How Do People Participate in Elections? Learning Outcomes By the end of this section, you will be able to: Explain how elections take place in the United States and abroad. Describe the regulations that govern elections in the United States and abroad. Compare United States elections and regulations with those in other countries. On October 8, 2004, “against the backdrop of extremists’ threat, difficult terrain and sometimes adverse weather conditions,” Afghanistan’s first-ever democratic presidential election took place. “Afghanistan’s First Presidential Election Not Perfect, but Sets Stage for Journey towards Vigorous Democracy, Security Council Told,” Security Council, United Nations, October 14, 2004, https://www.un.org/press/en/2004/sc8216.doc.htm. Despite public warnings from a former Taliban supreme leader who threatened violent attacks should citizens vote in the first-ever direct democracy election in Afghanistan, Afghan politician Hamid Karzai was elected out of 17 presidential candidates. “Afghans Vote in Historic Election,” CNN , October 8, 2004, https://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/10/08/afghanistan.elections/. Roughly a month later, on November 3, Karzai was officially elected president with 55.4 percent of the vote. Carlotta Gall, “Election of Karzai Is Declared Official,” New York Times , November 4, 2004, https://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/04/world/asia/election-of-karzai-is-declared-official.html. In a region US military forces had occupied after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the election of Karzai was an incredible achievement and, perhaps most significantly, “the election, contrary to expectations, was not marred by ethnic, ideological and linguistic cleavages so characteristic of the Afghan society. Karzai’s government will be better advised to facilitate the creation of a ‘balanced party system’ in Afghanistan.” Wahabuddin Ra’ees, “Presidential Election in Afghanistan: Democracy in the Making,” Intellectual Discourse 13, no. 1, (2005): 31. Global media carried pictures of jubilant Afghans, their thumbs stained with purple ink that signified they had voted, and these pictures reminded all of us how important elections are in a democracy. Ink on a finger symbolizes that a vote has been cast. (credit: “_DSC0091” courtesy USAID/ISAF Public Affairs/Flickr, CC BY 2.0) Electoral Districts and Plurality and Proportional Representation In the United States, Americans vote in what are called electoral districts , which are all roughly equal in size in terms of population. The United States House of Representatives, state legislatures, and local governments all have their own districts from which a single representative is elected, though this was not always the case. At the writing of the Constitution, Article I, Section 4 simply stated that both Congress and state legislatures would determine how elections for members of Congress would occur. Congress first passed the law dictating that House members be elected by district in 1842, and by 1872 they had expanded its scope, articulating the need for equal districts. U.S. Const. art. I, § 4, cl. 1. In the case of the United States Senate, each state is the equivalent of a district, though each state obviously has a different number of residents. When the Constitution was drafted, state legislatures elected Senators, but by 1913 the 17th Amendment was passed and ratified in order to allow the election of Senators by direct popular vote. “Landmark Legislation: The Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution,” United States Senate, accessed March 3, 2021, https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/SeventeenthAmendment.htm. The president of the United States is elected through the Electoral College , a system of electors the number of which is equal to the total number of Senators (two from each state) and House members, plus electors from Washington, DC. Washington, DC, has three electoral votes, while other US territories have none. Each state is a district. States choose electors using different methods including state conventions, state party central committees, appointment by state governors, state primary , or nomination by the party’s candidate. Electors are expected to vote on behalf of their party and according to the popular vote. However, as we have seen in recent elections, the winner of the popular vote is not always the winner of the Electoral College. Five presidents have lost the popular vote and won the Electoral College: John Quincy Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump. This is because, with the exception of Maine and Nebraska, states utilize a “ winner-take-all ” approach to allocating electoral votes. This means that no matter the margin, the candidate who wins the popular vote in a state wins all of that state’s Electoral College votes. Maine and Nebraska allocate one electoral vote to each of their congressional districts, and the winner of each of those districts is awarded one electoral vote. The winner of the statewide vote is then awarded the state's remaining two electoral votes. This allocation of Electoral College votes is referred to as the congressional district method . Most American elections are won by plurality rule , whereby the candidate with the most votes wins. Some states, such as Georgia, require candidates for statewide office to win at least 50 percent of the vote, which is called majority rule . If a candidate cannot secure 50 percent of the vote, the election goes into what is called a run-off election , where the field of candidates is whittled down to a smaller number and the election is held again. Georgia Senate candidates Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossof