I suddenly realized last night, that I have never understood how the parlement system of government works, namely because I have ebnver even a heard of even some of the basic tenants.
While this is probably due to the fact that I'm American (And therefore has never even been taught about how my government works, I've been reading through the constitution, so I'm picking it up.)
Parlement system of government
Moderator: Alyrium Denryle
-
Singular Quartet
- Sith Marauder
- Posts: 3896
- Joined: 2002-07-04 05:33pm
- Location: This is sky. It is made of FUCKING and LIMIT.
-
Singular Quartet
- Sith Marauder
- Posts: 3896
- Joined: 2002-07-04 05:33pm
- Location: This is sky. It is made of FUCKING and LIMIT.
-
Stormbringer
- King of Democracy
- Posts: 22678
- Joined: 2002-07-15 11:22pm
Probably.Singuler Quartet wrote:Maybe I should have posted this is the Off-topic forum...
And Singuler, reading Constitution is a good start but there is so much more to the running of the US governmennt. Fortunately for me, I had a gung-ho Marine Reservist for a US Government teacher. He pounded it into our heads with a fervor most fundie ministers could match.
-
Enlightenment
- Moderator Emeritus
- Posts: 2404
- Joined: 2002-07-04 07:38pm
- Location: Annoying nationalist twits since 1990
Singuler Quartet: go down to a library and check out an introductary political science text that covers more than just the US. You'll have more information than you know what to do with.
A fairly good book (although I'm not sure if you'll be able to get it in your corner of the world) is The Canadian Polity by Landes (published by Prentice-Hall). As the title suggests it's about Canada but it spends a good deal of effort comparing the political system used in the US with the parliamentary systems here in Canada and in the UK. There's enough US-centric information that you should find the whole thing reasonably accessible.
A fairly good book (although I'm not sure if you'll be able to get it in your corner of the world) is The Canadian Polity by Landes (published by Prentice-Hall). As the title suggests it's about Canada but it spends a good deal of effort comparing the political system used in the US with the parliamentary systems here in Canada and in the UK. There's enough US-centric information that you should find the whole thing reasonably accessible.
Last edited by Enlightenment on 2002-10-17 10:35pm, edited 1 time in total.
It's not my place in life to make people happy. Don't talk to me unless you're prepared to watch me slaughter cows you hold sacred. Don't talk to me unless you're prepared to have your basic assumptions challenged. If you want bunnies in light, talk to someone else.
-
Stormbringer
- King of Democracy
- Posts: 22678
- Joined: 2002-07-15 11:22pm
Actually, I know plenty about the US government. In fact, I've probably learned more than I'll ever need or want to know.Enlightenment wrote:Stormbringer: go down to a library and check out an introductary political science text that covers more than just the US. You'll have more information than you know what to do with.
I was suggesting Singuler do more than mearly read the Constitution if he wanted to learn about US government.
-
Enlightenment
- Moderator Emeritus
- Posts: 2404
- Joined: 2002-07-04 07:38pm
- Location: Annoying nationalist twits since 1990
Ack. I was thinking of the original poster rather than you. Will fix...Stormbringer wrote: Actually, I know plenty about the US government. In fact, I've probably learned more than I'll ever need or want to know.
It's not my place in life to make people happy. Don't talk to me unless you're prepared to watch me slaughter cows you hold sacred. Don't talk to me unless you're prepared to have your basic assumptions challenged. If you want bunnies in light, talk to someone else.
-
Patrick Degan
- Emperor's Hand
- Posts: 14847
- Joined: 2002-07-15 08:06am
- Location: Orleanian in exile
A basic primer
The parliamentary system of democratic government is based upon the concept of proportional representation. Voters cast ballots for their party in the national elections, and the number of seats assigned to each party in the parliament is directly based upon the percentage of the vote garnered. In a hypothetical 100 seat parliamentary body, for example, if, say, the Wood Party were to garner 55%, it would hold 55 seats and be the majority party. The party leader would ascend to the head of the government as prime minister, who would subsequently select the members of the executive cabinet.
In cases where the vote produces a hung parliament, the conditions for coalition government exist, where two parties combine to form the majority upon which the government is based. The party leaders alternate in the prime ministership (such as in the case in Britain of Harold Livingston {Tory} and James Callaghan {Labour} in the 1970s). Usually, its a case of two, sometimes three parties which collectively hold the majority percentage of the national vote in the elections, with a number of smaller parties bringing up the rear. Dealmaking becomes a more important factor in legislation and the points of view of multiple parties tend to be expressed concretely to a greater factor than in the American system.
A parliamentary government does not have an impeachment mechanism, per se. When the policies of the prime minister and the parliament come into extreme conflict, the opposing party can bring to the floor a no-confidence vote. If enough of the majority party goes over to the opposition in such cases, the government is considered dissolved and a new national election is called. It is then up to the voters to decide whether or not to return the prime minister to power by voting his party back into power. If the prime minister is shown to have been involved in criminal activity or grand-scale political corruption, it would be extremely unlikely that his party would even continue his term as party leader (assuming he doesn't face criminal charges), which would exclude his returning to office even if his party managed to prevail in the general election.
