Politics: The Basics, 4th Edition

judges may exercise in constitutional matters. There are three main traditions in this respect. UK judges are formally amongst t ...

recognised rights) and less on precedent. Trials are more of an inqui- sitorial process controlled by the judge and less of a co ...

written in circumstances which emphasise a radical interpretation of constitutions. As the document ages, the emphasis may chang ...

In the United States there is a long history of judicial use of the federal constitution to declare invalid both acts of the pre ...

Britain does not have its own detailed Declaration of Rights (the Bill of Rights is a more limited document than its name might ...

stration (ENA) aspire to become members of the Council of State which is the superior administrative court. The ENA is perhaps t ...

constitution that representatives of interests affected by a Bill to be laid before Parliament should be consulted by the execut ...

(Confédération Générale du Travail – the main trade union con- federation) are regularly consulted, whilst grass-roots opinion i ...

to impress the electorate with its decisive implementation of a radical programme. Policies (such the Criminal Justice Act 1994) ...

example the Labour government elected in 1997 in the UK introduced a form of devolution with the creation of national-level gove ...

information overload prevent essential information being dis- tinguished? In the space available only some of these points can b ...

Political parties BOX 7.1 POLITICAL PARTIES Political parties (Box 7.1) seek to take power for their leading members, either for ...

as local ‘grass-roots’ feeling to their local legislators or at national party meetings (conventions, conferences, assemblies, e ...

strong policy views. Whilst useful as enthusiastic canvassers or lickers of envelopes, such militants may be, from the professio ...

government information officers and those of special advisers and ministers were unclear. Is this merely a perhaps unfortunate c ...

permanent campaign has resulted in ‘permanent communication’ whereby political actors seek to dominate the political agenda ever ...

government policy makers may wish to draw upon and the capacity to aid the acceptance and implementation of the policy. Thus doc ...

Conservatives and has appointed many trade unionists to lower-level patronage posts, it has sought, for image-building purposes, ...

large numbers of recipients whose only choice is to choose another channel, ‘listen’ or switch off. In this context we might ask ...

‘channels’. In Britain for instance there are only five terrestrial television channels, BBC Radio (these having only two news s ...