The Analysis of Political Systems

Douglas V. Verney

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781135034771
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Published in 1998, The Analysis of Political Systems is a valuable contribution to the field of Sociology & Social Policy.

PART ONE

The Structure of Government

II

PARLIAMENTARY GOVERNMENT

PARLIAMENTARISM is the most widely adopted system of government, and it seems appropriate to refer to British parliamentary experience in particular because it is the British system which has provided an example for a great many other countries. Nowadays when it is fashionable to speak of political systems and theories as ‘not for export’ it is worth bearing in mind the success with which a system adopted piecemeal to suit British constitutional developments has proved feasible in different situations abroad. This is not to imply that the British parliamentary system should be taken as the model and that others are, as it were, deviations from the norm, although generations of Englishmen have been tempted to make this assumption. Mr. Churchill remarked, when plans for a new House of Commons were being discussed, that it should be oblong in shape like the old.

‘Logic, which has created in so many countries semi-circular assemblies with buildings that give to every member, not only a seat to sit in, but often a desk to write at, with a lid to bang, has proved fatal to Parliamentary Government as we know it here in its home and in the land of its birth.’ (393 H.C. Debates 5s., cols. 403–4.)

Yet of the eleven west European countries which are members of the Inter-Parliamentary Union only one, The Netherlands, has an oblong chamber like the British, and in all the chambers, the Netherlands included, Members of Parliament have their own seats. These arrangements do not appear to have been ‘fatal’ to parliamentary government.

Indeed an examination of parliamentarism in various countries indicates that there are two main types of parliamentary procedure, the British and the Continental. In British parliamentary procedure, as adopted in the Commonwealth and Ireland, legislation is initiated in the full Assembly and not in committees. Private members speak only from their places, not from a tribune. Continental procedure is sometimes called ‘French’ but seems to have parallel origins in Sweden and Norway. Moreover according to Hawgood in practice ‘it was Belgium, and not Britain, France, Sweden or Norway, that became the pattern and prototype for constitutional monarchies everywhere during the century following 1831’ (Modern Constitutions since 1787, pp. 145–6)—the year in which the Belgian Constitution came into force.

This analysis of parliamentarism is concerned less with distinguishing the various forms of parliamentarism than with establishing the highest common factors in different parliamentary systems. It is not therefore necessary to account for all the political institutions existing in parliamentary countries, still less to describe devices such as federalism which are common to all three types of government, presidential and conventional as well as parliamentary. It may surprise those who have tended to regard British government as the model as well as the Mother of Parliaments to know that the United Kingdom could abolish the Monarchy, adopt a single code of constitutional laws on the pattern of the French or American Constitutions, transform the House of Lords into a Senate (or even do away with it), introduce a multi-party system based on proportional representation, institute a number of parliamentary committees to deal with specific topics such as finance and foreign affairs, and still possess a parliamentary system.

There would seem to be a number of basic principles applicable to both of the chief varieties of parliamentary government. These can be analysed and later used for purposes of comparison with presidential and convention government. (A summary of them will be found on pp. 75–77.)

1. THE ASSEMBLY BECOMES A PARLIAMENT

Where parliamentary government has evolved rather than been the product of revolution there have often been three phases, though the transition from one to the other has not always been perceptible at the time. First there has been government by a Monarch who has been responsible for the whole political system. Then there has arisen an Assembly of members who have challenged the hegemony of the King. Finally the Assembly has taken over responsibility for government, acting as a Parliament, the Monarch being deprived of most of his traditional powers.

This has certainly been the pattern in Britain. As late as the seventeenth century King James I could still preach the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings. Addressing the Houses of Parliament in 1609 he said ‘For Kings are not only God’s Lieutenants upon earth, and sit upon God’s throne, but even by God Himself they are called Gods’. In France the Charter of 1814, framed on the restoration of the French Monarchy during Napoleon’s exile to Elba, assumed the divine right of the Bourbons to the throne. During this first phase, if such it may be called, the ‘Government’ consisted of Secretaries who helped the King in his administration. If there was a ‘Parliament’ it was partly because a high court of justice was necessary and partly because the Monarch wanted a sounding-board of public opinion and needed support, especially of a financial nature, for his foreign policies. Between 1302 and 1614 the French States-General met as a whole in less than forty-two years. Even in England the Houses of Parliament met in only 198 of the years between 1295 and 1614—through whereas the English Parliament was about to assert its real authority by the end of the period the States-General was to meet for the last time until 1789. The foundations of the English Parliament’s strength were maintained and strengthened in the Tudor period and it required considerable finesse on the part of the Monarch to manage the two Houses. But there was as yet no question of challenging the supreme position of the Monarch as Executive. ‘To act without the King, to coerce his action, prescribe his policy, and hold his ministers accountable before Parliament, does not enter any man’s mind.’ (D. L. Keir, The Constitutional History of Modern Britain, 3rd ed., p. 151.)

