{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.021658415841584157, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0024752475247524753, 'mean_word_length': 5.654320987654321, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 1, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Placing Prime Ministers in Political Development: The Anglo-Americanization of the Executive?

This paper addresses the issue of the Americanization of the British executive by placing prime ministers (and scholarly debates about their authority) in the context of political development. From the 19th to the 21st century, the executive evolves through eras of cabinet, prime ministerial, and presidential government. At critical junctures, prime ministers play key roles in expanding the scope of executive authority by supplying new rationales that link the executive to popular aspirations and facilitate the formation of new institutional norms. At the same time, to succeed they must overcome or alleviate intermediaries, and as a result, they attempt to alter the place of parties in the political order and adapt aspects of the administrative state. The progress of political development eventually permits presidentialization, but fluctuations continue to occur, and several factors can expand, contract, or reconfigure the range and reach of executive authority even within the contemporary context of executive-centric government. Rather than settle the question of whether prime ministers have been presidentialized (if not Americanized), this research explores when and why prime ministers are able and likely to prove presidential, prime ministerial, or both. As this study finds frequent parallels with the United States (where presidents often need to be prime ministerial), it suggests the evolution of the British prime minister more accurately reflects the “Anglo-Americanization” of the executive.