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It's Only Made Things Worse: A Critique of Electoral Reform in Britain
Author(s) -
KELLY RICHARD
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
the political quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.373
H-Index - 37
eISSN - 1467-923X
pISSN - 0032-3179
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-923x.2008.00915.x
Subject(s) - disenchantment , disconnection , argument (complex analysis) , political economy , politics , democracy , power (physics) , electoral system , political science , democratic system , sociology , law , biochemistry , chemistry , physics , quantum mechanics
Since it came to power, New Labour has introduced a range of new electoral system into the British political system, implicitly accepting the argument that Britain's traditional electoral system ‐ first‐past‐the‐post (FPTP) ‐ has been a cause of voter disenchantment with Britain's representative democracy. In this article, it is asserted that Labour's reforms have merely compounded this problem, while demonstrating that all electoral systems have significant flaws. Indeed, it is argued that the flaws of the new systems are more serious than those of FPTP and threaten an even greater disconnection between UK politicians and the people they represent.”