However, by establishing their power over the purse, Assemblies were ultimately able to claim their own area of jurisdiction. Henceforth the Monarch’s role was increasingly that of an Executive dependent ultimately on the goodwill of the Legislature. Constitutional development entered a second phase in which the term ‘legislative power’ was given to Assemblies to distinguish them from the ‘executive power’ of the King. The English Civil War and the 1688 Revolution did not establish parliamentarism in England but made explicit this division of executive and legislative power between the King and the two Houses. No doubt, as we can now see, the ultimate supremacy of the Houses of Parliament could never be challenged again, but John Locke was quite right to say, as he did in his Second Treatise of Civil Government, that both authorities could in a sense claim to be supreme. During the eighteenth century division of responsibility became generally acknowledged and thanks to the writings of Montesquieu and Blackstone this device of government became widely celebrated as the ‘separation of powers’. Whereas on the Continent of Europe despotic governments were the rule there was in Britain a division of power between the King and the Houses of Parliament which Englishmen considered to be the ‘guardian of their liberties and a bulwark against tyranny’.

A similar trend is discernible in Scandinavia early in the nineteenth century. Sweden passed from the first to the second phase with the introduction of a new Constitution in 1809. Gustavian absolutism gave way to the rule of the Bernadottes under a system where ‘the King alone shall govern the realm’ (article 4) but where at the same time the Riksdag was made solely responsible for taxation (article 57).

But even as the theory of the separation of powers was coming into vogue the transition to the third and present phase was under way in Britain. In the eighteenth century the King was already losing his executive power to Ministers who came to regard the Assembly, not the Monarch, as the sovereign to whom they were really responsible. Ministers were increasingly chosen from among members of the Assembly and resigned when the Assembly withdrew its confidence from them. The change was slow and it was not until the reign of Queen Victoria that parliamentary government as we know it today was fully established. As late as 1867 Bagehot could still feel it necessary to deny that the executive and legislative powers were separated in Britain, and to argue that in the British political system there was a ‘fusion of powers’. By this time parliamentary government was already formalized in the Belgian Constitution. In Sweden, where the separation of powers had only recently been established, the introduction of parliamentarism had to wait until the formation of Liberal Governments in the first two decades of the twentieth century.

In parliamentary monarchies such as Britain, Belgium and Sweden, the Monarch has ceased in practice (though not in form) to exercise even the executive power. Government has passed to ‘his’ Ministers who are responsible to the Legislature. Parliamentary government implies a certain fusion of the executive and legislative functions, the body which has been merely an Assembly of representatives being transformed into a Parliament.

In short, the first phase ended in Britain about the time of the death of Elizabeth I, the last of the Tudors. The following century (1603–1714), known as the Stuart period, saw the rise of Parliament and the recognition of its distinct sphere of influence and power. But the gradual transition to the third and present phase of parliamentary government, which began with the appointment of Walpole as First Minister in 1721, was not completed until the reign of Victoria (1837–1901) since when parliamentary government has been in operation.

It is somewhat confusing, however, to find the term ‘Parliament’ commonly used to describe the Assembly throughout all three phases. Clearly the English Parliament of the sixteenth century was a very different body from the British Parliament of today. For the sake of clarity, the term ‘Assembly’ or ‘Houses of Parliament’ is used in this study to describe the British Parliament as it was before the introduction of parliamentary government, that is to say before the Government came to consist of members of Parliament responsible to that body rather than to the Monarch.

