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Parliamentary system

Form of government

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Countries with parliamentary systems may be constitutional monarchies, where a monarch is the head of state, or parliamentary republics, where a mostly ceremonial president is the head of state, while the head of government, commonly referred to as prime minister, is almost always a member of parliament. In some countries, the head of government is also head of state but is elected by the legislature. In bicameral parliaments, the head of government is generally, though not always, a member of the lower house. Typically, the head of state in a parliamentary republic is elected by popular vote; however, in some cases they are elected by an electoral college (e.g. Germany) or by members of parliament (e.g. Italy) in a special process.

Parliamentary systems are the predominant form of government in the European Union, Oceania, and throughout the former British Empire, with other users scattered throughout Africa and Asia. A similar system, called a council–manager government, is used by many local governments in the United States.

History

The first parliaments date back to Europe in the Middle Ages. The earliest example of a parliament is disputed, especially depending how the term is defined. For example, the Icelandic Althing consisting of prominent individuals among the free landowners of the various districts of the Icelandic Commonwealth first gathered around the year 930 (it conducted its business orally, with no written record allowing an exact date). The first written record of a parliament, in particular in the sense of an assembly separate from the population called in presence of a king was in 1188, when Alfonso IX of León convened the three states in the Cortes of León. The Corts of Catalonia were the first parliament of Europe that officially obtained the power to pass legislation, apart from the custom. An early example of parliamentary government also occurred in today's Netherlands and Belgium during the Dutch revolt (1581), when the sovereign, legislative and executive powers were taken over by the States General of the Netherlands from the monarch, King Philip II of Spain.

In England, Simon de Montfort is remembered as one of the figures relevant later for convening two famous parliaments. The first, in 1258, stripped the king of unlimited authority and the second, in 1265, included ordinary citizens from the towns. Later, in the 17th century, the Parliament of England pioneered some of the ideas and systems of liberal democracy culminating in the Glorious Revolution and passage of the Bill of Rights 1689. In the Kingdom of Great Britain, the monarch in theory chaired the cabinet and chose ministers. In practice, King George I's inability to speak English led to the responsibility for chairing cabinet to go to the leading minister, literally the prime or first minister, Robert Walpole. The gradual democratisation of Parliament with the broadening of the voting franchise increased Parliament's role in controlling government, and in deciding whom the king could ask to form a government. By the 19th century, the Great Reform Act 1832 led to parliamentary dominance, with its choice deciding who was prime minister and the complexion of the government.

Other countries gradually adopted what came to be called the Westminster system of government, with an executive answerable to the lower house of a bicameral parliament, and exercising, in the name of the head of state, powers nominally vested in the head of state – hence the use of phrases such as His Majesty's government (in constitutional monarchies) or His Excellency's government (in parliamentary republics). Such a system became particularly prevalent in older British dominions, many of which had their constitutions enacted by the British parliament; such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the Irish Free State and the Union of South Africa. Some of these parliaments were reformed from, or were initially developed as distinct from their original British model: the Australian Senate, for instance, has since its inception more closely reflected the U.S. Senate than the British House of Lords. Some of these countries, such as Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados, have severed institutional ties to Great Britain by becoming republics with their own ceremonial presidents, but still retaining the Westminster system. The idea of parliamentary accountability and responsible government spread with these systems.

Democracy and parliamentarianism became increasingly prevalent in Europe in the years after World War I. This was partially imposed by the occupation and later the laws made by democratic victors—the U.S., Great Britain and France—on the defeated countries and their successors, notably Germany's Weimar Republic and the First Austrian Republic. Nineteenth-century urbanisation, the Industrial Revolution and modernism had already made the parliamentarist demands of the radicals and the emerging movement of social democrats increasingly difficult to ignore; these forces came to dominate many states that transitioned to parliamentarism, particularly in the French Third Republic where the Radical Party and its centre-left allies dominated the government for several decades. The rise of fascism in the 1930s put an end to parliamentary democracy in Italy and Germany, among others. After the World War II, the defeated Axis powers were occupied by the victorious Allies. In those countries occupied by the Allied democracies (the United States, United Kingdom, and France) parliamentary constitutions were implemented, resulting in the Constitutions of Italy, Germany, and Japan. The experiences of the war in the occupied nations where the legitimate democratic governments were allowed to return strengthened the public commitment to parliamentary principles; in Denmark, a new constitution was written in 1953, while a long and acrimonious debate in Norway resulted in no changes being made to the Constitution of Norway, a strongly entrenched democratic constitution.

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