Parliamentary Opposition in Old and New Democracies [Hardcover]

Previously published as a special issue of the Journal of Legislative Studies, this volume offers a broad comparative assessment of the many faces of parliamentary opposition in different political, legal and cultural settings.

Issues of political opposition, and of parliamentary opposition in particular, are at the very heart of the study of democratic processes in different parts of the world. Written by leading scholars in the field, this book looks both at the core features of the parliamentary opposition itself and its role in the legislative and wider political process. This includes an inquiry into the manifold challenges that the parliamentary opposition in many countries has come to face in the more recent past, in particular the rise of different non-parliamentary opposition actors. The countries covered in this volume include the old democracies of the Anglo-Saxon world, continental Europe and Japan, and the new democracies and democratizing regimes in Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America and South Africa. Another chapter looks at the manifestations of parliamentary opposition within the multi-level system of the European Union

Introduction  1. Studying Parliamentary Opposition in Old and New Democracies: Issues and Perspectives  Ludger Helms  Part I: Parliamentary Opposition in Old Democracies 2. Parliamentary Opposition in Westminster Democracies: Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand  Andre Kaiser  3. Parliamentary Opposition under Minority Parliamentarism: Scandinavia  Flemming JuulChristiansen and ErikDamgaard  4. Parliamentary Opposition in Post-Consocational Democracies: Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands  Rudy B. Andeweg, Lieven DeWinter andls¯