Ireland Fits Well Into Arend Lijphart 's Consensus Model Of Democracy Essay

The AMS and FPTP are voting systems in use for the Scottish Parliament and House of Commons elections respectively. It can be argued that AMS gives voters more choice and better representation than FPTP, and in order to assess the validity of this argument 3 key indicators must be analysed: constituency links; proportionality and representation of smaller parties.

The additional member system, like every other electoral system has both advantages and disadvantages. Which of these outweighs the other remains debatable. The additional member system is described as a type of PR (proportional representation) system where the number of votes is equal to the number of seats gained. The AMS is a hybrid system with two votes and two systems mixed together, the first vote being your constituency vote and the second, the regional vote. There are 129 members of the Scottish parliament and there are two ways an MSP can be elected. Scotland is divided into 73 constituencies and each constituency elects one MSP. These are known as

Taub’s argument against the probable Scottish independence is based on beliefs that independence would expose the country to big, unnecessary risks. These risks would emanate from things the country would lose from the process of cessation from the United Kingdom and those attributed to being independent upon the completion of the cessation. While Taub’s article provides significant insights on the cons of Scottish independence, an in-depth analysis shows that it is biased and not objective. Article Summary

There has been a wave of nationalistic fever sweeping the country ever since the SNP came to power in 2007. Independence is on their agenda and now there is a referendum set for 2014. But why should we go independent? After all, we have been married to England for over 300 years and our country is ‘too poor’ and ‘too wee’ to square up to the economic giants in the global market today and what would happen if the our banks were to self-destruct again? Would we manage to govern our own country independently? Increasingly people are beginning to see autonomy as a panacea for the predicament Scotland faces. However, there are masses out there that are still worried about the myriad of 'unanswered

Democracy in the United Kingdom has changed a lot over the years however the definition has never changed. The right for people to choose and decide how a country is run. This essay will help decide whether the United Kingdom still follows that definition of being a true democracy and analysing how this has affected the people of the UK.

In this essay I will assess the outcomes of Additional Member system, First Past the Post system and the Closed Party List system. The F-P-T-P system is used to elect the members of House of Commons and local government in England and Wales. Voters select candidates, and do so by marking his or her name with an ‘X’ on the ballot paper. This reflects the principle of ‘one person, one vote’. The Additional Members system is used in Scottish parliament, Welsh assembly, and Northern Ireland Assembly and Greater London assembly. It is a mixed system made up of F-P-T-P and party-list elements. The Regional party list (or the closed party list) is used to elect the

The SNP main goal was Scotland independence and this issue raised in the 1990s. In 1997 elections, the Conservative Party leader John Major rejected the possibility of establishing the Scottish Parliament, however Tony Blair the leader of the Labour Party was with the establishment of the Scottish parliament, which was the reason for winning Blair the majority of

Currently Scotland has its own parliament in Edinburgh which can deal with chosen devolved issues from Westminster. Originating mainly from the YES YES campaign in 1999 headed by the Labour Government. This means that Scotland has control over

A political two party system is one where two parties have complete dominance over voting, in terms of seats and the general vote. The multi- party system however describes a system where more than two parties have the ability to win role as government. In this essay I will give a balanced argument on whether Britain is a two party, or multi- party system.

The majoritarian model is currently being used in Canadas political economy, however, Canada’s would be better off with a shift to the consensus model as it included all minority groups and represented the true meaning of democracy. The consensus model represented the people in a society by including minority groups, using a federal or decentralized government and a multi-party system. The consensus model ensured the inclusion of groups in plural societies, where this was absent under a majoritarian ruling. A majoritarian model of government only made decisions in the hands of a select few, whereas, in a consensus model the power was divided in a federal or decentralized government. Finally, a consensus model allowed for multiple parties to run for election under the multiparty system and voting was done under proportional representation. However, in a majoritarian government, there are two parties running for office which operated under a disproportional election.

The centrepiece of Labour 's programme of constitutional reform was undoubtedly devolution. This was achieved with remarkably few problems. There now seems no likelihood that the new arrangements could be reversed, even by a Conservative administration. The election on 6 May 1999 of a Parliament in Scotland, with extensive powers of primary legislation as well as tax-raising, and an Assembly in Wales, with powers of secondary legislation only, will have a profound impact on governance within the UK. In

Within the United Kingdom, a recurring issue has been raised regarding the political position of Scotland and how the Scottish Parliament could better govern the country. To establish whether the quality of life could be improved for the Scottish people, key events, devolution, and the Scottish Parliament must be evaluated and analysed. The argument for greater power in decision making and the ability to implement change for the citizens of Scotland, has been central to Scottish politics for some time.

In 1977 a Labour Member of Parliament introduced a important issue, a question that was called “The West Lothian Question” later on and referred to the ability to vote on matters that only afected people living in England by Members of Parliament from constituencies in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, as a consequence of the devolution of power from Westminster and Scottish parliament, Welsh and Northern Irish Assemblies.

“Parliamentary sovereignty is no longer, if it ever was, absolute” (Lord Hope). Discuss with reference to at least three challenges to the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. Parliamentary sovereignty is the concept that Parliament has the power to repeal, amend or create any law it wishes and therefore no body in the UK can challenge its legal validity. There are many people who would argue that this is a key principle to the UK Constitution, on the other hand, there are those who strongly believe that this idea is one of the past, and that the idea of the UK Parliament being sovereign is false. One of these people is Lord Hope, who said “Parliamentary sovereignty is no longer, if it ever was, absolute”. During the last 50 years there have been a variety of developments that have proved to be a challenge for the legitimacy of parliamentary sovereignty, and the ones which will be examined in this essay are: the devolution of powers to the Scottish Parliament; The United Kingdom’s entry into the European Union in 1973; and finally the power of judicial review. Starting with the devolution of powers, these challenges will all be evaluated when discussing whether or not the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty applies to the United Kingdom. Westminster’s sovereignty has been gradually diminishing over time as varying amounts of power have been devolved to Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland. In this essay, the devolution of powers to the Scottish Parliament will be

Modern Scottish politics was established in 1999 , then called the Scottish Executive rather than the Scottish Government. The current Scottish Government has control over a certain number of devolved matters whilst Westminster in England retains control of decisions affecting the whole of the United Kingdom. This modern day form of Scottish politics was very much influenced by the events and state of a post-war Britain in which many people across Scotland wanted change and more independence from the London-centric Westminster. A number of the aspects of the modern Scottish devolved political system intentionally vary from certain ones of Westminster in an effort to be more representative of the Scottish people and will be analysed and evaluated in this essay.