Presidential and Parliamentary Systems of Government Essay

As the most widely adopted form of democratic government there are many strengths associated with a parliamentary government. The parliamentary system is often praised for the fast and efficient way in which it is able to pass legislation. The reason this is possible is because unlike a presidential system the legislative and executive power in a parliamentary system are merged together. Due to this fusion of power legislation does not have to undergo a lengthy process and therefore laws can be formulated and put into place much quicker(Bates, 1986: 114-5). Another advantage of a parliamentary system is that the majority of the power is not held by one individual head of state but rather is more evenly divided among a single party or coalition. One of the main benefits of this is that as there is more of a division of power a parliamentary government is less prone to authoritarianism than a presidential system. Juan Linz argues that a presidential system is more dangerous due to the fact that; “Winners and losers are sharply defined for the entire period of the presidential mandate”(Linz, 1990: 56), this sharp line between winners and losers increases tension between these two groups and allows the winner to isolate themselves from other political parties (Linz, 1990: 56). Due to this tension and isolation a presidential system is at a higher risk of turning into an authoritarian regime than a parliamentary system.

The United States government system is a well developed system to watch over the nation and maintain order. Citizens of the country argue that the Government is out to get them or somehow some way not doing what is right. I myself cannot say what exactly the government is doing right or wrong. Throughout my life I have had many great amenities as every tax paying citizen should have the right to. That being said, I am not one of those people who believe in conspiracies against the Government. In the early days of our founding fathers, they knew becoming an independent nation would not be an easy task. However, it was because of the hard work and determination of these founders that made them remembered like they are today. To begin with maintaining law and order in their new established country, they would need to write up the new rule system as a document. This document today is known as the Constitution. The Constitution of the United States of America is know as the supreme law of the United States. (Magleby 2009) This document also protects fundamental rights of U.S. citizens. Another main factor of the Constitution is to provide important limitations on the government. The founders realized it was important that no one person could have too much power. Part of this system integrated into our government is know as Separation of Powers and Checks and Balances. Upon writing this historical

They note that there are more successful parliamentary governments than presidential ones. “Aside from the United States, only Chile has managed a century and a half of relatively undisturbed constitutional continuity under presidential government” (Linz 52). They also argue that presidentialism is more likely to engage in gridlock, which is when there is too much disagreement within a government system and the passage of laws is slowed or stymied as a result. They attribute this to the “winner‐takes‐all logic and is particularly prone to institutional deadlock…[that] may result in the marginalization of ethnic groups, thus fostering violent reactions by the losing group” (Basedau 171). They also like to discuss how fractionalized the legislature can become under presidentialism. In fact, “extreme fractionalization—in which no party controls more than a third of the seats—is more frequent under presidentialism (occurring 18 percent of the time) than under parliamentarism (where it occurs only 8.9 percent of the time)”(Cheibub et al. 45). Lastly, one can notice that a lot of scholars in this camp tackle presidentialism by being skeptical of the style of politics it encourages. To them, since the executive must appeal to the masses for votes and not the legislative, the campaign for the executive (the president) turns into a personality contest and is devoid of

Presidents of the United States of America have been around since the country became it’s own. Each president is given certain responsibilities and rights. Presidential power is listed in the Constitution but since then, there’s been room for more responsibilities to come into play. The powers exercised in the modern world surpass those included in the Constitution. Today, the president has a number of offices and departments serving under him. These institutions help keep the government together and everything running smoothly. The presidents rely on a number of other things. Some include elections, political parties, interest groups, the media, and public opinion. There are different kinds of powers granted to the president. While some

The downfall of Canada and its democracy lays in the hands of the prime minister. Second to the governor general the prime minister holds the single highest power an individual in parliament can obtain. The unrestricted power given to them, discussed in section I, represents more of a monarchy than a democracy and illustrates how Canada and its ideologies are being skewed and altered to benefit the prime minister. Throughout the paper we will examine the defective parliamentary system, addressing the specific powers that enable the prime ministers to silence Parliament. Although various arguments are made throughout the paper, the focus will be on the overwhelming evidence supporting the thesis that the prime minister has too much power. Section

The President has too much power in my opinion. Even though the Congress has enough power to make the President look bad, I still believe they have too much power. Since the President is a part of the Executive Branch, he creates laws and can also veto them. In some circumstances the President has to go through Congress for their decision, like declaring war and having the power to deal with foreign affairs. Congress holds all of the power to declare war, but the President is still the Commander-and-Chief of the Army.

