The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics (122 page)

(1858–1940)
English economist, associated with radical liberalism before the First World War and with the Labour Party during the interwar period. He is best remembered today for
Imperialism: A Study
, published in 1902 and written in opposition to the Boer War. He developed an explanation of imperialism based on the idea of underconsumption in the imperial or metropole power. In the metropole the uneven distribution of wealth, and very low spending power of the working class, led to a fall in profits from manufacturing industry. Financiers thus tended increasingly to look abroad for markets for investment. Their interests dominated government, which was increasingly drawn in to protect these investments by force, involving the state in conflicts both with the regimes of the underdeveloped world and with other European governments intent on the same process. Hobson thought that radical economic and political reforms at home could channel energies into domestically based growth; he held utopian views on the international co-operation which could follow from radical reform at home. Under-consumption has been widely criticized as an explanation of imperialism, though Hobson's work was the basis of the Leninist theory of
imperialism
and continues to play a prominent role in the massive modern literature on the economic roots of imperialism. His work also anticipated in important respects Keynes's theories of underconsumption.
PBy 

 
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(1723–89)
Writer of the French
Enlightenment
, completely opposed to utilitarianism. Originally educated in the natural sciences, he wrote the articles on chemistry for the
Encyclopédie
. Holbach rejected Christianity, and was regularly condemned by the Church and the
Parlement de Paris
. He believed that the only way to long-term happiness was a severe morality. Despite these views, he was immensely rich, and was known particularly for the dinners he gave. He changed his opinion about the political system which might achieve his ideal. At first, he supported absolutism, in agreement with
Voltaire
. Then he moved to support the legal aristocracy, in agreement with
Montesquieu
. In terms of the ends to be achieved, he disagreed with both, and with the Enlightenment in general.
CS 

 
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See
d'Hondt
.

 
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(
c
.1554–1600)
English theologican and philosopher. Hooker grew up in a critical period for the Anglican Church, when the Calvinist wing was trying to gain the ascendancy. Though initially he was favourable to Calvinism, he later moved away from it. His theory was published in eight volumes from 1592 (vol. vi is spurious: the last posthumous), entitled
Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity
. Much of his theory reflects that of
Aquinas
. He distinguished four types of law:

(1) eternal—that by which God operates;
(2) natural—a reflection of the eternal law, which natural agents observe and all human beings ought to observe;
(3) positive divine—revealed by God; and
(4) positive ecclesiastical and civil, which may vary from society to society and at different times.

