Short Paper Question: What is Presidentialism? What is Parliamentarism? How are they different? MA, KING MAN CLARENCE
UID: 3035145158
POLI 1003
Tutor: Chiu Tak

Short Paper Question: What is Presidentialism? What is Parliamentarism? How are they different?

Introduction This paper will demonstrate the most prominent features of both Presidentialism and Parliamentarism, thus distinguish between their most contrasting features. I will be tackling this paper from different perspectives, in order to ultimately to suggest a better structure of government. Features such as the efficiency of each system in implementing government policies needs to be considered. Furthermore, factors such as political stability and order needs to be considered in suggesting a better form of government. Political stability refers to the frequency at which the government changes, where as political order refers to level of civil obedience every time there is a change to the political system.

Parliamentary system
In a political system run by a parliamentary system, the executive power of the government resides with the Prime Minster and her/her cabinet, which is voted by a democratically voted legislature. The party which holds the majority of the support, is said to have the 'confidence' of the cabinet. In the case where there is no majority party in the cabinet, decisions and actions of the government are decided through a series of bargains and debates between the different parties in the cabinet (British parliament backs hybrid embryos, 2008).
There isn't a fixed term for a party to be in charge of a parliament; the prime minister and his political party hold office as long as they command the majority of the confidence in the legislature. As soon as the Parliament loses confidence in the legislature, there is an immediate dissolution of the legislature and the head of state immediately calls for another election in order to vote for a new Prime Minister. Under a parliamentary system, the cabinet ministers are collectively responsible for the whole cabinet, thus when the cabinet loses confidence of the legislature, it collectively goes out of power.
There are some prominent and distinctive features of a Parliamentary system. First, in this type of system there are always two types of heads, namely the nominal head and the titular head (Cambridge University Press, 2014). The nominal head is the Head of Government; his power is usually a lot more apparent and effective. In most cases, he is democratically elected.
The titular head usually acquired by heredity, this position is also known as the Head of State. For example in the UK, the British Queen is the titular head. The Head of State’s main role is to greet and meet foreign dignitaries, in many instances the Head of State is seen to be the “face” of the nation. However, the Head of State also has some significant power; she has the right to call for a parliament session to be held and to call for an early election, due to the government's inability to handle itself. In Australia, there is a clear distinction between the head of the government and the head of the state that represents the formal excise of executive power.
Under a cabinet system, the Prime Minister is the leader of all the ministers. Under his will, ministers are dropped and appointed, thus they stay in power under his pleasure. In general, the Prime Minister exercises the greatest influence on both domestic and foreign policies for the country.
Furthermore, unlike the presidential system, elections can be called under very short notices, hence most commonly referred to as “snap elections”. It is common to see elections to be held in the middle of the term. In addition, the campaign periods are generally much shorter and efficient, hence not as much heavy funding would be required. For example in Canada, which is also under a parliamentary system, the campaign period is limited to only two months.
In my opinion, the Parliamentary system is also much more efficient and transparent. In the UK, the Prime Minister and his cabinet are often faced with tough questions from the opposition parties (Sv.uio.no, 2014). The questioning sessions are almost always televised to the public, thus making the cabinet much more transparent to the public.

