1. Government and Politics in Europe October 9, 2014
By Hung-jen Wang
王宏仁

2. Today’s Outline
Comparative political system: Prime Ministers and Presidents [To continue last lecture]
Comparative political system: Parliaments

3. Comparative Political System: Prime Ministers and Presidents

4. The Prime Minister
Political chief executive: prime minister, or, chancellor.
A European prime minister is not only the chief executive of the state, but also the head of one of the main (or largest) legislative parties.
Four facets of the power of prime minister:
His/her power is approved by parliament as the political head of the government;
His/her power arises from the rather modest role of the head of state (president);
His/her massive power is from the combined position as head of both the cabinet and a major political party;
His/her power is from the incredible complexity and specialization of the tasks involved in administering any modern state.

5. Three methods to dismiss the prime minister:
An election;
A change in the coalition of legislators that originally put the prime minister into office;
From within the prime minister’s own party:
For example, Margaret Thatcher, UK (1990)

6. The Cabinet
The prime minister + the cabinet=the government of the country
The cabinet includes a set of ministers, and each minister plays two roles: (1) as head of a government department; (2) as member of the cabinet itself: the doctrine of “collective cabinet responsibility”.
For example, Greece

7. Parliamentary Democracy and Legislative Majorities
The executive is responsible to the legislature through two mechanisms:
legislative votes of investiture: the government must have the explicit or implicit support of a legislative majority.
confidence in the government:
“Vote of no confidence” and
“vote of confidence”

8. Heads of States and Formateurs
The head of state: To participate in the building of forming a new government.
Formateur (Greece, Britain, and Ireland) and informateur (Netherlands)

9. Comparative Political System: Parliaments

10. Parliaments
In classical liberal democratic theory, the government merely does the bidding of parliament; that is, the government is merely an “agent” of parliament.
In reality, this was never really the way things worked in European states.

11. Who Is More Powerful?
It is a wrong question to ask “How much power do parliaments have versus governments?” when we try to understand European politics.
It is more realistic to see parliament as wielding power through the government that it has elected than to see it as seeking to check a government that has come into being independently of it (the latter is the case of U.S.)
Why? Because in Europe both of governments and parliaments are dominated by political parties, and these parties are powerful and generally well-disciplined.

12. Two Types of Parliament
According to Arend Lijphart, there are two types of model:
The Westminster-type “majoritarian” model: the United Kingdom is the clearest European example, but Greece, France, and Malta are also in this category. [interparty mode]
The “consensus” model: The clearest European example is Switzerland, but Germany, the Netherlands, and Austria are also in this category. [the cross-party or nonparty mode]

13. Appointing and Dismissing Governments
It is too simplistic to say that the U.S. Congress is powerful and the parliaments of Europe are “weak”. Why?
If a parliament does pass a motion of no confidence in the government, the latter has two options: either to resign and allow parliament to elect a new government, or to dissolve parliament and call a general election.
In Belgium, Germany, Poland, and Spain, they employ the “constructive vote of no confidence”.
However, the parliaments of Europe use this power so rarely because usually they do not need to use it: what is important here is not how parliament has used the power but the fact that it possesses it in the first place.

14. Parliaments and Lawmaking
European parliaments are “reactive” rather than “active” in that they possess modest rather than strong policy-making powers. Why?
Variation by the distinction between majoritarian and consensus systems of governments: Three institutional features
The seating arrangements in the chamber: (1) In countries like Britain and Ireland, government ministers and their opposition counterparts face each other across the chamber [to engender a confrontational attitude]; (2) In Iceland, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Portugal, Finland, Greece, and the Netherlands, government members sit together facing the entire chamber of members of parliament (MPs) [to lead to collective consciousness on the part of MPs]; (3) MPs are usually seated by party, but in Norway and Sweden by constituency, and in Iceland by lot.

15. The Italian Parliament Switzerland, Parliament
Dáil Éireann, Ireland
Alþingi, Iceland
The Italian Parliament
Switzerland, Parliament

16. Parliaments and Lawmaking in Majoritarian Countries
Greece: The Greek parliament (the Vouli); two main parties, New Democracy and PASOK.
UK: the name of the main nongovernment party “Her Majesty’s Opposition”.
Ireland: Government and parliament, like U.K., are almost entirely “fused”.

17. Parliaments and Lawmaking in Consensus Countries
Germany: Bundestag (National Assembly), the committees and the opposition [a cross-party, co-govern mode]
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18. Germany: Bundestag (National Assembly)

24. Other consensus countries: Austria (committees are significant), the Netherlands (committees play an important role in considering legislation), Scandinavia (emphasis on “working parliaments” rather than debating societies like that of UK), and Italy (secret ballots).