Mmp 's Effect On The Relationship Between The Executive And Parliament Essay

FPTP offers a clear, elected MP that is responsible for their constituency, and can be held accountable if the constituent’s issues are not heard. For example, Sandra Osborne is the MP for the Ayrshire constituency, and is known as the sole representative of the constituents. If anyone wants their views represented in the House of Commons, they can contact Sandra directly and raise their issue with her. This clear link between a voter and an MP increases representation for voters, as their views can be raised in parliament. However, AMS doesn’t provide this clear link between a voter and an MSP, as the constituencies are: too large; contain multiple MSPs and are divided between constituency MSPs and regional MSPs. Because of there being 2 different types of MSPs – one elected and one not- there may be animosity between representatives that are supposed to be working together. There have been cases of constituency MSPs referring to list MSPs as “a lower breed” of politician. If there is conflict between MSPs that are supposed to be working together, are they able to fully represent a voters views? This divide may also create confusion for voters, as they may not know who to contact with their issues. There is also the problem of what are, essentially, unelected MSPs. List MSPs are decided by the party, not by the voter. AMS also doesn’t allow for by-elections, resulting in

Under a minority government, no party has ultimate control of making policies, it instead rules on consensus with the other parties, conversely, in a majority government, a single-party dominates the legislative process. Though complex agreements between opposition parties, the governing party can maintain confidence. For example, countries including Canada use contract parliamentarism, where opposition parties agree to support the government in return for policy on other concessions (Akash et al., 2010, p. 216). While this promotes collective responsibility, parties are still able to decide their own position on most matters. Therefore, parties collaborate to protect minority agreements that “often survive a full parliamentary term” (Akash et al., p. 216). This can result in motions being passed that cover a broad variety of different topics that ultimately can address issues that all parties see lacking in

It has become widely accepted that Canada uses a first past the post electoral system. However, this system may not be in the best interest of Canada any more. There are many reasons why Canada should change its electoral system to a mixed member proportional one, a variant of proportional representation. With a first past the post system, the elected officials will always be of the majority and this excludes minorities from fair representation. Adopting MMP can create stronger voter turnouts, more personal campaigning, better individual representation, and better party selection. John Hiemstra and Harold Janson, are both in favour of a MMP electoral system. They understand that with the switch, the citizens will get more representation in

In this essay I will assess the outcomes of Additional Member system, First Past the Post system and the Closed Party List system. The F-P-T-P system is used to elect the members of House of Commons and local government in England and Wales. Voters select candidates, and do so by marking his or her name with an ‘X’ on the ballot paper. This reflects the principle of ‘one person, one vote’. The Additional Members system is used in Scottish parliament, Welsh assembly, and Northern Ireland Assembly and Greater London assembly. It is a mixed system made up of F-P-T-P and party-list elements. The Regional party list (or the closed party list) is used to elect the

While SMP has its faults, there is a reason that provinces have not voted in favour of electoral reform. One of

A parliamentary government is a democratic form of government which operates on a party system. It is the most popular and widely adopted form of democracy. A state that operates on a parliamentary system is run by two executives, firstly the head of state who is either a monarch or president who then appoints a prime minister as the head of government. A parliament can be run by either a single majority political party or as a coalition government in which more than one party collaborate to form the government. In this essay I will be assessing the key strengths and weaknesses associated with a parliamentary government. In doing so I will conclude that whilst a parliamentary government has weaknesses its strengths outweigh these and therefore it is the superior form of democratic government.

After all, a central aspect of the proportional representation argument is that the government should be formatted in a manner that allows for the fair representation of the political opinion of Canadians. However, Kam points out how legislation is passed in an effort to represent the will of the majority of Canadians. But, he also argues that there is no such thing as a true majority, as there is no single policy that voters prefer to all others. In turn, he claims that “manufactured majorities” created as a result of the SMP system are not necessarily a bad thing, as they give parliament the stability needed to pass legislation. In comparison, he points out how the MMP system would give power to a number of smaller parties, and that these parties would impair parliament’s ability to pass policy.

