The Rule Of Law And Political Power

The United States prides itself on the fact that we have the rule of Law. In other countries such as Japan, the people are expected to obey the government and corporations. If we did not have lawyers, bureaucrats would administer the law. Some complain that we have too many lawsuits, but very few would accept having to obey only the government and the bureaucrats.

As the most widely adopted form of democratic government there are many strengths associated with a parliamentary government. The parliamentary system is often praised for the fast and efficient way in which it is able to pass legislation. The reason this is possible is because unlike a presidential system the legislative and executive power in a parliamentary system are merged together. Due to this fusion of power legislation does not have to undergo a lengthy process and therefore laws can be formulated and put into place much quicker(Bates, 1986: 114-5). Another advantage of a parliamentary system is that the majority of the power is not held by one individual head of state but rather is more evenly divided among a single party or coalition. One of the main benefits of this is that as there is more of a division of power a parliamentary government is less prone to authoritarianism than a presidential system. Juan Linz argues that a presidential system is more dangerous due to the fact that; “Winners and losers are sharply defined for the entire period of the presidential mandate”(Linz, 1990: 56), this sharp line between winners and losers increases tension between these two groups and allows the winner to isolate themselves from other political parties (Linz, 1990: 56). Due to this tension and isolation a presidential system is at a higher risk of turning into an authoritarian regime than a parliamentary system.

Every country differs in their preference of political system to govern their countries. For democratic countries, two possible choices of governing are the presidential system and the parliamentary system. Since both the presidential and the parliamentary systems have their own strengths and weaknesses, many scholars have examined these two forms of government, and debate on which political system is more successful in governance. In this paper, I will first provide a detailed analysis of both the parliamentary and the presidential system. I will also evaluate each system’s strengths and weaknesses, addressing any differences as well as any commonalities. Finally, I will conclude by using historical examples to analyze and support the

They note that there are more successful parliamentary governments than presidential ones. “Aside from the United States, only Chile has managed a century and a half of relatively undisturbed constitutional continuity under presidential government” (Linz 52). They also argue that presidentialism is more likely to engage in gridlock, which is when there is too much disagreement within a government system and the passage of laws is slowed or stymied as a result. They attribute this to the “winner‐takes‐all logic and is particularly prone to institutional deadlock…[that] may result in the marginalization of ethnic groups, thus fostering violent reactions by the losing group” (Basedau 171). They also like to discuss how fractionalized the legislature can become under presidentialism. In fact, “extreme fractionalization—in which no party controls more than a third of the seats—is more frequent under presidentialism (occurring 18 percent of the time) than under parliamentarism (where it occurs only 8.9 percent of the time)”(Cheibub et al. 45). Lastly, one can notice that a lot of scholars in this camp tackle presidentialism by being skeptical of the style of politics it encourages. To them, since the executive must appeal to the masses for votes and not the legislative, the campaign for the executive (the president) turns into a personality contest and is devoid of

- absolute is passed down from generation to generation.A king or a queen is accepted as the ruler. Meaning, the king and the queen pass down their power and authority to their eldest. For example, in China an emperor passes down his thrown to his eldest son. Meaning the power and authority is still in their bloodline and it will strictly stay in their bloodline.

Presidentialism is a system of government in which the president is elected both chief executives and as head of government (Ogelsby & Suárez, 1968) and is the main system of democratic government apart from parliamentary systems. Presidential systems tend to centralise priorities of the government to stabilise society. Normally, they are classed into separate regions of power; where the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government are dependent on one another and cannot work effectively in deeply divided societies. This argument is ruled by the fact that they are 1) divisive, causing isolation between ethnoreligious groups. Elites are prioritised over minority working class groups and 2) inherently majoritarian, as only a single position is given causing proportionality to become impossible. In places such as Latin America and Northern Ireland, we see the ways in which these theories have proven ineffectiveness. However, presidential systems aim to separate powers in order to protect citizens’ rights and deter abuse of power for good governance overall. Through this presidential systems, however, have quick decisiveness in resolving societal issues. Without effective separation; executive, legislative and judicial powers,

All of these features of a regime, if disrupted or altered, could be the difference between a stable democracy and it demonstrating a radical archetype of ascendancy. After explaining both alternatives, Mainwaring comes to the conclusion that “Presidentialism and a fractionalized multi party system seems especially inimical to stable democracy” in that they are conducive to gridlock between the executive and legislative branches of government. (Mainwaring, p. 168)

      There are two main types of political systems, one being a presidential system and the other being a parliamentary system. Both of them have their own benefits as well as their own disadvantages. No political system can be perfect or can always have stability, but shown in history there are successful countries that use either one. Also there are countries that have failed with one of the two systems.

Presidentialism is a fixed term, and Linz acknowledges that both presidential and parliamentary regime types have created stable democracies across the world, he argues that there are shortcomings associated with presidentialism that make it a less suitable institutional choice for fledgling democracies. He also states that presidentialism holds within itself a constant paradox. “Brazilian history provides us with examples of the first situation, while Maria

The creation and manipulation of representative institutions as democracy decorations help authoritarians in providing legitimate governance and ensure political survival. Authoritarians face challenges from representative institutions such as the legislative, judiciary,

citizens are under a duty to obey the same laws, and there can be no

Since the initiation of the Third Wave of Democracy, several countries have attempted to form a democratic system of governs. We take note that not all have succeeded. At the dawn of this era, democracy was being applied to countries with no prior history of a governing body that was place by the people for the people hence success of such a system could not be guaranteed because of the innumerous variables that existed in each country. People being the highlighted factor of variance, it may become easier to understand how countries such as Pakistan and Nigeria, both countries prior to the Wave had no local governing machinery. Pakistan further endured a partition from India which resulted in not only an instant religious and

The rule of law is seen as being one of the most fundamental components of the UK constitution as well as being a principle that is concerned with restricting parliamentary action. Though the rule of law is seen to be a component in the constitution; the actual meaning of the rule of law has been very problematic to interpret. This is considerably down to the fact that it means different things to different people as since the nineteenth century, academics, politicians and judges have proposed diverse definitions and explanations in regards to the rule of law and the role it upholds in the UK constitution.

According to Andrew Janos, “the price of economic progress has been political turmoil”. (Janos, pg. 21) If the Modernization Theory holds that countries tend to become more democratic the more they modernize, then political turmoil is to be expected in democracies. Certainly this can occur in both parliamentary and presidential systems: as Linz argues, the presidential system concentrates too much power on the president, resulting in “winner-take-all” politics (Linz, pg. 56) and the polarization of political parties. This is evident in the United States, where the president is elected separately and Congress is divided between the opposing Democrats and Republicans. Conversely, the parliamentary system in Britain, as well as that adapted by the former British colonies of Sri Lanka and Nigeria, has had its fair share of single-party hegemony and political abuse. (Horowitz, pg. 78) Democracy is therefore not a perfect form of government when put in practice, and much of its

Moreover, instating the right to choose also facilitates the incentive for people to speak out against an unruly leader. When a large mass of civilians disagrees or is concerned with a party’s implementation of policies, they can extract their title from them. Just because a party is elected, does not mean that they will remain in power for the entire duration originally allotted to them. The presence of foreseeable change is crucial to a societies degree of satisfaction associated with their current governmental system. Alteration gives democracy the upper hand. For example, in Spain in 1982, when Prime Minister Leopolodo Calvo Sotelo completely terminated the party that supported what the people wanted, the people in office forcibly made him resign.