are now more
dependent on each other than ever.
192
8 Conclusion
8 Conclusion
This chapter has presented a wide-ranging tour of the EU, looking at
its policy competencies, its various institutions and the economic
relations that continue as a key illustration of European integration.
One of the key issues addressed was the debate between
intergovernmental and supranational approaches to understanding the
EU. Today the EU continues to embrace intergovernmentalism, but it
has adopted a number of supranational characteristics as it has become
‘wider’ and ‘deeper’. Of course, the EU has had no definable centre. It
primarily exists in the form of its institutions, especially the European
Council, the Council of Ministers, the Commission, the Parliament and
the ECJ: ‘[T]he real essence of EU politics [is] the constant interactions
within and between EU institutions in Brussels, between national
governments and Brussels, within the various departments in national
government, in bilateral meetings between governments, and between
private interests and government officials in Brussels and at the
national level’ (Hix, 2011, p. 14). EU institutions therefore remain both
intergovernmental and supranational in character.
The debate, however, raises fundamental issues about the location of
authority in the multinational, multi-level governance of the EU, and as
such this chapter will finish with some thought-provoking questions
about the future direction of the EU. First, as the supranational
elements of the EU expand and intensify – if indeed that is what has
been happening – will the EU need to develop its own source of
authority, independent of that supplied by the member states? How
might it do so? It is worth considering how such moves would sit with
member states such as the UK, which have historically been less
inclined to greater supranational governance in the EU. Such moves
would further erode the authority of individual member states which, it
could be argued, is already happening as a result of interdependence
and globalisation. Conversely, despite increasing pooling of sovereignty,
states still control their own militaries, and citizens arguably identify
primarily with the state. This signifies the continued prominence of
member states and could act as a check on further supranationalism.
This in turn raises the second question: is there a shared family of
European political traditions (liberalism, conservatism, social
democracy and so forth) that cuts across the various national patterns
of politics and could feed into an EU-wide political process? It could
193
be argued that these shared traditions do indeed exist, and the forming
of cross-national political groupings according to ideological heritage in
the European Parliament evidences this. One could, however, question
the actual political strength of these cross-party groups in spite of the
powers that the parliament has gained over the years.
Finally, if the EU develops an independent source of authority, will it
also embrace its own state-like monopoly over the organised means of
violence? In short, will the EU become more state-like itself ? Certainly
the EU has global clout in terms of its economic power, and it has
begun to instigate more cooperation on defence and security issues, so
in some areas it could be argued that it is already acting ‘as one’ and
therefore in a more state-like manner. Globalisation and
interdependence continue to force states to act together in regional
blocs such as the EU, and some feel that acting as part of a wider
group is the best way of remaining competitive in the global economy
as new powers emerge. The key question is whether this force is
powerful enough to negate the strong ties that people have to their
state, and ultimately whether national interests can be maintained when
sovereignty continues to be pooled in ever-increasing institutional
arrangements.
194
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McCormick, J. (2011) European Union Politics, London, Palgrave Macmillan.
Peterson, J. (1999) ‘Sovereignty and independence’, in Holliday, I., Gamble, A.
and Parry, G. (eds) Fundamentals in British Politics, London, Macmillan.
Sandholtz, W. and Stone Sweet, A. (1998) (eds) European Integration and
Supranational Governance, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Wallace, H. (1996) ‘Politics and policy in the EU: the challenge of
governance’, in Wallace, H. and Wallace, W. (eds) Policy Making in the
European Union, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
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Chapter 19
Culture, rights and justice in
global politics
Edward Wastnidge
Contents
1 Introduction 201
2 Human rights in the global arena 204
3 Approaches to understanding human rights in
the global arena: communitarian vs.
cosmopolitan approaches 207
4 Culture, rights and globalisation 209
4.1 The global rights discourse: cosmopolitanism and
cultural globalisation 209
4.2 Alternative rights discourses from the non-Western
world: communitarianism revisited? 212
4.3 From culture to power politics 216
5 International justice 218
5.1 The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) 220
5.2 Military and humanitarian interventionism 222
6 Conclusion 225
References 227
1 Introduction
1 Introduction
There are many examples of claims for rights in the international
sphere. One example was reported in September 2002. The UK
government was asked to make efforts to have a British man held by
the US at Guantanamo Bay extradited to the UK to face charges of
terrorism in connection with the attacks in the US on 11
September 2001. Concerns were expressed about the denial of this
man’s human rights at Guantanamo Bay. Are alleged terrorists entitled
to human rights? Can the denial of their human rights be justified on
any grounds? You might also think of any number of conflicts in
recent times where rights have been held up as a cause for states to
intervene in the affairs of others. For example, humanitarian grounds
were cited in NATO states’ intervention in Kosovo during the 1990s.
A significant change occurred in the vocabulary of international politics
with the adoption of the 1945 Charter of the United Nations (UN
Charter), the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)
(Figure 1), and later conventions clarifying and extending the notion of
human rights. The UN Charter and the UDHR were an important part
of the international post-war settlement and it established the UN as
an organisation devoted to peace and security alongside human rights
and the rule of law. So many states have joined the UN, and signed the
UDHR and later conventions, that this has had the effect of
consolidating the concept of rights – both the rights of peoples to
national self-determination and individual human rights.
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Chapter 19 Culture, rights and justice in global politics
Figure 1 Eleanor Roosevelt, chair of the UN Human Rights Commission

1946–51, holding a copy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The UDHR, in particular, establishes a powerful moral claim for

individual rights. It asserts that each individual matters, deserves to be
heard, and must not be silenced. Each individual deserves respect and
is entitled to be treated with dignity, regardless of their race, gender,
creed, colour or mental capacity. The UDHR utilises a common,
universal moral language to specify its principles and norms, and
signatory countries have come under pressure to implement those
rights. Whether they actually do this in practice is a different story, and
rights abuses by signatories continue to make the headlines.
At the same time, the UN Charter expresses the intention to recognise
the right to national self-determination and the corresponding principle
of sovereign equality among the different peoples of the world. Indeed,
the ideas of ‘rights’ and ‘culture’ are closely linked in that the advocacy
of individual human rights is tied to the notion of the right to ‘self
determination’ for peoples and to statehood for national cultures. The
political identity of a national community is an important part of its
culture, but different groups in society perceive political identity
differently, depending on their wealth, social position, cultural
background, gender, geographical position and age. Furthermore,
202
1 Introduction
different national cultures have different political identities. The

language of rights and justice is one of the most common ways of
articulating political disputes, and of negotiating rival claims. In short,
claims and counterclaims to rights (and justice) take place within
national and now international cultural communities.
It is agreed by most people that ‘rights are a good thing’ and in many
respects they are. However, this chapter takes a critical view, exploring
the different perspectives on the global rights debate and the
complexities of its competing positions. The belief in rights based on a
moral assertion of a common humanity that we all share is not self
justifying, and it needs to be located within the complex political field
of global political relations. This chapter will therefore look at debates
around the notion of human rights in the global arena, exploring two
perspectives that offer differing accounts about how rights should be
asserted. We then come back to the idea of globalisation and how this
can be linked to global rights discourse – on whose terms are these
claims articulated? Finally we examine the issue of humanitarian
intervention, exploring how states and other organisations utilise the
rights discourse in global politics.
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2 Human rights in the global arena

As you will have already read in previous chapters, the modern rights
movement has its origins in the tradition of ideas and political theory
of the late eighteenth century, and the social reform movements of the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Their subsequent enshrinement at
the UN set universal standards for norms of conduct and treatment of
individuals.
Thus, when notions of rights and justice are extrapolated to the level
of global politics there can be a tension between the rights of
individuals and the authority of states. As Brown (2002, p. 8) notes,
‘[On the one hand], most states do not want to be seen by their own
publics, or by world public opinion as mobilised by the international
media, as violators of human rights. On the other hand, when
important issues are at stake, states are unlikely to allow this kind of
reputation to be decisive, and, crucially, states themselves determine
what are the important issues.’ The post-Westphalian state system
maintained the sovereign equality of all states, thus they were
responsible for their own laws. While the UN Declaration of Human
Rights represents an attempt to assert rights of individuals within
states, it still upholds the sovereign equality of those states. So it could
be argued that the Declaration reinforces the power of states to do as
they please within their own borders. An alternative reading of this
might be that it actually allows states to be held accountable to a wider
international community which, in an increasingly globalised world,
adheres to common norms such as those enshrined in the UN
declaration.
The international human rights discourse claims that the value of its
conception of rights lies in it being universal, empowering and human
centred. The idea of universality asserts the relevance of human rights
to anyone, anywhere. Empowerment is the concept of human rights as
a defence against inequality and the domination of the powerful over
the weak. The human-centred feature of international rights seeks to
provide a perspective on global questions, ‘putting the value of human
dignity above the search for economic gain or the narrow interests of
particular national governments’ (Chandler, 2002, p. 1).
A key debate on the applicability of human rights in global politics is
therefore over how these rights are grounded. Should they be
considered ‘natural’, basic human rights that transcend any country or
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2 Human rights in the global arena
culture? Or should they be considered as ‘cultural’ and as emanating

from within a specific culture? This leads us to debates over the
viability of universal rights, and there are four useful critiques which
can be identified.
1 Is the rights discourse truly universal?
The cultural specificity of the current rights agenda cannot easily be
overcome, because it derives directly from an Enlightenment and
modern, rational, Western tradition and its accompanying context of
emancipatory, progressive, liberationist politics. Rights in this sense
cannot simply be applied to other places and times.
Reading international rights through the lens of Western concepts
can lead to distorting effects. For instance, some critics have argued
that there is an unwarranted tendency in both Europe and North
America to see human rights as problems for other countries but
not for themselves, and to be complacent about poverty and
institutionalised racism in Western countries. Critiques of rights
notions in the West are often disregarded yet deserve to be taken
seriously. The criticisms from some Muslim groups, for instance, of
the objectification of women’s bodies and the power of the
pornography industry in the West, are a case in point.
2 Feminist critiques
Some feminists argue that the universal notion of rights makes
invisible the special problems faced by women as a group, and that,
thereby, specific articles of the various human rights declarations
and conventions reinforce traditional gender roles in the family and
the workplace. An example might be the poor pay and conditions,
and the isolation faced by women ‘home-workers’ in developing
countries, or the sexualisation of women’s bodies through
international prostitution and associated trafficking. Another critique
might focus on the universal right to employment, which may have
different implications for men and women. Given the unequal
distribution of domestic and reproductive labour, some would argue
that equal employment rights for men and women should involve a
transformation in childcare arrangements, for example. Without
such a transformation, other fights for equal rights may actually end
up perpetuating inequalities. While international organisations such
as the International Labour Organization (ILO) exist to prevent
trafficking and forced labour, and to ensure women workers’ rights,
they cannot sanction states directly, even if they are in
contravention of their obligations as signatories. Ultimately,
205
universal human rights are seen as being made in the image of

‘man’ and women’s rights are not guaranteed in their promotion,
thus invalidating any claim to universality.
3 Who can claim against whom?
What if rights are claimed for a group that is not recognised, such
as a rebel group, or against a group that is not held morally
accountable, such as a transnational company? It is not always
possible to bring non-state actors to account as they do not
necessarily sign up to principles of universal rights. Also
international NGOs such as Amnesty International and Oxfam are
unregulated and not held accountable to a wider public. This angle
might also focus on the compatibility of different rights: for
example, are political, social, economic and legal rights compatible
with each other? Some states have been known to argue that they
need to promote economic growth and stability first before granting
political rights. For some cash-strapped states even basic social and
economic rights might not be attainable.
4 Individual human rights ‘trumping’ state sovereignty
This relates to the third area outlined above. Do human rights take
precedence over state sovereignty? The human-centred logic of
rights regards human rights as a value which places legitimate
constraints upon the politics of national self-interest and interstate
competition.
Chandler (2002, p. 8) notes that at the 1993 UN World Conference on
Human Rights in Vienna, ‘the UN Charter was widely construed to
mean that human rights should take precedence over sovereignty’.
Moreover, he argues that, ‘by the end of the 1990s, with UN
protectorates established in Kosovo and East Timor and the
indictment of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic for war
crimes, international relations were no longer seen to be dominated by
the need for inter-state consensus’ (Chandler, 2002, p. 8).
206
3 Approaches to understanding human rights in the global arena: communitarian vs. cosmopolitan approaches
3 Approaches to understanding human

rights in the global arena:
communitarian vs. cosmopolitan
approaches
This brings us to a debate about how relations between states should
be structured and regulated. So, we can ask whether relations between
states should be driven by universal, moral principles such as rights or
by other interests. This is articulated through the debate between
cosmopolitan and communitarian approaches – considered as ‘normative
theories’ as opposed to ‘analytical theories’ such as realism and
liberalism. By ‘normative’ we are not dealing with what is or what
exists in an empirical sense, but what ought to be, and the choices that
decision makers should take.
There are two very different and sharply contrasting views about how
the international arena can be theorised, should be organised and can
be described. The communitarian side sees the international sphere as
made up of a plurality of interacting cultures with incommensurable
values, while the cosmopolitan side deploys general concepts of rights
and applies these to humanity as a whole. The descriptions offered
here are given as broad umbrella positions, and there are differences
within each side, as will be seen in the subsequent section. But for
reasons of clarity and simplicity, communitarianism can be viewed as
championing a particularist and state-centric perspective, while
cosmopolitanism maintains a universalist and global perspective.
These two constructions rest upon very different views of what human
beings are, and how they do and should interact together.
Communitarians understand human beings first in terms of their
cultural identity, while according to cosmopolitans, reason should be
the governing principle of human interaction, though this is not always
the case. The cosmopolitan belief in the emancipatory power of the
human capacity for reasoning derives from the idea that reasoning is a
shared capacity capable of providing the basis for moral principles
which aim to deliver humankind from the mire of ignorance and
superstition. As you can no doubt appreciate, these are strongly
divergent principles on which to base the construction of international
politics.
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For communitarians, the international arena is dominated by states but

this does not discount the role played by other, subordinate actors to
help coordinate interstate activity. International NGOs, international
regulatory organisations like the World Bank and IMF, the UN as a
forum for states, and global civil society campaigns such as the
campaign to end apartheid in South Africa or anti-globalisation
protests can all play a role, provided that states are still regarded as
central.
As stated by cosmopolitans, the international arena is a public sphere
and potentially an arena of governance in its own right. Some
cosmopolitans look forward to a global order with a stronger set of
institutions above states. Areas identified as requiring reform include
the composition of the UN Security Council and the power of veto by
its permanent members, and the restrictions on international
intervention arising from the UN Charter and from state sovereignty.
The form of accountability that supranational institutions would have,
how that accountability would be delivered, and to whom, remain in
question, however. You might be starting to recognise how this ties in
with the block-wide theme of globalisation, and the effects this has on
global politics. Which set of rights should such a global order be
governed by? We have already seen how the human rights discourse
represents a specific cultural tradition, therefore can these rights be
considered as truly universal? We’ll now look at the issues of culture,
rights and globalisation, while keeping in mind the two perspectives
that you have been introduced to above and the variations within
them.
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4 Culture, rights and globalisation