In cases where the vote produces a hung parliament, the conditions for coalition government exist, where two parties combine to form the majority upon which the government is based. The party leaders alternate in the prime ministership (such as in the case in Britain of Harold Livingston {Tory} and James Callaghan {Labour} in the 1970s). Usually, its a case of two, sometimes three parties which collectively hold the majority percentage of the national vote in the elections, with a number of smaller parties bringing up the rear. Dealmaking becomes a more important factor in legislation and the points of view of multiple parties tend to be expressed concretely to a greater factor than in the American system.
A parliamentary government does not have an impeachment mechanism, per se. When the policies of the prime minister and the parliament come into extreme conflict, the opposing party can bring to the floor a no-confidence vote. If enough of the majority party goes over to the opposition in such cases, the government is considered dissolved and a new national election is called. It is then up to the voters to decide whether or not to return the prime minister to power by voting his party back into power. If the prime minister is shown to have been involved in criminal activity or grand-scale political corruption, it would be extremely unlikely that his party would even continue his term as party leader (assuming he doesn't face criminal charges), which would exclude his returning to office even if his party managed to prevail in the general election.
-
Mr. Mister
- Youngling
- Posts: 98
- Joined: 2002-09-23 11:31am
Some parliaments are proportional. Britain's is not, which is why although Sinn Fein, Plaid Cymru, the SNP, and the Liberal Democrats have all been there, they've never controlled it and it's essentially a two-party system. British parliament seats are filled in the same sort of election as the U.S.: single-member districts with plurality votes (country's divided into districts, each district gets one representative, whoever gets the most votes is the winner. So it's fairly common for some places (often Scotland and northern England) to have a member of parliament who won in a 40-30-30 election, or a 38-32-30, or something like that.
Also, proportional representation, in its strictest sense, has other methods than the one you described. Some countries, for instance, have part of the parliament directly elected as in Britain and the U.S., but then a certain number of remaining seats are filled by party-votes (Germany, for instance).
In political science, there's a concept called Durverger's Law, which says that proportional representation leads to multi-party systems and single-member plurality votes lead to two-party systems. The extremes are the U.S. and, say, Israel. The U.S. Congress has two parties. Every once in awhile, there will be an independent or a third-party representative, but that's really, really, rare - almost unheard of. In the Israeli Knesset, on the other hand, there has only once been a majority Group (which at the time was a coalition of two parties). Out of 120 members, the Knesset will be divided into as many as 20 groups and a few "individual members", where a "group" can be a party or a combination of several parties. Plus groups can change in the middle of the term...
A pretty good book would be Comparative Politics: An Introduction by George Theen and David Wilson. It does a cursory examination of several countries (Britain, France, Japan, Germany, China, Russia, Nigeria, maybe a few more: my class only went over Britain, France, Russia, China, and Nigeria), with each country's bunch of chapters including a section on the electoral setup and on the parliamentary setup.
In a lot of parliamentary systems, the parliament can be dismissed. Or, elections can be held at various times (for instance, Britain holds elections once every five years, or whenever the Prime Minister decides it would be politically expedient, whichever comes first).
Also, proportional representation, in its strictest sense, has other methods than the one you described. Some countries, for instance, have part of the parliament directly elected as in Britain and the U.S., but then a certain number of remaining seats are filled by party-votes (Germany, for instance).
In political science, there's a concept called Durverger's Law, which says that proportional representation leads to multi-party systems and single-member plurality votes lead to two-party systems. The extremes are the U.S. and, say, Israel. The U.S. Congress has two parties. Every once in awhile, there will be an independent or a third-party representative, but that's really, really, rare - almost unheard of. In the Israeli Knesset, on the other hand, there has only once been a majority Group (which at the time was a coalition of two parties). Out of 120 members, the Knesset will be divided into as many as 20 groups and a few "individual members", where a "group" can be a party or a combination of several parties. Plus groups can change in the middle of the term...
A pretty good book would be Comparative Politics: An Introduction by George Theen and David Wilson. It does a cursory examination of several countries (Britain, France, Japan, Germany, China, Russia, Nigeria, maybe a few more: my class only went over Britain, France, Russia, China, and Nigeria), with each country's bunch of chapters including a section on the electoral setup and on the parliamentary setup.
In a lot of parliamentary systems, the parliament can be dismissed. Or, elections can be held at various times (for instance, Britain holds elections once every five years, or whenever the Prime Minister decides it would be politically expedient, whichever comes first).
-
Singular Quartet
- Sith Marauder
- Posts: 3896
- Joined: 2002-07-04 05:33pm
- Location: This is sky. It is made of FUCKING and LIMIT.