The article contests the view that the Blair government has presided over the demise of cabinet government in the UK, and the rise of a kind of British presidentialism. By examining changes made at the very heart of government, chiefly in the Prime Minister's and Cabinet Offices, it argues that change under Labour marks the latest stage in the evolution of Britain's still functioning system of cabinet government. Moreover, recent reforms, like so many before, have been partly prompted by deep-seated administrative factors that have helped to shape the core executive for close to a century. Nevertheless, the article concedes that the Blair reforms do reflect an acceleration of pre-existing trends, with the result that the executive arm of government has been substantially enhanced. This has led to some change in the balance of power both within the core executive and across central government more widely.

Legitimate political opposition constitutes a key component of any form of liberal democracy, which has, however, received surprisingly scant attention in the more recent political science literature. In an attempt to revitalize the debate about the various forms of political opposition, this paper starts with distinguishing five different ways or models of institutionalizing political opposition in liberal democratic systems. It goes on to look at how these different models have worked in the constitutional practice of selected western democracies. In the second part of this article, the focus is on the possible lessons that constitution-makers in democratizing countries could draw from this experience. Whereas there is no best model of opposition in general, some models would seem to be better suited to meet the particular needs of new democracies than others.

‘Good losers’, legislators willing to play by parliamentary rules, even at the cost of defeat, are a microfoundation of democracy. Yet how they are created has not been adequately explained. Theories focusing on institutions, evolving norms, electoral incentives and ideology do not account for the case of post-war Japan, where deliberate disorder was common in the 1950s and 1960s, absent in the 1970s and 1980s, and returned in the 1990s. This paper highlights the importance of the legislative majority's behaviour in encouraging procedural compliance through the provision of informal mechanisms of consultation and compromise. The lack of such mechanisms also explains periods of parliamentary disorder in other countries.

The case of Israeli identity is a good example of the paradox of national identity and national self-determination. On the one hand Israelis put forwards ‘centripetal’ claims about why they are part of the family of nations. These claims are based on universal arguments and would go hand-in-hand with universal (often liberal) values. On the other hand they maintain ‘centrifugal’ claims, about ‘breaking away’, and about why their nation feels different from other nations. Centrifugal claims emphasize a people's uniqueness and tend to refer to particularistic morality. In the case of Israeli identity, emphasizing the particularistic goes together with chauvinistic attitudes towards other nations.

It is argued that the more vulnerable Israelis feel, the more they define themselves in a centrifugal way, that is, by distinguishing themselves from the rest of humankind. This tendency, I argue, proves a self-fulfilling prophecy: the more a nation defines itself in centrifugal terms, the more paranoid it becomes; this, in turn, serves to fan the flames of suspicion even more, and sustains the nation's self-image as different, unique and detached. The nation enters a vicious circle, which prevents it from becoming a normal member of the family of nations.