Tales of the unexpected: The selection of British party leaders since 1963. Issue 2 (12th June 2018)
- Record Type:
- Journal Article
- Title:
- Tales of the unexpected: The selection of British party leaders since 1963. Issue 2 (12th June 2018)
- Main Title:
- Tales of the unexpected: The selection of British party leaders since 1963
- Authors:
- Denham, Andrew
Dorey, Peter - Abstract:
- Abstract Jeremy Corbyn's election as Leader of the Labour Party in 2015 stunned observers and practitioners of British politics alike. In this article, we first outline a theoretical framework that purports to explain why political parties operating in parliamentary systems choose the leaders they do. We then examine 32 leadership successions involving five major British parties since 1963, and note that many of these were unexpected, in that they were triggered by unforeseen circumstances, such as the sudden death or resignation of the incumbent. Examining each party in turn, we briefly explain why the winners won and identify at least eight cases (a quarter of our sample) where a candidate widely expected to prevail at the outset was ultimately defeated by a 'dark horse', 'second favourite' or even 'rank outsider'. Of these, Corbyn's election in 2015 was the most unexpected and, consistent with the findings of studies of party leadership conventions in other parliamentary systems, namely Canada and Spain, suggests that ideological and policy concerns are sometimes more important than considerations of party unity and electability, especially when a leadership contest is dominated by party activists.
- Is Part Of:
- British politics. Volume 13:Issue 2(2018)
- Journal:
- British politics
- Issue:
- Volume 13:Issue 2(2018)
- Issue Display:
- Volume 13, Issue 2 (2018)
- Year:
- 2018
- Volume:
- 13
- Issue:
- 2
- Issue Sort Value:
- 2018-0013-0002-0000
- Page Start:
- 171
- Page End:
- 194
- Publication Date:
- 2018-06-12
- Subjects:
- political parties -- party leaders -- leadership selection -- parliamentary systems -- Members of Parliament (MPs)
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- Periodicals
320.94105 - Journal URLs:
- http://www.palgrave-journals.com/bp/index.html ↗
http://www.springer.com/gb/ ↗
http://www.palgrave.com/home/index.asp ↗ - DOI:
- 10.1057/s41293-017-0044-x ↗
- Languages:
- English
- ISSNs:
- 1746-918X
- Deposit Type:
- Legaldeposit
- View Content:
- Available online (eLD content is only available in our Reading Rooms) ↗
- Physical Locations:
- British Library DSC - 2339.155000
British Library DSC - BLDSS-3PM
British Library HMNTS - ELD Digital store - Ingest File:
- 12696.xml