promoting a rival religious community. Until the 1970s the Dutch political
system was characterized by this form of rival confessional parties, the Catholic
People’s Party, and two protestant parties, the Anti-Revolutionary Party and
the Christian Historical Union. In that year the three parties formed a
federation, the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), to counter the erosion
of support which each had experienced since the 1960s, and in 1980 the
separate parties were abolished altogether in favour of the CDA. Because of the
secularizationof society in many countries, and particularly in Europe,
during the second half of the 20th century, confessional parties have either
lost their voting support, or been forced to broaden their appeal.
Confidence
In countries where theexecutiveis responsible to alegislaturerather than
elected for a fixed term (as in the USA), the support of the legislature is
necessary to sustain a government in office. Such support may be tested by a
formal vote of no confidence (seeaccountability). If the vote goes against the
government, it will usually be required to resign; and then one of two
consequences will follow. Either there will be an attempt to form a new
government which can command the support of the legislature (a course
which is particularly likely where no party has an overall majority), or the
legislature will be dissolved and new elections held to ascertain the views of the
electorate.
In the United Kingdom, where a strict system of party discipline prevails, it
used to be believed that any major defeat sustained by a government in the
House of Commons should be treated as a vote of no confidence. Since the
1970s this view has been substantially modified, and governments have come
to believe that they may be defeated in the House of Commons without
necessarily resigning or even placing the measure before Parliament again in
order to reverse their defeat. In some countries, matters are organized in such a
way that votes of no confidence are difficult for the government to lose; this is
the case in Fifth Republic France, where it represents a response to the pre-
1958 situation in which stable government became the exception rather than
the rule. Similarly, the German Basic Law (Grundgesetz) constrains the power
of the motion of confidence by requiring a positive vote; the motion has to
nominate a successor government rather than merely require the resignation of
the existing one. Motions of no confidence can be used in any organization
which has a voting body, as, for example, the board of directors of a company,
or a company shareholders’ meeting. In such cases the impact is usually moral,
making it hard for the relevant office holders to carry on rather than legally
impossible.
Confidence