Parliamentary Democracy

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The majority of the countries in Europe have a Parliamentary system in which they have cabinet which is led by the Prime minister and there is the Head of state which can be a President or the respective monarch if the country is a symbolic monarchy. Especially the function of the President is rather vague as it depends on the state. If the monarch is the head of state, the power is often limited in order to limit the unequal influence of the monarch. This differs with the President as he might have more influence as he can be democratically elected Therefore, it can be argued that Parliamentary democracy is one of the most affective governmental systems as it frequently appears in Europe. This essay will examine whether parliament is the …show more content…
Similar to Spain, the House of Lords (Upper Chamber) has limited power as it can only delay the bills proposed by the House of Commons. Thus, the House of Commons is the most influential institution within parliament. The House of Commons is divided by the coalition and Her majesty official Opposition. The coalition assembles the Cabinet which is headed by the Prime-Minister. The Prime-Minister is appointed by her majesty the Queen who also inaugurates the cabinet. The Queen also dissolves the cabinet officially and has to give orders for new elections. However, as in most of the monarchies the function of the monarch is only symbolic (Strøm et al, p.150, 2000). The cabinet can be removed by a vote of no-confidence which can be proposed by any member and similar to the Spanish parliament is directed at the cabinet as a whole (Strøm et al, p. 157, 2000). On the other hand, the Prime-Minister can insist on dissolution of the cabinet at any time which occurred frequently in order to call for new elections. This was mostly used as an political tool to ensure a victory and ensure the office of the coherent party (Strøm, p. 140, 2000). Similar to Spain, the Prime-Minister is accountable for the entire cabinet, but during the weekly “Question Time”, the MP’s can ask all their questions to the respective minister or to the PM. …show more content…
In order to get an insight in the strength of these two parameters, the delegation of power and the shared accountability was examined by reviewing the appointment of the PM in which it should be noted that in Sweden the appointment is delegated to the Riksdag while in the other two countries the PM is appointed by the Head of State. Secondly, the delegation of power within cabinet was assessed and again it is noteworthy that in Sweden the cabinet functions as a whole whereas in the United Kingdom and Spain the PM contains the most of the power. The delegation of power from cabinet to the Lower Chamber is also interesting as Sweden and the United Kingdom delegate more power to the lower chamber, than Spain does. The MP’s have more possibilities to scrutinise the cabinet, but in both Spain and the United Kingdom only the PM is accountable for the cabinet. In addition, it can also be noticed that the delegation of power from the Lower Chamber to the constituency is relatively better in Sweden and the United Kingdom as the voters have more representatives or the MP’s are more inclined to represent their constituency, whereas as in Spain there is an overrepresentation of the right wing and the

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