stand at either side of Senator Chuck Schumer. (credit: “Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Senator Jon Ossoff (D-GA) and Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock (D-GA)” by Senate Democrats/Flickr, CC BY 2.0) The main alternative to plurality rule is proportional representation , a concept that is often suggested as an alternative to the “winner-take-all” approach of the Electoral College. In proportional representation, the proportional breakdown of votes cast by the electorate for each party determines what proportion of the governing body is made up of members of those parties. In other words, if one party were to win 60 percent of the vote and another party were to win 40 percent, the government would consist of 60 percent of the first party and 40 percent of the other. Notably, America does not employ proportional representation at any level of elections, and according to Duverger’s Law , this is the reason why the United States also still has only two main parties; plurality rule encourages a dichotomous party system, whereas proportional representation encourages multiple parties to form. William Riker, “Duverger’s Law Revisited,” in Electoral Laws and Their Political Consequences, eds. Bernard Grofman and Arend Ljiphardt (New York: Agathon Press, 1986), 19. Not all countries have the same type of elections. While the United States has a president who is elected indirectly by an electoral college and a legislature that is bicameral and directly elected, Japan, for example, has a directly elected national Diet (parliament made up of the House of Representatives and the House of Councilors). In the House of Representatives, the larger legislative body, the majority of members are elected by plurality vote in single-member constituencies to serve four-year terms, while some members are elected through a closed-list proportional representation system, whereby voters can pick a party but not individual candidates. The majority of list-proportional representation (list PR) systems in the world are closed, meaning that the order of candidates elected by that list is fixed by the party itself, and voters are not able to express a preference for a particular candidate. Many of the list PR systems used in continental Europe therefore use open lists, in which voters can indicate not just their favored party, but their favored candidate within that party. (Source: “Open, Closed and Free Lists,” ACE Project: The Electoral Knowledge Network, https://aceproject.org/main/english/es/esg03.htm) In elections for the House of Councilors, voters mark their preferences for both a candidate and a party, and members are elected through an open-list proportional representation system. The head of state is the prime minister, who is appointed by the Diet. Japan is considered a long-running and stable democracy with regular elections determined by popular vote. However, not all countries have completely free and fair elections. Thailand, for example, has a bicameral legislature , but the entirety of the Senate is appointed by the military while the prime minister is appointed by the king. The House of Representatives are elected by a plurality vote through a closed-list proportional representation system. North Korea is the most drastic case of a controlled election; voting for the Supreme People’s Assembly (SPA) is compulsory, and people have no choice of candidates. Direct Democracy: Ballot Initiatives and Referendums Ballot initiatives and referendums are examples of a different type of election, often referred to as direct democracy , where instead of elected representatives deliberating upon policies, citizens vote on those policies directly. A ballot initiative introduces a new piece of legislation or a law (e.g., whether Maryland should allow gambling in all counties), while a referendum asks voters to support or terminate an already-existing law or policy. A recall is a type of direct democracy that provides voters with the opportunity to end the term of an already-elected member of government. In 2021, California Governor Gavin Newsom survived a recall election that would have removed him from office. (credit: “IMG_1974” by Charlie Nguyen/Flickr, CC BY 2.0) These types of direct democracy are present in 26 US states and multiple local municipalities, 10 EU countries, and Taiwan. John G. Matsusaka, “Direct Democracy Works,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 19, no. 2 (Spring 2005): 185–206. Direct democracy is often lauded as fully representing the will of the people, but ballot initiatives, referendums, and recalls are also criticized for their costs and lack of deliberation. Election Regulations in the United States In the United States, the federal government plays only a limited role in regulating campaigns and elections. This is due in part to the idea behind the federal system of American government, which balances power between the federal government and the states. As such, states are free to oversee their own election processes so long as they do not violate existing federal laws or state statutes. For example, since 1998 Oregon has used mail-in ballots , where all registered voters receive ballots three weeks before Election Day . Priscilla Southwell, “Mail-In Voting Lessons from Oregon, the State with the Longest History of Voting by Mail,” The Conversation , September 30, 2020, https://theconversation.com/mail-in-voting-lessons-from-oregon-the-state-with-the-longest-history-of-voting-by-mail-145155. In Maine, voters are allowed to use a ranked-choice method to select candidates, with the lowest-ranked candidates eliminated in each round until there are only two candidates left. The candidate who wins more