Parliamentary Democracy vs. Republic.

[Mark1031]

Well I’m not sure I have the names of these various forms of government right but I’m referring to the US system vs. that various parliamentary systems in most other countries. The US system is complex and it has elements that are not really representative, for eg. the senate gives various under populated regions much more power than they would have based on a pure representative democracy. And as you saw in 2000 you can be president while getting fewer votes than your opponent. It has elements that lead to an elimination of minor parties and really tends to favor a 2-party system which many people complain about.

The parliamentary system can give excessive power to minor parties and can lead to instability in governments. OTOH it seems that you can get a more diverse group of ideas into the government and it seems to be more rapidly responsive to the citizenry.

So which of these systems do you prefer? What would be your ideal government structure? A lot of people here love the British question period because we can’t imagine Bush being able to handle this kind of open and aggressive questioning w/o collapsing into a simpering pile of intellectually overmatched jello. Does this prevent you from having idiot PMs or do the Brits not really pay attention to it?

 

[Babbler]

Well I’m not sure I have the names of these various forms of government right but I’m referring to the US system vs. that various parliamentary systems in most other countries.

Babbler strikes again!

The US system is complex and it has elements that are not really representative, for eg. the senate gives various under populated regions much more power than they would have based on a pure representative democracy.

Well, Great Britain has the House of Lords and Canada has a Senate; both of which makes the US Senate a paragon of democracy. A British politician compared the Lords to a geriatric home, "with the faint smell of urine". The less said about the Canadian Senate, the better.

And as you saw in 2000 you can be president while getting fewer votes than your opponent. It has elements that lead to an elimination of minor parties and really tends to favor a 2-party system which many people complain about.

It more a problem with First-past-the-post system of election.

The parliamentary system can give excessive power to minor parties and can lead to instability in governments. OTOH it seems that you can get a more diverse group of ideas into the government and it seems to be more rapidly responsive to the citizenry.

Depends. If the government has a majority, or a stable coalition then they have nothing to fear from the legislature.

So which of these systems do you prefer? What would be your ideal government structure? A lot of people here love the British question period because we can’t imagine Bush being able to handle this kind of open and aggressive questioning w/o collapsing into a simpering pile of intellectually overmatched jello. Does this prevent you from having idiot PMs or do the Brits not really pay attention to it?

Question Period is not actually for any intelligent discourse; it's how politicians here get their soundbites onto the evening newscast.

 

[sysyphus]

Even in a Parliamentary democracy, the President would not sit in the House. The equivalent of a President is not a Prime Minister (note that many countries, France for example, have both).

The British equivalent of the President is the Monarch, in Canada, Australia and New Zealand it is the Governor General. They do not sit in Parliament either (though they also have next to no power since they are not elected).

That is actually my only complaint with our system, our Head of State has no practical function, something I think should change.

What I don't like about the US system is that the Cabinet is not made up of elected representatives and does not sit in the House. That's too little accountibility for a group of people who have a considerable amount of influence.

 

[luiz]

Even in a Parliamentary democracy, the President would not sit in the House. The equivalent of a President is not a Prime Minister (note that many countries, France for example, have both).

The British equivalent of the President is the Monarch, in Canada, Australia and New Zealand it is the Governor General. They do not sit in Parliament either (though they also have next to no power since they are not elected).

That is actually my only complaint with our system, our Head of State has no practical function, something I think should change.

What I don't like about the US system is that the Cabinet is not made up of elected representatives and does not sit in the House. That's too little accountibility for a group of people who have a considerable amount of influence.

Hum, I'd say that the President has both the function of the PM (head of government) and that of the monarch (head of state). The President's job is much more complex than that of the monarch that essentially does nothing.

On topic, there advantages and disvantages in both. I'd say that in an unstable nation a Presidentialist system is better, otherwise governments would collapse every other week. For a stable nation there is little difference, personally I think Parlamentarism is more interesting but that's just taste.

PS: The thread title is a bit misleading since a state can be both a republic and a parliamentary democracy. The discussion is between presidentialism and parlamentarism.

