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Parliamentary Democracy

Also Known As Parliamentary System

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Parliamentary democracy is a system of government in which the executive is drawn from and accountable to an elected legislature. Britain's Bill of Rights established the principle of parliamentary supremacy over the crown, a cornerstone the system later built on.

Facts
Origin Year
1689 1
Marks the point at which Parliament's supremacy over the monarch was formally established in England; the fuller system of parliamentary democracy, including a broad franchise and a prime minister accountable to the House of Commons, developed gradually over the following two centuries.
Founding Context
Developed in Britain out of the long struggle to subordinate the Crown to Parliament, formalized by the Bill of Rights of 1689, and matured across the nineteenth century as the convention that the government must retain the confidence of the elected chamber became binding practice rather than royal courtesy. 1
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Parliamentary Democracy: Government Answerable To The Legislature

Parliamentary democracy fuses executive and legislative power rather than separating them: the head of government, usually called a prime minister, is drawn from the elected legislature and stays in office only as long as that legislature is willing to support them. Lose a vote of no confidence, and the government falls, often taking the legislature itself down with it into a fresh election.

Britain built the model gradually rather than by design. The constitutional monarchy that followed the Glorious Revolution left day to day governance to ministers, and over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the convention hardened that those ministers needed the confidence of the House of Commons to govern at all. The Bill of Rights of 1689 supplied the legal foundation without ever mentioning a prime minister or a cabinet by name; those offices grew out of practice, not statute.

The model spread widely and adapted freely. India's 1950 constitution paired parliamentary government with a president who holds the head of state role split from the head of government, elected not directly by voters but indirectly, by an electoral college of the elected members of both houses of Parliament and of the state legislative assemblies. Japan bound its postwar parliamentary system to a constitutional monarchy. Whatever the local variation, the defining feature holds everywhere it appears: a government that governs only for as long as, and only because, the elected legislature lets it.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

France, Countries

William III's chief concern in accepting the English crown was checking Louis XIV's French power in Europe.

The 1689 settlement establishing parliamentary supremacy took place in England.

Held Differently

Encompasses

Caretaker government conventions are a standing feature of parliamentary systems during the interval between a dissolution or lost confidence vote and a successor government.

Coalition cabinets form when no single party wins a parliamentary majority, a routine outcome under most parliamentary systems' proportional or mixed electoral rules.

The Conservative Party has produced a majority of Britain's prime ministers since the nineteenth century, operating through the ordinary mechanics of Westminster parliamentary government.

Dissolving parliament to trigger a general election, whether at the government's chosen moment or after losing confidence, is a defining feature of parliamentary systems.

Labour has formed multiple UK governments, from Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 through Clement Attlee's 1945 landslide, operating through the ordinary mechanics of Westminster parliamentary government.

The LDP has governed Japan for nearly all of the period since its 1955 founding, forming the great majority of Japanese cabinets within Japan's postwar parliamentary system.

A government's dependence on the continuing confidence of the legislature is the defining accountability mechanism that distinguishes a parliamentary democracy from a presidential system.

Influenced By

Constitution of India, Documents

Adopted in 1950, it established India's Westminster style parliamentary system with a ceremonial president and an executive answerable to Parliament.

Practiced By

Sources
1. Bill of Rights, British History (Britannica)
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Quote
The revolution permanently established Parliament as the ruling power of England.
View the Source
Italy (Britannica)
Practiced By: Italy
Separation of Powers under the United States Constitution (Wikipedia)
WikipediaAssociated With: Presidential SystemView the Source
Constitution of India Factsheet (PIB India)
Press Information Bureau, Government of IndiaInfluenced By: Constitution of IndiaView the Source
Labour Party (Britannica)
Encyclopaedia BritannicaEncompasses: Labour Party (United Kingdom), Party overviewView the Source
Conservative Party (Britannica)
Encyclopaedia BritannicaEncompasses: Conservative Party (United Kingdom), Party overviewView the Source
Liberal-Democratic Party of Japan (Britannica)
Encyclopaedia BritannicaEncompasses: Liberal Democratic Party (Japan), Party overviewView the Source
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