Hence, prime ministers are not as powerful as sometimes claimed as they have little control over proceedings of government by themselves, it is only when they are accompanied by a strong position in parliament by their represented party that their objectives can be achieved. Thus, the power of a majority party on government is sometimes mistaken and thought of as a prime ministers power, thus making them appear more powerful than they are,

There are several important functions that Parliament must perform. The word Parliament derived from the Latin ‘parliamentum’ and the French word ‘parler’ which originally meant a talk- which is what Parliament does most of the time. Parliament consists of the House of Commons, the House of Lords and the Monarchy. Parliament is the highest judicial, legislative and executive body in Britain. A parliamentary form of government acknowledges that it derives its power directly from the consent of the people. This sort of system ensures democracy and an active interaction between the people and their representatives. The three functions that I am going to focus on are Scrutiny,

The SMP system requires the winning candidate to have the highest number of votes in each constituency, thus this system does not require an absolute majority and candidates can win their seats with less than 50% of the votes (Press,T.C., 2015). The SMP system has a significant amount of flaws that are inherent within its’ structure. More specifically, this can be seen when analyzing a party’s share of votes in comparison with the share of seats they win, and how the best candidate may not be represented in each riding (Heard, n.d). There are a few appealing alternatives to the current Canadian electoral system. Those are a presidential system and a proportional representation system. A presidential system differs from a parliamentary system in that the President is directly chosen, as apposed to voting for a party to win(Moe & Cadwell, 1994). Proportional representation provides parties with a share of the seats that is proportional to their share of votes (Lijphart, 1999). This allows for the public to more effectively vote for a person who will represent their beliefs even if they may not win the constituency.

Ideologies refer to a set of ideas and values that provides a base for organised political action. They justify and influence the different theories of society and human nature. Ideologies have a big impact on policy making, as the government of the day will base their policies around these political ideologies. The two major political parties in New Zealand, National and Labour, each have different beliefs and values which lead to different ideologies. Looking at both parties previous and current policies, we can observe the impact of the ideologies they have adopted on their policy making. The National party in the last 20 years has driven policies from a

A transition to MMP at the federal level will result in marked improvement in a number of functional electoral areas. The first of which that will be addressed is that of greater voter turnout at elections. The majority of research conducted on electoral systems and voter turnout has supported the notion that voter turnout is greater in countries that have some form of proportional representation (PR) over countries with plurality or majoritarian electoral systems (Karp and Banducci 311). The average increase in voter turnout in countries with PR, as found across a number

An Analysis of the Powers of the European Parliament History of the European Parliament: On the 18th April 1951 the Ministers representing France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg signed in Paris a treaty which established the European Coal and Steel Community, the ECSC was born. The most important feature of the ECSC was its supranational character, it was a supranational organization. It was aptly described as a 'quasi federation in an important economic sector.[1] The Community was endowed with five organs; 1. An executive, called the High Authority 2.

The New Zealand government at both a Local and National level is an excellent example of a modern, Representative Democracy. Different election systems, including First Past the Post (FPP), Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) and Single Transferable Vote (STV), are used to allow electors to select representatives to sit on Councils, Boards and in Parliament. Some elements of Constitutional Monarchy are present in the New Zealand system of democratically elected representatives within a constitutional Monarchy contrasts well with the dictatorship of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe.

Since MMP has been implemented into New Zealand, it has allowed for a wider diversity of parties to be in parliament. On account of that, while it is still possible for a party to win the majority seats in parliament, it is very difficult to do so; Church (2015) states that this has not happened in the last four elections. As a result, MMP has impacted on the relationship between the executive and parliament by making the executive to make arrangements between themselves and minor parties, in order to stay in power. This is also for the executive to be able to pass votes of confidence and supply, as well as get potential Bills that they want implemented, to be passed through parliament. Since 2008, John Key, Prime Minister and leader of the National party has had “enhanced confidence and supply arrangements” with minor parties, consisting of United Future, ACT and Maori party, in order to stay in the executive. An enhanced confidence and supply arrangement, is when the minor parties are appointed ministerial posts outside of cabinet, and only be bound by cabinet responsibility when it involves their portfolio or have been involved in an development of policy that ended with an agreed position. As Boston and Bullock (2009) note, these enhanced arrangement is very unusual, as New Zealand is the only country to have these in politics. Sweden has experimented with similar arrangements, termed “contract parliamentarians,” however it did not include members of non-government