than 50 percent of the vote in the final round is declared the winner. Gabrielle Manino, “What Is Maine Ranked-Choice Voting and How Does Ranked-Choice Voting Work?” News Center Maine , updated November 3, 2020, https://www.newscentermaine.com/article/news/politics/elections/what-is-and-how-does-maine-ranked-choice-voting-work/97-e7964e06-a087-4b79-97cc-7f053c294248. States also differ in other methods and regulations around voting. For example, recent proposed changes in the Georgia legislature would make Sunday voting more difficult for Georgians wishing to cast early votes. This type of regulation is decided at the state level, though opponents allege that this measure is aimed squarely at minimizing Black turnout since, historically, southern churches have encouraged their congregants to vote on Sundays. Eugene Scott, “New Georgia Legislation Would Curb ‘Souls to the Polls,’” Washington Post , February 21, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/02/24/new-georgia-legislation-would-curb-souls-polls/. While state election commissions and agencies largely set their own parameters around when, where, and how people can vote, the federal government is primarily concerned with supporting states in administering elections and with campaign finance —that is, with limiting the amount of money that flows into and out of campaigns. More specifically, congressional agencies are tasked with regulating or overseeing campaign finance, election administration, election security, redistricting, qualifications and contested elections, and voting rights, though the primary role of administering elections is left to the states and their jurisdictions, reflecting the American tenets of federalism . While the Election Assistance Commission and Federal Election Commission are two federal agencies devoted to overseeing campaigns and elections, the Justice Department administers and enforces some election statutes. The Department of Homeland Security is also now more involved with elections. R. Sam Garrett, Federal Role in US Campaigns and Elections: An Overview , CRS Report No. R45302 (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2018), https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R45302.pdf. Working the Polls Poll workers are sometimes called “the gatekeepers of American democracy” because they are often the first people to greet a voter who has arrived on Election Day to exercise their right to vote. Matt Vasilogambros, “Few People Want to Be Poll Workers, and That’s a Problem,” The Pew Charitable Trusts, October 22, 2018, https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2018/10/22/few-people-want-to-be-poll-workers-and-thats-a-problem. Poll workers make sure that people who vote can check in and provide ID (in some states). They share important information about how to fill out ballots and make sure the voting process moves smoothly. Any place that serves as a polling station (in other words, a place to vote) needs poll workers. Most states provide training and payment for these important positions, but a lack of poll workers is an ongoing problem for many local jurisdictions. Nonprofit organizations such as All Voting Is Local train and recruit poll workers to ensure fair election practices and to encourage all Americans to participate in their democracy. “Our Work,” All Voting Is Local, accessed March 16, 2021, https://allvotingislocal.org/our-work-2/. The more we participate, the more we understand how politics impacts us. To find out more about being a poll worker, you can contact your state election board or read more at the US Election Assistance Commission website . “Become a Poll Worker,” Voters, US Election Assistance Commission, accessed March 16, 2021, https://www.eac.gov/voters/become-poll-worker. Election Regulations around the World Election rules differ around the globe. In comparison to the United States, France imposes very strict regulations on how elections are run. In France, elections themselves are very brief (two weeks leading up to the casting of ballots and one week in between two separate ballots), and all media involving campaigns can only be aired during a three-month run up to an election. In addition, starting from the night before polls open, it is illegal to publish or in any way broadcast any type of communication that can be categorized as electoral propaganda. However, television stations can show candidates voting (along with other citizens) as long as all candidates in the election are included and provided no candidate transmits any sort of campaign message on camera. French law also prohibits the media from publishing, broadcasting, or commenting on any kind of electoral poll . Finally, election results, even partial ones, cannot be published or broadcast before the last polling place closes on Sunday. “French Media Rules Prohibit Election Coverage over Weekend,” France 24 , May 7, 2017, https://www.france24.com/en/20170506-france-media-rules-prohibit-election-coverage-over-weekend-presidential-poll. The state also caps both campaign donations and expenditures, a special commission monitors campaign expenditures, and the state can reimburse up to 50 percent of certified elections. “Campaign Finance: France,” Law Library, Research and Reports, Legal Topics, United States Library of Congress, accessed March 3, 2021, https://www.loc.gov/item/2018298980. In Britain, the prime minister can call an election at will. These are called snap elections . A prime minister might call a snap election on the back of good news, for example, in order to bolster his or her majority within the Parliament. Elections in the United Kingdom are also short compared to those in the United States. Tony Blair , the leader of the Labour