Comparative Politics II – Executive-Legislative Relations

I. Three branches of government and the relationships between them

II. Broadly speaking, democratic governments tend to be constituted as
either presidential or parliamentary.
i. Parliamentary systems are defined by the idea that executive
power comes from, and is responsible to, the legislature
1. In a parliamentary system, the chief executive
(generically, “prime minister”) and her cabinet (the
officials who head up the major subdivisions of the
executive branch (“ministry” or “department”),
generically (“minister” or “secretary”) are responsible
to the legislature and can be removed from office by it
(often through a “vote of no confidence”)
ii. Presidential systems feature an independent executive,
elected for a constitutionally-specified period of time, who
cannot be removed from office in the normal course of events
(absent something extraordinary like impeachment)
b. Presidential systems usually embody the idea of “separation of
powers”, while parliamentary systems feature a “fusion of powers”
i. Presidents are normally chosen though popular elections
(either directly or indirectly, as in the US), while prime
ministers are selected by legislatures
1. Ex: the German chancellor and prime ministers of
Great Britain and Japan are elected by the Bundestag,
House of Commons, and the Japanese House of
Representatives, respectively
a. If a party has a majority in the lower chamber, it
normally selects the PM in a party-line vote. In
multiparty nations, a majority party is less
common, so the PM is usually selected through a
process of bargaining between parties.
c. Most of the world’s democracies are purely (or mostly)
parliamentary, where the chief executive is selected by the
legislature and is dependent on its confidence. Purely presidential
systems are much more rare (US, France, Finland).
i. Hybrid: Switzerland. Its executive, the Federal Council, is
selected by the legislature but cannot be dismissed by them.
ii. The original blueprint for the US Constitution (the Virginia
Plan) would also have created a hybrid system where the
House of Representatives was popularly elected and who
would then go on to select the Senate, President, and
judiciary
1. Also, if no candidate wins a majority in the Electoral
College, the House of Representatives elects the
president
 d. Additional contrasts:
i. In a parliamentary system, the members of the cabinet are
usually also members of the legislature. In a presidential
system, executive officials cannot also hold legislative seats,
except in Finland.
ii. In most parliamentary systems, the parliament’s ability to
dismiss the cabinet is matched by the PM’s ability to dissolve
parliament and call a new election. In presidential systems,
separation of powers usually means that the legislature
cannot dismiss the president, and the president cannot
dissolve the legislature.
1. Why would the PM dissolve parliament? Many
parliamentary constitutions do this for routine reasons
(e.g., 25 days before the general election in the UK or
when a cabinet’s fixed term ends). Other times, it
occurs when something goes wrong…if the government
loses a vote of confidence or if a PM cannot be elected
in a majority vote
a. When this happens, the existing parliament
usually can’t conduct further business, though a
caretaker government may sit and handle routine
matters until the next parliament can be elected
and sworn in.
iii. Parliamentary systems usually have a separate “head of
state” and “head of government” – the symbolic leader of the
country, as opposed to the chief executive. In many
presidential systems, they are combined in the president…
though some presidential countries may also have a royal
family whose senior member serves as head of state.
III. Pros and cons of parliamentary and presidential systems
a. The pros and cons of the two systems really boil down to one core
trade-off – executive stability vs. the possibility of gridlock between
the executive and legislative branches
i. Independent elections and fixed terms in office give
presidential systems a strongly stable executive, but the
likelihood of the presidency being held by a different political
party than that which controls the legislature leaves gridlock
as a constant possibility.
1. In a parliamentary system, the fusion of powers makes
gridlock unlikely – the cabinet is an agent of the
majority party in parliament
a. Idea: responsible party government
b. In multiparty systems with coalition
governments, executive stability can be sorely
limited, creating cycles of elections, formation of
 weak governments which soon dissolve, snap
elections, and new cabinet formations
i. In the Weimar Republic (the German
democracy that existed before Hitler took
power), the far right and far left would
often unite against the centrist cabinet to
defeat legislation, but neither side was able
to capture a majority of its own
IV. Majoritarian and consensus systems
a. If democracy is “government by the people”, the main difference
between majoritarian and consensus systems is in the idea of what
constitutes “the people”.