Like Aquinas , he held that the state is founded on a natural inclination. But he introduced an element of contract: ‘an order expressly or secretly agreed upon’ governing the manner of living together (i. 10) (which had some influence on
Locke
). Moreover civil government depends on the consent of the governed: ‘Laws they are not therefore which public approbation had not made so.’
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The elected house of the UK Parliament. It is composed of 651 Members of Parliament (MPs) (659 after 1996), representing single member constituencies. The constitutional authority of the House of Commons derives from features of historical evolution. Its political authority has, however, been undermined since the nineteenth century, and its effectiveness in particular roles has been brought into question. Debate upon the decline of the House of Commons and prescriptions for its reform have become commonplace.
The UK Parliament's composition was based initially upon the lords spiritual and temporal, but from 1295 Edward I formalized the extension of the political nation to be called to each parliament to include two knights to represent each of the shires, two citizens to represent each of the cities, and two burgesses to represent each of the boroughs. During the 1330s these came to be known as the Commons, and sat separately from the lords. The relationship between the Commons and the Crown was marked by incremental rather than revolutionary change between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries. Nominally, the Crown dominated. The Commons sat only at the behest of the Crown and represented a narrowly defined political nation. Its composition was open to manipulation by the Crown, and, as a result, it was largely compliant to the wishes of the Crown when it did sit. At the same time, however, the Crown habitually sought the consent of the Commons in order to raise taxation and increasingly to lend political support to Crown policies, thereby establishing the basis for claims to greater power. Granting of taxation, for instance, was made dependent upon the Crown recognizing the Commons' right to redress of grievance. In this context the arbitrary rule of James I and Charles I aroused the bitter opposition of the Commons, and the English Civil War of 1642–6 represented a battle between Parliament, led by the Commons, and the Crown for supreme authority. Victory for Parliament, however, did not lead to lasting change. The Restoration of 1660 largely restored the pre-1642 relationship with superiority lying with the Crown.
More important was the Glorious Revolution of 1688 in which Parliament effectively rejected James II and invited William of Orange to take the throne. The Crown retained the right to appoint and dismiss governments, and draw the personnel of governments from any chosen source. However, the fact that William owed his position to Parliament established more firmly than ever before the central constitutional convention that the monarch must pursue government and the raising of taxation in consultation with parliament, in particular the commons. The 1689 Bill of Rights established for the commons the sole right to authorize taxation and the level of financial supply to the Crown. The 1694 Triennial Act established the principle of the necessity of election within a given time period to continue service within the House of Commons, thus ending the Crown's ability to extend indefinitely parliaments which proved supportive, and ensuring parliamentary independence from the Crown. Crown/Commons relations were marked by consensus for much of the eighteenth century as their interests coincided over the need for political and social stability, the rule of law, and the preservation of property. A balanced constitutional monarchy emerged as the framework of British political life.
The constitutional adjustments of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were followed by similarly gradual but important changes in the role of the House of Commons during the nineteenth century. Parliamentary reform acts of 1832, 1867, and 1884 gradually extended the electorate, thus widening the political nation represented by the House of Commons to include members of the working classes. This had two main effects. First, MPs began to organize themselves much more rigorously on a party basis in order to capture the popular vote at election time, and subsequently to form party governments on the basis of electoral support. Secondly, the heightened democratic basis of the House of Commons secured its primacy over the House of Lords and the monarch within Parliament. 1834 was the last occasion on which a monarch changed a government to suit himself.
Parliamentary sovereignty
ensures that the House of Commons has considerable constitutional importance, retaining its centrality to the processes of granting taxation and making law. However, its political authority to influence them has gone into decline. The party of government faces the official opposition and other opposition parties across the floor of the House of Commons, all indulging in debates which are reduced to pure theatre by MPs generally voting on party lines. The party of government can usually dominate the Commons, making it the location of key decision-making but rarely its source.
The overwhelming workload for MPs consequent upon increases in the responsibilities and apparatus of government and an expansion of its fiscal and legislative business from the late nineteenth century has undermined their ability to provide a good consultative forum. It is suggested that the adversarial party system militates against the exploration of new ideas and co-operative decision-making, and ensures that most decisions are taken outside the Commons within the party of government. At regular intervals since the 1920s there have been calls for special economic parliaments or councils of experts to provide alternative wider forums. Many have seen policy networks, encompassing interest groups, or corporatist arrangements involving the captains of industry and trade union leaders in the business of government as better forums for consultative decision-making.
In terms of its more modern role of holding the executive to account on behalf of the wider political nation, the House of Commons has again been found wanting. Facilities such as parliamentary questions, standing committees, and the parliamentary select committees created in 1979 provide routes to scrutiny and, of course, party government dominance over Parliament is contingent upon the size of governing party majorities. Nevertheless, in the late twentieth century the Commons' ability to hold the executive to account is perceived to be in decline. MPs are too obviously complicit in the operations and needs of the executive, and they lack the facilities to provide for scrutiny of a kind to be seen in, for example, the US Congress, an impression compounded by the obvious overburdening of inefficient procedures still rooted in eighteenth-century practice.
The prescriptions for reform since the First World War have been many and varied: from symptomatic reforms of procedure and extension of committee powers to systemic reform involving a written constitution, electoral reform, and territorial decentralization of Commons powers. Sadly, it has remained in the interest of whichever party has been in power in order to maximize its own autonomy to foster the myth of parliamentary sovereignty whilst preserving Parliament's many real weaknesses. It is apparent that the victory that was won by the Commons against domination by the unelected executive has been replaced by defeat at the hands of the elected executive.
JBr