Party, famously announced his candidacy for prime minister one month before the election. Mostafa Farmani and Afshin Jafari, “A Comparative Approach to Study the Electoral Systems of Selected Countries,” International Journal of Humanities and Cultural Studies 2, no. 4 (March 2016): 1913–24. Unlike the fixed election calendar America follows, the system in the United Kingdom is more flexible; Parliament is “dissolved” after five years and 25 days before a general election. However, as stated previously, these elections can be called at any time during a prime minister’s term. Citizens in the United Kingdom vote for members of Parliament (MPs) from their district, and the party with the most seats elects the prime minister from among their ranks. However, the prime minister is officially appointed by the Queen, though she typically follows the majority party’s choice for who should fill the role. “General Elections,” About Parliament, UK Parliament, accessed March 3, 2021, https://www.parliament.uk/about/how/elections-and-voting/general/. A vote of no confidence , when the majority of the legislature indicates that they can no longer support the Prime Minister and their government, can make way for a new leader and governing body through a general election. Americans vote in electoral districts that are drawn to be roughly the same size in terms of population. The people vote directly on members of the House and Senate, whereas the president is elected through the Electoral College. Elections are won either by plurality rule (most votes) or majority rule (at least half). Ballot initiatives and referendums represent direct democracy, in which people select policy preferences rather than relying on elected officials to vote on them. Some consider them a more democratic form of participation. In the United States, the federal government plays a limited role in administering elections, leaving the states to create their own rules and regulations in terms of when people can vote and how. Elections are run differently around the world. In many countries, voter registration is automatic, and in some countries it is even compulsory. While Election Day is a fixed day on the US calendar, in other countries elections can be called at any time. Aldrich, John H. Why Parties? The Origins and Transformation of Political Parties in America . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. Alexander, Robert, ed. The Classics of Interest Group Behavior . New York: Wadsworth, 2005. King, Anthony. Running Scared: The Victory of Campaigning over Governing in America . New York: Free Press, 1997. Lijphardt, Arend. Electoral Systems and Party Systems: A Study of Twenty-Seven Democracies . New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Thurber, James A., and Candace J. Nelson. Campaigns and Elections American Style: The Changing Landscape of Political Campaigns . Oxford: Routledge, 2018. Verba, Sidney, Kay Schlozman, and Henry E. Brady. Unheavenly Chorus. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013. congressional district method a method of allocating electoral votes, used in Maine and Nebraska, where the winner of each congressional district is awarded one electoral vote and the winner of the statewide vote is awarded the state’s two remaining electoral votes direct democracy a democratic system in which citizens make direct policy choices rather than leaving them to elected officials Electoral College the system of electors, based on the total number of United States Senators, House members, and electors from Washington, DC, by which the president of the United States is chosen electoral districts in the United States, districts of roughly equal population size in which Americans vote majority rule a system in which candidates for statewide office must win at least 50 percent of the vote to win an election plurality rule an election system in which the candidate with the most votes wins an election proportional representation an electoral system in which votes cast by the electorate are reflected by the same proportions within the governing body recall an election in which voters decide whether or not to end the term of an elected official referendum an election in which voters decide whether to overturn existing law or policy snap election in Britain, an election the prime minister can call at any time vote of no confidence a way for a legislative body to indicate that they no longer support the leader of the government (such as a prime minister) and their cabinet

Social Sciences


Introduction The Congress of Peru is a unicameral legislature in which legislators are selected to represent each regional district as well as two special districts, for Lima Province and Peruvian citizens abroad. Seats are assigned based on population in multimember districts. (credit: “Presidente del Congreso en Sesión Solemne” by Congreso de la República del Perú/Flickr, CC BY 2.0) A legislature is a deliberative body that is granted the authority to create laws to govern a society. When the term legislature comes up, people often think of national legislatures, such as the US Congress or the National Congress of Argentina. However, city councils and state legislatures also play a significant role in governing our everyday lives, and supranational legislatures, such as the European Parliament , can have a profound impact by setting policies on trade and migration across many countries. Though legislatures are deliberative bodies generally focused on passing laws, their role is much more complex. This chapter will explore what it is that legislatures do, examine the impact that differences in legislative structure can have on the political system, and consider the challenges that legislatures face.

