TOPIC 1 - EXECUTIVE-LEGISLATIVE RELATIONS

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TOPIC 1 - LEGISLATIVE EXECUTIVE RELATIONS

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Legislative and Executive Relations

is one of the key variables in the political system, helping to explain how the system operates and why different states have different political outcomes.

Presidential systems

• the executive is separately elected and holds office independent of the political composition of the legislature.

• provide for the direct election of an executive leader who will normally be both head of state and head of government. This single person executive is elected by universal suffrage.

removal from office: impeachment

Parliamentary systems

• The executive is appointed on the basis of gaining support from a majority of the legislature and holds office only so long as that support continues. 

• The executive is drawn from the party or coalition of parties that hold a majority of seats in (one of the houses of) the legislature.

removal from office: vote of no confidence

Semi-presidential systems

• are the hybrid system, with an elected president governing alongside a prime minister who is accountable to parliament. However, the criteria that systems need to meet to be classed as semi-presidential are contentious.

• Such systems have a directly elected president with significant de jure and de facto powers, along with a prime minister who has to enjoy the confidence of a directly elected parliament.

Legislatures

as ‘constitutionally designated organisations for giving assent to binding measures of public policy’.

are not monolithic entities any more than executives or interest groups are; they are made up of parties and factions, of ideological tendencies, of interest- group representatives, and of individuals with all kinds of axes to grind and career considerations to keep in mind’

Democratic system

• legislatures are comprised (in large part at least) of elected members and embody the democratic principle of representation of the people.

Executives

• provide leadership within the political system, which is likely to go beyond the implementation of legislation to include the initiation of policy, oversight of the bureaucracy.

Prime minister

• is assisted in the job of bureaucratic management by the cabinet, which will be drawn from the same party and coalition of parties, and should therefore promote the will of the executive within government departments.

• leads the executive and appoints members of the cabinet, although cabinet members are his/her colleagues (rather than merely advisors) with their own power base in the party.

Plebiscitary democracy

democracy has further weakened the claim of legislatures to represent public opinion, particularly given declining turnout in legislative elections across advanced democracies.

Veto players

are individual or collective actors whose agreement is required for a policy decision. Focusing on the capacity of political systems to produce policy change.

4 Different Types of Legislatures

• Assembly -  A legislative body specifically the lower house of legislature.

• Legislature - A body of persons having the power to legislate.

• Parliament- The supreme legislative body of a nation  and especially of a republic Legislatures in parliamentary system are most commonly referred to as “parliaments”

• Congress- The supreme legislative body of a nation and especially of a republic

  From the word congressus.

Legislature as agent: linkage, representation and legitimation

• Linkage

• Representation

• Debating

• Legitimation

Linkage

Linking citizens to the government is one of the most fundamental tasks that legislature performs within the political system.

Representation

legislatures are generally also expected to represent their constituents and work to protect their interest. 

Debating

enable legislatures to serve public forum and debate, in which diverse opinions and opposing views can directly engage with one another.

Legitimation

the ability of legislatures to create links between citizens and government by providing adequate representation to critical groups and minority interests will determine its legitimacy.

Legislature as principal: control and oversight

• Control

• Oversight

Control

the government’s ability to govern itself is one of the primary tenets of representative democracy

Oversight

Question time, special inquiries and hearing, and investigative committee are all frequently used by the legislature to hold different actors and agencies accountable within the executive branch.

Different types of Oversight Function by Legislatures

• Question time

• Special Inquiries and Hearings

• Investigate Committees

Question time

• is generally used in parliaments and provides a regularly scheduled opportunity for the members of legislature to present oral and written questions to members of the cabinet, including the prime minister or equivalent.

Special inquiries and Hearings

• are organized on an ad hoc basis to investigate specific topics or issues that are considered important by some legislators and are present in both separation of powers and fused-powers system.

Investigative committees

are similar but are more formalized tend to address higher order issues and often have longer duration, this is also present in separation of powers and fused powers systems.

Transformative legislatures

have a capacity, independent of the executive, to shape and transform policy proposals into law. They can therefore be seen as strong legislative bodies.

• directly influence the content of public policy.

Arena Legislatures

provide a setting in which political actors interact, but have little or no scope to modify legislation presented by the executive, and can therefore be seen as relatively weak bodies.

• may be best understood as forms of political theatre, which dramatise and simplify policy issues for public and media consumption,

TOPIC 4: SOCIAL MOVEMENT

Protagonists

the configuration of allies (policy-makers, public authorities, political parties, interest groups, the media, and related movements)

Antagonists

the configuration of adversaries (public authorities, repressive agents, counter-movements).

Bystanders

the not directly involved, but nevertheless attentive audience.

Resource Mobilization Model

Views social movement action as normal, rational, political challenges by aggrieved groups. Discontent is more or less constant over time and thus inadequate as a full explanation of social movements.

Predecessors: John Stuart Mill, Weber, Marx

Classical Model

Presumption of theories: structural strain and breakdown of standard routines of everyday life have a disruptive psychological effect on individuals, triggering some form of collective behavior → social movement then occurs.

• Set of theories with common denominator

• Speaks of collective behavior rather than collective action.

Notions of “structural strain” or “breakdown”

Predecessors: [ DURKHEIM, BUECHLER ]

Political Process Model

(By McAdam) This model shares the basic assumptions of the resource mobilization approach and it is also considers the level of organization within the aggrieved population as a crucial element for its mobilization.

• neglect the elements of classical model

• it’s often treated as just another variant of the resource mobilization approach, however it adds two elements to the previous model:

-political context

-subjective

Two types of strategies to draw attention to a social movements cause

(1) Protest Politics : protest events in public sphere

(2) Information Politics: Gathering credible information and using it strategically at carefully chosen locations."