Having examined human rights at the global level, and looked at
differing perspectives on how they should be applied, we can now
further explore how a global propagation of rights relates to local
cultural traditions, and what the responses have been. On the one
hand, the existence of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
demonstrates that human rights are indeed (almost) globally accepted.
On the other hand, the universal scope of human rights remains
contested. Why might this be the case? In reality, do all people and
nations subscribe to the same notion of rights?
4.1 The global rights discourse: cosmopolitanism

and cultural globalisation
One of the issues of debate is that the predominant discourse around
human rights represents a particular cultural tradition. According to
this view, they are very much an outcome of European and North
American historical struggles. The states in the West that promote this
view also propagate a secularised culture – which is nevertheless not
necessarily incompatible with religious traditions. In this interpretation
human rights are not a universal good but propagate, or even impose,
a particular cultural tradition.
As you have already seen in Chapter17 , economic globalisation is
often related to the spreading of Western lifestyles and consumption
preferences across the world. Some of the popular expressions of this
cultural fall-out of economic globalisation are ‘McDonaldisation’ and
‘Coca-Cola-isation’ of the world. These concepts suggest that economic
globalisation produces a global homogeneous consumer culture in
which Western models increasingly displace alternative cultural
traditions. However, this is only one way of understanding cultural
globalisation. As Jocelyne Cesari notes:
[Cultural] homogenization contains several aspects. The

propagation of lifestyles, clothing, music, and consumer products
from the West is the most visible and striking. But aside from the
McDonald’s and Coca-Cola effects, uniformization also progresses
… through the propagation of a set of norms and values such as
209
human rights, democracy, market economy, and protection of the

environment, which are imposed in all corners of the earth.
(Cesari, 2002, p. 5)
The latter aspect – that is, the global propagation of sets of norms and
values – introduces an important element in the discussion of cultural
globalisation. It implies that cultural globalisation cannot be reduced to
consumption patterns and lifestyles. But more importantly, it indicates
that cultural globalisation cannot be reduced to a side effect of
economic globalisation. It is a development in its own right that is
(partly) independent of economic processes.
The globalisation of rights, especially of human rights but increasingly
also of property rights, has provoked a debate about the cultural
content of rights. Do they impose Western value systems upon other
value systems in the world? It is often argued that universal human
rights mainly incorporate Western traditions that prioritise individual
freedom rights and individual property rights above family rights, rights
of the community and social rights.
The underlying assumption in this debate is that global rights have a
specific cultural content. They are not natural rights that everyone
gains at birth. Instead, the debate about rights versus culture assumes
that universal rights originate from particular cultural histories that
prioritise particular values such as individual freedoms, market
interaction, individual property, and so on. By imposing rights globally
one can indeed argue that one is not simply favouring particular rights
but enforcing a cultural tradition and its values upon other traditions
that may not wish to prioritise the right of free speech and movement
above, for instance, equal distribution of wealth.
Rights as expressions of cultural values are the first and most obvious
way in which rights relate to culture. However, rights are also cultural
in a slightly different – though not unrelated – sense. They express a
rights culture. But what does it mean to talk of a ‘rights culture’? The
concept of a ‘rights culture’ refers to the idea that rights systems are a
culture in another sense of the word. At the heart of the concept of
rights culture is the idea that claiming rights requires a specific way of
understanding how one relates to oneself, to other people and to the
wider community. Individuals are first of all understood as rights
holders. They define themselves and are defined by others on the basis
of rights they hold. For example, under the Geneva Convention,
210
refugees are defined as persons who ‘owing to a well-founded fear of

being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, or
membership of a particular social group or political opinion’ (United
Nations, 1951, art. 1) have a right of not being sent back to the
country where they were persecuted.
It is worth noting here that a rights culture in this sense has strong
links with the liberal philosophical and political tradition that was
discussed in Blocks 2 and 3. Liberalism can be seen as an
individualistic and universalistic doctrine with a particular concern to
uphold individual liberties with regard to the state and with individuals’
rights to own property. To a great extent, supporters of a rights culture
are operating in a close relationship with the liberal political tradition,
and thus the notion of universal human rights are centred on a
Western and, arguably, US understanding of human rights, with no
reference to other cultures or values (Cotesta, 2011; Woodiwiss, 2005).
When we think about the cosmopolitan approach, as discussed
previously, it is therefore easy to see parallels with the universal claims
for rights that cosmopolitans might promote, and the Western liberal
traditions that it draws upon. This is often referred to as ‘liberal
cosmopolitanism’, and while it can be seen as being historically
predominant in the global rights discourse it is not the only
cosmopolitan viewpoint. Indeed, as Shani (2014) highlights, although
the institution of rights may have its roots in Western Europe, the
content of rights in this tradition – namely freedom and equality – has
just as deep, if not deeper, roots in many non-Western cultures.
Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam all arguably have the idea of freedom
and equality at their cores too. In a similar vein, scholars drawing from
and working in post-colonial theory (a position that emphasises and
analyses the legacies of colonialism) have criticised the way in which
liberal cosmopolitanism reinforces unequal power relationships at the
global level. This view emphasises the promulgation of rights
discourses as part of a renewed form of imperialism forced on poorer
states. Poorer states, many of which were former colonies, might for
example have to subscribe to Western-defined norms in order to
survive, even if they reinforce dependency and inequality. Therefore,
rather than basing cosmopolitanism on shared adherence to Western
defined liberal values, scholars such as Jabri (2007) and Duffield (2007)
emphasise the need for a different kind of cosmopolitan thinking that
focuses on solidarity with the poor and universal principles emanating
‘from below’ rather than through the largesse of Western democracies.
211
4.2 Alternative rights discourses from the non-

Western world: communitarianism revisited?
So far, we have discussed how the global propagation of rights is an
important element of cultural globalisation. That means that rights can
be considered as ‘cultural’ to a certain degree. However, if the universal
propagation of rights is a cultural process, then it is not surprising that
it is contested on cultural grounds. We have outlined how arguments
for rights can be considered as universally valid, but also that this
notion is hotly debated. On cultural grounds it is particularly
challenged by communitarians who hold the belief that the world
consists of different cultures that may or may not be compatible. In
this view, global rights represent a particular cultural tradition, and
therefore they do not have universal validity. In this section we will
illustrate how these arguments have been used and questioned in
political debates about human rights.
A communitarian understanding of the global propagation of rights
sees it as a global propagation of one set of values that challenges the
diversity or plurality of cultures. Therefore communitarians will
generally argue for diversity of homogeneity. In this view, arguing for
universal respect for rights such as freedom of speech, freedom of
organisation, patenting of inventions and gender equality in fact
represents support for imposing an alien cultural tradition upon
another society that may wish to prioritise other values such as respect
for family and duty towards the community. This is sometimes referred
to as cultural relativism – a charge laid at some communitarians who
focus on the benefit of communal and particularistic formations over
universal ones.
In a human rights culture the discussion is usually about whether
human rights are respected or violated in particular cases. Are
prisoners tortured in country X? Does country Y respect the right of
free speech? Are people persecuted because of their religion or
political opinion in country Z? However, when cultural relativist
arguments make their way into this debate ,the focus shifts from a
question of how well universally valid rights are protected in different
places, to the protection of particular cultures against globalising
processes.
An interesting historical example to illustrate this is the assertion of
‘Asian values’ during the 1990s. After the end of the Cold War,
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Western states started asserting more radically than before a respect for
human rights and democracy in their foreign policy. For example, the
member states of the European Union introduced respect for human
rights and the introduction of democracy as a condition of aid policy.
Also, international organisations such as the IMF and the World Bank
regularly asserted the need of good governance which included
references to human rights.
In Asia, Singapore and Malaysia took the lead in opposing Western
human rights agendas by affirming Asian values. For example, the
Financial Times reported in March 1994 that:
Dr Mahathir Mohamad has asked Malaysians not to accept

western-style democracy as it could result in negative effects. The
prime minister said such an extreme principle had caused moral
decay, homosexual activities, single parents and economic
slowdown because of poor work ethics (Voice of Malaysia radio,
29 May 1993). A resurgent Asia is spurning the dogma of western
liberalism and forging for itself a new and improved set of
political and social beliefs, if we are to believe east Asian leaders
such as Dr Mahathir, the Malaysian Prime Minister. Trumpeted
across the region as ‘The Asian Way’, this emerging ideology is
loosely based on the teachings of Confucius, who championed
family values and respect for authority … Not all supporters of
the Asian way claim that democracy makes you decadent and gay,
but they reject many of the western liberal democratic ideas that
seemed poised to dominate the world after the collapse of
European Communism in the 1980s.
(Mallet, 1994, p. 26)
The ‘Asian Way’ thus rests on an explicit distinction between Asian and
Western values (Figure 2). Proponents affirm the priority of the nation
over the community and of society over the individual. The family is
seen as the basis of society and respect for the individual is related to
the contributions of the individual to the community. They emphasise
the importance of consensus over conflict. The focus on collective
rights, consensus and the family are opposed to Western individualism,
and to the belief that conflict and competition are progressive forces.
213
Figure 2 Dr Mahathir Mohamad, former Malaysian prime minister, was an

advocate of ‘Asian values’
The emphasis on alternative conceptions of culture and their

differences from the overarching liberal narrative are evidenced by
scholars such as Martin Jacques (2012), who has emphasised China’s
self-perception as a ‘civilisation state’ as opposed to a Western-style
nation state. In this way, the confidence of some in the West that
China’s rise is going to result in the Chinese ‘becoming more like us’ is
based on a perception of globalisation that is flawed. This is not to
assume that cultures are incompatible, however. Mohammad Khatami,
Iranian president from 1997 to 2005, utilised the civilisational reference
points of Huntington’s well-known Clash of Civilisations thesis (which
refers to the inevitable ‘clash’ between civilisational ‘blocs’ such as the
Islamic and Christian ‘worlds’), and flipped them to argue for a
‘dialogue among civilisations’, again based on a particularistic view of
Iranian culture and civilisational standing. This argument was based on
some contrasting narratives with Western, liberal perspectives, but
ultimately saw cross-cultural understanding, exchange and plurality of
cultures as a good thing and promoted such understanding.
214
One criticism that can be identified with approaches that emphasise

certain cultural values is that to do so ‘essentialises’ them, i.e. it implies
that there are some reducible, essential characteristics that define a
culture or nation or people. Indeed, when looking at the Muslim world
and applicability of Western-defined, universalistic human rights norms,
it is easy to set this up as a juxtaposition between two contrasting
views. However, to do so assumes that there is one, overarching
Islamic vision of human rights; indeed, the 1981 Cairo Declaration on
Human Rights in Islam, adopted by member states of the Organisation
of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), is such an example. However, as
Halliday (1995) notes, this is an oversimplification and in reality the
Muslim world is made up of over 50 states with a variety of legal and
political systems, some of which are diametrically opposed to one
another. Despite the shared belief in a worldwide community of
Muslims, or ummah, there is no single voice speaking for them. Also,
Halliday (1995, p. 156) states:
On the issue of human rights itself, those who are victims of

regimes speaking in the name of legitimating ‘Islam’, be this Iran,
Saudi Arabia or the Sudan, have often invoked universalistic
principles precisely because they contest the very legitimacy of the
regimes that are repressing them.
Therefore, we cannot necessarily define rights cultures in simple terms.

To assume that everyone in the non-Western world assumes a default
position of cultural relativism and that all in the West preach liberal
cosmopolitanism is a false dichotomy, but the different perspectives do
help highlight how rights can be culturally framed.
It is important to note here that we’re not seeking to make a
judgement about the validity of opposing individualistic Western
cultures to Asian or Islamic cultures. Instead, the key issue to focus on
is that the communitarian and, by extension, cultural relativist
argument changes the debate on human rights. The focus moves from
the question of the universal implementation of human rights to the
protection of cultural identity, and so fits in more with the
communitarian aim of maintaining pluralism. In such a view, the global
propagation of human rights turns from a universal good that should
benefit everyone into a problematic cultural strategy that risks
undermining a variety of other cultural traditions. By shifting the focus
from universal rights to particular cultures, cultural relativism emerges
215
as a political strategy that makes the cosmopolitan project of

developing an international community organised around a perceived
universal rights culture problematic.
4.3 From culture to power politics

The political affirmation of Asian values is not simply a cultural
discourse opposing the globalisation of human rights, however. Let us
return to another of the statements made by then Prime Minister of
Malaysia, Mahathir Mohamad:
Believe me … if it was Africa that was rising economically, we

would be having a discussion on African values, not Asian values.
The West fears that Asian success will lead to Asian self-assertion.
(quoted in Ibison, 1996, p. 12)
This is an interesting statement for two reasons. First, it suggests that

the fascination with Asian values does not simply originate from within
Asia. The discourse on Asian values also results from a Western
fascination with Asian values. Second, the quotation suggests that the
Malaysian prime minister believes that the West’s fascination with Asian
values results from a fear of Asia’s self-assertion. In Mahathir’s
opinion, the West fears the economic success of the ‘Asian Tiger’
economies and the rise in Asian self-confidence that results from it.
Let us focus on the second point, about self-assertion. It suggests that
the issue is not simply Asian cultural identity and the universal validity
of human rights but also changing power relations between Western
and Asian states. Mahathir seems to suggest that what is at stake for
the West is that the Asian economies pose a threat to the dominant
power position of Western states in the international system. (At least,
that is one way of reading his claim that the West fears Asian self
assertion.) This is a realist interpretation which turns the Asian values
debate into a story about the international competition for power.
Cultural identity is not simply something that is worth fighting for in
its own right. It also needs to be protected because it is an important
resource in the global economic power struggle. As a result, culturally
defined strategies are not just about preservation of identity, they are
also strategies in the struggle for economic and political power in the
international system. The Asian values debate is thus part of a political
216
contest in which cultural identity, human rights protection and a

struggle for economic power are closely tied together. According to
this reading it would be a mistake to ignore the contest of cultural
identity and human rights protection in favour of more traditional
power politics – and vice versa.
In some ways, then, the above is simply an illustration of, and an
exercise in, constructing an interpretation that allows cultural
understandings of international relations to coexist with power–political
explanations. It demonstrates that cultural and power political
arguments are not necessarily contradictory in international politics. At
this point you might want to think back to Chapter 17 where we
outlined the different theoretical perspectives through which to analyse
different issues in global politics. The useful lesson here regarding
these is that realist interpretations emphasising economic and military
power and constructivist interpretations emphasising cultural identity to
explain international politics are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
217
5 International justice
The distinctions between the cosmopolitan and communitarian views
on how to organise interaction on a global level can be further
elucidated through debates on international justice and humanitarian
intervention. While communitarians strongly support an interpretation
of the UN post-war settlement based on the principle of national self
determination, many cosmopolitans seek to go beyond that settlement.
Those who endorse cosmopolitanism look forward to a further
development and structuring of global relations, governed by the
principle of universal rights, in which the exercise of national
sovereignty is conditional on respect for human rights. Some, but not
all, cosmopolitans wish to institutionalise this development in an
international framework that would override the authority of nation
states.
For cosmopolitans, the idea of universal retributive justice follows
logically from the notion of the universal human rights-carrying citizen.
Partly as a result of cosmopolitan ideas, the period since the Second
World War, and particularly from the 1990s onwards, has seen
significant moves to develop international law, policy making and
practice in order to put some muscle into delivering international
retributive justice. The aim of these developments is to enforce claims
to rights and to progress efforts to codify limitations on state
immunity. International justice in this sense has developed as one of
the extensions of the meaning of rights.
Thus the 1990s saw the UN Security Council establishing ad hoc
tribunals for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and the
start of UN and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) actions
in Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo and East Timor. These developments are
proof of new extensions to international law and enhanced powers of
intervention granted to international institutions and states in the name
of human rights. New legal safeguards to protect minorities from
oppression and persecution, in both international and national courts,
are also becoming institutionalised. In the early 1990s, the Hague and
Arusha tribunals for war crimes were welcomed by many
cosmopolitans as building on the legacy of the post-war Nuremberg
trials. Subsequently, in 1998, the Rwandan tribunal sentenced the
former prime minister and head of the Rwandan government, Jean
Kambanda, to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity.
218
The Rwandan case is particularly instructive as it laid the basis for a

