Skip Navigation



Publius: The Journal of Federalism Advance Access published online on October 1, 2009
Publius: The Journal of Federalism, doi:10.1093/publius/pjp026
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
40/1/59    most recent
pjp026v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Request Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Bratberg, O.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of CSF Associates: Publius, Inc. [br]All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org.

Institutional Resilience Meets Critical Junctures: (re)allocation of Power in Three British Parties Post-devolution

Øivind Bratberg*
*University of Oslo, oivind.bratberg{at}stv.uio.no

How do parties react when their institutional environment is federalized or devolved? This article investigates how the three dominant British parties have responded to devolution in terms of internal reallocation of power. Party change is evaluated in the light of a functionalist and an institutionalist perspective. We find that Labour has moved incrementally away from centralism; the Conservative Party has changed more extensively towards stratarchy, while the Liberal Democrats, already federalized pre-devolution, have been the least affected of the parties. Our findings lend some support to the institutionalist thesis that (functionally driven) party change is restrained by distinct organizational legacies. However, critical junctures, typically induced by electoral failure, could facilitate a party’s break with organizational legacies to embark on more extensive reform.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.