Quinn, K;
(2020)
'A quaint and unimportant anachronism'? The office of Governor General and constitutional controversies in the Commonwealth Caribbean.
In: Kumarasingham, H, (ed.)
Viceregalism: The Crown and its Representatives in Political Crises in the Postwar Commonwealth.
(pp. 147-178).
Palgrave Macmillan: London, UK.
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Abstract
This chapter takes as its starting point D. A. Low’s Appendix in his 1988 edited volume Constitutional Heads and Political Crises. Low’s Appendix lists a series of constitutional ‘episodes’ in the Commonwealth, defined, by his criteria, as instances in which ‘constitutional heads … became significantly involved in some constitutional and/or political crisis’; took actions which ‘entailed important political consequences’; and/or took ‘a public politico-constitutional decision of some … moment [acting] … in his [or her] own deliberate judgement’. Focusing on the Commonwealth Caribbean, this chapter seeks to extend Low’s Appendix in two ways: (1) analysing constitutional episodes in the Commonwealth Caribbean in the period 1945–1987 that are notably missing from Low’s Appendix; and (2) extending the time frame to examine constitutional ‘episodes’ in the Caribbean between 1987 and the present day. The relative frequency of such episodes in the later period runs contrary to the general assumption of constitutional stability and the smooth functioning of Westminster governance in the region. This chapter presents a preliminary typology of constitutional episodes in the Caribbean, before reflecting on the wider implications of these episodes for governance in the region. It argues that the problems typically associated with the Westminster system in the Caribbean—e.g. partisanship, winner takes all politics, prime ministerial dominance—usually studied in the sphere of the executive and the legislature—are replicated at the level of the constitutional Head of State.
| Type: | Book chapter |
|---|---|
| Title: | 'A quaint and unimportant anachronism'? The office of Governor General and constitutional controversies in the Commonwealth Caribbean |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1007/978-3-030-46283-3 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46283-3_6 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Institute of the Americas |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10090329 |
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