new normative structure for humanitarian intervention that the
international community has adopted in the form of the ‘Responsibility
to Protect’, which will be discussed later. In 1994 approximately
800,000 people were massacred in inter-ethnic violence between the
majority Hutu and minority Tutsi populations in Rwanda. The majority
of those killed were Tutsis, in what is now considered an act of
genocide (Figure 3). The massacres followed years of ethnic tensions
between the groups, which had its roots in colonial times: the Belgian
colonists promoted Tutsis, who they considered to be superior, over
Hutus. While the Hutus regained power upon Rwanda’s independence
in 1962, tensions between the two communities continued in the
following decades. Tutsis were held responsible for the killing of
Rwanada’s Hutu president Habyarimana in 1994. This subsequently led
to the genocide, which also saw moderate Hutus massacred by
extremist Hutu militias. The international community was powerless to
prevent the genocide occurring. UN peacekeepers who had been
present in the county withdrew after ten of their number were killed at
the start of the genocide. The one state with the ability to intervene
with sufficient power, the United States, was hesitant to do so on
account of its experiences in Somalia, where many troops had been
killed on a humanitarian mission in 1992. When international support
did eventually arrive, the massacres had finished. A large portion of the
Hutu population fled to the neighbouring Democratic Republic of
Congo in light of the new government led by Tutsis and moderate
Hutus retaking the Rwandan capital Kigali.
219
Figure 3 Rwandan genocide memorial, Rwanda
The fact that the international community was hesitant to intervene

and prevent the genocide led to a debate over the capacity for states to
intervene, and effectively challenge another state’s sovereign rights, if
human rights were being abused. Subsequent discussions among
international experts sought to redefine sovereignty as not only
entailing rights but also responsibilities to protect their citizens.
5.1 The Responsibility to Protect (R2P)

Intervention on humanitarian grounds has now arguably become
something of a norm in intentional affairs. A good example of how
this works in practice can be seen in the development of the
Responsibility to Protect (often abbreviated as R2P), which came about
as a result of the international community’s failure to adequately
respond to the Rwandan genocide in 1994 and the Srebrenica massacre
220
in 1995. It is not a law as such but has become a norm of international

affairs and posits that ‘sovereignty no longer exclusively protects states
from foreign interference; it is a charge of responsibility that holds
states accountable for the welfare of their people’ (UN, 2014).
The R2P has three pillars (UN, 2014):
1 The state carries the primary responsibility for protecting
populations from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity
and ethnic cleansing, and their incitement.
2 The international community has a responsibility to encourage and
assist states in fulfilling this responsibility.
3 The international community has a responsibility to use appropriate
diplomatic, humanitarian and other means to protect populations
from these crimes. If a state is manifestly failing to protect its
populations, the international community must be prepared to take
collective action to protect populations, in accordance with the
Charter of the United Nations.
This has significant implications for state sovereignty, as this is no
longer a guarantee of a state’s protection. As such we have seen R2P
invoked in several crises since its enshrinement at the UN in 2005, for
example following post-election violence in Kenya in 2007–08 and in
Cote d’Ivoire in 2011. R2P was also cited in the UN Security Council
decision to permit military intervention in Libya in 2011. The R2P
principle has been criticised, however, particularly by voices on the left,
such as US public intellectual Noam Chomsky and leaders such as
former Venezuelan president Hugh Chavez, for only being applied
selectively and giving a mandate for powerful states to intervene in
other countries’ affairs. For example, while R2P was used to justify
intervention against the historically anti-Western regime of Muammar
Gaddafi in Libya, there was no such use of the concept towards the
West’s close ally Bahrain where a crackdown on dissent was ongoing at
the same time.
Of particular importance also is the establishment of the International
Criminal Court (ICC). In 1998, important steps were taken towards
setting up a permanent ICC with jurisdiction over individuals accused
of serious war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. It is an
institution with overarching global competence, expressing the
cosmopolitan commitment to the principle of reason in an
‘international public sphere’. Furthermore, the only body with the
221
authority to override an ICC decision is the UN Security Council, by

unanimous vote.
5.2 Military and humanitarian interventionism

While the ICC may be one of the clearest examples of a cosmopolitan
effort at global justice institution-building so far, it is not the only one.
The move towards cosmopolitan global institutions that extend beyond
the UN’s original goals and values speeded up considerably during
the 1990s. Indeed, some defined the period immediately following the
Cold War as a ‘golden era’ for humanitarian interventionism (Weiss,
2004, p. 136). Cosmopolitans would contend that international
institution-building does not necessarily lead to more interventionism.
Communitarians such as Chandler see it as significant that, in the field
of international human rights interventionism, ‘the shift in policy
practices has been institutionalised on an ad hoc manner through the
UN Security Council, which since 1990 has empowered itself to
consider humanitarian emergencies as a threat to international peace
and security’ (2002, p. 5). The first Gulf War to ‘liberate’ Kuwait in
1991 was followed by the international community’s attempt to set up
a ‘safe haven’ policy to protect the human rights of the Kurds and
Marsh Arabs in Iraq. The international regulation of Iraq, through the
establishment of ‘no fly’ zones and UN provisions to prevent Iraq
from developing weapons of mass destruction and limiting trade with
other states, represented a crucially significant legal precedent whereby
a state’s sovereignty was subordinated to human rights concerns. This
legal precedent for universal human rights-based intervention was
invoked in 1992 with the UN authorisation of unilateral US
intervention to protect humanitarian food conveys in Somalia. The
precedent was also used in 1993 when the UN authorised a multilateral
military intervention in Bosnia to protect humanitarian aid, and again
two years later when a NATO force was mandated to impose a peace
settlement. In 1999, international military action against Yugoslavia
over the Kosovo crisis was widely regarded as the first international
military intervention against a sovereign state for purely human rights
reasons (Figure 4).
222
Figure 4 Kosovan refugees returning to Kosovo pass by NATO forces
A key articulation of this form of intervention came when former UK

Prime Minister Tony Blair launched his idea of an ‘international
community’ at a speech in Chicago in 1999. He proposed that states
should intervene in others to prevent humanitarian crises, using the
language of ‘just war’ – one based in his eyes on values rather than
territorial ambition – to justify NATO’s then intervention in Kosovo.
While the humanitarian pretext was clear in the Kosovo case (although
not completely devoid of wider geopolitical considerations as regards
NATO and Russian support for Serbia), the doctrine was subsequently
applied to consecutive UK military operations, such as in Iraq (with
the language of rights being used as retrospective justification for the
ousting of Saddam Hussein) and Afghanistan. The language of human
rights was also used by the US and the UK as a framework for the
‘war on terrorism’ after the events of 11 September 2001.
Some cosmopolitan advocates of universal human rights might applaud
what they see as a significant extension of the competence of the UN.
From being charged with standard setting, monitoring and exerting
pressure on states to comply with human rights norms, the UN is now
very much in the game of intervention. Chandler (2002) is critical of
the enhanced role of the UN Security Council and argues that it has
been fundamentally transformed from being a policeman of
international security, concerned with the welfare of states, to a
supranational ‘government and administration body’ supporting the
human rights of citizens in situations of complex political emergencies.
223
Those administrative powers ‘were later extended on an indefinite basis

and, in 1999, the UN acquired further powers of administrative
regulation in Kosovo and East Timor’ (Chandler, 2002, p. 8). Although
an active UN presence indicates the organisation’s commitment to
intervention on humanitarian grounds, one could debate how
successful this intervention has been. Does, for example, being present
in a peacekeeping guise imply action? There have been occasions when
UN peacekeepers have had to stand by when violence has been
occurring, such as during the Srebrenica massacre in the Bosnian
conflict. The UN has had staff and peacekeeping forces on the ground
in Israel–Palestine since 1948, and yet conflict has remained a
depressingly regular theme in that part of the world. Also, while UN
peacekeepers have been brought in to protect human rights, in some
cases the peacekeepers themselves have been accused of gross rights
violations, as in the accusations of rape and complicity in prostitution
in a number of African peacekeeping ventures.
224
6 Conclusion
6 Conclusion
This chapter has explored differing perspectives on the global rights
debate and the complexities of its competing positions within the field
of global political relations. It started by situating human rights in the
global arena, emphasising the universalist aspirations of the global
rights discourse. The universalism of the global rights discourse can be
challenged from a number of different positions: arguments
emphasising the specific cultural and political context in which the
rights discourse was born; feminist critiques; who has the right to
claim against whom; and the issue of individual rights trumping state
sovereignty.
Following on from this, the chapter looked at debates around the
notion of human rights in the global arena, exploring the two
perspectives of cosmopolitanism and communitarianism, two normative
approaches that seek to explain how human rights should be realised in
global politics. The cosmopolitan position can be seen in the way that
bodies such as the UN regularly place emphasis on universal concerns
over national ones. In contrast, emphasising cultural identity leads to
the communitarian view that rights and justice are culturally specific
and cannot, and should not, be applied across borders.
The chapter then revisited globalisation and how this can be linked to
global rights discourse. It explored how the global propagation of
rights and values can be linked to a rights discourse that is historically
rooted in Western political traditions, although with the caveat that not
all cosmopolitan claims for universal rights need to come from that, as
evidenced by the work of post-colonial theorists. This was contrasted
through revisiting communitarianism in the context of culturally
defined alternative rights discourses, although again with an emphasis
on differing positions within the debate. Thus, the encounter between
global rights and national or regional cultures should not be exclusively
understood as a process of imposing one culture upon another or as a
clash of different cultural systems. You also explored briefly how this
actually tells us something about power politics in the sense that
culturally defined strategies are used as resource in the struggle for
economic and political power in the international system.
Finally, the chapter examined the issue of humanitarian intervention,
exploring how states and other organisations have utilised the rights
discourse in global politics. The examples discussed in this section
225
highlighted how the language of rights has been utilised to justify

intervention, even retrospectively in the case of the US-led ousting of
Saddam Hussein in Iraq. While a cosmopolitan victory of sorts can be
seen in the establishment of a normative structure for defence of
human rights as seen by R2P, global power politics initially stymied its
application in Syria. Stung by the regime change that followed the
campaign against Muammar Gaddafi in Libya (in which R2P was
invoked but essentially used to justify regime change), Russia and
China vetoed military intervention against Syria at the UN Security
Council. Interestingly, in the case of Syria, part of the response came
from regional states looking to justify their own hopes for regime
change in Syria; ironically, nearly all of them head up authoritarian
regimes. Thus the rights and responsibilities of states to protect their
civilians become subsumed in regional and global struggles for political
influence.
226
References
References
Brown, C. (2002) Sovereignty, Right and Justice: International Political Theory

Today, Cambridge, Polity Press.
Cesari, J. (2002) ‘Global multiculturalism: the challenge of heterogeneity’,
Alternatives, vol. 27, special issue, pp. 5–19.
Chandler, D. (2002) ‘Introduction: rethinking human rights’, in Chandler, D.
(ed.) Rethinking Human Rights: Critical Approaches to International Politics,
Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 1–18.
Cotesta, V. (2011) Global Society and Human Rights, Leiden, Brill.
Duffield, M. (2007) Development, Security and Unending War : Governing the
World of Peoples, Cambridge, Polity Press.
Halliday, F. (1995) ‘Human rights in the Islamic Middle East’, in Beetham, D.
(ed.) Politics and Human Rights, Oxford, Blackwell, pp. 152–67.
Ibison, D. (1996) ‘Mahathir insists West adopts more Asian values’, South
China Morning Post, 23 May, p. 12.
Jabri, V. (2007) ‘Solidarity and spheres of culture: the cosmopolitan and the
postcolonial’, Review of International Studies, vol. 33, no. 4, pp. 715–28.
Jacques, M. (2012) When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World
and the Birth of a New Global Order, 2nd edn, London, Penguin.
Mallet, V. (1994) ‘Confucius or convenience?’, Financial Times, 5 March.
Shani, G. (2014) ‘Who has rights?’, in Edkins, J. and Zehfuss, M. (eds) Global
Politics: A New Introduction, 2nd edn, Abingdon, Routledge.
UN (2014) ‘Statement on the Responsibility to Protect’, Office of the Special
Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide [Online]. Available at http://www.un.
org/en/preventgenocide/adviser/responsibility.shtml (Accessed 29
November 2014).
Weiss, T. (2004) ‘The sunset of humanitarian intervention? The Responsibility
to Protect in a unipolar era’, Security Dialogue, vol. 35, no. 2, pp. 135–53.
Woodiwiss, A. (2005) Human Rights, London, Routledge.
227
Chapter 20
Challenging the state:
terrorism in global politics
Edward Wastnidge
Contents
1 Introduction 233
2 Modern terrorism in historical context 237
2.1 The first wave: anarchist terrorism 238
2.2 The second wave: anti-colonial terrorism 239
2.3 The third wave: left-wing terrorism 240
2.4 The fourth wave: religious terrorism 242
3 Terrorist networks in the global era 244
3.1 Terrorism and globalisation 244
3.2 Networks and technology 247
4 A global terrorist network?
Al-Qaeda case study 248
4.1 Al-Qaeda as a network? 250
4.2 What kind of challenges does al-Qaeda and its
affiliates present to states? 253
5 Conclusion 257
References 259
1 Introduction
1 Introduction
Terrorism can be seen as one of the most pressing global issues of our
time. You will be able to pinpoint events within your lifetime or
beyond that can be linked one way or another to terrorism, from the
campaigns of the IRA in Northern Ireland and mainland Britain in the
twentieth century to the Westgate Mall attack in Kenya in 2014. With
the events of 11 September 2001 (known as 9/11) and the subsequent
War on Terror, the media, public debate and academia have been
flooded with studies and comment around this issue. Naturally such a
major event as 9/11, targeting as it did the world’s pre-eminent military
and economic power by attacking the symbolic targets of the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon, is bound to generate substantive
interest, but to the untrained eye this could be considered something
‘new’ in the study of global politics. As Randall Law astutely observes,
though, terrorism is ‘as old as human civilisation … and as new as this
morning’s headlines’ (2009, p. 1). While methods and aims change,
political violence has been around for as long as politics itself.
‘Conventional’ forms of political violence at the hands of states and
empires can be seen in the myriad wars that have pock-marked human
existence, be they within states or between them. Terrorism, however,
is a far more slippery notion, despite its long history. For a start,
despite the ‘ism’, what we are dealing with here is not an ideology
(although certain groups may well have an ideological standpoint).
While there are numerous definitions of what terrorism is, there is
broad agreement on its core feature: violence. However, from this
starting point, definition becomes difficult as terrorist groups have
wildly divergent imperatives that may be liable to change over time.
The term was initially ascribed to the exercise of violence by the
revolutionary government during a period of the French Revolution
known as the ‘Reign of Terror’. Nowadays the term is more commonly
applied to non-state groups seeking political change, or in some cases a
change in the norms that govern the societies we live in. (It should be
noted here states can also be accused of sponsoring terrorism and
employing such tactics against their own or other civilian populations.)
Terrorist groups can therefore be considered a type of non-state actor
in global politics, and more specifically can be labelled as violent or
armed non-state actors, who challenge the state’s monopoly on
violence through their own actions in seeking political gain or change.
233
Chapter 20 Challenging the state: terrorism in global politics
Political violence is used by many different groups in global politics.