 

[Tee Kay]

Presidentalism gives too much power to one man imho and is in fact a worse representative of democracy than parliamentary system.

 

[sysyphus]

Hum, I'd say that the President has both the function of the PM (head of government) and that of the monarch (head of state). The President's job is much more complex than that of the monarch that essentially does nothing.

In the US system you are indeed correct, but what about countries which split the roles?

Again, the monarch does essentially nothing becuase they are not elected. Britain will remain that way for a very long time, but what say if countries like CAN,AUS,NZ decided to elect their GG instead, and give them a more active role (but not so far as the President of the USA)?

 

[JohnRM]

Well I’m not sure I have the names of these various forms of government right but I’m referring to the US system vs. that various parliamentary systems in most other countries. The US system is complex and it has elements that are not really representative, for eg. the senate gives various under populated regions much more power than they would have based on a pure representative democracy.

The reason for this is that the States of the Union are supposed to be regarded as independent nations, with a high degree of sovereignty, united as one nation. Of course, through various usurpations by the Federal Government, this sovereignty has been eroded to the point of near non-existence.

And as you saw in 2000 you can be president while getting fewer votes than your opponent. It has elements that lead to an elimination of minor parties and really tends to favor a 2-party system which many people complain about.

The election of 2000 and the case of a person elected with less votes than his opponent, while regrettable, is entirely necessary so that the election is not relegated to candidates just campaigning in the cities and ignoring the rest of the country.

The reason that we have a two-party system is due to the fact that the Republicans and Democrats cooperated due to a mutual interest to write laws which unjustly and exponentially make it harder for third parties to compete in elections. This is not truly the result of a Republican form of government.

The parliamentary system can give excessive power to minor parties and can lead to instability in governments. OTOH it seems that you can get a more diverse group of ideas into the government and it seems to be more rapidly responsive to the citizenry.

I cannot truly argue this point effectively as I must admit that I have not studied parliamentary governments to any significant extent, but what I can say is that our form of government has lead us to be the most affluent and powerful nation on Earth, with the longest running constitutional government in existence.

So which of these systems do you prefer? What would be your ideal government structure? A lot of people here love the British question period because we can’t imagine Bush being able to handle this kind of open and aggressive questioning w/o collapsing into a simpering pile of intellectually overmatched jello. Does this prevent you from having idiot PMs or do the Brits not really pay attention to it?

I prefer our Republic for the very reasons outlined above. I don't think that the lack of accountability of the President and other public officials, to the people, is necessarily a result of a Republican form of government. It has a lot to do with the lack of participation among eligible voters.

 

[JohnRM]

What I don't like about the US system is that the Cabinet is not made up of elected representatives and does not sit in the House. That's too little accountibility for a group of people who have a considerable amount of influence.

The problem is that these positions were supposed to be confirmed by the Senate, which was supposed to give it some semblance of a democratic process, but the reality is that the confirmation process has become about nothing more than horse-trading.

The one crucial place where our forefathers erred was when they assumed that most of our leaders and representatives were honest public servants or that it would always remain that way. Today, that simply is not the case and we are paying big time for it.

 

[Tabasco Sauce]

Well I’m not sure I have the names of these various forms of government right but I’m referring to the US system vs. that various parliamentary systems in most other countries. The US system is complex and it has elements that are not really representative, for eg. the senate gives various under populated regions much more power than they would have based on a pure representative democracy. And as you saw in 2000 you can be president while getting fewer votes than your opponent. It has elements that lead to an elimination of minor parties and really tends to favor a 2-party system which many people complain about.

The parliamentary system can give excessive power to minor parties and can lead to instability in governments. OTOH it seems that you can get a more diverse group of ideas into the government and it seems to be more rapidly responsive to the citizenry.

So which of these systems do you prefer? What would be your ideal government structure? A lot of people here love the British question period because we can’t imagine Bush being able to handle this kind of open and aggressive questioning w/o collapsing into a simpering pile of intellectually overmatched jello. Does this prevent you from having idiot PMs or do the Brits not really pay attention to it?

Neither, a Confederation of Minarchist states would be ideal in my opinion.