Power in British Politics: Iron Law or Special Pleading?

Abstract

There are few books on British politics which argue a thesis, and even fewer which argue an interesting thesis. It is safe to assume that most would agree to the inclusion of R. T. McKenzie’s British Political Parties in such a list. The book was first published to critical acclaim in 1955, a second revised edition was issued in 1963, and plans for a third edition were aborted by McKenzie’s untimely death in September 1981.1 The scope of the book was indicated by its subtitle, ‘The Distribution of Power Within the Conservative and Labour Parties’. Such a work of political soiology clearly followed in the footsteps of other great European students of political parties — Weber, Michels, Ostrogorski, and Duverger. McKenzie’s thesis was that, contrary to the two parties’ claims about themselves and their rivals, the distribution of power within the parties was very similar, notably in the domination of the parliamentary leadership over other sections of the parties.