Although the focus here is on terrorism as forming part of a wider
collection of non-state actors, state-led political violence, sometimes
defined as terrorism itself, is a regular feature of global politics. Israel’s
campaigns against Hamas in the Palestinian territories in recent years
are often painted as state-led terrorism by its opponents, while Israel
would say it is defending itself against a terrorist threat. National
liberation movements and guerrilla groups have long utilised violence
as a means to challenge states’ authority. From the Tamil Tigers’
campaigns against the Sri Lankan government to the FARC guerrillas’
actions against the Colombian state, violence has been a recurring
theme, as has the designation of such groups as terrorists. The
perceived legitimacy of such groups can be enhanced if they are
fighting particularly repressive governments, or if they avoid civilian
targets. Ultimately they need to have widespread support in order to
succeed. They need to be defending or fighting for a particular
constituency or group that has been disenfranchised or marginalised.
The distinction between liberation movements and terrorist groups is a
problematic one, but legitimacy is key in maintaining a group’s ability
to function and challenge the state through violence.
Despite the ideals of many terrorist groups in seeking change, they
often lack widespread popular support in the same way that certain
revolutions and insurgencies might. To this end, terrorist groups often
adopt extreme tactics as part of a ‘violent theatre’ (Law, 2009, p.3) to
draw attention to their cause and in the hope of provoking a
disproportionate reaction by those whom they target to further help
their cause. In many ways terrorist acts are symbolic acts that employ
violence as a means of generating both fear and fame (Figure 1).
234
1 Introduction
Figure 1 The al-Qaeda attacks on New York’s World Trade Center on 11

September 2001
You can see already that we have not attempted a precise definition of
terrorism here; rather we have emphasised some common traits of
terrorist activity. Terrorism, and even the idea of a terrorist, is a
contested term because of the problem of legitimacy. The point at
which an action becomes legitimate is subjective and open to dispute.
By and large, most people would assume a default position of being
against acts of political violence if they target innocent civilians;
however, that has not stopped groups that were once deemed as
terrorist from garnering wider support at a later date. Terrorist groups
and/or actions are more likely to succeed when their case is deemed
legitimate by a wider audience. Similarly, a heavy-handed or
disproportionate response by states to such acts may also serve to
legitimise terrorist groups (Kiras, 2011). States will regularly use the
terrorist label as a means of legitimising certain actions, a trend that
has arguably increased since the onset of the US-led War on Terror.
Some attempts have been made at giving an overarching definition of
the term terrorism. For example, in 2005 the United Nations (UN)
proposed to define terrorism as something that involved ‘any act
intended to intimidate a population or to compel a government or an
international body to act’ and constituted ‘one of the most serious
threats to international peace and security’ (UN, 2005). However, in
235
2006 the 192 UN member states failed to agree on this formal

definition. This was largely because of disagreements among members
on whether a definition should encompass armed conflicts that take
place in ‘situations of foreign occupation’ (UN, 2005).
Studying terrorism as an issue in global politics is not without
difficulty. The discourse around terrorism, primarily in the media but
also in some parts of academia, is at times highly emotive, ranging
from prescriptions on what needs to be done to outright panic. This
chapter does not seek to make any subjective judgement. Rather, the
aim is to give you a critical understanding of the contested idea of
terrorism and terrorist groups as non-state actors, and an insight into
how it is changing. As such, it will first examine the development of
modern terrorism, looking at the distinct types or ‘waves’ in this
phenomenon that can be discerned from the nineteenth century to the
present day. It will then move on to explore the relationship between
terrorism and globalisation, focusing on the role of networks in
shaping our understanding of terrorism in recent times. With the
historical background and some explanatory approaches in mind, the
final section will look at the case study of a global terrorist actor in the
form of al-Qaeda, offering some interpretations of its significance to
global politics and the changes that it has undergone.
236
2 Modern terrorism in historical context

This first section provides some background for understanding the
development of terrorism in its modern form. You will have noticed
the term ‘modern’ appearing here. As mentioned above, terrorism is a
phenomenon arguably as old as civilisation itself. Although the term
only came into use following the French Revolution, there are
numerous examples throughout history where groups have employed
acts of violence that share many characteristics with modern terrorism.
Thus terrorist-type groups can be seen in the Roman Empire, most
notably the Zealots-Sicarii, a messianic Jewish group that instigated
uprisings against their Roman rulers in Judea, and employed
assassination of key political and religious figures and kidnapping as
means of achieving their aims. One can also see similarities in the
characteristics of the Assassins, a medieval Shia Muslim group based in
present-day Iran but operating across the Middle East, who sought to
reconstitute Islam into a single community devoid of schism. The
Assassins utilised significant holy days to stage dramatic assassinations
of prominent figures from surrounding governments as a means of
drawing attention to their cause.
Both of the above are examples of a ‘sacred’ form of terrorist activity
that draws on interpretations of religious sources. These are useful for
such groups because they provide a strong moral justification for those
carrying out the acts and therefore provide a sense of legitimacy. As
we shall see later when looking at one of the contemporary terrorist
groups, al-Qaeda, religion, or at least certain interpretations of it,
continues to play a significant role. You might also recognise that
elements of both terms used in these historical antecedents (i.e. ‘zealot’
and ‘assassination’) form part of the language often used to describe
terrorist actors and acts. A zealot might be thought of as a fanatic or
devotee of a certain creed who will be uncompromising in pursuit of
their aims – which is certainly a charge that could be laid at adherents
of religion-based, fundamentalist terrorist groups. Similarly,
assassination, now widely understood as an act of deliberately killing a
prominent political or public figure, forms part of the criminalised
actions of terrorist groups.
237
‘Waves’ of modern terrorism

While the above examples show how terrorism can be viewed as
having long-standing historical precedents, it is widely agreed that
terrorism in its modern, recognisable form made its first appearance in
the late nineteenth century. Rapoport (2004) outlined the development
of modern terrorism in ‘four waves’, which run chronologically from
the late nineteenth century to the present day. The four waves can be
identified as follows:
1 anarchist – from the 1880s onwards
2 anti-colonial – beginning in the 1920s
3 left-wing (or what Rapoport describes as ‘new left’) – from the late
1960s
4 religious – from 1979.
This is not the only way of identifying phases in the development of
what we now understand as terrorism, and one can certainly discern
sub-strands within each wave, but they provide a neat, chronological
overview of the phenomenon and its development.
2.1 The first wave: anarchist terrorism

The roots of modern terrorism can be seen in anarchist thinking of the
nineteenth century that created a strategy or doctrine for terror. This is
not to equate all anarchist thinking with political violence, indeed many
anarchists abhor violence, but what they have in common is an
antipathy to the authority of the state. Russian writers campaigning
against the perceived violence of the imperial dynasty in their country
at the time were crucial in formulating these ideas, promoting repeated
acts of violence against the ruling regime in order to polarise society
and foment revolution. This was facilitated by the developments in
transport and communication in the late nineteenth century, such as
the flourishing of mass newspapers, railways and the telegraph. These
rebels described themselves as terrorists, drawing their lineage from the
French Revolution. The tactics were exported from Russia across
Europe, culminating in a ‘Golden Age of Assassination’ (Rapoport,
2004, p. 52), which saw the targeted killings of prominent political
figures and monarchs by assassins who could move easily across the
porous international borders of Europe at the time. Here we can point
to the Italian assassins that killed a string of European royals at the
238
end of the nineteenth century, and the Russian exile group The
Terrorist Brigade establishing its headquarters in Switzerland from
where activities were coordinated across Europe. Thus we have the
first instance of what we now refer to as ‘international terrorism’.
Burleigh (2009, p. 85) notes that anarchist terrorists ultimately
undermined their cause, however, stating that ‘A philosophy
[anarchism] which regards the state as nothing more than the
organisation of violence on behalf of vested interests came to be
universally identified with murderous violence, obliterating the more
harmless aspects of the underlying philosophy.’ The assassination of
key political figures was to continue into the early twentieth century
and ultimately can be seen as setting the stage for one of its most
brutal conflicts, the First World War, with the assassination of
Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a group of assassins campaigning against
Austro-Hungarian rule in the Balkans.
2.2 The second wave: anti-colonial terrorism

Rapoport (2004) identifies the second wave as being precipitated by the
Treaty of Versailles, which concluded hostilities in the First World War.
This treaty applied the principle of self-determination to break up the
empires of the defeated states, but in doing so undermined the
legitimacy of the Allies’ own imperial possessions. Thus in Ireland
there was a campaign for independence from Britain and also a refusal
from some factions there to accept Britain’s remaining hold on
Northern Ireland. In Cyprus the EOKA sought to unify the island
with Greece, despite the presence of a Turkish minority who did not
wish to do so. In what was to become the state of Israel, Menachem
Begin’s Irgun movement sought to establish total Jewish control over
what was then British-mandated Palestine. In all three instances, newly
independent states were to emerge following the Second World War,
and something that can be conceived of as ‘terrorist’ activity, or a
struggle for liberation, was crucial in their formation as independent
states. The case of Algeria also provides an interesting illustration of
the anti-colonial flavour of this wave. Demands for independence from
France resulted in a war that pitted France and its supporters in
Algeria against the Algerian Front de Libération Nationale (FLN). The
FLN were ultimately successful in securing independence for Algeria
in 1962. However, this in turn led to the founding of the Organisation
de l’armée secrète (OAS) by French colonial settlers, or ‘Colons’, who
239
carried out terror attacks against French political figures in both

Algeria and France, in an attempt to prevent Algeria’s independence.
There was recognition among groups operating in the anticolonial
wave that the designation ‘terrorist’ now had negative connotations,
and thus they were framed as liberation groups or, in the words of
Begin, ‘freedom fighters’. Thus we return to our initial point regarding
the problems of definition that were outlined in the introduction.
Tactics were also changed from those of the first wave, with the
groups targeting police and army units, and attempts to avoid wider
civilian casualties. There was further success for anti-colonial struggles
following the end of the Second World War when the now superpower
US pressed for the elimination of colonial empires. As such there was
a major wave of decolonisation as the European powers withdrew
from their empires. This period saw wars of independence in French
Indochina (consisting of the modern-day states of Cambodia, Laos and
Vietnam), and in Indonesia as it sought independence from Dutch
colonial rule. The founding of the UN also helped legitimise the
struggles that were chaffing against the remnants of colonial empires
around the world, as it had the principle of self-determination at its
core. (As we have seen in the introduction, however, the UN is an
organisation that still cannot formulate a unified position on
differentiating between struggle against foreign occupation and
terrorism!)
2.3 The third wave: left-wing terrorism

The third wave, which Rapoport describes as the ‘new left’, was
stimulated by the US’s continued involvement in the Vietnam War, and
dissatisfaction among youths in the West about the war and
ambivalence towards the systems that governed them. With Soviet
backing, groups such as the West German Red Army Faction (also
known as the Baader–Meinhof Gang) and the Italian Red Brigades
(caustically referred to by Burleigh (2009) as ‘guilty white kids’) sought
to act as vanguards for the oppressed masses of the Third World
(Figure 2). Their ‘new left’ designation should not be wholly equated
with the new left movement you encountered in Block 3, however –
groups such as those mentioned above were very much on the
extremities of the new left movement. It should also be noted that not
all terrorist acts in this period were the work of leftist groups. In Italy,
for example, despite the prominence of groups such as the Red
240
Brigades, fascist groups were just as active in the so-called ‘Years of

Lead’ that saw regular assassinations and bombings across the country.
Figure 2 A West German police 'wanted' poster from 1986 asking for
information on members of the Red Army Faction
241
The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) became the model that

such groups sought to replicate and engender support for. Rapoport
(2004) highlights how the third wave shares some commonalities with
the first wave, with a return to focusing on ‘theatrical’ targets through
assassination of key figures (e.g. the IRA’s attempted assassination of
Margaret Thatcher), with less focus on military targets. Nationalism
and radicalism were also often combined, as seen in the activities of
terror groups belonging to national minorities such as the Basques,
Corsicans, Irish and Kurds. Plane hijackings and kidnappings also
became prevalent as a terror tactic by such groups. The ‘international
terrorism’ moniker was revived as groups sought to make linkages with
one another, such as those between the IRA and PLO, and between
European leftist groups and various Palestinian factions. During this
wave, states also began to ‘sponsor’ certain groups to carry out attacks
against hostile states, such as Libya’s involvement in the Pan Am plane
crash over Lockerbie in Scotland in 1988. Subsequently ‘freedom
fighter’ was no longer a popular refrain in UN debates, and the
organisation acted to unanimously condemn acts of terror such as the
Lockerbie bombing.
2.4 The fourth wave: religious terrorism

The fourth wave has been termed by Rapoport (2004) as the ‘religious’
wave. While religion has often played a significant role in modern
terrorism, until this wave it had generally been tied to national
liberation movements aiming to create secular states. However,
following the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and the Soviet invasion
of Afghanistan of the same year, we can see the start of what many
would now recognise as modern Islamic terrorism. The 1980s saw
alleged Iranian complicity in sponsoring terrorist acts in the Middle
East, and the pouring into Afghanistan of thousands of volunteers
from across the Sunni Muslim world to fight the Soviets. The
instability of Afghanistan following the Soviets’ humiliating withdrawal
in 1989 led to it becoming one of the prime destinations for terrorist
training camps and the base for what would become al-Qaeda, as we
shall see later on in Section 4.
This confluence of events that led to the rise of Islamic terrorist
groups was soon followed by the emergence of other religious-based
groups such as the Tamil Tigers, who were campaigning for a separate
Hindu homeland for the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka. The Tamils
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regularly utilised the tactic of suicide bombing and, as Rapoport (2004)

points out, from 1983 to 2000 they used more suicide bombings than
all Islamic groups combined. Other religious groups subsequently have
used terror tactics to draw attention to their cause, such as Jewish
groups active in the 1990s who waged assassination campaigns against
Palestinian mayors and the Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and
Sikh groups campaigning for a separate homeland in the Punjab.
A key feature of Islamist terrorist movements, with al-Qaeda as its
vanguard throughout the 1990s and 2000s, was their focus on the US.
In addition to the aim of removing the US military presence from the
Middle East, al-Qaeda sought to expand the campaign to targeting US
interests across the world. Thus attacks were carried out on US
military bases in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, the first ever strike against a
military vessel with al-Qaeda’s 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen,
and the bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
Attacks on the US homeland also took place with the 1993 bombing
of the World Trade Center and, of course, with the events of 11
September 2001.
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3 Terrorist networks in the global era

