The world with its 196 countries, is versatile most means including politics and government. It ranges from a true democracy to a fairly authoritarian regime. This paper will look at the most debated upon in the democratic world, the presidential and prime ministerial forms of government. Most of the major countries in the world, to today don’t agree upon which of these is more democratic, since both have their merits and demerits, while for the most part they seem to work in countries where the public, judiciary, law makers and politicians are keen on their nation following a democratic form in the truest form available to them. Some countries tend to use the advantages of both the systems to their benefit, and form a semi-presidential system of government or a system with features of both the Presidential and the Prime Ministerial forms of government. Some nations have also voted and changed the forms of government over the course, because one might have not worked given their political environment. This might differ in countries like Russia where the leaders had the power to use a loophole in between these systems and remained in power in an undemocratic means. In order to be concise and clear, this article will use Britain (Parliamentary system) and the United States (Presidential system), two countries that are agreed to be democratic in nature, by most political scholars if not all. Both the systems have their pros and cons, and seem to work for the said countries,
We know that democracies are common among the economically urbanized countries and rare between the very deprived ones. The reason we scrutinize this pattern is not that democracies are more probable to emerge, as a result, of economic development but that they are to a large extent more possible to survive if they occur to emerge in most urbanized countries. The paths to democracy are diverse. Indeed, they appear to follow no unsurprising pattern. But once democracy is conventional, for whatever reasons, its endurance depends on a few, easily particular, factors.
Government is an essential part of civilization in modern and historic times. This crucial element of society has been observed in different forms. There are three main systems of governments: autocracy, oligarchy, and democracy. Which system a government belongs to is determined by who hold the sovereignty, meaning who has the supreme power and authority (“Sovereignty”). This leads to there being major differences between autocracies, oligarchies, and democracies.
The United States government system is very interesting and complexly designed. The state and federal government is a mirror of each other when it comes to the generics of the executive branch, legislative branch, and judicial branch, however, internally the state government has major differences on how the branches are conducted. Throughout this paper we will discuss the greatest difference between state and federal, which is the state cannot change or remove laws passed by the federal government but they could change how they execute the federal laws to their liking as long as it is constitutional.
Elective Dictatorship is the term used to describe the government and the Prime minister to be seen as having powers over the country that seem excessive. A government appointing as an elected dictatorship is likely to have a large majority over all other parties in the House of Commons. This essay will analise the arguments for and against the UK having an elected dictatorship. It will conclude that a proper dictatorship is never possible because the UK’s constitution is a democratic one and there are counter balances to accessive Prime ministerial powers. However when a government has a very large majority it can use its control over the House of Commons to make decisions that can seem to some as being dictatorial.
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.
In this paper, I intend to analyse the extent to which the current Labour administration shows the characteristics of a presidential government. To do this, the term presidential' must first be defined. A definition of a presidential government that is generally accepted by political analysts is a system of government in which the powers of the president are constitutionally separate from those of the legislature.' The British system of government is parliamentary and does not match the definition of presidential. Therefore, the question must be answered by looking at the individual features of a presidential government and comparing them with aspects of the Labour
Every country differs in their preference of political system to govern their countries. For democratic countries, two possible choices of governing are the presidential system and the parliamentary system. Since both the presidential and the parliamentary systems have their own strengths and weaknesses, many scholars have examined these two forms of government, and debate on which political system is more successful in governance. In this paper, I will first provide a detailed analysis of both the parliamentary and the presidential system. I will also evaluate each system’s strengths and weaknesses, addressing any differences as well as any commonalities. Finally, I will conclude by using historical examples to analyze and support the
There are two main types of political systems, one being a presidential system and the other being a parliamentary system. Both of them have their own benefits as well as their own disadvantages. No political system can be perfect or can always have stability, but shown in history there are successful countries that use either one. Also there are countries that have failed with one of the two systems.
Democracy has become the most widespread political form of government during the past decade, after the fall of all its alternatives. During the second part of the 20th century, the 3 main enemies of democracy, namely communism, fascism and Nazism, lost most of their power and influence. However, democracy is still only to be found in less than half of this world's countries. China with a fifth of the total population "had never experienced a democratic government" and Russia still doesn't have a well established democracy. By adopting a democratic perspective, 3 types of governments emerge, non-democratic, new democracies, and old democracies, and all have a different challenge to overcome: either to become democratic, to "consolidate"
the chief executive and the head of state. The President is elected independently of the
The way that a country is controlled by the government depends on the relationship between the legislative and executive authority. Most democratic nations, today, generally use one of two governmental systems, either a parliamentary system or a presidential system. Today most of Europe prefers to use a parliamentary system, whereas the presidential form of government is preferred in places such as South Korea, South America and the United States. The differences between these two governmental systems are not obvious at first, but there are some key differences. However, neither one of them is necessarily superior to the other.
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
The American system of government is democratic. Democracy is a form of government in which people choose leaders by voting. In America, elections are held at the local, state, and federal levels. In elections, voters choose from one of several candidates from various political parties for open office positions. The United States has two major political parties: Democrat and Republican. There are more political parties, but with the way the electoral process works, most third parties will not succeed, since they will not get sufficient popular vote. However, for the office of President and Vice President, the popular vote does not determine the President and Vice President the Electoral College does. Many eligible voters have decided to “protest vote,” meaning not voting at all or voting third party, because these voters value voting for a candidate who most aligns with their beliefs rather than voting for a candidate that is likely to be elected. Protest voting is a controversial action, with positive and negative aspects, but it does affect the outcome of the election. This is because major parties care about what third-party voters think and may change their platforms accordingly. Protest voting is a significant liberty that Americans can use to express their democratic right.
Government! You can't live with it! You can't live without it! It is the "common cold" that everyone dreads. The American Heritage College Dictionary, Third Edition defines government as, "The exercise of authority in a political unit in order to control and administer public policy." Webster's Desk Dictionary of the English Language defines government as, "The political direction and control exercised over a nation, state, community, etc." The common individual might define government as the root of all evil. The thing about government is that no one stops to think about how government came about.
According to Andrew Janos, “the price of economic progress has been political turmoil”. (Janos, pg. 21) If the Modernization Theory holds that countries tend to become more democratic the more they modernize, then political turmoil is to be expected in democracies. Certainly this can occur in both parliamentary and presidential systems: as Linz argues, the presidential system concentrates too much power on the president, resulting in “winner-take-all” politics (Linz, pg. 56) and the polarization of political parties. This is evident in the United States, where the president is elected separately and Congress is divided between the opposing Democrats and Republicans. Conversely, the parliamentary system in Britain, as well as that adapted by the former British colonies of Sri Lanka and Nigeria, has had its fair share of single-party hegemony and political abuse. (Horowitz, pg. 78) Democracy is therefore not a perfect form of government when put in practice, and much of its