Social Sciences


What Do Legislatures Do? Learning Outcomes By the end of this section, you will be able to: Describe the different aspects of a legislature’s work. Discuss the general components of the legislative process. Outline how legislatures organize to accomplish their work. Define different ways legislators represent constituents. Setting aside the challenge of running for reelection, there are many tasks involved in a legislator’s job, including creating new laws to solve emerging policy problems; evaluating existing arrangements to make sure they still work; staying in touch with constituents, both to keep them up to date with legislative work and to find out what they think about current issues; and overseeing other parts of the government to ensure that the will of the legislature is being carried out. This section will examine each part of a legislator’s job in greater detail to better understand the roles that legislatures play in the political world. Not all legislatures around the world have the same powers and functions. Some legislatures, particularly in non-democracies, have limited roles in governing but provide other important functions. In some systems, the legislature can serve a more consultative role, even if it doesn’t have final decision-making power. Still other legislatures are endowed with powers that make them coequal with the various branches of government. Finally, there are some legislatures that are the supreme decision makers when it comes to policy making. Recognizing that these differences exist is an important component of understanding the roles legislatures play in society. Because legislatures play a particularly important role in democratic systems, much of this chapter focuses on those systems. Critical Thinking and Legislative Analysis Somali women lawmakers attend a workshop in Mogadishu aimed at empowering lawmakers to protect and promote the rights of women, children, and other marginalized groups. (credit: “2018-02-28 Somali Women Legislators-2” by AMISOM Public Information/Ilyas Ahmed/Flickr, CC0 1.0) When people study legislatures, they often examine why members of a legislature voted a certain way on a particular piece of legislation, why a certain member was chosen to serve on a particular legislative committee, or even why some policy elements were or were not included within the text of a proposed piece of legislation. Being able to answer and explain the why requires one of the most important skills that studying political science helps you develop—critical thinking. When you learn how to explain why someone voted yes or no on a piece of legislation, you are really developing the ability to explain anything, in any field or specialization. Critical-thinking skills are among the skills employers value most. “The Four Career Competencies Employers Value Most,” NACE Center for Career Development and Talent Acquisition, National Association of Colleges and Employers, March 29, 2019, https://www.naceweb.org/career-readiness/competencies/the-four-career-competencies-employers-value-most/; “Employers More Interested in Critical Thinking and Problem Solving Than College Major,” Association of American Colleges & Universities, April 10, 2013, https://www.aacu.org/press/press-releases/employers-more-interested-critical-thinking-and-problem-solving-college-major. The ability to explain complex situations, to solve problems, and to make sense of situations that seemingly defy rational explanations provides the foundation on which you can build many diverse career paths. Passing Laws: Who Comes Up with Ideas? One of the legislature’s main jobs is to pass laws in order to solve policy problems. Ideas for these laws come from many places. Constituents might go to members of legislatures for help solving a problem in their community, such as a need for more school funding. A newspaper might publish an investigation that brings attention to an important issue. Often, organizations that work on a particular issue reach out to legislators. A president or prime minister, or another member of the executive branch, routinely offers policy proposals to the legislature for their consideration. Finally, ideas can come from the legislators themselves. It is quite common for a member of a legislature to develop a passion for and expertise in a particular policy area. In order for a law to be created or changed, a legislator or group of legislators must be willing to work to solve the problem. Often, the person who introduces a piece of legislation is known as its sponsor . The sponsor—or, if a group of legislators introduces legislation, the cosponsors—argues on behalf of a piece of legislation in debate and meets with other legislators to try to get their support for the bill. Once legislators realize there is a problem they need to solve, they set out to learn more about the policy area. They can do this a number of ways, including by reading research and reports. Often, they hold hearings in which they consult policy experts. Hearings can be useful for bringing many different stakeholders and perspectives together in one place. How Are Ideas Debated? Following the information-gathering process, legislators decide how to proceed to fix the problem. In most cases, they decide that the best way to solve a problem is to pass a law. Laws concerning the relationship between the government and individuals that apply to all people are called public laws . The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is a good example of a public law, as it made changes to the health care system in the United States that affected US society as a whole. Public laws cover a huge range of topics, including the economy and government operation, health