Parliament

The parliamentary system of government began in Great Britain and is used in countries as diverse as Morocco, India, and Italy. The first British parliament is generally believed to have formed in 1265 when Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester (ca. 1208–65) called a special meeting of the king’s council to advise Henry III (1207–72) during the Second Barons’ War. The foundation of parliamentary government lies in the concept of mixed regimes in which elements of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy merged into a single system. The concept of mixed regimes originated with the teachings of ancient Greek political thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle. In Great Britain, adopting a mixed regime resulted in combining a constitutional monarchy with a legislature made up of an upper house of aristocrats (House of Lords) and a popularly elected lower house (House of Commons). While checks and balances do exist in parliamentary systems such as Britain’s, there is no real separation between the executive and legislative branches of government.

Background

By the fourteenth century, the British Parliament was made up of knights and burgesses from the various cities and boroughs, as well as the lords temporal (magistrates) and the lords spiritual (bishops and abbots). Since the lower house was seen as representative of the people, it took on responsibilities for fundamental governance, including making revenue policy decisions; the House of Lords accepted responsibility for redress of grievances. During the Glorious Revolution of 1688–89, Parliament gained sovereign control of the British government, creating a constitutional monarchy to limit the powers of the monarch. Robert Walpole (1676–1745), generally considered the first prime minister of England (although he rejected the label, preferring his official title of first lord of the treasury), helped define and solidify the powers of Parliament.

The parliamentary government of Great Britain, which pioneered the Westminster (or responsible) government system of democracy, has served as a model for governments throughout the world. In the Westminster system, the government is essentially run by the popularly elected lower house of the national legislature. The political party that wins the most votes in a given election forms the government, and the leader of that party becomes the prime minister. In addition to serving in the House of Commons, the prime minister heads the cabinet, which is responsible for carrying out the responsibilities of daily governance. The cabinet remains answerable to the House of Commons.

With the passage of the Parliament Act of 1911, the House of Lords lost its power of veto over the House of Commons. In 1999, under Prime Minister Tony Blair, the right of hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords was abolished, and all but ninety-two hereditary peers were expelled. Members of the House of Lords are now nominated by the prime minister and appointed by the monarch.

A major difference between the US and British systems of government is the nature of their constitutions. The US Constitution is a single written document that places limits on all branches of government, and any changes must be made via constitutional amendment. By contrast, the British constitution is largely conceptual; rather than a single written document, it comprises the sum of various written documents as well as an unwritten body of conventions and precedents, and acts of Parliament become part of the living constitution. Because Parliament is supreme in Britain, the judicial branch has no power to overturn its acts. Likewise, no new parliamentary body is bound by the actions of its predecessors, although structural policy changes tend to remain in place.

Parliament Today

Beyond the basics of the Westminster system, different countries determine which elements of government best serve their individual needs. Unlike in Britain, where the House of Lords was originally made up of individuals who had inherited titles of nobility, Australia’s upper house is known as the Senate and is similar to US Senate, with twelve members elected from each of Australia’s six states and two from each of the mainland territories, for a total of seventy-six. New Zealand’s parliament is unicameral rather than bicameral, consisting of seventy members popularly elected from single-member districts and fifty members selected from the party lists based on proportional representation.

Political parties are essential to governance in a parliamentary system. Because power is exercised by maintaining the position of majority party, party discipline tends to be rigid. For instance, in Britain, parties sit on opposite sides of the aisle, and anyone who chooses to vote against his or her own party must physically cross the aisle. Anyone who fails to vote along party lines on major issues may face eviction from his or her party. Abstaining from voting is also viewed as being disloyal to the party. Unlike in the US Congress, where the Speaker of the House of Representatives is a member of the majority party, the Speaker of the House of Commons is ostensibly nonpartisan, although they are elected by the majority party. In both systems, party whips are responsible for lining up votes. In countries where no single party musters a majority, two or more minority parties may form a coalition to run the government.

In some parliamentary systems, the government may change quickly rather than at a designated point in time. If members of parliament, or MPs for short, lose confidence in the prime minister, the government may be dissolved and new elections held. Because of the need to be ready if power shifts suddenly, the political party with the second-highest number of votes in a given election is designated as the official "opposition." The opposition forms a shadow cabinet of top advisers who are ready to take over the government should their party win in the next election.

In a parliamentary system, there may also be a constitutional monarch who serves as the symbolic chief of state, in which case the system is known as a parliamentary monarchy or a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Since 2023, for example, King Charles III has served as the head of state for Great Britain and for the fifty-six sovereign nations that are members of the British Commonwealth. While the British monarch traditionally calls Parliament into session and may dissolve the government upon request of the prime minister, he or she has no actual control over parliamentary actions. Parliamentary systems that do not have a monarch may have both a president and a prime minister, with the former serving as head of state and the latter serving as head of government. Like the American civil service, the parliamentary public service is made up of career-oriented individuals who are hired independently of politics and remain on the job regardless of the party in power.

Bibliography

Armitage, David. Foundations of Modern International Thought. Cambridge UP, 2013.

Besly, Nicolas, and Tom Goldsmith. How Parliament Works. 9th ed. Routledge, 2023.

Calabresi, Steven G., Mark E. Berghausen, and Skylar Albertson. "The Rise and Fall of the Separation of Powers." Northwestern University Law Review, vol. 106, no. 2, 2012, pp. 527–49.

Congleton, Roger D. Perfecting Parliament: Constitutional Reform, Liberalism, and the Rise of Western Democracy. Cambridge UP, 2011.

Leston-Bandeira, Cristina, and David Bender. "How Deeply Are Parliaments Engaging in Social Media?" Information Polity, vol. 18, no. 4, 2013, pp. 281–297.

Martin, Lanny W., and Georg Vanberg. Parliament and Coalitions: The Role of Legislative Institution in Multiparty Governance. Oxford UP, 2011.

Pelizzo, Riccardo, and Frederick Stapenhurst. Government Accountability and Legislative Oversight. Routledge, 2014.

Rose, Richard. Representing Europeans: A Pragmatic Approach. Oxford UP, 2013.

Weinstock, Daniel. "The Conservative Assault on Parliamentary Government." Labour / Le Travail, vol. 73, 2014, pp. 228–230, www.lltjournal.ca/index.php/llt/article/view/5795/6656. Accessed 19 July 2024.