ABSTRACT
Located off the northwest coast of Europe onthe island of Great Britain, a portion of Ire-land, and smaller neighboring islands, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has maintained a distinctive insularity that has affected both its domestic institutions and political processes and its external relations with the rest of Europe and the world. Politically, the United Kingdom (or Britain, as it is commonly called) boasts a long tradition of constitutional government (but without a written constitution) and a shorter, but still relatively long, tradition of democratic practices. At the center have arisen the cabinet (and prime minister), representative of and accountable to the majority party in a predominantly twoparty, elective House of Commons. Alongside these, however, exist the monarchy and the House of Lords, symbols of Britain’s older institutional heritage, without counterparts in France, Germany, or Italy. Although the United Kingdom has traditionally possessed a centralized, unitary state structure (in contrast to the federalism of Germany or the United States), it is at the same time a multinational state composed of four parts: England (83 percent of the U.K. population), Scotland (9 percent), Wales
(5 percent), and Northern Ireland (3 percent). Recently, the United Kingdom has taken steps to “devolve” some authority to Scotland and Wales and to try to renew decentralized authority in Northern Ireland.
