Week 3

Question 1

What do Constitution’s regulate?

Answer 1

• Regulate the relationship between state and citizens
• Regulate the relationship between state organs

Question 2

Montesquieu

Answer 2

• Did not invent separation of powers (that was Locke)
• Central idea was that: for different eras, different cultures, and different groups of people, different solutions will be needed. This is different to the traditional thinking of the time that was knowledge acquired in antiquity was superior to all else

Question 3

Montesquieu’s three methods of ruling

Answer 3

• Monarchy: driven by central idea of ‘glory’
• Aristocracy: driven by central idea of ‘virtue/inner nobility’
  *Democracy: driven by central idea of ‘equality’

Question 4

Locke separation of powers

Answer 4

*Actually came up with separation of powers we see today
* Executive and judicial were one power, then legislative, then federative power
* One power inward, two powers outward

Question 5

U.S. separation of powers

Answer 5

*Came up with the Head of State (Presidential) System to battle the whole monarchy thing
* All legislative power granted to Congress
* Executive power with the President: President must sign all laws passed by Congress; If President refuses to sign law, then it goes back to Congress to try and get 2/3 majority to overrule; President appoints ministers (not part of congress) and other civil servants
* Judges appointed for life with judicial power
* Cannot be Minister (part of executive) and Congressperson (part of legislative)
* However, didn’t think about the problem of one political party owning all three branches because then there isn’t much of a separation of power

Question 6

European monarchies separation of powers

Answer 6

Creation of laws is done by King (part of executive) and legislative together

Question 7

UK separation of powers

Answer 7

• Minister must be MP (part of both executive and legislative) as in British Constitution, only an MP can speak in Parliament
• So, for Minister to question and defend what he does, he must be able to speak in Parliament and hence must be an MP

Question 8

France separation of powers

Answer 8

• Now has Head of State after Napoleon’s nephew messed things up
• Initially, rejected this idea as they thought ruling the state should be a collective thing, instead of having a ‘Head of State’
• President has real powers, directly elected by the people, but still responsible to Parliament in many ways
• Prime Minister is head of government and the prime minister is appointed by the president of France, who is theoretically free to pick whomever they please for the post. In practice, because the National Assembly does have the power to force the resignation of the government by adopting a motion of censure, the choice of prime minister must reflect the will of the majority in the National Assembly.
• Semi-Presidential system

Question 9

Germany separation of powers

Answer 9

• Republic
• Has President with some formal powers
• But Federal Chancellor has real powers
• Constitution can appoint ministers nominated by the Chancellor who must have confidence of Parliament

Question 10

Presidential system

Answer 10

• Independent executive from legislative
• Two sources of legitimacy: parliament and head of state (who is also the head of government)
• Means that you have the same system as America
• President is independent from Parliament, has his own separate powers, and is superior to his Ministers
• Government executed by President and his Ministers (executive), who operate independently from Parliament (legislative)

Question 11

Parliamentary system

Answer 11

• Dependent executive on legislative
• One source of legitimacy: parliament
• Invented by British and all remaining Monarchies in Europe are Parliamentary
• Ministers must be responsible to parliament and since parliament is elected by the people, they are thereby responsible to the people
• The Executive is dependent on the Parliament (Executive depends on Legislative)
• I.e., executive can be ousted by Vote of No Confidence
  PM is head of government while monarch is head of state

Question 12

Republics with a Parliamentary system

Answer 12

• Has a President that is not directly elected, rather elected or appointed by Parliament itself (has few powers)
  *Has Prime Minister with real powers
• E.g., Pakistan

Question 13

Marbury v Madison

Answer 13

• Established principle of judicial review
• American courts have power to strike down laws and statutes that violate Constitution
• US Constitution is actual law, not just a statement of political principles and ideals
• Helped define boundary between legislative, executive, and judicial branches
  *Judge Marshall reasoned that the Constitution places limits on American government’s powers, and that those limits would be meaningless unless subject to judicial review and enforcement

Question 14

Separation of powers in (most) legislatures

Answer 14

• Legislative divided into two houses
• Bicameralism
• Two houses can control each other
• In a federal state (like the US or Canada), the lower chamber represents the people, and the upper chamber represents states/sub-units
  *In Italy, both chambers have exact same powers and elected in the same way

Question 15

Two types of electoral systems

Answer 15

• Majority system
• Proportional representation

Question 16

Majority electoral system

Answer 16

• UK, Canada (FPTP)
• Seats in parliament distributed amongst districts in the country and a person gives vote to candidate of their preference in that district
• Candidate that got most votes in their district becomes MP of that district in the House of Representatives (lower chamber)
• Problems with the majority system are: Person can win vote with just 30% of the overall votes as the votes are broken up and lost among other candidates, favours ‘big parties’, voters will engage in strategic voting and will lead to a ‘two party’ equilibrium (see: voting Liberal although you support NDP just to keep Conservatives out), and is not a fair representation of the actual political ideologies of people
• Advantages with majority system are: leads to very clear election results (one party will win the majority of the seats to form government) which means problems by that party will be addressed, formation of government is quick, and is very good at legitimizing strong, clear governments

Question 17

Proportional representation electoral system

Answer 17

• Country is seen as one big electoral district, and everyone casts their votes, and the percentage nation-wide translates to percentage of seats you get
• Advantage: Parliament actually reflects political ideologies and divisions in the country
• Disadvantage: parliament is almost always extremely divided and forming government is difficult. Because of this, many countries have certain tricks to not have parliament too divided such as the minimum threshold - your party needs to at least get a certain percentage to be in parliament (5%). This results in less parties but then not as accurate of country’s political ideologies

Question 18

Netherlands has what kind of electoral system?

Answer 18

• Proportional representation
• 150 seats divided over 20 political parties
• Government always has to rule through coalition agreements
• Have majority of seats in parliament between the ruling coalition parties to rule

Question 19

What are the separation of powers within government?

Answer 19

• Institutional, functional, and personal separation
• Cannot be part of two houses at the same time
• In some countries, can’t be both Minister and MP/MOC (NL/US)