Description of a Parliamentary system
Parliamentary system is a system of formation and functioning of the whole supreme representative body of the state government, based on a number of completely democratic and bureaucratic elements and relationships that interact with each other. The principle of distributing powers between executive, legislative and judicial branches is determining for this governing system, and the legislative unit gets a more privileged position than the other bodies of government. In a Parliamentary system the executive branch derives its democratic legitimacy from, and is held accountable to the legislative unit, thus indicating the supremacy of the elected body in the machinery of state power and administration. Countries with Parliamentary system may be either a constitutional monarchy, a Parliamentary republic. Is such system the head of the state is normally a different person, than the head of the government, but in some Parliamentary republics the head of the state is also being the head of the government, is not directly elected by the legislative body, often under the strong influence of the party leadership, which makes the candidacy known before the actual election, thus making the election not as much about the person itself, but more about the party behind him or her. It could be said then that the will of the people is more easily instituted within this particular system. The Parliamentary system also includes elements and relationships outside the state system, including participation of political parties in shaping the parliament, and this serves as an indicator of the level of democracy in society. In the country with no democracy, and only formally operating parliament without performing its functions properly, no Parliamentary system can be formed. A Parliamentary system may be of two possible variants: a bicameral system that contains two chambers of parliament: an elected lower house, and an upper house which is usually appointed or elected by another mechanism from the lower house. Another possible option is a unicameral with just one Parliamentary chamber, but in case with this division option, some people believe that too much power can be put into the hands of an executive entity, thus leading to the lack of possibilities of being checked by the legislative and judicial units. If such situation occurs, bicameral system is definitely a better choice with an upper house designed to check the operations of the lower (from which the executive comes).
Persuasion of the supremacy of the Parliamentary system
The Parliamentary system is faster and easier in passing the legislation. This happens because of the executive branch being dependent upon the direct or indirect support of the legislative branch and often includes members of the legislative unit, thus resulting in the increasing number of votes to pass legislation (as the majority party or coalition of parties are in the legislature branch). In addition to a quicker legislation process, Parliamentarianism may be an attractive option for nations that are ethnically, racially, or ideologically divided. In a Parliamentary system, with a collegial executive, power is more divided, but nevertheless the more evenly spread out duties in the power structure can be argued. Serious debates associated with Parliamentarianism claim this system to be less probable for the authoritarian collapse. These scholars turn to the facts that since World War II 2/3 of Third World countries with Parliamentary governments did successfully make the transition to democratic principles. In comparison, no Third World Presidential system successfully made it to democracy without having any coups, or other constitutional breakdowns. But the democracies with low levels of income per capita can nevertheless face high risks of collapse, regardless of their form of government. When per capita income is less than $1,000 (in 1985 PPP USD), Parliamentary democracies are more likely to die (that is, to become a dictatorship state) with the life expectancy of about7 years. However, if we were to take into account the experience of current democratic countries, there are reasons to believe that Parliamentary democracies have a better survival record and that it is not related to the systems’ constitutional principles. Parliamentarianism has a great feature of allowing an election to take place at any time, if an election calendar does not get abused. In some systems, such as British, a ruling party can schedule an election to be help at the fixed dates, which eliminates the possibility of abusing the law.
References
Cheibub, J. Systems of Government: Parliamentarism and Presidentialism. Retrieved from
http://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/pnorris/Acrobat/stm103%20articles/Cheibub_Pres_Parlt.pdf
Stepan, A., Skach, C. (October, 1993). Constitutional Frameworks and Democratic Consolidation: Parliamentarianism versus Presidentialism. World Politics, Vol. 46, No. 1, pp. 1-22. Retrieved from http://bcpolscima.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/parliamentary-v-presidential.pdf
Colomer, J., M., Negrett, J., L. Can Presidentialism Work Like Parliamentarism. Retrieved from http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1018&context=josep_colomer
GERRING, J. THACKER, S, C,. Political Institutions and Corruption: The Role of Unitarism and Parliamentarism. (2004). B.J.Pol.S. 34, 295–33. Retrieved from http://sws.bu.edu/jgerring/documents/Corruption.pdf
