Parliamentary System Information
A parliamentary system is a system of government in which the ministers of the executive branch get their democratic legitimacy from the legislature and are accountable to that body, such that the executive and legislative branches are intertwined.
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Background
Students of democracy such as Arend Lijphart divide parliamentary democracies into two different systems, the Westminster and Consensus systems.[1]
The Palace of Westminster in London, United Kingdom. The Westminster system originates from the British Houses of Parliament.- The Westminster system is usually found in Commonwealth of Nations, although it is not universal within nor exclusive to Commonwealth countries. These parliaments tend to have a more adversarial style of debate and the plenary session of parliament is more important than committees. Some parliaments in this model are elected using a plurality voting system (first past the post), such as the United Kingdom, Canada, and India, while others use proportional representation, such as Ireland and New Zealand. The Australian House of Representatives is elected using instant-runoff voting while the Senate is elected using proportional representation through single transferable vote. Regardless of which system is used, the voting systems tend to allow the voter to vote for a named candidate rather than a closed list.
- Western European parliamentary model (e.g., Spain, Germany) tend to have a more consensual debating system, and usually have semi-cyclical debating chambers. Consensus systems have more of a tendency to use proportional representation with open party lists than the Westminster Model legislatures. The committees of these Parliaments tend to be more important than the plenary chamber. A specific example is sometimes called the West German Model since its earliest exemplar in its final form was in the Bundestag of West Germany (which became the Bundestag of Germany upon the absorption of the GDR by the FRG). Unlike in Germany however, some West European countries' parliaments (e.g., the Netherlands and Sweden) implement the principle of dualism as a form of separation of powers. In countries using this system, Members of Parliament have to resign their place in Parliament upon being appointed (or elected) minister. However, ministers in those countries usually actively participate in parliamentary debates - the main difference being their inability to vote.
There also exists a Hybrid Model, the semi-presidential system, drawing on both presidential systems and parliamentary systems, for example the French Fifth Republic.
Implementations of the parliamentary system can also differ on whether the government needs the explicit approval of the parliament to form, rather than just the absence of its disapproval, and under what conditions (if any) the government has the right to dissolve the parliament, like Jamaica and many others.
Parliamentarianism may also be for governance in local governments. An example is the city of Oslo, which has an executive council (Byråd) as a part of the parliamentary system.
Advantages of parliamentary systems
One of the commonly attributed advantages to parliamentary systems is that it's faster and easier to pass legislation.[2] This is because the executive branch is dependent upon the direct or indirect support of the legislative branch and often includes members of the legislature. Thus, this would amount to the executive (as the majority party or coalition of parties in the legislature) possessing more votes in order to pass legislation. In a presidential system, the executive is often chosen independently from the legislature. If the executive and legislature in such a system include members entirely or predominantly from different political parties, then stalemate can occur. Former US President Bill Clinton often faced problems in this regard, since the Republicans controlled Congress for much of his tenure. Accordingly, the executive within a presidential system might not be able to properly implement his or her platform/manifesto. Evidently, an executive in any system (be it parliamentary, presidential or semi-presidential) is chiefly voted into office on the basis of his or her party's platform/manifesto. It could be said then that the will of the people is more easily instituted within a parliamentary system.
In addition to quicker legislative action, Parliamentarianism has attractive features for nations that are ethnically, racially, or ideologically divided. In a unipersonal presidential system, all executive power is concentrated in the president. In a parliamentary system, with a collegial executive, power is more divided. In the 1989 Lebanese Taif Agreement, in order to give Muslims greater political power, Lebanon moved from a semi-presidential system with a strong president to a system more structurally similar to classical parliamentarianism. Iraq similarly disdained a presidential system out of fears that such a system would be tantamount to Shiite domination; Afghanistan's minorities refused to go along with a presidency as strong as the Pashtuns desired.
A recent World Bank study found that parliamentary systems are associated with lower corruption.[3]
Criticisms of parliamentarianism
King Charles I of England opposed parliamentarism for interfering with the divine right of kings. He was beheaded following the English Civil War between Parliamentarians and Royalists. Weimar Germany's parliament was set ablaze in 1933 to the advantage of the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, a fervent critic of parliamentarianism.One of the main criticisms of many parliamentary systems is that the head of government is in almost all cases not directly elected. In a presidential system, the president is usually chosen directly by the electorate, or by a set of electors directly chosen by the people, separate from the legislature (see Electoral college). However, in a parliamentary system the prime minister is elected by the legislature, often under the strong influence of the party leadership. Thus, a party's candidate for the head of government is usually known before the election, possibly making the election as much about the person as the party behind him or her. This is, however, a moot point if proportional representation is used.
In history, King Charles I of England famously rejected parliamentarianism during the 17th century, because he saw it as interfering with the "Divine Right of Kings to rule.[4] He was tried and beheaded for treason by supporters of the parliamentarian Oliver Cromwell in 1649. Cromwell in turn became a dictator and the parliament restored constitutional monarchy in the 1660s. The Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler included several critiques of parliamentarianism in his book Mein Kampf, writing that the Nazi movement was "anti-parliamentarian" because it rejects "a principle of majority rule in which the leader is degraded to the level of mere executant of other people's wills and opinion" and further that "By rejecting the authority of the individual and replacing it by the numbers of some momentary mob, the parliamentary principle of majority rule sins against the basic aristocratic principle of Nature" The war time British parliamentarian Winston Churchill on the other hand offered his system this mock criticism: "democracy is the worst system of government except for the alternatives".[5]
Countries with a parliamentary system of government
The New South Wales Parliament is Australia's oldest parliament. First elections were held in 1843. Sansad Bhavan, parliament building of India. Parliament of New Zealand. The administrative building of the Albanian Parliament National Parliament of Papua New Guinea. Statue of President Nelson Mandela of South Africa in Parliament Square, London. National Parliament of East Timor. Council of Representatives of Iraq.Unicameral system
This table shows countries with parliament consisting of a single house.
Bicameral system
This table shows organisations and countries with parliament consisting of two houses.
See also
References
- ^ Lijphart, Arend (1999). Patterns of democracy. New Haven: Yale University Press.
- ^ T. St. John N. Bates (1986), "Parliament, Policy and Delegated Power", Statute Law Review (Oxford: Oxford University Press), http://slr.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/7/2/114.pdf
- ^ SSRN-Accountability and Corruption: Political Institutions Matter by Daniel Lederman, Norman Loayza, Rodrigo Soares
- ^ McClelland 1996, p. 224.
- ^ http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/Quotes-democracy.htm
- ^ The Council of Union is defined in the constitution of Iraq but does not currently exist.
- ^ Lakota, Igor (2006) (in Slovene). Sistem nepopolne dvodomnosti v slovenskem parlamentu (diplomska naloga) [The system of incomplete bicameralism in the Slovenian Parliament (diploma thesis)]. Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana. p. 59. http://dk.fdv.uni-lj.si/dela/Lakota-Igor.PDF. Retrieved 16 December 2010.
Categories: Forms of government | Political terms | Liberalism | Democracy
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