Replication Data for: Westminster as Usual? Three Interpretations for the UK Democracy

The Brexit process has shattered the foundations of British politics, with prime ministerial resignations, government defeats, continuous rebellions and floor-crossings. These phenomena seem at odds with the usual decisiveness of Westminster systems. However, the aforementioned departures from the British tradition could be interpreted as compatible with the typical distance of any empirical reality from theoretical models, as exceptions to the rule due to the specificity of the European issue, or as the surfacing of some deeper social, economic and cultural tensions. Data alone are insufficient to confirm any of the alternative interpretations, although they seem to confirm the existence of long-term dynamics rather than some short-term exceptionalism. Within this scenario, the article suggests that a series of institutional innovations introduced since the late 1990s have facilitated the political consolidation of those tensions, contributed to the partisan dealignment, and made room for a potential departure from a Westminster model of democracy脱欧（Brexit）进程彻底动摇了英国政治的根基，此间伴随首相接连辞职、政府屡遭挫败、持续出现党内反叛与跨党派倒戈现象。这些现象看似与威斯敏斯特体系（Westminster system）一贯的决断性格格不入。不过，上述偏离英国政治传统的现象，可被解读为契合“任何经验现实与理论模型均存在典型偏差”的普遍规律，或是因欧洲议题特殊性而产生的规则例外，亦或是更深层社会、经济与文化张力的显性化。仅凭数据尚不足以证实上述任一解读方向，但数据似乎印证了这是长期动态演变的结果，而非短期的反常特例。在此背景下，本文提出，1990年代末以来推行的一系列制度创新，推动了这类张力的政治化整合，加剧了党派脱嵌（partisan dealignment），并为脱离威斯敏斯特式民主模式的潜在可能创造了空间。