In addition to the waves of modern terrorism described above, we can
also overlay the terms ‘transnational’ and ‘global’ terrorism over the
third and fourth waves. The emergence of transnational terrorism can
be broadly equated with the ‘new left’ wave described above. It was
during this period that terrorist groups increased their international
reach and made connections with sympathetic groups across the world.
The increasing availability of televised news coverage also had a major
impact during this era and terrorist groups sought to maintain public
interest with ever more spectacular attacks that were filmed by the
international media. Transnational terrorism continued into the 1980s
(and into the fourth, religious wave) as the US became an increasing
focus for terrorist acts, such as the suicide bombing of US Marine
barracks in Lebanon in 1983. With the end of the Cold War in 1989,
the left-leaning groups of the third wave lost their main sponsor in the
form of the Soviet Union and their influence began to wane. However,
they were soon to be replaced by militant Islamist groups such as al-
Qaeda which, enabled by globalisation, were becoming a global
phenomenon.
3.1 Terrorism and globalisation

Thinking back to this block’s theme of globalisation, you might want
to think about how terrorism and globalisation are interlinked. For
example, what has the impact of globalisation been on terrorism?
Certainly, the events of 9/11 brought terrorism to widespread global
attention, and while it is not a new phenomenon, as you have seen
above, terrorism is certainly an area of global politics that is seemingly
here to stay and arguably an aspect of its study that remains in rude
health. The waves of modern terrorism have given us a brief
chronology. Now we can look at different explanations of how and
why terrorism has become a global phenomenon, and the motivations
behind it. Kiras (2011, pp. 368–73) identifies three possible
explanations for the vitality of global terrorism linked to globalisation:
culture, economics and religion. We will take these in turn and also
offer some criticism of such explanations.
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Cultural explanations
A cultural explanation of why militant Islam, for example, has been
successful in certain parts of the world is linked to the idea of cultural
globalisation. In this view the sense of a Western cultural onslaught
that promotes secular and material values is rejected by those wishing
to preserve their cultural identity. Thus there is a sense of such values
chaffing against others that are deemed incompatible; this therefore
serves as motivation for protecting one’s own culture and identity. This
is expounded by Huntington (1993) in his Clash of Civilisations thesis –
which states that the world is split into distinct cultural or civilisational
blocks (such as ‘Western’, ‘Islamic’ and ‘Hindu’) and that clashes will
inevitably occur on the fault lines between these civilisations because
of their perceived incompatibility.
This can be easily critiqued owing to the fact that cultures or
civilisations are not homogeneous, monolithic blocs and that some of
the most intense conflict has come about as a result of sectarian
division within such blocs – think of the conflict between different
sects within Islam and Christianity throughout history, for example. In
the Muslim world, particularly in Iraq, Shia Muslims (who make up a
minority of Muslims worldwide but form a majority in Iraq, Iran and
Bahrain) have long been targeted by extremist Sunni groups who view
them as heretics. There are also a whole range of different, often
conflicting standpoints in the Muslim world, even within sectarian
groups. The Muslim Council of Britain regularly speaks out against
extremism, for instance. Think about how the views of a Saudi mufti
(Islamic scholar) might differ from those of an Egyptian one. The
conflict between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland is
another case in point against the neat but problematic division of the
world into civilisational blocs. Also, intercultural exchange and
cooperation has a long history, be it through empire, trade or
diplomacy in its many guises. To assume that certain cultures are
threatened by an onslaught from another presumes that cultural
influence is purely a one-way street, but the reality of globalisation is
that exchange and greater awareness is just as prominent a feature.
Economic explanations
An alternative explanation for terrorism can be found through
emphasising the economic factors that motivate such activity. As with
notions of cultural globalisation, economic globalisation has also seen
the West maintain its predominance in the global economy. The
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pressures to conform to neo-liberal economic prescriptions such as

privatisation and deregulation can cause major social and economic
upheaval. In turn this can lead to disfranchisement and a move
towards activities that challenge the state if there is a sense that the
social contract with its citizens has been broken (Kiras, 2011, p. 371).
Terrorist activity can therefore be seen as a consequence of perceived
inequalities in the global economy, and as the symbols of capitalism are
often synonymous with the US and its global reach, the US becomes a
target.
However, a view that emphasises poverty and inequality as causes of
terrorism ignores the fact that the backgrounds of terrorists vary
widely. Burleigh’s comment on the ‘guilty white kids’ (2009) running
the leftist European terrorist groups, or the fact that Osama bin Laden
came from a hugely wealthy background, indicate that there is no
definite correlation. The location of most terrorist acts is also
indicative of a lack of correlation. For example, sub-Saharan Africa has
socio-economic conditions that might, on the face of it, favour the
outbreak of terrorist violence, but as yet it has not proved to be a
breeding ground for global terrorism (Kiras, 2011, p. 371).
Religious explanations and ‘new’ terrorism

Returning to the four waves of modern terrorism, it is possible to
discern a change from terrorism that was by and large linked to
national causes and liberation movements to a new type of terrorism in
the fourth wave. Within this wave also we can see a change from
religion-based terrorism that was largely regional and sometimes state
sponsored in scope during the 1980s to something much more global
in recent times. As with the cultural explanations, religious explanations
focus on the perceived negative effects of Western-led globalisation
and its moral and spiritual bankruptcy. Islamic militants have utilised
the concept of jihad (which traditionally refers to a struggle within
oneself for spiritual purity) and applied it to their fight against rulers of
Muslim countries who they see as apostates (i.e. they are not
conforming to their interpretation of Islam) and to the non-believers
(‘infidels’) who are trying to push their own secularised agenda upon
Muslims, thus threatening the spiritual purity of Islam as a whole.
Critiques of such an explanation might emphasise that while Western
observers seize upon religious reasons to explain why a terrorist might
take their own life and those of others, this does not explain why the
religious terrorist leaders, planners and coordinators do not martyr
246
themselves (Kiras, 2011, p. 372). Also, most religion-inspired terrorism

is still about responding to political conflict and ultimately seeking
political gains. It is easy to focus on religion as providing the
justification when it offers an easy target to pin the blame on, but in
practice it is just as easy to see an explanation in the political ideals
being fought over, albeit with a hefty dose of divine sanction.
3.2 Networks and technology

Arguably, the technological advances brought on by globalisation have
allowed terrorism to become more pervasive in global politics. This is
because terrorist groups have transformed from hierarchical
organisations with a clear leadership and structure into networks. Such
networks contain dispersed nodes that are held together by shared
ideologies, doctrines and aims, and rely on technology to prepare for
their tasks. This allows coordination and implementation of attacks to
take place across national boundaries. Since 9/11 and the ensuing War
on Terror, groups such as al-Qaeda have relied increasingly on this
mode of organisation. One of their advantages is that while a nominal
leader may be present, in a network they do not hold such a degree of
responsibility that their capture or death would derail the organisation’s
mission and capability (Dishman, 2005).
While states have traditionally held the ability to control information
flows, the internet has now changed that dynamic. As early as 1997,
the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement in Peru was using the
internet to post its videos and communiqués, and al-Qaeda has
arguably moved from a traditional, hierarchically structured group to a
broader ‘community of practice’ characterised by individuals’
information exchange (Kiras, 2011). The use of ‘dead letters’ (saving
draft email messages in a shared email account), increasingly cheap and
available mobile communication, and the advantages afforded by a new
generation of web-savvy operatives have enabled such groups to
continue their activities in the face of ever-increasing surveillance.
Terrorist groups now offer slick productions as a way of broadcasting
their message online and to global media outlets, with social media
providing the main platform for ever-wider dissemination. Looking at
the media techniques used by the so-called/self-declared Islamic State
group operating across Iraq and Syria, it is easy to see that Law (2009)
was especially prescient when describing terrorism as being a form of
‘violent theatre’ (as highlighted in the introduction).
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4 A global terrorist network?

Al-Qaeda case study
We have seen that there are identifiable periods in the development of
modern terrorism that can be interpreted in a number of different
ways. In addition, in recent times, it is evident that the advancements
in information and communications technologies that many see as a
key feature of globalisation have enabled terrorist groups to reach ever
wider audiences. To see how this comes together in practice, we will
now look at a group that was one of the first to be considered a truly
global terrorist threat; one whose activities not only challenged states
within the Muslim world, but that sought to influence the wider
ummah, or community of Muslims, worldwide.
Figure 3 Osama bin Laden (1957–2011), seen here on the left
The al-Qaeda terrorist network was created by Osama bin Laden

(Figure 3), a Saudi-born ideologue who was behind the attacks of 11
September 2001 on the US. Bin Laden, the seventeenth of 51 children
of a wealthy Yemeni builder, inherited an estimated US$300 million
and formed the group al-Qaeda, whose name is Arabic for ‘the base’.
Initially the group brought together Islamic fighters dedicated to
driving the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan in the late 1980s. After
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4 A global terrorist network?Al-Qaeda case study
the Soviet withdrawal, it subsequently developed a wider goal: creating

a ‘caliphate’, or Islamic state.
From 1996 to 1998, al-Qaeda redefined its focus again. First, in 1996,
bin Laden issued a ‘declaration of war’ against the US, vowing to drive
it from Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries. Then, in 1998, he
issued a fatwa or ruling calling for attacks on ‘the far enemy’, defined
as US citizens wherever they might be, and an intention to ‘cut off the
head of the snake’ (9/11 Commission, 2004, p. 59). In the years before
9/11, bin Laden had already become the US’s most wanted terrorism
suspect, with a US$5 million reward on his head for his alleged role in
the August 1998 truck bombings of two US embassies in East Africa
that killed more than 200 people, as well as a string of other terrorist
attacks. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) also named the
leader of al-Qaeda as a prime suspect in the suicide bombing of the
US destroyer USS Cole, which was attacked in Aden harbour in Yemen
on 12 October 2000, with the loss of 17 sailors’ lives.
In the aftermath of 9/11, US military forces engaged al-Qaeda in the
mountains of Afghanistan, killing and capturing some of its leaders and
hobbling the group in the early years. US forces had a mandate to
bring in bin Laden ‘dead or alive’, in the words of the then President
George W. Bush. Over the next few years, al-Qaeda was driven from
its havens in Afghanistan, and many of its leaders were caught or
killed. But in 2007, intelligence reports indicated that bin Laden and
his network had successfully relocated to Pakistan’s tribal areas, where
al-Qaeda rebuilt much of its ability to launch attacks from the region
and to broadcast its messages to militants across the world.
In recent years, US and NATO forces based across the border in
Afghanistan have launched missile strikes against al-Qaeda and the
Taliban, which also fled its base in Afghanistan to regroup in Pakistan
with renewed force. In the spring of 2009, the US Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA) sent drone aircraft over the mountains of north-west
Pakistan, launching missile strikes against al-Qaeda as well as Taliban
leaders, a tactic continued by the Obama administration. The missile
strikes reduced al-Qaeda’s global reach but heightened the threat to
Pakistan as the group dispersed its cells in the country and fought to
maintain its remote sanctuaries.
In May 2011, US special operatives located bin Laden in the Pakistani
city of Abbotabad and in the subsequent operation he was killed and
his body buried at sea. As noted above, the network-like structure of
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al-Qaeda means that while the group’s activities and abilities have no
doubt been affected, it was not entirely defeated by bin Laden’s death.
The group’s affiliates continue to operate globally, taking part in Syria’s
civil war, and insurgencies across northern Africa, Nigeria, Somalia and
Yemen.
4.1 Al-Qaeda as a network?
From its early days al-Qaeda was seen as a new kind of terrorist
organization, distinct from those that had preceded it in the
Middle East which were both more hierarchical and territorially
defined, yet even experts disagree on whether, and in what ways
al-Qaeda is a ‘network’.
(Kahler, 2009, p. 106)
In the above quote, Kahler points out that some are sceptical of al
Qaeda’s status as a network. For example, Burke (2004, p. 18) argues
that Osama bin Laden and his partners ‘never created a coherent
terrorist network in the way commonly conceived’ – instead, it was
much more like a ‘venture capital firm’, while Roy (2004, p. 294) has
claimed that it is ‘an organization and a trademark’. On the other hand,
some see elements of a network combined with elements of a
hierarchical organisation. Gunaratna (2002, p. 54) claims that al-Qaeda’s
network includes a ‘vertical leadership structure that provides strategic
direction and tactical support to its horizontal network’. The difficulties
of specifying the structure of al-Qaeda stem in part from its
clandestine nature and in part from the changes that it has undergone,
not least under pressure from counter-terrorist attacks by states.
Kahler (2009, pp. 106–7) identifies four phases in al-Qaeda’s
development:
1 In the immediate aftermath of the Soviet withdrawal from
Afghanistan in 1989, bin Laden laid the basis of a small armed
group.
2 In the years up to the mid-1990s, the group developed a more
formalised core but with relatively loosely organised network links
to others, and individuals could, at times, carry out actions (such as
the failed first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993) with little
formal attachment to the larger network.
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3 The period from the mid-1990s up to the 9/11 attacks saw the
development of a more centralised core ‘node’, closely tied to the
Taliban and with a variety of strong links to other groups and
networks.
4 In the period since the US intervention in Afghanistan in 2001,
under much greater external pressure, the network has become
more segmented. As Kahler (p. 120) notes: ‘Using the Internet and
other media, al Qaeda has undertaken a broadcast strategy and a
franchising of affiliates whose actual network links to al Qaeda are
difficult to discern’.
In this way, al-Qaeda shows how a single non-state actor can combine
different elements of market, network and hierarchal relationships. For
example, in the period leading up to 9/11, al-Qaeda operated with a
hierarchical core based on personal relationships founded in the war
against the Soviet Union. This core was then linked to other terrorist
organisations through both strong, lasting relationships and temporary,
weaker ones. Kahler (2009, p. 122) argues that while transnational
collective action is difficult for open political networks, it is even more
challenging for clandestine networks, and has become more difficult as
states have ratcheted up counter-terrorist operations. Nevertheless, the
advantages of this hybrid organisation allowed support for a high level
of activity without a large expenditure on resources or personnel, a
trade-off of hierarchical control for cost-effective implementation. In
addition, al-Qaeda could act as kind of ‘Holy War Foundation,’ utilising
and acting on ideas that were provided by those on the periphery of
the network.
Kahler concludes by arguing that:
although its targeting of the United States ultimately increased

hierarchy and direct involvement in terrorist action, the network
form of its organization did provide some measure of resilience
when massive American retaliation finally arrived in late 2001 …
Al-Qaeda continued to inspire many violent actions against soft
targets, but, with the important exception of its affiliate in Iraq, it
seemed to have little remaining ability to plan and execute more
complex attacks.
(Kahler, 2009, pp. 122–4)
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Whether this will continue to be the case remains to be seen. Certainly

the struggles between rival groups affiliated with al-Qaeda in the Syrian
conflict from 2011 indicate a lack of overall command that reflects the
now segmented nature of al-Qaeda. While a core group remains in the
Afghanistan–Pakistan border regions, much of its leadership has been
either killed or captured through clandestine field operations and drone
strikes by the US, which has weakened any central coordinating ability
it once had. The name is still attached to affiliate groups such as al-
Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, targeting Yemen and Saudi Arabia,
and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which operates across the
Saharan region from Algeria. However, these are part of a more
localised phenomenon of jihadist groups, along with Boko Haram in
northern Nigeria, al-Shabab in Somalia and the Islamic State and Nusra
Front groups in Iraq and Syria (Figure 4). These groups are often born
out of local conflicts and do not take their lead from what remains of
the al-Qaeda leadership. Indeed the Islamic State group (which grew
out of al-Qaeda’s Iraq franchise, known as ‘al-Qaeda in Iraq’) decided
to act independently of al-Qaeda’s Syrian franchise, the Nusra Front, in
early 2014, and went on to become one of the pre-eminent terrorist
organisations in the world following its lightning territorial gains across
Iraq and Syria in the same year. Various local groups from Libya to
Afghanistan have since sworn their allegiance to the Islamic State.
252
1 al-Qaeda in the Arabian 4 Boko Haram 9 Jemaah Islamiah

