A
parliamentary system is a system of government
where in the ministers of the
executive
branch are drawn from the
legislature, and are accountable to that body,
such that the executive and legislative branches are intertwined.
In such a system, the
head of
government is both
de facto chief executive and chief
legislator.
Parliamentary systems are characterized by no clear-cut
separation of powers between the
executive and legislative branches, leading to a different set of
checks and balances compared to those found in
presidential systems. Parliamentary
systems usually have a clear differentiation between the head of
government and the
head of state, with
the head of government being the
prime
minister or
premier, and the head of
state often being a
figurehead, often
either a
president (elected either
popularly or by the parliament) or a
hereditary
monarch (often in a
constitutional monarchy).
Background
The term
parliamentary system does not mean that a country
is ruled by different parties in
coalition with each other. Such
multi-party arrangements are usually the product of an
electoral system known as
proportional representation.
Many parliamentary countries, especially those that use "
first past the post" voting, have
governments composed of one party. However, parliamentary systems
in continental Europe do use
proportional representation, and
tend to produce election results in which no single party has a
majority of seats. Proportional representation in a
non-parliamentary system does not have this result (Arguelles,
2009).
Parliamentarianism may also be for governance in
local governments.
An example is the city
of Oslo
, which has an executive council as a part of the
parliamentary system. The
council-manager system of
municipal government used in some U.S. cities bears many
similarities to a parliamentary system.
Students of democracy such as Arend Lijphart divide parliamentary
democracies into two different systems, the Westminster and
Consensus systems (See Lijphart 1999 for this section).
- The Westminster system,
usually found in Commonwealth of
Nations countries, although they are 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. Even when
proportional representation systems are used, the voting systems
tend to allow the voter to vote for a named candidate rather than a
party list. This model does allow for a
greater separation of powers than the Western European model, since
the governing party will often not have a majority in the upper
house. However, parliamentary systems still feature a lesser
separation of powers than is found in democratic presidential systems.
There also exists a Hybrid Model, the
semi-presidential system, drawing
on both presidential systems and parliamentary systems, for example
the
French Fifth Republic.
Much of
Eastern Europe has adopted
this model since the early 1990s.
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.
A Paraliamentary system may consist of two styles of
Chambers of Parliament one with two
chambers (or houses): an elected lower house, and an upper house or
Senate which may be appointed or elected by a different mechanism
from the lower house. This style of two houses is called
bicameral system. Legislatures with only
one house are known as
unicameral
system.
Advantages of a parliamentary system
One of the commonly attributed advantages to parliamentary systems
is that it's faster and easier to pass
legislation.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 a
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.
It can also be argued that power is more evenly spread out in the
power structure of parliamentarianism. The premier seldom tends to
have as high importance as a ruling president, and there tends to
be a higher focus on voting for a party and its political ideas
than voting for an actual person.
In
The English
Constitution,
Walter Bagehot
praised parliamentarianism for producing serious debates, for
allowing the change in power without an election, and for allowing
elections at any time. Bagehot considered the four-year election
rule of the United States to be unnatural.
There is also a body of scholarship, associated with
Juan Linz,
Fred Riggs,
Bruce Ackerman, and
Robert Dahl that claims that parliamentarianism
is less prone to
authoritarian
collapse. These scholars point out that since
World War II, two-thirds of
Third World countries establishing parliamentary
governments successfully made the transition to democracy. By
contrast, no Third World presidential system successfully made the
transition to democracy without experiencing
coups and other constitutional breakdowns.
A recent
World Bank study found that
parliamentary systems are associated with lower corruption.
Criticisms of parliamentarianism
One main criticism 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. 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.
Another major criticism of the parliamentary system lies precisely
in its purported advantage: that there is no truly independent body
to oppose and veto legislation passed by the parliament, and
therefore
no substantial check
on legislative power. Conversely, because of the lack of
inherent
separation of powers,
some believe that a parliamentary system can place too much power
in the
executive entity,
leading to the feeling that the
legislature or
judiciary have little scope to administer checks
or balances on the executive. However, parliamentary systems may be
bicameral, with an upper house designed to
check the power of the lower (from which the executive
comes).
Although
it is possible to have a powerful prime minister, as Britain has,
or even a dominant party
system, as Japan
has,
parliamentary systems are also sometimes unstable.
Critics
point to Israel
, Italy
, Canada, the
French Fourth Republic, and
Weimar
Germany
as examples of parliamentary systems where unstable
coalitions, demanding minority parties, votes of no confidence, and threats of
such votes, make or have made effective governance
impossible. Defenders of parliamentarianism say that
parliamentary instability is the result of
proportional representation,
political culture, and highly polarised electorates.
Former
Prime Minister Ayad Allawi criticized
the parliamentary system of Iraq, saying that
because of party-based voting "the vast majority of the electorate
based their choices on sectarian and ethnic affiliations, not on
genuine political platforms."
Although
Walter Bagehot praised
parliamentarianism for allowing an election to take place at any
time, the lack of a definite election calendar can be abused. In
some systems, such as the British, a ruling party can schedule
elections when it feels that it is likely to do well, and so avoid
elections at times of unpopularity. Thus, by wise timing of
elections, in a parliamentary system a party can extend its rule
for longer than is feasible in a functioning presidential system.
This problem can be alleviated somewhat by setting fixed dates for
parliamentary elections, as is the case in several of Australia's
state parliaments. In other systems, such as the Dutch and the
Belgian, the ruling party or coalition has some flexibility in
determining the election date. Conversely, flexibility in the
timing of parliamentary elections avoids having periods of
legislative gridlock that can occur in a fixed period presidential
system.
Alexander Hamilton argued for
elections at set intervals as a means of insulating the government
from the transient passions of the people, and thereby giving
reason the advantage over
passion in the
accountability of the government to the people. .
Critics of parliamentary systems point out that people with
significant popular support in the community are prevented from
becoming prime minister if they cannot get elected to parliament
since there is no option to "run for prime minister" like one can
run for president under a presidential system. Additionally, prime
ministers may lose their positions solely because they lose their
seats in parliament, even though they may still be popular
nationally. Supporters of parliamentarianism can respond by saying
that as members of parliament, prime ministers are elected firstly
to represent their electoral constituents and if they lose their
support then consequently they are no longer entitled to be prime
minister. In parliamentary systems, the role of the statesman who
represents the country as a whole goes to the separate position of
head of state, which is generally non-executive and non-partisan.
Promising politicians in parliamentary systems likewise are
normally preselected for safe seats - ones that are unlikely to be
lost at the next election - which allows them to focus instead on
their political career.
Countries with a parliamentary system of government
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
- SSRN-Accountability and Corruption: Political Institutions
Matter by Daniel Lederman, Norman Loayza, Rodrigo Soares
- "How Iraq’s Elections Set Back Democracy",
Ayad Allawi,
The New York Times, November 2,
2007
- The Council of Union is defined in the constitution of
Iraq but does not currently exist.
, Germany
) tend to
have a more consensual debating system, and have semi-cyclical
debating chambers. Consensus systems are identified by
proportional
representation, where there is more of a tendency to use
party list systems than the Westminster
Model legislatures. The committees of these Parliaments tend to be
more important than the plenary chamber. This model 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). Switzerland
is considered one the purest examples of a
consensus system.
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