Week 4: Regime Types

Parliamentary systems

• key distinciton between the head of the state and the head of voernment

• all democracies have a head of state (monarch)

• NOT the same as parliamentary republics (the head of states role s ceremonial and power is with parliament)

Hybrid constitutional monarchies

monarch is politically powerful but rules with a government, which can be the military

Absolute constitutional monarchy

SA: King has absolute power but executive power can be exercised by crown prince

Democratic constitutional monarchy

• the monarch is symbolic and ceremonial but is ever present in the UK

• the government rules in the name of the King

1927

The govt amended the Indian act so that it was illegal for Indingeous peoples to raise money or hire laws to pusue land cliams, making resortign to the JCPC impossible because they knew it would be sympathetic

• this makes the olders Cnaadians have a favourabel veiw of the JCPC and the monarch

parliamentary system

• the executive emerges from legislature and ahas no function independent from the legisature. the govt depends on the confidence or parliament and it falls when the confidence is withdrawn

• 2 basic models: Westminster parliamentary + consensus parliamentary systems

Westminster system

1. Majority governments that have strong executive power

2. Cabinet dominance → ithe Cabinet, due to its drawing from parliament, dominates the legislature

   1. Cabinet dominance = cabinet/collective solidarity, whipping system, spoils system)

3. Two-Party Systems → parliament is dominated by two parties

4. Parliamentary sovereignty → the parliament has the right to make or unmake any lawl and no person or body is recognized to override or set aside the legislation of parliament

5. Constitutional flexibility and an absence of judicial review

6. Non-independent Central Bank

7. Unicameral or Bicameral with Lower House dominance

8. Unitary (forms country into single identity)

9. Weak committees

   1. cabinet comittees → form policy, deal wiht cross-departmental issues and manage crises

   2. standing committees → whipped, there to get a bill through parliament

   3. select committees → organized thematically; call witnesses, produce evidence

Adversarial politics

• can cause sharp policy swings

• referendums violate pariiamentary sovereignty

consensus parliamentary systems

1. executive power-sharing in broad coalitions → divides 7 ministry councillors on a 2-2-2-1 model

2. Mulitparty systems → PR electoral systems guarantee multiparty systems, so govt formation is itself a matter of compromise ( switzerland and belgium)

3. interest group corporatism → In the UK and France, there are few channels for accessing the state; lobbying occurs along pluralist lines, everyone fighting for access

4. Strong bicameralism → (a) election of an upper house on different basis than the lower and (b) have real power

5. Federalism → EX: German Lander (control eduation police, culture, planing) but they are cooeprative (federalism) FORCES COOPERATION - also insittuions are geographically spread out so it forces cooepration

6. Judicial reveiw

7. central bank independence

8. strong committees →

Presidential systems

1. the president is popularly elected and does not depend in the confidence of parliament

2. term is fixed

3. executive power is in the hands of the President → cabinet has no pwer apart from the president

4. Judicial review

5. Upper hosue is either secondary or powerul but separated

6. committee strcutre can be weak or strong

   1. US very pwoerful (standing comitteecan propose legislation by reporting a bill to the full house)

   2. France: deliberately weak ( 30 - 😎

Case: Brazil

• coalition presodentalism

• seperate election of legislature and president ( 2 ballot majoritarainsim for president

• states are far more powerful

• presdient does not appoint pm but rather just the cabinet

• this exaplins the spolitng of legislature (buyign votes0

• makes a transactional governmetnt