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29 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Executives |
they implement and administer the laws passed by legislature . Contribute to the making of law. |
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Head of State vs. Head of Government |
HOS - the person outsiders see as leader of country, country's symbolic national representative HOG - person in charge of day to day running of the state, responsible for forming governments and formulating and implementing policies |
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Formal and partisan powers of executives |
Formal - ability of some presidents to veto laws, can issue executive orders, dissolve the legislature, and declare state of emergency. More formal powers for executives leads to greater influence over legislatures Partisan - presidents leverage over same-party legislators and over parties in the governing coalition. |
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Presidential systems: key traits, advantagesand disadvantages |
Key traits: Single HOS and HOG, single executive with real decision making powers, separate elections and survival, shares in lawmaking and responsibility. Advantages: Very difficult for one person to dominate, stabilizes policies and preferences (slow moving; not quick to respond to crisis) Disadvantages: long history of highlighting the dysfunction of presidential systems, divided gov and gridlock. |
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"Separate" survival and elections |
for positions in Presidential systems |
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Gridlock / divided government |
gridlock: no one budges, nothing gets done. sown into seeds of system divided gov: executive and legislature branches are held by different parties. |
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Dual legitimacy |
two sources of legitimacy, both represent will of people and each claim to hold political power, |
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fixed terms |
presidents can only serve a limited amount of time, make problems worse |
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Zero-sum elections |
"winner takes all" victory cannot be distributed easily, one person gain is directly offset by someone else's loss |
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The "European Model" of democracy |
Parliamentary System |
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“government” in a parliamentary system |
Individual PM - head of government & his or her cabinet officials (similar to secretarys) |
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Parliamentary systems: key traits, advantagesand disadvantages |
Key traits: citizens vote once, but selection of executive follows a 2-step process. the executive is fully accountable to the legislature, the legislature can vote the executive out of office, and no fixed electoral terms(snap elections) Advantages + Disadvantages: very efficient but has potential to be exclusionary. |
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Indirect election |
citizens for MP's, MP's vote for prime minister |
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Prime ministers question time |
executive is full accountable to legislature.
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Vote of confidence |
referendum on governments majority support |
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Snap election |
an election before scheduled election |
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Single party majority government (featuresand consequences) |
parties beside s the dominant one are banned or disallowed |
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Party discipline |
the way your party wants you to vote, you vote. |
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Coalitions (features and consequences) |
small groups overcome their differences and come together to reach a big goal . |
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Grand Coalitions |
unity of 2 largest vote getting parties |
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Legislature |
assembly or body of representatives with the authority to make laws |
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Chambers and bicameralism |
chambers - one of such two bodies in a bicameral legislature bicameralism - legislature with 2 chambers, which may have equal or unequal powers |
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Electoral districts |
a specific unit of the country that elects a legislator |
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District magnitude |
number of legislatures elected from an individual electoral district |
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Single member district plurality |
-Only one seat per contested district -voters can cast ballot for a single candidate -candidate with plurality (largest share) wins seat |
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Proportional representation |
mulitmember districts - used by majority of liberal democracies - proportion of votes = percentage of total seats - voters cast vote for a party that competes in multimember districts - votes are tallied and seats divided by percentage gained by each party |
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Consequences of different electoral systems |
many more parties in legislature may lead to coalition government
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Duverger’s Law |
result is a two party system - people unwilling to vote for small parties. parties move to the center to capture "median voter" |
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Thresholds |
specific number that you have to get above inorder to claim a seat |
