Author: psaparliaments

Practitioners and academics in comparative politics frequently refer to a set of ‘Westminster model’ countries which are similar in some way. But in a new article, summarised here, Meg Russell and Ruxandra Serban show that definitions of the ‘Westminster model’ tend to be muddled, or even absent, and that its meaning is far from clear. Insofar as defined political attributes are linked to the ‘model’, key countries associated with it now lack many of those attributes. The term has hence become increasingly outdated, leading the authors to suggest that it should now be dropped.

Dr Ruth Dixon of the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford, who was a Parliamentary Academic Fellow in 2018–19, discusses the efficacy of parliamentary scrutiny during 2016-2017. The post was originally published on the House of Lords Library blog but has been kindly shared with the PSA Parliaments group.