The most important power the president has is command of the U.S. Armed Forces as commander-in-chief. While the power to declare war is vested by congress, the president directs and commands the military and is responsible for military strategic planning. Along with the armed forces the president also directs the U.S. foreign policy. He is responsible for protecting Americans abroad and of foreign nationals in the U.S. He can negotiate treaties, recognize new nations, new governments, and nominate federal judges, including those in the supreme court as well as U.S. courts of appeals. The congress checks the president’s power by overriding the president’s vetoes, approving treaties, control the funding of president’s actions, approving presidential appointments and they have the power to impeach the president. The supreme court checks the president by judging presidential actions to be constitutional.

Local, state and federal governments are all tasked with making decisions that affect the entire population and therefore, failure to participate in any of the three levels of governance means that I am ready to accept the decisions made even if they contravene my rights (Breton, Galeotti, Salmon & Wintrobe, 2011). Election of a president and representatives in the legislature is crucial since they are responsible for nomination and vetting other top officers such as chief justice, attorney general and other public officers who make decisions affecting every

A presidential government does not depend on legislative majority to exist. A semi-presidential government does depend on legislative majority to exist and has a popularly elected official. A parliamentary government only depends on a legislative majority. A government in a parliamentary system is composed of a prime minister and the cabinet. A cabinet is a group of ministers. Cabinet ministers have responsibility for what goes on in their ministry, known as ministerial responsibility. Ministers must publicly support cabinet decisions, known as collective cabinet responsibility. Two scenarios in which a new government forms involve an office-seeking politician or a policy-seeking politician. A policy-seeking politician wants to shape policy, while an office-seeking politician is interested in benefiting the office and wants as much power as possible. An attribute qualifies someone for membership in an identity category. An identity category is a social group someone can place his or her self. Crosscutting attributes are the unrelated attributes a country has, and reinforcing attributes are the correlated attributes a country has. Social cleavages are the ways a society splits. Duverger’s law, according to Principles of Comparative Politics by Clark, Golder, and Golder , states that single-member plurality systems encourage two-party systems. An electoral system is a set of laws used to regulate the competition between candidates, or parties, or both. Rules are easier to

Moreover, in presidential system, both the legislative power and the chief executive power have a “fixed electoral mandate that is their own source of legitimacy” (Stepan and Skach, p.4). The president is the chief executive and is elected by the people. The president has the right to retain ministers of his or her choosing regardless of the composition of the congress. (Mainwaring and Shugart, p. 449). In addition to this, even the president combine with multiparty system and the majority in the legislature that supports president, the government can implement policies. In this system, the members of legislature can act upon legislative matters independently. Indeed under presidential system the strong presidential power is checked by the

At times confuse is made among state and Government and the two words are used on the other hand. Government is an instrument of the state through which it does its inspirations. A state, as we have seen, is a politically dealt with and geographically obliged collection of people that has the benefit to use constrain. It is a reasonable substance in this manner ought to have an instrument through which to work. Government is such an instrument. Each one of the nationals of a state are not part of a government (Shobeiri, S. M. 2007).

A country’s basic regime characteristics are a major factor in government decision-making. It can take different forms such as cabinet, prime ministerial, and ministerial government under parliamentary. Presidential systems focus on the strengthening of the chief executive. The chief executive is directly elected by the people and enjoys a fixed term of office. In a presidential system, the head of state is identical to the head of government. In addition, the president cannot alternate the legislature, but they can appoint government members with the consent of the legislature. The electoral connection makes a government democratic and the political parties play an important role in structuring elections. A presidential system tends to have a party government. Voters in the US have to choose between a republican, democratic, or an independent party. Party government means that government actions are influenced by the values and policies from the government party/parties. Empirical studies show that parties have little impact on government. Instead, once a party is diffused into government, occasionally the party becomes dependent on the government. On the contrary, it can also be claimed that party governments control the government

The American Political System The American political system is a federal system, which consists of

the chief executive and the head of state. The President is elected independently of the

Since the initiation of the Third Wave of Democracy, several countries have attempted to form a democratic system of governs. We take note that not all have succeeded. At the dawn of this era, democracy was being applied to countries with no prior history of a governing body that was place by the people for the people hence success of such a system could not be guaranteed because of the innumerous variables that existed in each country. People being the highlighted factor of variance, it may become easier to understand how countries such as Pakistan and Nigeria, both countries prior to the Wave had no local governing machinery. Pakistan further endured a partition from India which resulted in not only an instant religious and