Some people claim that the rice in the quantity of passive political participation is forming democratic crisis in Britain. The main purpose of this essay is to explore the problem of low levels of participation and its connection with crisis of democracy. Firstly, it will highlight the role of parliament. Secondly, it will evaluate drawbacks and benefits of election systems and the devolution. Thirdly, it will illustrate the roles of political parties and low results of participation in elections.
Possibilities for and trends of becoming participated in the political process by people is political participation. Generally, political participation contains a number of points such as awareness of current issues, supporting online forums, taking part in all kinds of elections, standing for political office, joining and becoming active in pressure group and political party and participating in physical and e-petitions (McNaughton: 2012). Vlassopoulos (2009:29) mentions that direct popular participation in making decisions is the vital aspect in definition of democracy.
One of the main functions of Parliament is representation. This means that elected MPs should represent and defend the interests of their voters. However, in real life citizens have no significant impact on the activities of legislators. Another important function is that it is the origin of political authority and exercising of power is impossible without Parliament’s sanction. Furthermore, the UK government membership depends on it: the members have to be from the House of Lords or House of Commons. McNaughton (2012:65) says the Blair government created variety of reforms for House of Lords and House of Commons after election in 1997. It included changes in organization of Prime Minister’s Question Time; Prime Minister’s rights; number of hereditary peers (it was reduced to 92 people), life peers (527 people), bishops and archbishops (26 people) (Lynch:2013:26). In addition, another reform was about becoming more democratic and representative. In 2000 there was created the independent House of Lords Appointments Commission for recommending and approving appropriate candidates for membership.

Lynch (2013:21) notes that, the system, used for general elections in Britain, is plurality system (the first-past-the-post). According to this system, the elected one become the candidate, who receives the absolute majority of the votes. The candidate must pay £500 as a deposit, which will be refundable, if participant gets more than 5% of the voice cast. It provides a limit amount of candidates. One of the advantages of this system is acting simply and understandably. The results are clear and also, it leads to majority seats, belonged to one party, which can avoid forming of coalition government. However, there are some drawbacks of this system, such as the fact that most of electorate usually vote against the winner. Secondly, the small amount of people could be represented by the government. Thirdly, sometimes even if most of the voters vote for one party, the other party will receive majority of seats and will win the election. Furthermore, the voters have only one choice: it is impossible for them to vote against the particular party, that they dislike.

Held (1991:175) notes that the proportional representation involves voting by party lists. After the election, each party gets a number of seats, proportionally to the number of votes’ percentage. Proportional representation gives more opportunity to elect representatives of various minorities. When the electoral behaviour corresponds cultural or social stratification of society, the system of proportional representation can ensure that in the legislature were representatives from both the majority and the minority. This is because of the fact, that the proportional representation encourages the party to the preparation of balanced lists that focus on the full range of interests of voters. For example, in 1983 the Conservatives needed only 35000 votes for one MP, while Liberal Democratic needed more than 300000 votes. This issue would not have happened, using this system. However, weak links between elected representatives and their constituencies. The system was criticized for destroying the connection between voters and their representatives. By using closed lists, voters are unable to establish the identity of the people, who represent them.

A referendum is a form of direct citizen participation, expressed in voting in the most important matters of national, regional or local scale. Devolution is the delegation of power from the government to the authorities of the administrative-territorial units. The government retains ownership of the main directions of policy and legislation in all areas. It might happened in 1979 for Scotland and Wales: when Prime Minister James Callaghan accepted realization of referendum there. In the contrary to Scotland, in Wales, people did not support it and, according to government, votes for devolution were less than 40%. This situation demonstrates that government would not allow this happened, if it was not sure that the devolution would not win. Consequently, this situation undermined people trust to referendums. In Scotland, there was a referendum on independence. It passed a record with high voter turnout - 84.5% (voted 4,283,392 people). According to BBC, after counting all 32 polling stations, it was found that for the separation of Scotland from the UK voted only 44.7% (1,617,989) of participants and against was 55.3% (2,001,926).

In general, parliamentary parties are organised institutions, which want to achieve political power through general elections, to form a part of a government or to influence a government via their position in the Legislature. In present political conditions, the parties, such as Conservative and Labour, have more possibilities in winning general election. There are also some third political parties, such as the Green Party, the UK Independence Party and Scottish National Party. In the last 20 years, the increasing numbers of Green Party candidates have elected to local councils and to the European Parliament. Moreover, in the last by-election the Labour party has retained its place in the British Parliament, having won more elections in Heywood and Middleton. Labour won, receiving 11 633 thousand votes, while the UK Independence Party (UKIP) surprisingly took second place with 16 11 thousand votes (almost 39%). It is considered one of the best results for the last time. While the Conservative party gained the third place and received only 3496 votes in this constituency. Furthermore, some members of this party have left and joined UKIP (Douglas Carswell).

Cohen (1994:169) states that one of the main roles of political parties is encouragement and incitement democratic participation, but party membership has been diminishing. McNaughton (2012:30) notices that the membership of total electorate decreased from 4.12% to 0.95% in 28 years. Another indication of declining participation is a sharper fall of membership in the British Conservative Party, which usually has had high level of participation. Furthermore, there has been a process, called “patrician dealignment”, where voters no longer associate themselves with a particular party. Thus, significantly smaller amount of people are taking part in political parties and even less are interested in politics of party. However, British participatory democracy is not in deplorable state, even if traditional involvement in political party has decreased. People, who do not want to use parties in representing their concerns, take part in politics independently by strikes and protests. Moreover, pressure groups are completely taking part in process of democracy. In addition, there are four types of voters: intelligent, apathetic, disaffected and media-driven. Disaffected and apathetic voters are usually a youth, who does not find a reason in participation or even the difference in political parties. Intelligent voters are always aware of events, occurring in politics of the country. For example, some of them did not vote, due to the awareness of results in election of 2001: they knew, that the Labour would win. Media-driven voters do not know about elections until is advertised.

In conclusion, democracy in UK is not in decline, but it is in crisis. Firstly, because turnouts in elections and membership of political parties could not simply be the main indicators of political activity. Other forms of political expression are increasing, such as activities of pressure groups (Greenpeace) or strikes. Secondly, large regional variation is disguised by overall figure. Moreover, the levels of participation in other forms of elections are considerably lower, than in general elections. In addition, this problem could be solved by adding postal voting, text voting and e-mail voting. There are some types of voters, who could understand and consider, if this election is important and could decide not to vote due to the obvious results. Others could not be bothered, because of the lack of knowledge about political parties. However, the government, which was elected with small number of turnout, does not have the same degree of legality, as if the turnout was higher.

Reference list 1) Cohen J. and Arato A.; 1994; Civil Society and Political Theory; First MIT Press paperback edn; USA: MIT Press; 2) Held D.; 1991; Political Theory Today; the 1st edn; UK: Polity Press; 3) Lynch P. and Fairclough P.; 2013; AS UK Government and Politics; 4th edn; UK: Philip Allan Updates; 4) McNaughton, N.; 2012; Edexcel Government and Politics for AS; 4th edn;, UK: Hodder Education. 5) Vlassopoulos K.; 2009; Politics atiqvity and its legacy; Oxford: Oxford University Press.