Dysfunction in the Senate is driven by the deteriorating relationship between the majority and minority parties. Regular order is virtually nonexistent and unorthodox parliamentary procedures are frequently needed to pass important legislation. Democrats and Republicans are fighting a parliamentary war in the Senate to steer the future of the country. James Wallner presents a bargaining model of procedural change to explain the persistence of the filibuster in this polarized environment, focusing on the dynamics responsible for contested procedural change. Wallner’s model explains why Senate majorities have historically tolerated the filibuster, even when it has defeated their agendas, despite having the power to eliminate it. It also shows why the then-Democratic majority deployed the nuclear option to eliminate the filibuster for an Obama judicial nominee in 2013. On Parliamentary War’s game-theory approach unveils the relationship between partisan conflict and procedural change in the Senate.

Behemoth, or The Long Parliament is essential to any reader interested in the historical context of the thought of Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679). In De Cive (1642) and Leviathan (1651), the great political philosopher had developed an analytical framework for discussing sedition, rebellion, and the breakdown of authority. Behemoth, completed around 1668 and not published until after Hobbe's death, represents the systematic application of this framework to the English Civil War. In his insightful and substantial Introduction, Stephen Holmes examines the major themes and implications of Behemoth in Hobbes's system of thought. Holmes notes that a fresh consideration of Behemoth dispels persistent misreadings of Hobbes, including the idea that man is motivated solely by a desire for self-preservation. Behemoth, which is cast as a series of dialogues between a teacher and his pupil, locates the principal cause of the Civil War less in economic interests than in the stubborn irrationality of key actors. It also shows more vividly than any of Hobbe's other works the importance of religion in his theories of human nature and behavior.

This volume considers the varied forms of parliamentary pressure in the period between the civil wars and the advent of universal suffrage in the twentieth century. The authors examine the ways in which parliament accepted, invited, or moulded channels of political pressure from those outside their ranks and outside the electoral process Chapters highlight the technologies of growth of private and public petitioning, the pressure to act on new national and international questions, and the ways in which parliamentarians themselves orchestrated pressure Includes a range of insights into the collaborative porousness of political pressures on parliament, not simply as the force of ‘pressure from without’

An analytical investigation into Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s decision-making process during every stage of World War II. When Winston Churchill accepted the position of Prime Minister in May 1940, he insisted in also becoming Minister of Defence. This, though, meant that he alone would be responsible for the success or failure of Britain’s war effort. It also meant that he would be faced with many monumental challenges and utterly crucial decisions upon which the fate of Britain and the free world rested. With the limited resources available to the UK, Churchill had to pinpoint where his country’s priorities lay. He had to respond to the collapse of France, decide if Britain should adopt a defensive or offensive strategy, choose if Egypt and the war in North Africa should take precedence over Singapore and the UK’s empire in the East, determine how much support to give the Soviet Union, and how much power to give the United States in controlling the direction of the war. In this insightful investigation into Churchill’s conduct during the Second World War, Allen Packwood, BA, MPhil (Cantab), FRHistS, the Director of the Churchill Archives Centre, enables the reader to share the agonies and uncertainties faced by Churchill at each crucial stage of the war. How Churchill responded to each challenge is analyzed in great detail and the conclusions Packwood draws are as uncompromising as those made by Britain’s wartime leader as he negotiated his country through its darkest days.

The invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the Coalition Government's failure to win parliamentary approval for armed intervention in Syria in 2013, mark a period of increased scrutiny of the process by which the UK engages in armed conflict. For much of the media and civil society there now exists a constitutional convention which mandates that the Government consults Parliament before commencing hostilities. This is celebrated as representing a redistribution of power from the executive towards a more legitimate, democratic institution. This book offers a critical inquiry into Parliament's role in the war prerogative since the beginning of the twentieth century, evaluating whether the UK's decisions to engage in conflict meet the recognised standards of good governance: accountability, transparency and participation. The analysis reveals a number of persistent problems in the decision-making process, including Parliament's lack of access to relevant information, government 'legalisation' of parliamentary debates which frustrates broader discussions of political legitimacy, and the skewing of debates via the partial public disclosure of information based upon secret intelligence. The book offers solutions to these problems to reinvigorate parliamentary discourse and to address government withholding of classified information. It is essential reading for anyone interested in war powers, the relationship between international law and domestic politics, and the role of the Westminster Parliament in questions of national security.

The saga of the epic battle to re-build the Houses of Parliament after the great fire of 1834, this is also the story of how the greatest construction programme in Britain for centuries produced one of the most famous and instantly recognizable buildings ever built