week 12 17th november lecture

8/7/2019 Week 12 17th November Lecture

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Representative Democracy

y Decision-making too complex for direct democracy except in very small societies

y Alternative to direct democracy is representative democracy where representatives of

citizens control decision makers

y Separation of powers is key component

y Legislature

Executive

Judiciary

y Checks and balances prevents excess by any one element in system

Parliamentary Democracy

y Parliament elected by citizens both produces and controls the government

y The government with large bure aucracy makes actual policy decisions

y The judiciary enforces decisions

Interprets in difficult cases

Decides whether decisions conform to the constitution

y Separation of power implies that government should not interfere with either

parliament or judiciary

Parliamentary Systems

y Parliaments legislate make laws

y Head of state

Elected Presidents in republics

Hereditary monarchs monarchy

y Few powers continuity role

y Directly elected chief executive role

y Much more powerful than formal head of state in parliamentary systems

y In presidential government systems the parliament or representative body is a more

specialized legislature

y Passes legislation rather than being the source of government power


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y Legislature can act as a real check on the government if it can refuse to pass the

legislation the government needs

y Divided government - if President does not have majority in the Senate and

Congress gridlock can result!

Parliament

y Citizens participate in decision -making through voting in parliamentary elections

y People choose representatives for lower house when parliament dividied into two

houses or chambers

y Upper house is often called Senate - less powerful than the lower house chamber

of representatives Dail House of Commons

Upper House Senate

y Some countries have only one chamber so what is the point of a second chamber?

y

Justification federal systems - bicameraly Constitutional protection provided in an upper house or senate in which all states are

either equally represented whatever their populations

y Or there are special decision rules such as qualified majority of more than 50percent of the votes

y Or unanimous agreements

y Required to pass changes that affect the status of the constituent states

Unitary states Ireland

y Why does a unitary non -federal state like Ireland need an upper house?

y

Reviews legislation cooling off period. Another opportunity for consideration. Checkon hasty government legislation.

One Chamber Parliaments

y Government held accountable by the vote of confidence

y Investiture vote

y Parliamentary democracies the lower house of parliament makes and breaks

governments (Michael Laver) single most important role

y Second job for lower houses in parliamentary democracies is to re view and pass

legislation

y

Constitutional fiction and realpolitik diverge

Defining government in parliamentary democracies

y The cabinet

y Decisions taken at full cabinet meetings are the ultimate government decisions in

most countries

y The right to hire and fire cabinet ministers resides with the Prime Minister who is

responsible for this to parliament


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y The doctrine of individual ministerial responsibility means that ministers are

responsible for everything that happens in their departments whether or not they

actually know about it

y In practice ministers rarely resign

Defining government in parliamentary democracies

y Beyond the cabinet

y Junior ministers

o Often in charge of policy areas

o Do not sit in cabinet

y Cohabitation between minister and junior ministers in coalition problematical when

they come from different parties

y Attorney General and Chief Whip sit at but dont vote at Cabinet

Coalition government

y People dont choose the government in parliamentary democracies

y People vote for parties and leaders nego tiate governments

y Four basic types of government

y Single party majority ( la Tony Blair/ Gordon Brown)

y Single party minority ( la Haughey 1987)

y Majority coalition ( la Ahern -Harney 2

o Cowan/Greens/Harney

y Minority coalition ( la Ahern -Harney 1)

Anomalies of bargaining power in legislatures

y Bargaining power in the government formation process may be quite far removed

from the seat distribution in the legislature

y The key - is being pivotal to winning and losing.

y It is possible to be pivotalwith a very small number of seats

y To be powerless with quite a large number of seats

y Key thing to look at after an election result is the decisive structure of the legislature

the set of winning coalitions between parties

Patterns in coalition formation

y The patterns we expect to see depend a lot on the motivations we ascribe to

politicians


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y Motivation of politicians

o Power-seeking or policy-seeking

y If power-seeking > minimal winning coalitions

y If policy-seeking > ideologically compact coalitions

week 12 17th november lecture

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