Difference between the US and UK Politial Systems

The concept of power is a divisive matter in the American political system, as the actors holding it are sometimes unable to impose it as a result of their limited authority to do so. The legislative, executive, and judicial branches in the national government depend on each-others point of view. Part of the Constitution was designed with the purpose of making it impossible for either of these three to become more powerful than the others. Each of them has the ability to check and balance the way that the other two function. In spite of the fact that this system was created with the intention of preventing power from being shared unequally in the country, it sometimes serves as a tool for political gridlock, considering that the judicial branches can debate in regard to a particular topic for unlimited amounts of time before actually reaching a conclusion regarding the respective issue.

In the USA, the President and the houses are elected separately, however in the UK, the Prime Minister is elected, primarily, as an MP- it is the leader of the winning party who gets the role of Prime Minister. However, in recent years, election campaigns have become really personalised- focussing more on the party leader’s personality, strengths and weaknesses rather than the party’s policies, promises and ideas as a whole. The lead up to the next general election demonstrates this: the party leaders of the three major parties have become the ‘face’ of their party’s election campaign. The media concentrates more on the party leader rather than the party as a whole- just like in USA. For the first time in British history, there is going to be live debates between the three leaders-again just like the run up to the American general elections. These points highlight that the UK is beginning to adopt some American, presidential traditions, it can be said that this is a strong sign that presidentialism is growing in the UK.

The first thing to look at is the various types of democracy used in the UK. There are many examples of the various types of democracies with the first being direct democracy. A recent example of what a direct democracy can do is the Scottish Referendum taking place throughout Scotland. This allows the people of Scotland to take the decision of independence in to their own hands. This is a great example

parliamentary government under a constitutional monarchy, meaning that parliament has a supremacy over the monarchy but the Queen still has certain powers (Jones et al., 2004). Since the 1970’s the traditional constitution has been challenged and had two major changes, which I will talk about later. The US constitution, unlike the UK constitution, is codified. It has a clear written primary source and one could say that its secondary source is the interpretation by the Supreme Court, which can change the meaning of specific phrases written in the primary source (Singh, 2003). A central principle to the constitution is that government should be limited and the powers split up.

What is it like? Government today is a lot like England’s Parliament. A Parliament is the England’s legislature. There are two houses in government today called the House of Representatives and the Senate. The American “Parliament” is called Congress. Congress is the lawmaking body just like the Parliament is. Congress has the authority to create a law from a bill. Members can discuss problems and/or solutions that may help society. If they form a bill to attempt to find a solution, they can present it to all of the Congress members in efforts to make it a law. If they don’t approve, the law can die. Once a bill dies, members can rewrite the bill until Congress approves. If and when Congress approves, it then has to complete the final steps to become an official law.These final steps may include, getting ratified and getting

Under the British constitution, parliament is sovereign. This means, amongst other things, that Parliament has a monopoly on making and amending laws. The British constitution, and the three functions of government which operate it often falls short of creating a definitive separation. Separation of powers refers to the idea that the major institutions of government should function independent of each other, in a utopian world there should aim to be a balance between the Crown and Parliament. In practice however, separation between the executive and legislature is near enough non-existent, an example being that government is made up almost entirely of MPs. Contrast this with the USA where no member of Obama’s government is equally a member of congress. However, the USA does have a codified constitution, a constitution written to delegate a clear separation of power. As we are well aware the UK doesn’t have such a constitution, the rules that

There is a number of systems that use PR such as the Single Transferable Vote (STV) (the Regional and National Lists) and the Alternative Vote. There is a third system that combines these two, known as the Additional Member System (AMS) or the hybrid or top-up system. The AMS system is presently used in elections for the Scottish Parliament, where voters can vote for single candidates in their constituencies but also for candidates from regional 'lists' put forward by each party. If there is a discrepancy between the percentage of seats the party has won and the percentage of votes cast, the seats are 'topped up' from the

The doctrine of separation of power is not followed in England, it follows a parliamentary form of government where the parliament is supreme. Instead of crown that is the nominal head, the cabinet calls the shots on most of the matters. (Peterson)

English Parliament had “no separation of powers, the executive and legislative branches being merely different manifestations of the same body”. Whereas in colonial America there was separation among powers.

The dispersion of power in the UK varies greatly, each country having a different seat on the level-pegging of power over one another - in particular, policy areas, due to the various referendums, including ones already mentioned. This is called an asymmetrical devolution system.

In this essay, I would like to analyse why the reform of the British constitution is seen as unfinished business. Constitutional reform is when the system of government and how government institutions interact is changed. This has also meant the codification of some components of the constitution in the UK. Between 1997 and 2007, there were a considerable number of constitutional reforms introduced by the Blair governments. These reforms included devolution in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, decentralisation, reform of the House of Lords and Commons, creations of new legislation granting greater freedom and rights within the UK, and so on. However, some of them are yet to be accomplished or in progress related to the electoral and

The legislature in the U.S. and the U.K. differ in some pretty important ways. First, in regards to Parliament, the entire legislature is dissolved at least once every five years, and new elections are held for every seat. In the United States, Representatives and Senators are elected based on term lengths instead. Second, in the UK, the House of Commons is mostly the only house in Parliament that gets elected directly by the people. This is different from Congress because, in the US, both the House and the Senate are elected. The Legislative process itself also differs markedly between Congress and Parliament. In the U.S, legislation must pass in the same form through both houses of Congress before it can be sent to the President's desk. Either

     Most European countries have a parliamentary political system. Britain has a parliamentary system. Britain’s system starts at the voters who vote for Parliament. Parliament then elects and can oust the executive branch, which is headed by a prime

In the UK, we have been using the First Past The Post system as our electoral system since we became a democracy. Whilst this system works for us, there are many systems that we could use, these being: Closed Party List, AMS, STV and Supplementary Vote. All these have various strengths and weaknesses to them.

The modern American judicial system was founded upon the morals and ideals brought forth in the Age of Reason and aided in providing legal protection to defendants on trial. As a nation with such strong religious ties, the Age of Reason brought forth new ideas and beliefs about government and lawmaking. Judiciary historical blunders such as the Salem Witch Trials paved the pathway for reform and aided in the formation of a new nation based on a set of written laws, customs, and regulations. The trials at Salem was founded upon the basis of the English Common Law system and the principles of the Age of Reason, and therefore affected our American Constitution and governmental practices.