Department of Political Science & Sociology

POL101: INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL SCIENCE

DR. KAZI N.H. HAQUE

Asst Professor (Part-time)
PSS, NSU

Lecture No. 4
LEARNING OBJECTIVES

➢ Definition of Legislature
➢ Parliament: trace the origin
➢ Presidential System
➢ Parliamentary System
➢ What is cabinet, government administration
➢ Bicameral and unicameral
LEGISLATURE

➢ English philosopher John Locke posited the “legislative” as the most

important branch of government.
➢ A body of persons given the responsibility and power to make laws
for a country or state.
➢ A deliberative body of persons, usually elective, who are
empowered to make, change, or repeal the laws of a country or
state; the branch of government having the power to make laws.
PARLIAMENT: TRACE THE ORIGIN-1

➢ Primitive clans mostly had a single leader to govern. Tribes added

councils to debate major problems and adjudicate disputes.
➢ City-states such as Athens had assemblies that combined
legislative, executive, and judicial functions.
➢ In the Middle Ages, the prevailing feudal system was a balance
among a monarch, nobles, and leading churchmen, and it is in
feudalism that we first glimpse the “balance of power.”
PARLIAMENT: TRACE THE ORIGIN-2

➢ John Locke, the English philosopher extolled the power of the “legislative” as
the most basic and important.
➢ French philosopher Montesquieu declared that liberty could be secured only if
government were divided into two distinct branches, the legislative and the
executive, with the ability to check and balance each other.
➢ The legislature enacts laws that allocate values for society, and the executive
branch enforces the statutes passed by the legislature.
AMERICAN LEGISLATURE

Figure 1: House of Representative (USA).

PRESIDENTIAL SYSTEM

➢ A presidential system is a form of government in which a

head of government leads an executive branch that is
separate from the legislative branch in systems that use
separation of powers.
➢ In presidential countries, the head of government is elected
and is not responsible to the legislature, which cannot
(usually) in normal circumstances dismiss the president.
PARLIAMENTARY SYSTEM

➢ A parliamentary system or parliamentary democracy is a

system of democratic governance of a state where the
executive derives its democratic legitimacy from its ability to
command the support of the legislature, typically a
parliament, to which it is accountable.
➢ In a parliamentary system, the head of state is usually a
person distinct from the head of government.
PARLIAMENTARY VERSUS PRESIDENTIAL SYSTEMS
 CONTRAST PARLIAMENTARY AND PRESIDENTIAL SYSTEMS

➢ Presidential systems most clearly show the separation of power between the
executive and legislative branches.
➢ These systems, a minority of the world’s governments, have a president who
combines the offices of head of state with chief of government.
➢ In parliamentary systems, the head of state is an office distinct from the chief of
government.
➢ In this system, the prime minister is the important figure.
 CABINET, GOVERNMENT AND ADMINISTRATION

➢ Cabinet-Top executives who head major ministries or departments.

➢ A government is the system to govern a state or community.
➢ Administration is the execution of public affairs as distinguished from policy-
making.
 ADVANTAGES OF PARLIAMENTARY SYSTEMS

➢ Cannot suffer from deadlock; what the majority wants the majority gets, because
the executive and legislative branches are controlled by the same party.
➢ If there is a disagreement, a no-confidence vote can occur, which means no long,
drawn-out political drama, which makes removing executives easier.
➢ No- confidence votes are rare though in most parliamentary systems nowadays.
➢ Members of parliament supervised by their parties in parliamentary system.
 DISADVANTAGES OF PARLIAMENTARY SYSTEMS

➢ Votes in parliament can be closely predicted due to high levels of party discipline.
➢ Can be prone to coalition governments, which can be less stable in maintaining the
coherence of the government.
➢ When no party has a majority, an alternative is to form a minority government that
depends on the passive support of other political parties.
 BICAMERAL AND UNICAMERAL

➢ Bicameral: parliament having two chambers: upper and lower such as the U.S.
House of Representatives, British House of Commons, French National Assembly,
or German Bundestag.
➢ Unicameral: Parliament with one chamber. such as China’s National Peoples
Congress, Sweden’s Riksdag, and Israel’s Knesset.
 THE PURPOSE OF A BICAMERAL LEGISLATURE

➢ Two-thirds of legislatures in the world have bicameral systems (two houses).

➢ The main reason for bicameralism comes from the institutional choice of
federalism.
➢ In a federal system, the upper house represents component parts such as states or
provinces while the lower house represents districts based on population.
➢ Only in the United States are the two houses of the legislature co-equal, and some
would argue that the U.S.
 WHAT LEGISLATURES DO

➢ Most of the power of legislatures lies in the committee system, which can make or
break legislative proposals.
➢ Committees are critical to the ability of legislatures to function.
➢ Public hearings are a mechanism for getting citizen and interest-group input on
legislation.
➢ United States has the most well-defined committee system, in part because of
separation of powers.
 WHAT LEGISLATURES DO LAWMAKING CONSTITUENCY
WORK

➢ Legislatures pass laws but rarely originate laws anymore.

➢ Most of the legislative initiative rests with executive departments and agencies
making legislatures reactive institutions as they respond to the initiatives of others.
➢ Legislators spend a great deal of time on constituency casework, in which they
intervene on behalf of a constituent to help solve problems.
 WHAT LEGISLATURES DO REPRESENTATION

➢ A large part of representation is psychological, which means that while legislatures

may not always represent the needs and concerns of citizens, at a minimum
people need to feel like the legislature represents them.
➢ Time reserved in Commons for opposition to challenge cabinet.
➢ System of strict racial segregation formerly practiced in South Africa.
 FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO THE DECLINE OF
LEGISLATURES

➢ Psychological Disadvantage-Focus on president is disproportionate to actual

power.
➢ Absentee Problem-Few to none are present during debate and many are absent
during votes.
➢ Lack of Turnover-Approval of congress is strikingly low compared to the high
incumbent reelection ratepork barrel: Government projects aimed at legislators'
constituencies, also called earmarks.