Electing and Ejecting Party Leaders in Britain

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvi

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Thomas Quinn

   Pages 1-7

3. Electing and Ejecting Party Leaders

   • Thomas Quinn

   Pages 8-30

4. Selection and Ejection by the Parliamentary Party

   • Thomas Quinn

   Pages 31-56

5. The Labour Party: The Electoral College

   • Thomas Quinn

   Pages 57-96

6. The Conservative Party: Enfranchising the Members

   • Thomas Quinn

   Pages 97-130

7. The Liberal Democrats: One Member-One Vote

   • Thomas Quinn

   Pages 131-157

8. Electing and Ejecting Party Leaders: An Assessment

   • Thomas Quinn

   Pages 158-188

9. Back Matter

   Pages 189-248

   PDF

The Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats each allow their members to participate in the selection of the party leader. It also examines the consequences of all-member ballots in leadership elections. It looks at how parties remove leaders, showing that each of the major British parties sought to make it harder to evict incumbents.

• election
• elections
• Electoral
• parliament
• British Politics

'This is an important and timely study of what has been a neglected topic in the literature. Public evaluations of party leaders play a really important role in influencing voting behaviour in Britain, and so it is important to understand why and how the parties select their leaders. This book makes a really interesting contribution to understanding that process.'

- Paul Whiteley, Professor of Government, University of Essex, UKand Co-director of the British Election Study

'More attention than ever in British politics is focused on party leaders. Drawing on a plethora of sources, Thomas Quinn provides a sophisticated and nuanced analysis as to how politicians are returned to party office, rejected, and replaced. Theoretically developed and empirically grounded, this book makes an outstanding and original contribution to our understanding of the internal life of British political parties.'

- Mark Wickham-Jones, Professor of Political Science, University of Bristol, UK

• University of Essex, UK

  Thomas Quinn

THOMAS QUINNLecturer in Government at the University of Essex, UK. His previous book was Modernising the Labour Party: Organisational Change since 1983 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).

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