parliamentary government

[cellio]

I've never lived under a parliamentary government, and watching them from the outside can sometimes be confusing. Most of my "information" comes from watching Israeli politics, with occasional supplements from Canada; I realize these aren't the only such governments and that each country presumably has its own quirks. But there are some things I wonder about, including wondering which ones are inherrent properties and which are quirks.

I infer that creating new political parties -- that have standing to run in national elections, I mean -- is fairly easy. Israel has a plethora of parties. Sharon is quitting his own party to form a new one, and the last election saw a new party that was one of the top three vote-getters. In the US this is hard; there are lots of parties, but the Democrats and Republicans have privileged access to both the ballot and tax-funded campaign money, so it's not a level playing field. From the outside, it looks like Sharon's new party will occupy the same niche as that new party from last time (Shinui) -- but presumably it would be a sign of political weakness for him to just join the party he ran against, while the cost of starting a new one is low, so he forms his own. Because it's a coalition government, he and those other guys may well end up in the same voting block anyway.

Is that sort of thing the reason that there are bunches of small parties, most of which secures its 3 or 4 seats in a 120-seat parliament? Do parties ever die off? Do prominent players ever change parties, as opposed to creating new ones? Or, alternatively, do you get a lot of one-off parties, ones that are formed for one election and then fade away?

I find the idea of proportional seats in government (based on the vote split) to be interesting. It's a stark contrast to what we have in the US, where in each race the winner takes all. The only thing that keeps the ruling party from running roughshod over everyone -- when anything does, I mean -- is that there are lots of these races. I wonder how different US politics would be if Congress were made up of Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Greens, Constitutionalists, and whatever else in rough proportion to their distribution in the population, with the president being not individually elected but the head of the party that got the most votes. (I perceive that our president has roughly the powers of a prime minister in the parliamentary system.) On the other hand, in a system like Israel's the elected representatives aren't individually accountable to the voters, so it can be hard for the people to remove someone they don't like.

The ever-changing bedfellows of parliamentary governments can get hard to follow without a score-card. I sometimes wonder how they get anything done. (But that can be a feature. :-) )

Speaking of getting things done, I couldn't find an answer to this at Wikipedia: between the time the parliament is disolved and the time elections are held, how does governance happen? For example, the Israeli parliament was dissolved today and elections will be in February or March; who makes decisions in the meantime? Or does this mean they're in a mode of "administration but not law-making"? (Is that a relevant difference? Which category would contain the budget?)

Comments

[jslove.livejournal.com]

between the time the parliament is dissolved and the time elections are held, how does governance happen?

The phrase I recall, and it's from Double Star, a Heinlein book, is caretaker government. There is actually a short article on this in Wikipedia, under caretaker in politics. I don't know anything about the rules for forming a caretaker government after a no-confidence vote, or after a government is dissolved for new elections, but I expect such rules would be part of the constitution for a parliamentary system, and therefore could vary quite a bit from country to country.

Many constitutions must be available on-line. I'm not sure all would be in English translation, but at least Canada and Great Britain ought to be easy to find. Israel might want the ability to read Hebrew; I haven't checked.

[pedropadrao.livejournal.com]

Actually, the UK doesn't have a written constitution, so you'd look in vain. That being said, in a caretaker situation, things apparently just go into housekeeping mode-no bills are passed, no major appointments.

[jslove.livejournal.com]

Ah, well, my ignorance is showing; I never claimed expertise. Thanks for pointing that out.

It's easy for bureaucracies to go into housekeeping mode. It's really just business as usual. Perhaps the military likewise: the generals would have enough latitude to deal with most problems, and hopefully could postpone anything really major until after the elections. With a monarchy in the background, there is always someone to step up to the plate, perhaps, if an emergency required policy decisions or someone to speak for the country and parliament were unavailable. Lacking that, the problem of forming a viable caretaker government might be more acute. Israel, in particular, has reason to fear being attacked while vulnerable; perhaps their rules would be enlightening.

Google turned up a list of countries and their governing documents. There are several governments with no formal constitutions as such, including Canada, Israel and the U.K. The list of government types there might be more useful for finding those with both parliamentary systems and constitutions.

[cafemusique.livejournal.com]

Actually, Canada's does have a constitution, it is just spread over various documents. Especially in 1867 (at Confederation) and in 1982. There are unwritten traditions, but not enough that Canada could be said to not have a formal constitution.

(BTW, as LJ's mail server gets back to normal, I got a reply message just tonight to my comment on this entry...which is why I'm responding so late to this.)

[cellio]

Thanks. I hadn't heard the term "caretaker government" before.