Peninsula (AQAP) 5 al-Shabab 10 Abu Sayyaf
2 Islamic State in Iraq 6 Taliban 11 Ansar Bayt
and the Levant (ISIS) 7 Ansar al-Sharia in Libya al-Maqdis
3 al-Qaeda in the Islamic 8 Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia
Maghreb (AQIM)
Figure 4 Distribution of jihadist groups around the world
4.2 What kind of challenges does al-Qaeda and its

affiliates present to states?
Owed Lowenheim (2007) argues that terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda
pose a potential threat to states because of the particular nature of the
challenge to their authority that such millenarian violence represents,
and the response that it creates. Fundamental to Lowenheim’s analysis
is his concept of non-state actors that can wreak havoc across borders,
which he calls PATHs – persistent agents of transnational harm.
PATHs are private groups, organisations or networks that operate
across state borders and deliberately cause or facilitate harm in pursuit
of their interests. According to Lowenheim (p. 2):
Since Great Power authority is first and foremost based on the

regulation and institutionalization of organized violence, predators
are those actors whose acts, ideas, and discourse risk deregulating
and deinstitutionalizing organized violence in the system. They
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arouse strong objection on the part of the Great Powers – the

regulators and rule suppliers of the system.
His hypothesis centres on the idea that the policy of ‘great powers’,
such as the US, depends only in part on the material harm actually
exacted by the PATH. A much more significant determinant of the
great power’s response is the perceived threat that the PATH poses to
the great power’s authority.
Lowenheim separates PATHs into two categories – parasites and
predators:
. Parasites are malicious free riders who inflict real and sometimes
significant damage in the form of physical, financial and emotional
costs, but in the end do not attempt to overthrow the system of
authority that already exists.
. On the other hand, a predatory PATH is intent on not only
causing material harm but also actually challenging the authority of
the great powers and the institutions and norms that constitute the
international system.
Predators such as al-Qaeda desire to impose and spread an alternative
form of socio-political organisation (Lowenheim, 2007). In this respect,
a predatory PATH can actually constitute a threat to the great powers
in a way that a parasite, although certainly harmful, simply cannot.
However, for Lowenheim, classification depends not only on the
perceived threat but also on the accepted norms of behaviour within
the international system itself. An example is the hyperbolic language
used by some leading statesmen. Pakistan’s government ‘abdicated’ to
the Taliban by agreeing to Islamic law in part of the country, according
to the former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (BBC News, 2009).
She asserted on 23 April 2009 that the nuclear-armed nation posed a
‘mortal threat to the security and safety’ of the US and the rest of the
world, thereby justifying further military engagements against Taliban
and suspected al-Qaeda forces on sovereign Pakistan soil. This was a
perception that ultimately led to the killing of Osama bin Laden
in 2011.
Taking a different view, Bobbitt (2002) argues that in the aftermath of
the Cold War, the traditional post-Westphalian ideal of the sovereign
nation state was becoming obsolete. In the increasingly borderless
world that we associate with globalisation, something new was
254
emerging, which Bobbitt calls the ‘market-state’. This state’s

relationship with its citizens resembles that between a corporation and
consumers. Its counterpart – and enemy – is the terrorist network. The
central problem is how far the market-state could and should go to
defeat such networks, particularly when they are in some measure
sponsored by traditional nation states. Like Lowenheim, Bobbitt argues
that the terrorists are parasitical on, and at the same time hostile
towards, the globalised economy, the internet and the technological
revolution in military affairs. Just as the plagues in the fourteenth
century were unintended consequences of increased trade and
urbanisation, so terrorism is regarded as a negative externality of our
borderless world. The difference, of course, is one of intent.
Others question the extent to which al-Qaeda is really a threat of such
magnitude. Some academics argue that although al-Qaeda has certainly
challenged the parameters of international politics since 9/11, by
striking at the US, it may still not have the ability to fatally undermine
the nature of the Westphalian state itself, being a rather weak and
diffuse organisation in its structural depth and reach, as well as still
reliant on its home ‘base’ in states such as Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Indeed, much of al-Qaeda’s strength and its importance to other
terrorist groups stemmed from its ability to provide terrorist training
camps from within these states’ boundaries. The Islamic State’s
declaration in 2014 of a caliphate in territories carved out of Syria and
Iraq in some ways provides a new haven for training and recruiting
fighters to the jihadist cause, much in the same way as the Taliban’s
sheltering of al-Qaeda operatives did in the 1990s. Also, the fact that
this group has sought to establish a new entity from the territory of
two sovereign nations arguably poses a direct challenge to the notion
of the Westphalian sovereign state. The Islamic State set a new
precedent through its controlling of key resources (such as oil, which it
could then sell on) in the territories it took over, which led it to
become less dependent on outside sources of finance to maintain its
survival.
Thus we see an ever-evolving terrorist threat to states, which although
not centrally coordinated to the same extent as previously, still makes
use of the global jihadist cause as articulated initially by al-Qaeda.
Although the actions of such groups have become more localised in
nature, moving away from the ‘spectacular’ attacks of al-Qaeda on
Western targets in the early 2000s, they are arguably a more direct
threat to Western interests than what remains of the al-Qaeda
255
leadership. This is because such groups have the ability to threaten

states through the return of fighters who have travelled to take part in
conflicts such as those in Syria and Iraq, which presents a further
security dilemma for Western governments.
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5 Conclusion
5 Conclusion
This chapter has given an overview of the phenomenon of terrorism in
global politics. It has also alluded to the problems of defining
terrorism. While states and international organisations such as the UN
offer their own definitions, there remains a lack of agreement over the
term and who or what constitutes a terrorist group or act. This is
evident when we look at modern terrorism in its historical context.
Within the four waves model of modern terrorism that we utilised, it is
possible to discern a number of groups, most likely the majority, that
would not define themselves as terrorist groups. The idea that ‘one
man’s freedom fighter is another’s terrorist’ may now be something of
a cliché but it demonstrates the problem of definition, particularly with
the anti-colonial and national liberation groups that were prominent in
the second and third waves.
The fourth wave provides the way in for the most recent of terrorist
phenomenon, that of religion-inspired terrorist action. In this case
globalisation and the associated rise in networks was crucial in enabling
terrorism to take on a global dimension. This was evidenced by the
actions of al-Qaeda, which utilised the network structure to devastating
effect. Although the group has been significantly weakened following
US-led strikes against it, the network structure allowed its affiliates to
remain active in the Middle East and Africa in particular. However, al
Qaeda’s position as leader of the global jihadist movement has been
challenged, and many would say successfully dislodged, by the rise of
the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq. There are some differences,
too, with the type of terrorist groups outlined in the first three waves,
and indeed in the early part of the fourth wave. Here the groups had a
national focus, or at least a national base from and within which to
operate. Linkages were made across national boundaries, as seen in the
relationships developed between the IRA and Libya and the PLO, for
example. However, the difference between a group such as the IRA
and one like al-Qaeda, for example, is that the IRA was still working
within the confines of a state. By this we mean that it was seeking to
challenge the authority of the British state in Northern Ireland, but it
was not looking to challenge the very foundations or existence of the
British state as we know it. Nor was it proposing any fundamental
change to the overall structure of international politics. Groups such as
al-Qaeda, on the other hand, seek to replace the entire normative
structure of society and challenge the conventional view of a world of
257
states. Their reference point is the wider Muslim community, which

necessitates a global reach.
Returning to our core theme of globalisation, then, we can draw some
final conclusions about the picture of global terrorism presented in this
chapter. The infrastructure that globalisation has created has been
highly useful in making terrorism a global issue. New forms of
irregular and asymmetric warfare now predominate, in which sub-state
and transnational groups fight not only states but each other. Global
networks provide the financial, communication and trade routes that
enable terrorist groups to survive and at times prosper. What would
once have been localised conflicts now become global news instantly,
and in some cases act as recruitment drives, as seen with Islamic State’s
harnessing of social media to reach out to disaffected Muslim
populations across the world. States are therefore highly sensitive to
the threat posed by terrorism, and now national security is increasingly
tied to events beyond their boundaries, with the monopoly on violence
no longer the sole preserve of the state.
258
References
References
9/11 Commission (2004) The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, New York,
W. W. Norton.
BBC News (2009) ‘Pakistan disorder “global threat”’, 23 April [Online].
Available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8013677.stm
(Accessed 14 December 2014).
Bobbitt, P. (2002) The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace and Course of History,
Harmondsworth, Penguin.
Burke, J. (2004) Al-Qaeda, Harmondsworth, Penguin.
Burleigh, M. (2009) Blood and Rage: A Cultural History of Terrorism, London,
Harper Perennial.
Dishman, C. (2005) ‘The leaderless nexus: when crime and terror converge’,
Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, vol. 28, no. 3, pp. 237–52.
Gunaratna, R. (2002) Inside Al-Qaeda: Global Network of Terror, London,
Hurst.
Huntington, S. P. (1993) ‘The clash of civilizations?’ Foreign Affairs, vol. 72,
no. 3, pp. 22–49.
Kahler, M. (2009) ‘Collective action and clandestine networks: the case of al
Qaeda’, in Kahler, M. (ed.) Networked Politics: Agency, Power and Governance,
Ithaca, Cornell University Press, pp. 103–24.
Kiras, J. D. (2011) ‘Terrorism and globalization’, in Baylis, J., Smith, S. and
Owens, P. (eds) The Globalisation of World Politics, Oxford, Oxford University
Press, pp. 364–81.
Law, R. D. (2009) Terrorism: A History, Cambridge, Polity Press.
Lowenheim, O. (2007) Predators and Parasites: Persistent Agents of
Transnational Harm and Great Power Authority, Ann Arbor, University of
Michigan Press.
Rapoport, D. C. (2004) ‘Modern terror: the four waves’, in Cronin, A. and
Ludes, J. (eds) Attacking Terrorism: Elements of a Grand Strategy, Washington,
Georgetown University Press, pp. 46–73.
Roy, O. (2004) Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Umma, London, Hurst.
UN (2005) Statement: Comprehensive Convention against Terrorism, New York,
UN.
259
Index
Index
abortion 60 Begin, Menachem 239, 240
interest groups 115, 125 Belgium
advocacy groups 107, 123 and the European Union 169, 171
Afghanistan Bentham, Jeremy 152
and al-Qaeda 242, 248–9, 251, 252 bin Laden, Osama 246, 248–50
and human rights 223 Blair, Tony 56
Age UK 112 and devolution 17
Al-Jazeera 146 government of 46
al-Qaeda 142, 236, 237, 242, 248–56, 257–8 as head of a collegial executive 54, 55, 58
9/11 attacks 48, 201, 223, 233, 235, 243, 244, and humanitarian intervention 223
247, 251 and party leadership 51–2, 91
affiliated groups 252–3 and presidentialisation 94–5
in Afghanistan 242, 248–50, 251, 252–3 resignation 41
as a network 248, 250–1 tenure of office 42
challenges to states 253–6 Bobbitt, P. 254
global attacks on US interests 242–3 Bosnia 222, 224
and globalisation 244, 247 bottom-up organisations 112
in Pakistan 249–50, 252–3, 254 BP
Albania 171 and the Gulf of Mexico 128
Algeria 239–40 Bretton Woods system 143
Amnesty International 112, 135, 206 British Empire 139, 140
anarchist terrorism 238–9 British Library 23
anarchy British Medical Association 115
in International Relations theory 150–1, 152, 155 British state, establishment of the 137
anti-colonial terrorism 238, 239–40 Brown, C. 204
Arab Spring 147 Brown, Gordon 42, 56, 58
ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) as head of a collegial executive 54, 55
175 and legislation 46
‘Asian Tiger’ economies 158, 216 and party leadership 51–2, 91
Asian values and presidentialisation 95
as a alternative rights discourse 212–13, 214, 215, resignation 41
216–17 Buchanan, Pat 51
assassination Buddhism 211
and terrorist groups 237, 238–9 Bulgaria 171
associational groups 110, 114–15, 116, 126, 127 Burchill, S. 151
Attlee, Clement 41 Burke, J. 250
Austria 171 Burleigh, M. 239, 240, 246
Bagehot, Walter Bush, George H.W. 42, 51, 63
The English Constitution 23, 64 Bush, George W. 42, 52, 63, 249
balance of power Byers, Stephen 121–2
in International Relations theory 151, 152, 157 Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam 215
Baltic states 159 Callaghan, James 41
261
Cameron, David 7
common law 22
and coalition government 45, 46, 57, 95
communications technology
as head of a collegial executive 54, 55

and al-Qaeda 248
CAP (Common Agricultural Policy) 167, 189

and globalisation 135, 143, 146
capitalism communitarianism
emergence of industrial capitalism 137–9 and alternative rights discourses 212–16
global 140–1 and human rights 207–8, 225
and China 154, 155

and international justice 218
Caporaso, J. 177–8
conflict resolution
Carr, E.H. 150

and group politics 105
Carter, Jimmy 42, 47, 51

and intergovernmental organisations 176
cause groups
Congo, Democratic Republic of 219
increasing popularity of 110–12

Congress (United States) 5, 8
Cesari, J. 209
Capitol Building 47
Chandler, D. 206, 222, 223–4

checks and balances 28, 32
Chavez, Hugh 221

and the federal government 15–17, 20
China 139
and group politics 118, 119, 121, 122
and Japan 156

House of Representatives 5, 7, 14, 15–17, 20, 28
US–China relations and partisan politics 84
constructivist interpretation of 155–6 and party leadership 50–1
liberal interpretation of 153–4 and the president 46–8, 49, 63
realist interpretation of 151–2 impeachment 43, 62
Chomsky, Noam 221

