Párt, frakció, kormány. Döntéshozatal, politika- és programalkotás a brit Munkáspártban
The British Labour Party: After the Changes in the Strategy Radical Modernisation of The Policy and Decision Making

Summary/Abstract: The starting point of the study is that the generally successful performance of the British New Labour Government since 1997 is unbreakable from the radical modernisation of the Labour’s policy and decision making mechanism. The author is giving description of the „old” Labour policy making that based on the traditional Labour Party structure and distribution of power which has been dominated by three relatively autonomous power centre, the Parliamentary Labour Party, the Annual Conference and the National Executive Committee. According to the paper this system highly reflected the democratic nature of the Labour Party but specially when the Party has governed the country its internal mechanism was not able properly coordinate the various components of the Party, the Trade Unions, the Parliamentary Labour Party and the Constituency Labour Parties. The main aim of new policy making that has been approved by the Conference in 1997 was to secure consensus among the all components of the Party in particular to prevent discord between the Government and the Party that in the past often made critical situations for the governing Labour. The study than detailed the core of the new system named „Partnership in Power”: the changing function of the Annual Conference, the establishment of a new power centre, the National Policy Forum that became the main factor of policy making in the Labour Party, as well as the new and more responsible way of the Party membership involvement to policy and decision making. The paper’s suggestion is that the new mechanism is centralised enough in order to secure more effectiveness in Labour Government as well as in creating modern Labour Party policy and programmes.

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