More spotlight, more problems? Westminster parliamentary systems and leadership replacement in large opposition parties

Abstract

In this article, I argue that Westminster parliamentary systems encourage large opposition parties to replace their leaders between elections. Parliamentary system structures how parties compete over legislative outcomes. In Westminster systems, the government’s dominance in the legislative process promotes an adversarial government–opposition relationship. Subsequently, large opposition parties’ electoral prospects are tied to their ability to discredit the government’s policy agenda. Since this responsibility falls to party leaders, leaders of large opposition parties directly affect their parties’ electoral prospects, and parties are more motivated to replace those who are ineffective in damaging the government’s credibility. Therefore, leaders of large opposition parties in Westminster systems carry a higher risk of replacement than their counterparts in other parliamentary systems. I construct an original data set on party leadership turnover in 14 established parliamentary democracies. Results from Cox proportional hazard models support my claim and suggest that institution influences intraparty dynamics.

Why it Is Indeed Time for the Westminster Model to Be Retired from Comparative Politics

“…We certainly encountered such studies in our reading of the literature. Indeed, an additional piece cited by the critics in their response (So 2018) further bears this out.…”

Political Oppositions in Democratic and Authoritarian Regimes: A State-of-the-Field(s) Review

“…The most complex patterns of government-opposition relations tend to exist in multilevel contexts in which parties performing the role of opposition at the national level can simultaneously be in power at the subnational level of the same polity. The federal systems of Canada and Germany mark two exemplary cases of such substantially more complex configurations between government and opposition parties (see Auel 2014;Hohendorf et al 2021;Smith 2013). The closer the institutional integration between the intergovernmental arenas, the more room there is for scholarly debates about the role of parties, and the nature of political opposition, in such 'compound regimes'.…”

“…In some contexts, institutional incentives and constraints can turn the parliamentary behaviour of opposition parties largely into a ritual – arguably nowhere more so than at Westminster (see Dewan and Spirling 2011). The institutional imperatives of Westminster systems also tend to shape other intra-party dynamics of opposition parties operating under this type of regime, such as, and in particular, the politics of leadership turnover (So 2018). There is also some important work that looks into the role of formal and informal institutions in the historical evolution of the more notable organizational features of the political opposition, such as the historical emergence of the ‘shadow cabinet’ in the British context (Eggers and Spirling 2018).…”

‘Stretched But Not Snapped’: A Response to Russell and Serban on Retiring the ‘Westminster Model’

“…In the former, cases may be selected on joint colonial heritage, although such studies are generally focused on a single specific (institutional) trait. Examples include Derek O'Brien's (2019) work on bicameralism in small states, Cheryl Collier and Tracy Raney's (2018) comparative study of parliamentary sexism and sexual harassment, Thomas Fleming's (2019) analysis of partisan dealignment and committee powers, Florence So's (2018) exploration of leadership turnover in opposition parties, or Ludger Helm's (2020) scholarship on ‘heir apparent’ prime ministers in Westminster democracies. Although such small-N comparative analyses can only claim limited generalization beyond the set of selected cases, they are highly valuable since, as a ‘most likely case’ of (former) Westminster models-design, they offer unique evidence of how ‘transplanted’ (or colonially imposed) role models (see Vatter et al 2020) ‘may produce different results and evolve in distinctive ways’ (Altman 2008: 483).…”