Senate 5, 7, 14, 15–17, 20, 28, 55
Churchill, Winston 41
and the Supreme Court 60
citizenship
consensus political system
European 176–7
in the UK 87
civil disobedience 116

in the US 31, 32–3, 87–8
civil rights groups 110

conservatism
Clarke, H. 92
and political parties 75
Clarke, Kenneth 55
Conservative Party (UK) 75
class
cash for questions scandal 122
and models of electoral behaviour 88, 89

and electoral choice 86, 87
Clegg, Nick 55, 57, 58, 95

governments 97
Clinton, Bill 42
membership 76
and Congress 46, 47

constitution (United Kingdom) 5, 18, 22–5, 27
Clinton, Hillary 254

changing 24–5
coalition government
four sources of constitutional law 22–3
in the UK 28, 40, 41, 63, 95, 97

and the UK prime minister 40
Cold War 140–1, 148

Constitution (United States) 5, 8, 9, 14, 25–7
ending of
amendments 26–7
and human rights 212–13

Bill of Rights 27, 125
and transnational terrorism 244, 254

establishment of 13, 21, 25–6
and the European Union 169, 186

and the federal system 17, 18, 20, 22
and humanitarian intervention 222

founding fathers 25–6
Colombia 234
and group politics 122–3
colonial empires 137, 139–40, 148, 160

and the judiciary (Supreme Court) 8, 26, 27
anti-colonial terrorism 238, 239–40

and the political system 28, 29–30, 32–3
Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) 167, 189

sources of 26
262
Index
and the US president 40, 44

and human rights 213
constitutions
Dicey, Albert
attempt at a European constitution 186–7

Introduction to the Study of the Law of the
and the Enlightenment 21
Constitution 23, 24
flexible and inflexible 22

disability groups 110, 115
social upheavals and the forging of modern

Douglas-Home, Alec 41
constitutions 21
Dromey, Jack 77
UK and US compared 21–30

Duffield, M. 211
constructivism
East Timor 206, 224
and International Relations theory 150, 154–6,

Eastern Europe
159, 217
consumption
ECB (European Central Bank) 173, 190–1
and economic globalisation 209–10

Ecclestone, Bernie 122
cosmopolitanism
ECJ (European Court of Justice) 173, 176, 177, 179,
and human rights 207–8, 225

193
and international justice 218, 221

ECOFIN (EU Committee of Economic and Finance
liberal 211, 215

Ministers) 190
Council of Ministers (European Union) 173, 177,

Economic Community of West African States
179, 180, 183, 193

(ECOWAS) 158
and the European Commission 181

economic crisis see global economic crisis (2007–08)
and the European Parliament 182

economic globalisation 142–4, 153–4, 160, 209–10
Foreign Affairs Council 187

and transnational terrorism 245–6
and QMV (qualified majority voting) 184–5

economic governance
Croatia 171
European Union 185–6
cultural globalisation 146–7

and the euro 189–92

economic growth
and transnational terrorism 245

and liberalism 158
cultural imperialism 147

ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African
cultural relativism 212–16

States) 158
culture
ECSC (European Coal and Steel Community) 167,
national cultures and political identities 202–3

169–70
rights and globalisation 208, 209–17, 225

Eden, Anthony 41
Cyprus 239
Eisenhower, Dwight 42

Elazar, D. 11
Czech Republic 171

elections
Delors, Jacques 182

campaigns 92
Democrat Party (US) 76

UK general elections 24, 50, 81
election campaign costs 120

in the UK and the US 73
and electoral choice 86–7, 88, 89

choosing election candidates 76–8
leadership 50, 79–80

costs of fighting 78, 120–1
and partisan politics 81–3

electoral choices 86–92, 97
and the president 46, 47, 50

in European societies 86
democratic governance major predictors of 91–2

models of 88–92
democratic peace theory 152–3

and personalisation 93–4
Denmark
in the UK and the USA 86–9
and the European Union 171, 174, 191

electoral franchise
developmental aid 112, 144

in the UK 24, 29
263
England
and the UK unitary state 12

integration 172, 188, 191
Enlightenment
and a ‘two-speed Europe’ 186
and constitutions 21
and international relations 158

Lisbon Treaty (2007) 179, 180, 182, 187
environmental protection groups 110

Maastricht Treaty (1992) 174, 182, 186
equality
policy competences 173–4
and liberal cosmopolitanism 211

and political globalisation 145
sovereign equality 202, 204

and regionalism 167
ERM (exchange rate mechanism) 190

and shared European political traditions 193–4
the establishment
single currency 172

Single European Act (1986) 184, 186
Estonia 158, 171

sovereignty 168, 172, 177, 185, 186–7, 193, 194
European Central Bank (ECB) 173, 190–1

and the Westminster Parliament 15, 24
European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) 167,

see also Council of Ministers
169–70
eurozone 174, 191
European colonialism see colonial empires

executive government (United States) 5, 39
European Commission 173, 176, 177, 179, 180–2,

as personalised executive 54, 55, 57, 58
183, 184, 193

executive government (Whitehall) 5, 6–7, 18, 28, 39,
and QMV (qualified majority voting) 185

45–6, 48, 49, 63–4, 63–5
European Council 179–80, 181, 182, 184, 187, 193

as a collegial executive 54–8
European Court of Justice (ECJ) 173, 176, 177, 183,

193
and local government 59
European Parliament 173, 176, 179, 182–3, 193

powers of 6, 12
and cross-national political groupings 194

and the prime minister 45–6, 48, 49, 63–5
and the European Central Bank 190

FARC guerrillas 234
and QMV (qualified majority voting) 185

federal states
European Union (EU) 167–94

constitutions of 22
and the Baltic states 159

differences from unitary states 11
CFSP (Common Foreign and Security Policy)

United States as a federal state 5
173, 174
see also United States, federal government
combined GDP 167

feminist politics 110
combined population 167

critiques of universal rights 205–6
Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) 167, 189

Finland 171
deepening 172
First World War 153
defence and security issues 194

and terrorism 239
economic and monetary union (EMU) 172, 173,

fiscal policies
174, 189–92
European Union 191
enlargement 170–1
Flinders, M.V. 117
and the ERM (exchange rate mechanism) 190

Foley, Michael 94
free movement of people 167

Foot, Michael 82
governance 175–8
Ford, Gerald 27, 42, 46, 51
economic 185–6, 188–92

Formula One scandal 122
institutions and political actors 179–83, 193

France 137, 139
intergovernmental 175–7, 178, 179, 184–7, 193

and Algeria 239–40
regional 185
constitutions 21
supranational 177–8, 179, 184–7, 193

and the European Union 169, 171, 184, 187

Franz Ferdinand, Austrian archduke 239
264
Index
freedom
institutions and political actors 179–83

models of 175–8, 179, 184–7, 193
French Revolution 233, 237

global 145–6, 148
Friends of the Earth 115

Fukuyama, F. 147, 148

governments
Gaddafi, Muammar 221, 226

and interest groups 113–16
GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade)

Greece
143
and Cyprus 239
gay equality campaigns 110, 111–12

GDP (gross domestic product)

Greenpeace 112, 115, 142
of the European Union 167

group politics 105–28
gender
as check and balance to governing elites 108

insider and outsider groups 115
social movements around 110

non-governmental organisations (NGOs) 112
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)

Occupy movement 144, 147
143
participation in liberal democracies 105, 107–9
Geneva Convention 210–11

and political systems, UK and US compared 117–
genocide 218–20, 221

24, 128
Germany
popularity of cause groups 110–12
constitutions 21, 22
positive and negative impacts of 125–7

and the state 113–16
see also West Germany

see also interest groups
global capitalism 140–1

Gunaratna, R. 250
global economic crisis (2007–08) 144

Halliday, F. 215
and the European Union 191–2

Heath, Edward 41
global governance 145–6, 148

Held, D. 142
globalisation 135–6, 142–9, 160

Heseltine, Michael 55
anti-globalisation movement 144, 147

Hewitt, Patricia 121–2
cultural 146–7
Hinduism 211

Hirst, P. 148
and transnational terrorism 245

Hix, S. 173
economic 142–4, 153–4, 160, 209–10

Holy Roman Empire 137
and transnational terrorism 245–6

Hong Kong 158
and European colonialism 139–40

Hoon, Geoff 121–2

House of Commons 5, 7, 15, 24
and human rights 203, 208, 209–17, 225

and citizen’s rights 29
hyperglobalism 147–8, 157

and executive government (Whitehall) 28, 48, 55
and International Relations theory 149, 157–9

lobbying groups 119
and internationalisation 148–9

opposition MPs 83–4
meaning of the term 142

and partisan politics 81, 83–4
political 145–6
and party whips 45–6
sceptical view of 147, 148

and the prime minister 40, 41, 45–6, 47, 48–9
and terrorism 142, 236, 244–7, 258

and the UK parliamentary system 6
transformational aspects of 149

human rights 201–26
glocalisation 146
and Asian values 212–13, 214, 215, 216–17
governance
culture, rights and globalisation 209–17
European Union
alternative rights discourses 212–16
economic governance 185–6, 188–92

in the global arena 203, 204–8, 225
265
groups 110 and the state 113–15
and international justice 218–24 and the UK and US political systems 125
and International Relations theory 153, 159 and the US constitution 122–3
Islamic version of 215 and the US federal government 118
natural or cultural 204–5 intergovernmental model

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) of EU governance 175–7, 178, 179, 184–7, 193
201–2, 204, 209
International Criminal Court (ICC) 221–2
viability of universal 205
International Energy Authority (IEA) 175
see also humanitarian intervention
international justice 218–24
Human Rights Act (HRA) 25, 123–4 and genocide in Rwanda 218–20
humanitarian intervention 201, 203, 222–4, 225–6 humanitarian intervention 201, 203, 222–4
Hungary 171 Responsibility to Protect (R2P) 219, 220–2, 226
Huntington, S. International Labour Organization (ILO) 205
Clash of Civilisations 214, 245 International Monetary Fund see IMF (International
hyperglobalism 147–8 Monetary Fund)
Ibison, D. 216 international NGOs see NGOs (non-governmental
ICC (International Criminal Court) 221–2 organisations)
Iceland 171 International Relations theory 135–6, 149, 150–6
ideologies constructivism 150, 154–6, 159, 217
political parties 75 and globalisation 149, 157–9
and US political culture 88 liberalism 150, 152–4, 158–9
IEA (International Energy Authority) 175 realism 150–2, 157–8, 216, 217
ILO (International Labour Organization) 205 International Telecommunications Satellite (Intelsat)
IMF (International Monetary Fund) 143, 144, 145, 175–6
148, 175
international terrorism 239, 241–2
and human rights 208, 213
internationalisation
individual rights and globalisation 148–9
and a rights culture 210–11 internet
and the UK political system 28–30 and group politics 107
and US politics 26, 27–8 see also social media
see also human rights IRA (Irish Republican Army) 233, 242, 257
Indochina 240 Iran
Indonesia 240 clashes with Western culture 214–15
Industrial Revolution 139, 140 and cultural globalisation 147
inequality Iraq
and globalisation 144 Islamic terrorism 245, 247–8, 256
insider groups 115 wars 63, 128, 222, 223, 226
Intelsat (International Telecommunications Satellite) Ireland
175–6 and anti-colonial terrorism 239
interconnections and the European Union 171, 191
and economic globalisation 142, 159 see also Northern Ireland
interdependence Islam
and the European Union 172, 194 the Assassins 237
and globalisation 142, 149, 157 and the Clash of Civilisations thesis 214–15
and International Relations theory 153–4, 157 and cultural globalisation 211
interest groups 105–6, 107, 108 Islamic terrorism 237, 238, 242–3
in liberal democracies 108 and globalisation 245, 246–7, 247–8
pluralist interest-group systems 117 and jihad 246, 252, 257
266
Index
and Western notions of rights 205

legislatures see Congress (United States); Westminster
worldwide community of (ummah) 215
Parliament
Islamic State 247–8, 252, 255–6, 258
legitimacy
Islamist extremism
state legitimacy and protest groups 116

of terrorist groups 234, 235
Israel–Palestine 224, 234, 239, 242

liberal cosmopolitanism 211, 215
issue-voting model (valence politics) 89, 90–2

liberal democracies
Italy
and democratic peace theory 152–3

terrorist groups 240–1

and globalisation 148
Jabri, V. 211
group politics in 105, 107–9, 126
Japan 148, 152

and China 156

Liberal Democrat Party (UK) 75, 87
constitution 21
and the coalition 97
invasion of Pearl Harbor 48

membership 76
Jefferson, Thomas 27
liberalism
Johnson, Lyndon B. 42, 47, 63
in international relations 150, 152–4
judicial review
and globalisation 158–9
in the UK 7
in the United States 8

and a rights culture 211
judiciary
liberty
United Kingdom 6–7, 24–5, 60
and the US political system 26, 30
United States (Supreme Court) 5, 7, 8, 26, 27,

Libya 221, 226, 242, 257
28–9, 29–30
Lijphart, A.
group politics 118, 123

model of political systems 87, 117
limits on government 60
Lincoln, Abraham 73
Kahler, M. 250–1
Lisbon Treaty (2007) 179, 180, 182, 187
Kambanda, Jean 218

Lithuania
Keane, J. 108, 128

and the European Union 171
Kennedy, John F. 42, 43

lobbying 107, 108, 116, 119
Kennedy, Ted 51
paid, professional lobbyists 121–2
Kenya 221, 233, 243

local government (UK) 59
Khatami, Mohammad 214–15

Locke, John 152
Kiras, J.D. 244

Lockerbie bombing 242
Kosovo 201, 206, 222–3, 224

Lowenheim, O. 253–4
Kuwait 222
Luxembourg
Labour governments (UK)

Blair 17
Maastricht Treaty (1992) 174, 182, 186
Labour Party (UK) 75

Macedonia 171
choosing election candidates 77

Macmillan, Harold 41
and electoral choice 86, 87, 89

macroeconomic policy
governments 97
and the European Union 188–9
lobbying scandals 121–2

Mahathir Mohammad 213, 214, 216
membership 76
Major, John 41, 42
Latvia 171
and council tax 59
Law, R.D. 233, 247

government of 45
League of Nations 153

as head of a collegial executive 55
left-wing terrorism 238, 240–2

on party leadership 52
267
majoritarian political system

networks
in the UK 31, 32, 87, 97

and global terrorism 247–8, 248, 250–3, 255
in the US 87–8, 117

news media
Malaysia 213, 214, 216

and cultural globalisation 146
Mallet, V. 213
and lobbying 121
Malta 171, 184

NGOs (non-governmental organisations) 112
market economies
and human rights 206, 208

iNGOs and globalisation 135, 142, 145
market-states
Nigeria 250, 252
and terrorist networks 255

Nixon, Richard 42, 43, 46
May, Erskine
non-governmental organisations see NGOs (non
Parliamentary Practice 23
governmental organisations)
McCain, John 120

North American Free Trade Association (NAFTA)
McCormick, J. 191
175
Medical Justice 124

North Korea 155
Middle East
Northern Ireland

devolution 12–13, 59
migration
and cultural globalisation 146–7

terrorism 233, 239, 241, 257
intra-EU 167
Northern Ireland Assembly 9, 12
military intervention 222–4, 226

and the UK constitution 24, 25
Milosevic, Slobodan 206

Norway 171
Mitchell, Austin 83
nuclear weapons 155
monarchy
Obama, Barack 7, 46, 50, 79
in the UK 11–12, 17, 24, 28–9

and al-Qaeda 249
monitory democracy 108, 128

Montenegro
health care reform 121

Occupy movement 144, 147
Morgenthau, Hans 150

Ohmae, K. 147
NAFTA (North American Free Trade Association)