i. As the name implies, majoritarian systems (aka the
“Westminster model”) generally operate on majority rule
principles
1. When the preferences of “the people” differ, the
government should be responsive to the wants and
needs of the majority
a. Pro: any other answer entails minority rule or at
least a minority veto, which can quickly become
undemocratic
b. Alternative answer: “as many people as possible”
– the essence of the consensus model
2. Key features:
a. Concentrated executive power – cabinets tend to
be one-party or bare majority (minimal winning
coalitions)
i. Cabinet wields tremendous power on behalf
of a popular majority that may not be very
large
b. Fusion of power and cabinet dominance
i. Last class, we argued that parliamentary
systems subordinate the cabinet to the
legislature, but let’s reconsider that now.
1. The cabinet is made up of senior,
powerful legislators from a pretty
united majority party. The cabinet
can therefore expect the support of
the party and getting its proposals
passed.
c. Asymmetric bicameralism
i. Lower chamber of the legislature holds
most of the legislative power.
1. In the UK, the House of Lords can
only delay legislation passed by the
Commons, not prevent or veto
 ii. It has been argued that a purely
majoritarian system should have a
unicameral legislature
d. Unitary and centralized government
i. Subnational governments exist (cities,
towns, counties, whatever), but do not have
independent power as they would in a
federal system
1. Created by and subservient to the
national government
e. SMDP elections
i. In order to generate a:
f. Two party system
i. Two-party politics makes legislative
majorities likely. As the number of parties
increases, the likelihood of one winning a
legislative majority decreases.
g. “One-dimensional politics”
i. This idea tells us that political conflict in
the country will be dominated by one major
difference, usually socioeconomic policy –
the degree to which the government should
intervene in the workings of the private
sector
1. There are other important
differences, of course, but they are
subsumed under the main dimension
2. Idea: median voter theorem
ii. Counterpoint: the government vs. opposition model is pretty
undemocratic – it often excludes huge numbers of people
(maybe as many as 49.9%)
1. It’s been argued that everyone affected by a decision
should have the chance to participate in making it,
either directly or indirectly, and majority rule should
take a back seat
2. When the majority and minority parties regularly
switch roles and/or when the population is
homogeneous, the Westminster model can work well.
It works less well in plural societies, where majority
rule can lead to dictatorship and civil strife
a. Plural societies arguably benefit from regimes
that emphasize collaboration instead of
opposition by maximizing the size of the ruling
majority – consensus democracy
3. Key features:
a. Executive power sharing in large coalitions
 i. All of the important parties share power.
ii. Switzerland – 7 member Federal Council
gives 2 seats each to the 3 major parties
and the last to a minor party
1. Must also have German, French, and
Italian speakers
iii. Belgium – cabinet must have an equal
number of French and Dutch speakers
b. Separation of powers
i. Makes executive and legislative branches
more independent and balances their
relationships
c. Balanced bicameralism
i. Often, bicameralism is used to give special
representation to certain groups
1. To be meaningful, the second
chamber must be elected on a
different basis than the lower
chamber and must have real power
a. Ex: US Senate was designed to
represent the states, as
opposed to the House, which
was designed to represent the
American people
d. Federalism and decentralization
i. Subnational units can be granted
independent power (US, Switzerland), but
Belgium actually grants political power to
organizations comprised of different
linguistic groups (Dutch and French) that
make laws regarding culture and education
for their communities
e. Written constitution and minority veto
i. A written constitution with formally
delineated powers generally can only be
changed by supermajorities, which ensures
that amendments have broad support
ii. Minority veto powers (like the US filibuster
or powerful legislative committees) also
promote reflection, compromise, and
moderation
f. Multiparty competition, usually through PR
i. Which facilitates
g. Multidimensional political conflict
i. In addition to the socioeconomic conflict
that is pretty much unavoidable, many
nations have other political cleavages that
are important and enduring
1. Ex: Catholics and Protestants in
Ireland, Switzerland, Belgium. Turks
and Kurds in Turkey.
2. Give rise to coalition-based
government where different
dimensions of political conflict wax
and wane over time
3. No stable MVT-like equilibrium