The declining representativeness of the british party system, and why it matters

Brandenburg, Heinz and Johns, Robert (2014) The declining representativeness of the british party system, and why it matters. Political Studies, 62 (4), 703-703. (doi:10.1111/1467-9248.12172).

Record type: Editorial

Abstract

In this paper, the authors give us one more reason to think that contemporary voters are discontented with the quality of representative democracy in Britain. And this for one of the most primitive of reasons: because the system is (increasingly) unrepresentative of voters' diverse beliefs. As the Conservative and Labour parties have moved closer together, so have voters tended to find themselves increasingly distant ideologically from either of the two major parties. As the authors note, 'vote-seeking parties have left the British party system less representative, and thus made at least some voters miserable'. This is a paper which skilfully combines the conceptual and the empirical to make a telling point about the declining quality of representative democracy.

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