OIC (Organisation of Islamic Cooperation) 215
175
outsider groups 115
nation states
Oxfam 112, 206
and internationalism 149

Pakistan
world of 138, 139

and al-Qaeda 249–50, 252
national cultures
and the Taliban 254
and political identities 202–3

Palestine–Israel 224, 234, 239, 242
National Farmers’ Union 115

Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) 242, 257
national self-determination
parasite PATHs 253
and anti-colonial terrorism 240

parliamentary system (UK) 5, 6–7, 9, 39, 73
rights of 201, 202, 218

NATO
see also Westminster Parliament
and al-Qaeda 249

Parris, M. 111
and humanitarian intervention 222–3

party identification model 88, 89
neo-liberalism
PATHs (persistent agents of transnational harm)

253–4
and globalisation 144, 148

peace movement 115
Netherlands
Pelosi, Nancy 79
268
Index
personalisation as head of a personalised executive 39, 54, 55, 57,
and political parties 93–6 58
Peru impeachment 43, 62
Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement 247

and the legislature 28, 39, 46–8, 49, 61, 62
Peters, B.G. 127

and party leadership 39, 50–1, 53
PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization) 241, 242,

as a presidential chief executive 61–5
257
and the presidential system 5, 6
Poland
right to veto legislation 28, 47

term of office 40, 42–4, 62
policymaking
and the vice president 44, 62
and interest groups 113

White House staff numbers 54
political globalisation 145–6

presidential system (United States) 5, 6, 7–8, 9, 31
political identities
presidentialisation
and national cultures 202–3

and UK politics 94–6
political participation
pressure groups
and group politics 105, 116, 126
decision-making processes in 127
political parties 73–98

in liberal democracies 107, 108
and electoral choices 86–92

and social movements 110, 111

and the US constitution 122–3
ideas and ideologies 75

prime minister (UK) 5
leadership
and Cabinet members 55–8
differences in the UK and US 78–80
compared with the US president 39–66
Downing Street staff numbers 54
and the UK prime minister 39, 41, 48, 50, 51–

emergence of a prime ministerial department 56
3
and the executive 45–6, 48, 49, 63–5
and the US president 50, 51, 53

as head of a collegiate executive 39, 54–8
US and UK compared 50–3
indirect election 39, 40–4, 61
as a valence issue 91
and the legislature (Westminster) 39, 45–7, 48–9,
membership of 76, 77
61, 62

as a parliamentary chief executive 61–5
and the UK prime minister 40, 42
and the parliamentary system 6
in the UK and the US 74–80

and partisan politics 82, 84–5
Portugal
and party leadership 39, 41, 48, 50, 51–3, 84–5

and presidentialisation 94–6
post-colonial theory
removal from office 41

term of office 41–2, 44, 62
power balancing
and the unitary state 18, 39, 59–60
in International Relations theory 151, 152, 157

unitary state and unlimited government 39
power politics
professional bodies 110
and cultural identity 216–17, 225

promotional groups 114–15, 116, 126, 127
predatory PATHs 253–4

property rights
president of the United States 5

globalisation of 210
compared with the UK prime minister 39–66

protests 107, 115–16
direct election 39, 40–4, 61

public demonstrations 126
and the federal state 18

public opinion
federal state and limited government 39, 50, 59,

and gay equality campaigns 111
60
and group politics 105, 107, 108
and the UK parliamentary system 7, 32
269
QMV (qualified majority voting) Scotland
in the European Union 184–5

devolution 12–13, 20, 59
Rabin, Yitzhak 243

race
party system 87, 97

referendum on independence (2014) 12, 18
radical liberalism
Scottish Parliament 9, 12, 15, 17–18

and electoral choice 87
radical protest groups 111, 116

Rapaport, DC 238, 239, 240, 242, 243

Second World War 156
Reagan, Ronald 42, 51, 63

and anti-colonial terrorism 240
realism in international relations 150–2

and Asian values 216, 217

and international justice 218

self-determination rights 201, 202
Red Cross/Red Crescent 112

self-help
refugees
in International Relations theory 151
rights of 211
Serbia
regionalism

sexuality
Reid, Harry 79
religious terrorism 237, 238, 242–3, 246–7

Shani, G. 211
see also al-Qaeda; Islam

Singapore 158
representative democracy
Single European Act (1986) 182
and group politics 107–8, 128

Slovakia
Republican Party (US) 76, 79


Slovenia 158, 171
and electoral choice 86–7, 88

social constructivism 154

social groups
and the president 46, 47

increasing popularity of 110–12
party leadership 50
social media
Responsibility to Protect (R2P) 219, 220–2, 226

rights in global politics see human rights

Roman Empire
and terrorism 247, 258
and Jewish terrorism 237

social movements 105–6, 107
Romania
cross-national 159

protest and dissent 115–16
Roosevelt, Eleanor 202

social voting model 88
Roosevelt, Franklin D. 63
socialism
Rosenberg, J. 149
Roy, O. 250
Somalia 219, 222, 250, 252
Russia 139, 226

South Korea 152, 158
anarchist terrorism 238–9 sovereignty
and Ukraine 157

and the European Union 168, 172, 177, 185,
Russia Today 146

186–7, 193, 194
Rwanda 218–20
in federal states 11
Saddam Hussein 223, 226

Sartori, G. 6, 64
individual rights and state sovereignty 206, 218
Saudi Arabia 243, 249, 252

and international intervention 208
Save the Children 112

sovereign equality 202, 204
270
Index
in the UK 24, 64
9/11 attacks 48, 201, 223, 233, 235, 243, 244,
and the Westphalian state system 137

247, 251
Soviet Union (former) 140–1, 159

early terrorist groups 237
and Afghanistan 242, 251

and globalisation 142, 236, 244–7, 258
and the European Union 169, 170–1

networks and technology 247–8
Spain 139

and the Human Rights Act (HRA) 123–4
Sri Lanka 234, 242

problem of defining 233–6, 257
states 137–41
and protest groups 116
defining 137
‘waves’ of modern terrorism 238–43

see also al-Qaeda
and International Relations theory

Thatcher, Margaret 41, 42, 242
constructivism 154–6, 159

and party leadership 51, 52
liberalism 152–4, 158

and the poll tax 59
realism 150–2, 157–8

Thompson, G. 148
Westphalian system of 137

trade
see also sovereignty

statism
liberalisation 143, 144, 158

trade unions
statute law
and cause groups 110
and civil, political and social rights 28–30

transnational companies 142, 143, 148
and the UK constitution 22, 23–4, 24–5

Stone Sweet, A. 177

transnational networks 148
Stonewall 111
transport
suicide bombing 242, 244, 249

and economic globalisation 143
supranational model
Truman, Harry 42
of EU governance 177–8, 179, 184–7, 193

Turkey
Supreme Court (United States) 5, 7, 8, 26, 27, 28–9,

30
UDHR (Universal Declaration of Human Rights)
and group politics 118, 123

201–2, 204, 209
UKIP 97
survival
Ukraine 157

unitary states
Sweden
constitutions of 22

differences from federal states 11, 22
Syria 226, 247–8, 250, 252, 256

unitary government in the UK 5, 6–7, 9, 11–13,
Taiwan 152, 158

15, 17–18
Taliban 249, 254

and group politics 117, 118–19
Tamil Tigers 234, 242

and the prime minister 18, 39, 59–60
Tanzania 243
United Kingdom (UK)
taxation
centralisation of government 9

coalition government 28, 40, 41, 63, 95, 97
and UK local government 59

constitution 5, 18, 22–5, 27
technology
devolution 12–13, 15, 17–18, 20
and global terrorism 247–8

elections
television election campaigns 93–4

choosing candidates 76–8
terrorism 233–58
costs of fighting 120–1
and partisan politics 81
271
and international relations 153
executive (Whitehall) 5, 28
peacekeepers 219, 224
and changes to the political system 18

and political globalisation 145, 146
powers of 6, 12, 63–4

Security Council 208, 222
and the prime minister 48, 49

and humanitarian intervention 222, 223–4, 226

tribunals for war crimes 218

and terrorism 235–6
interest groups 113, 115

World Conference on Human Rights 206
lobbying scandals 121–2

United States
and the political system 117–24

Civil War 24, 86
Human Rights Act (HRA) 25, 123–4

judiciary 6–7, 24–5, 60

decentralisation of government 9–10
legislature see Westminster Parliament

elections
local government 59
choosing candidates 76–8
map of the four nations 16

costs of fighting 120
parliamentary system 5, 6–7, 9, 39, 73


executive 5
political parties 74–6

federal government 5, 7–8, 9, 13–14
characteristics of 75–6
checks and balances 28, 32
choosing election candidates 76–8, 78–80

and Congress 15–17
and electoral choices 86, 87, 88–9

and the electoral system 97–8

and municipal government 19
leadership of 39, 41, 48, 50, 51–3, 75–6

and political parties 73, 97
manifestos 81, 82
and the president 59, 60
membership of 76
and the states of the union 18–19

and the US constitution 17, 18, 20
party system 97–8

flag 8

and global capitalism 140–1
political system 18, 62, 63–4, 66

political impacts of the 27–30

and presidentialisation 94–6

interest groups 113, 114, 115
and state power 9

and the political system 117–24, 125
structural features of the political system 31

gun ownership laws 60, 123, 125
and terrorism 233, 239, 257

terrorist suspects and human rights 201

and humanitarian intervention 222
Union Flag 8
and Iraq wars 63, 128
unitary state 5, 6–7, 9, 11–13, 15, 17–18

judiciary (Supreme Court) 5, 7, 8, 26, 27, 28–9

and local government 19, 20

and political parties 73, 75

legislature see Congress (United States)
unlimited government 32
limited government 32
see also prime minister (UK); Westminster

map of the 50 states 16
Parliament
political impacts of the political system 27–30,
United Nations (UN) 175

31–3, 66
Charter 208, 221

political parties 74–6, 98
and Declaration of Human Rights 201–3, 204,

choosing election candidates 77–8
206
and electoral choices 86–9
and colonial empires 240

leadership of 79–80, 93–6
272
Index

Western values
and personalisation 93, 94

and the ‘Asian Way’ 213–14
presidential system 5, 6, 7–8, 9, 31, 39

and the Clash of Civilisations thesis 214–15
and Rwanda 219

and cultural imperialism 147
state governments 8, 14, 18, 19

and state power 9

Westminster Parliament 5
structural features of the political system 31

and civil, political and social rights 28–30
and terrorism
‘club ethos’ of 97
9/11 attacks 48, 201, 223, 233, 235, 243, 244,

and the constitution 22, 23–4, 24–5
247, 251
and devolution 12–13, 15, 17–18, 24
al-Qaeda 233, 242–3, 249

and group politics 118, 119
War on Terror 235, 244, 247

House of Lords 5, 15, 40, 49, 55, 119
US–China relations
and the judiciary 5
constructivist interpretation of 155–6

and local government 59
liberal interpretation of 153–4

and the London mayor 19
realist interpretation of 151–2

and party leadership 51, 79
veto players/points in government 28

party-line voting in 83–4
Wall Street Crash (1929) 48

powers of 5, 6–7, 12
and the War of Independence 13

and the prime minister 39, 40, 45–6, 47, 48–9
see also Congress (United States); Constitution

professionalisation of MPs 76–7
(United States); president of the United States

and public opinion 7, 32
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)

sovereignty 63, 64
201–2, 204, 209

and the unitary state 15, 17–18
valence politics model 89, 90–2

see also House of Commons; statute law
Versailles, Treaty of 239

Westphalian state system 137, 204
violence
whistleblowers 126
and International Relations theory 151

Wilson, Harold 41, 57
political violence and terrorism 233–5

Wilson, Woodrow 153
and protest groups 116

women’s suffrage movement 110, 115
Wales
World Bank 143, 144, 145, 208, 213
devolution 12–13, 20, 59

WTO (World Trade Organization) 143, 145, 148,

175
party system 97
Yemen 243, 250, 252
Wallace, H. 175
Yugoslavia (former) 218
war
and Kosovo 201, 206, 222–3, 224
and International Relations theory 152–3, 158

Srebrenica massacre 220–1, 224
Weber, Max 137
Welsh Assembly 9, 12, 15, 17–18
and electoral choice 89
Wendt, Alexander 155
West Germany
left-wing terrorism 240, 241
Western Europe
Western states
273

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DD211 Understanding politics: ideas and institutions

in the modern world

Understanding Politics: Ideas and

The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA

Block 4 Political institutions in liberal democracies

Chapter 14 Institutional differences between UK prime

Chapter 15 Elections and parties in the UK and the US 69

Chapter 16 Group politics in the UK and the US 101

Block 5 Thinking globally

Chapter 18 The European Union 163

Chapter 19 Culture, rights and justice in global politics 197

Chapter 20 Challenging the state: terrorism in global

2 The UK has a parliamentary system and is a

unitary state, but the US has a presidential

3 How federal and unitary states differ 11

3.1 Unitary government in the UK 11

3.2 Federal government in the US 13

4 How the UK unitary and the US federal systems

5 The constitutions of the UK and the

5.1 The UK constitution 22

5.2 The US constitution 25

5.3 What are the political impacts of the US and the UK

2 The UK has a parliamentary system

This is the case in the US where the president is directly elected.

judiciary. UK politics are primarily conducted between the executive

The US has a limited government that is governed by an inﬂexible

The UK’s parliamentary system operates within a unitary state and

fundamental differences between the UK and the US political systems.

Table 1 The key institutional differences between the UK and the US

Broadly speaking, the US political system seeks to prevent the

US has a limited government, while the UK has an unlimited

3 How federal and unitary states differ

3.1 Unitary government in the UK

was residing. Second, in the modern age, Westminster (the legislature)

of the 15 per cent of UK citizens who live in Scotland, Wales and

3.2 Federal government in the US

4 How the UK unitary and the US

Figure 3 National power, state power and shared powers in the US

Each of the 50 US states – thanks to ‘states’ rights’ – has certain

US federalism is protected by the US constitution. Neither the US

5 The constitutions of the UK and the

Generally speaking constitutions fall into one of two categories:

5.1 The UK constitution

. Custom and convention: well-established rules of procedure and

Figure 4 The British Library is where one would have to go in search of

any constitutional law it wishes; no act it passes can be

However, courts can use one statute passed by parliament against

5.2 The US constitution

delegates to the constitutional convention, may be viewed in the

There are thus only two sources of the US constitution:

5.3 What are the political impacts of the US and

culture is present within the US political system, where political

rules of the constitution and upholding the rights it confers upon US

Table 2 Structural features and principal powers of the UK and the US

Structural Parliamentary system Presidential system

A powerful executive Federal authority which is

The US political system is predicated upon a general suspicion of

Majoritarian (such as the UK) and consensus (such as the US)

2 The US president is directly elected;

particularly when compared with US presidents (Thatcher lasted 11.5

The Congress cannot remove a president for political reasons.

awaiting the election of their successor. Prime ministers, because they

3 The US president is separate from

Parties began life within legislatures as loose organisations of like