Equally confusing is the use of the term ‘Parliament’ at the present time in two different senses. The statement ‘Parliament is supreme’ refers to Parliament as a whole, members of the Government included, and is correct usage. On the other hand the phrase ‘The Government is responsible to Parliament’ presumably means that the Government is dependent upon the support of other members of the Legislature, the Government excluded. In the one instance ‘Parliament’ is used broadly, to include both members of the Government and ‘private members’ as they are often called in Britain, and in the other it connotes these private members only. Unfortunately there is no generic term to describe the private members, either in Britain or abroad. (The term ‘private member’—and still less ‘backbencher’—hardly does justice to the eminent office of Her Majesty’s Leader of the Opposition, or even to his colleagues on the Opposition Front Bench.) This fact alone demonstrates the fusion of powers which has taken place, and for all practical purposes the Assembly as such has ceased to exist. Indeed, it is arguable that to insist upon the drawing of a distinction is to encourage a misunderstanding of the nature of parliamentary government, which has so successfully obliterated it.

It is true that for the most part the use of the term ‘Parliament’ at one time to include the Government and at others to exclude it seems to cause little difficulty, provided some knowledge of the parliamentary system is assumed. In a comparative study of political systems, however, such ambiguity presents certain problems if like is to be compared with like. It therefore becomes necessary to insist on a more precise usage. ‘Parliament’ will at all times signify a body which includes the Government. When it is necessary to refer to the Legislature excluding members of the Government the term ‘Assembly’ will be used.

According to Montesquieu’s classical exposition there were not two powers but three, the third being the judicial. However, the independence of the judiciary in the sense of non-interference by the Government is now well-established and is a characteristic of all three theories of government. In over half the countries of the world judicial independence is thought to mean the right of judges, as guardians of the constitution, to overrule the legislative and or executive branches. This legacy of the theory of the separation of powers is frequently found in parliamentary systems.

Not all parliamentary systems are monarchical, and in those countries which are republics another personage, usually called the President, takes the place of the constitutional monarch as Head of State. A noteworthy feature of several republics is that at one time they too were monarchies, but during revolutions the monarchy was swept away. The process of constitutional development was often crowded into a very short period, some republics passing straight from a state of monarchical despotism to a form of parliamentarism. ‘In fifty-three days the representative assembly of France had been transformed from a medieval gathering of the King’s principal subjects, grouped into three distinct classes, into a modern parliament composed of the Deputies of the people.’ (Lidderdale, D. W. S., The Parliament of France, pp. 6–7.) In such circumstances it is hardly surprising that the process of transformation was not as smooth as in Britain or Scandinavia.

The first characteristic of parliamentarism may now be summarized. It is a political system where the Executive, once separate, has been challenged by the Assembly which is then transformed into a Parliament comprising both Government and Assembly.

2. THE EXECUTIVE IS DIVIDED INTO TWO PARTS

One important consequence of the transformation of the Assembly into a Parliament is that the Executive is now split in two, a Prime Minister or Chancellor becoming head of the Government and the Monarch or President acting as Head of State. Usually the Monarch occupies his throne by hereditary title (though elected monarchies, e.g. in Malaya, are not unknown), while a President is elected by Parliament. It does not follow that the Head of State fills a purely formal or decorative office. Constitutional monarchs still have important prerogatives and even if those which they do not (or dare not) use are left out of consideration there remains a considerable field in which their powers are politically significant.

In principle there should be no objection to, and perhaps much to be said for, a clear statement of the respective functions of Head of State and Government. But the British view appears to be that the relationship of the two parts of the Executive is better left to the operation of flexible convention than written into the law of the Constitution. In several European monarchies there has been a similar transfer of power from Monarch to Ministry, but without a re-statement of their respective functions. Thus Article 4 of the Swedish Constitution still reads: ‘The King alone shall govern the realm’. Part of Article 30 of the Norwegian Constitution reads: ‘Everyone who holds a seat in the Council is in duty bound to express fearlessly his opinions, to which the King is bound to listen. But it remains with the King to take a resolution according to his own judgement.’ The Governments of these countries are thus shielded by the Constitution when they claim freedom of action on the part of the Crown whose powers they wield.

Where the Head of State is a President there is less reticence about making the duties of the divided Executive explicit, presumably because the President is elected by Parliament. In constitutional monarchies experience has...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• I Introduction
• Part I: The Structure of Government
• Part II: The Political Process
• Part III: Conclusion
• Index