In the increasingly questioning world of the 1990s, the role of the monarchy in a democracy is again coming under scrutiny. Its critics argue that the monarchy is a profoundly conservative institution which serves to inhibit social change; that it has outlived its usefulness; that it symbolizes and reinforces deference and hierarchy; and that its radical reform is therefore long overdue.
Rejecting these arguments, Vernon Bogdanor makes a powerful case for the positive role that monarchy plays in modern democratic politics. Ranging across law, politics, and history he argues that far from...

A stellar collection of contributors consider each British post-war Prime Minister and examine how they have dealt with Britain's changing role, domestic and overseas, since the end of WWII. Even at the start of the 21st century, Britain remains in a state of transition, between a world which is dead and one still struggling to be born.

England', Benjamin Disraeli famously said, does not love coalitions'. But 2010 saw the first peace-time coalition in Britain since the 1930s. The coalition, moreover, may well not be an aberration. For there are signs that, with the rise in strength of third parties, hung parliaments are more likely to recur than in the past. Perhaps, therefore, the era of single-party majority government, to which we have become accustomed since 1945, is coming to an end. But is the British constitution equipped to deal with coalition? Are alterations in the procedures of parliament or government needed to...