Presidential System
Under a Presidential system, one of the most distinctive features is that the legislature and the President are elected separately. The president takes both roles as being the head of state and the head of the government. If there was a cabinet which existed under a Presidential system, the President would not be part of the Parliament and only very few nominated members from the Parliament are allowed to sit in the legislature. A classical example of a country where a cabinet still exists although the country is run by a Presidential system would be Bosnia and Herzegovina (King, 2004)..
However, under no Presidential system would the actions of the President depend on the confidence and agreement from the legislature. Furthermore, any ordinary majority from the legislature does not have the power to remove the president from his/her office before her presidential term ends. Likewise, before the term ends, the President has no say in dissolving the legislature. However, in order for a law to be passed by the legislature, it has to be approved and passed by the president before it has any effect. In many countries, under the legal system, the President is seen to be above the law and thus cannot be arrested. For example, when the past President of the Republic of China (Taiwan), Mr. Chan Shui Bian was found to be corrupted, he could not be arrested or persecuted until he stepped down as President. Shortly after he stepped down, he was arrested and was given a substantial jail sentence.
Differences
The major difference between the two systems is that under the Presidential system, the leader, is voted directly by the people of the country where as the Prime Minister (PM) under a Parliamentary system is elected from the legislative branch. Under a Presidential system, the President is separate from the legislative body where as the PM is part of the Parliament. Under a Presidential government, it can be incredibly hard to enact legislations and bills if the President and the legislative body has different views or come from different parties (Mainwaring, 1990). An example would be if the President of the USA was from the Democratic Party, for example Barrack Obama, whilst the majority of the congress is made up of Republicans A bill must be signed by both parties in order for it to be enacted. However, the President only carries responsibility towards the people and not to the legislative body; thus it is a common problem that the legislative body isn't able to complete anything under this form of political system, this is commonly known in politics as a political deadlock. Another important difference between the two systems is the ability to remove the PM or the President out of power. In a Parliamental form of government, the Parliament can simply vote for a vote of no confidence in order to replace him. In reality, this leads to the PM to be a servant of the Parliament to some extent, thus making his power not very effective. Even if the Parliament believes that there is a lack of leadership could cause the PM to be removed. Under a Presidential system, the President is extremely hard to remove out of office. Historically, this only occurs under extreme cases where the leader has been accused of some serious crimes such as corruption. As a result, elections in the United States are held at fixed intervals. In contrast, under a Parliamentary system such as the United Kingdom, elections can be held at any time, with the only regulation being that it has to be held at least once every five years. I believe a major advantage of the Presidential system is that the executive and legislative branch of the government are separate, thus one can provide the other with check and balances. This limits the power of both branches of the government thus not allowing a particular one to become outrageously powerful. In a Parliamentary form of government, the only check and balance is that the PM has to appear before the House of Commons once a week to answer questions put forward from the members of the opposition parties. Furthermore, under a Presidential system, it is the people who directly nominate the President and the members of the legislature. In contrast, under the Parliamentary system, only the legislature is elected by the people and then they must appoint of the their members to become the PM of the country. Practically, the difference between these two systems is the political efficiency at which laws and bills are enacted. As the President and members of the legislature are separately, it is a common occurrence for the President and the majority of the members from legislature to be from different political parties (Robinson and Torvik, 2008). This can cause common friction and disagreements, leading to both parties being unable to reach their respective goals. Under a Presidential system, it is commonly seen that power is equally shared between President and the legislature. In order for a law to be enacted it must be signed by both parties; thus when a bill is proposed and the President refuses to sign it friction is caused between the two parties. The most powerful type of veto is a partial veto, where the President can choose to veto certain clauses of the bill.

Analysis
Personally, although both political systems have obvious advantages and limitations, I believe that Presidentialism has an edge over Parliamentarism as the better of political system.
From my understanding of human nature, I believe humans enjoy having a capable leader showing them the right path. It is equally important for pupils to give their leader their full trust in guiding them.
Although the PM is the leader of a Parliamentary system, the whole system is very rigid and ineffective in implementing policies. On top of that, due to the lack of fixed term dates, decisions of the PM may done in order to please the stakeholders of the Parliament rather than for the betterment for the people of country.
Under a Presidential system, the President is directly elected by the people of the country, thus the power transferred to the President will be put in use for the benefit of the people. A counter argument to having a single with the sole power over the nation is that it creates a towards authoritarianism (Elgie, 2011). Indeed this is a undesirable thing from the perspective of modern democracy, however we must not forget that the person given the power is only chosen after being democratically elected by the majority of the nation. I believe this power needs to be granted in order for the President to make rational decisions without having to fear to be put out of office anytime, unlike a Parliamentary form of government.

References

1. British parliament backs hybrid embryos. (2008). Nature.
2. Cambridge University Press, (2014). Presidentialism, Parliamentarism, and Democracy | Comparative politics. [online] Available at: http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/comparative-politics/presidentialism-parliamentarism-and-democracy [Accessed 20 Nov. 2014]. King, B. (2004). Empowering the presidency.
3. Sv.uio.no, (2014). The Evolution of Parliamentarism and its Political Consequences - Department of Political Science. [online] Available at: http://www.sv.uio.no/isv/english/research/projects/evolution-parliamentarism/ [Accessed 20 Nov. 2014].
4. Mainwaring, S. (1990). Presidentialism, multiparty systems, and democracy. Notre Dame, IN, USA: Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies, University of Notre Dame.
5. Robinson, J. and Torvik, R. (2008). Endogenous presidentialism. Cambridge, Mass.: National Bureau of Economic Research.
6. Elgie, R. (2011). Presidentialism, Parliamentarism and Semi-Presidentialism: Bringing Parties Back In. Government and Opposition, 46(03), pp.392-409.