Politics is Still an Adversarial Business: Minority Government and Mixed-Member Proportional Representation in Scotland and in New Zealand

Both Scotland and New Zealand, small nations with a British political heritage, implemented mixed-member proportional (MMP) electoral systems in the 1990s. Minority government characterises most of the New Zealand experience since the introduction of MMP in 1996, while Scotland's only such experience occurred between 2007 and 2011. The Scottish experience differed significantly from that of New Zealand because Scotland has a different party system (characterised by two major cleavages) and exists in a system of multi-level governance, resulting in a more conflict-laden relationship between parties. The centre-periphery cleavage in the Scottish case results from being part of the United Kingdom, while New Zealand is an independent state. Both nations introduced MMP as part of an effort to bring about a ‘new politics’, but the impact of institutional engineering upon the behaviour of politicians has been limited.