preview

Difference Between Parliamentary And Presidential Democracy

Decent Essays

“Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.” - Henry Louis Mencken. These two types of democracy, presidential and parliamentary both contain a number of key differentiating factors. These democratic systems distinguish themselves as the leaders of the two democratic are elected in different branches of their respective government, lose their power dissimilarly, and hold clear distinctions between the head of government and the head of state.
First and foremost, the two classifications of democracy, presidential and parliamentary, most substantial and crucial distinction is that the president of a presidential democracy is an elected individual voted into the executive branch of government directly by the …show more content…

The difference in the two, presidential and parliament, location in the branches of government, executive and legislative, respectively, has a critically affects the difficulty of turning a bill into a law.
Along with the contrast in branches, the two democratic schemes further diversify as the leaders of presidential and parliamentary systems lose their power differently. In a presidential system, there is a fixed term limit that dictates how long the president can reside in power: the terms of office of both president and assembly are fixed.” (Shugart and Mainwaring, pg.14). A fixed terms causes the president to be in office with a much lesser danger of losing power, with his or her only danger being impeachment which has been extremely rare in North American presidential systems as only two presidents in the history of the United States have been impeached, Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1999. Also, this leads to presidency having scheduled elections as the president’s time is limited. Conversely, in parliamentary, there is no fix term and an election is called on the advice of the prime minister, thus, the prime minister does not lose his or her place in office due to a time limit. However, the prime minister has a much greater chance of losing his or her position of power due to the need to be supported by the majority in legislature: “The chief executive power must be supported by a majority in the legislature and can

Get Access