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Over the threshold: the politics of foreign policy in majoritarian parliamentary systems—the case of Britain

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Abstract

Executive autonomy influences the ability of states to make credible commitments, utilise their domestic resources, and deter adversaries. In majoritarian parliamentary regimes, it is often assumed that executive autonomy is derived from the possession of a substantial parliamentary majority, since this affords the government a ‘buffer’ in the legislature. Yet, this understanding fails to account for the value of seats above the majority threshold for foreign policy, where the executive is constrained by internal dissent more than the non-passage of legislation. This article challenges the assumption of a linear relationship between seat share and executive autonomy through a theoretical re-examination of the politics of foreign policy in majoritarian parliamentary systems. It argues that possession of a significant majority can actually undermine the executive’s foreign policy autonomy, since it increases the degree of intra-party factionalism without introducing corresponding benefits in the legislature. The argument is illustrated empirically through an examination of the politics of British foreign policy at three decisive elections (1950, 1955, and 1966) in the early Cold War period.

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Notes

  1. Elman (2000) is a rare exception, although as I have noted above, her work also buys into the assumption that executive autonomy increases in line with legislative seat share.

  2. As Fig. 1 demonstrates, it matters little to the classification scheme if we reduce this threshold. The only potentially borderline case is the majority of 16 held by the Conservatives after the 1951 election, and in this case, it is clear that the government was concerned about the slightness of its majority (Ramsden 1995, 261).

  3. To avoid the charge of selecting on the dependent variable, it should be noted that factionalism is a necessary condition for dissent, but does not guarantee its occurrence. As I shall argue, it is changes in the governing party’s seat share that determines variation in the level of dissent, not the existence of factionalism per se.

  4. Minutes of meeting between Ford, Kissinger and Scowcroft, 14 August 1974, Gerald Ford Papers.

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    Benjamin Martill

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Martill, B. Over the threshold: the politics of foreign policy in majoritarian parliamentary systems—the case of Britain. Int Polit 55, 631–654 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-017-0106-0

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