care and civil rights, defense and foreign policy, and everything in between. The process of writing a law involves taking all the ideas proposed and all the information gathered and turning them into a formal text to circulate and debate . Members of the Colorado state senate debate the budget in 2011. Members listen as their colleague makes a speech, but they also have conversations and look over reference material. Budgets are critical pieces of legislation, as money is vital for government agencies and programs to operate. (credit: “Budget Debate 2011” by Colorado Senate GOP/Flickr, Public Domain) The exact process of debate differs across legislatures, but most require a public debate—that is, a debate that is open to all members—before the legislature votes on the proposed piece of legislation. Most systems have a set of parliamentary procedures , or rules that govern the structure of debate. Common procedural components include the right of the minority to speak in a debate, every member having the right to a vote, and only one piece of business being addressed at a time. Henry M. Robert III et al., Robert’s Rules of Order: Newly Revised , 12th ed. (New York: PublicAffairs, 2020); Kari Palonen, The Politics of Parliamentary Procedure: The Formation of the Westminster Procedure as a Parliamentary Ideal Type (Opladen, Germany: Barbara Budrich, 2014). Members of the European Parliament debate and vote on the withdrawal agreement of the United Kingdom from the European Union. (credit: “Members Debate and Vote on the EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement” by European Parliament/Flickr, CC-BY-4.0: © European Union 2020 – Source: EP) How Do Laws Get Passed? Following the conclusion of debate , legislation is put to a vote to determine whether it will become law. For the passage of ordinary laws, most countries require a bill to gain the votes of a majority of legislators. One of the basic principles of democratic societies is majority rule , or the idea that the decision of the majority—50 percent of the chamber’s membership plus one member—determines the decision of the chamber on most items of business. However, in some instances, change cannot take place without a supermajority . Supermajority voting rules require more than a majority to pass legislation. These rules come into play most often for decisions that are considered especially important or consequential. For example, countries that allow the legislature to amend the constitution usually require supermajorities to pass such amendments. Supermajority voting rules for constitutional amendments can require anywhere from three-fifths to three-quarters of the chamber’s membership to agree to the proposed measure. For example, changes to the Japanese constitution require the support of two-thirds of each chamber in the Diet (the Japanese national legislature) and a majority in a public referendum . Countries where the parliament can call early elections also require a supermajority to agree to these elections. In the United Kingdom, at a minimum, parliamentary elections must happen every five years. However, if two-thirds of Parliament agrees, the legislature can be dissolved and early elections will be held. A supermajority may also be required to remove individuals from office. In the United States, the process of impeachment , which is the first step in removing a member of the executive or judicial branch from office, requires only a majority vote in the House of Representatives to move forward to trial in the Senate. Once the trial takes place, however, two-thirds of the Senate must vote in favor of conviction for the individual to be removed. So while the vast majority of laws and legislative action require the support of a simple majority of legislators, some instances require that a higher threshold be met. In some cases, legislatures implement rules that create supermajority requirements for ordinary legislation. In the United States Senate, there is a tradition of unlimited debate on legislation. This means that a legislator can delay or prevent a vote on a piece of legislation by insisting that there is still more to debate, a practice commonly referred to as a filibuster . Valerie Heitshusen and Richard S. Beth, Filibusters and Cloture in the Senate , CRS Report No. RL30360 (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2017), https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/RL30360. In the modern Senate, any member can declare that they are filibustering, or still debating an issue, which stops the issue from coming to a vote. A vote only happens when 60 senators vote in favor of a cloture motion to end the debate. “About Filibusters and Cloture: Historical Overview,” United States Senate, last modified June 3, 2021, https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/filibusters-cloture/overview.htm. Because any member can invoke a filibuster for any reason, there is essentially a de facto supermajority requirement for legislation to pass in the United States Senate. The process discussed here—in which ideas come freely from all actors, are debated seriously, and can result in changes—is most characteristic of legislatures in democratic regimes. Legislatures in authoritarian countries may be far less independent, far less capable of policy making and representation, and far more responsive to the authoritarian leader. They do, however, play important roles in their political systems, such as making their governments more stable than authoritarian governments without legislatures. Carles Boix and Milan W. Svolik, “The Foundations of Limited Authoritarian Government: Institutions, Commitment, and Power-Sharing in Dictatorships,” Journal of Politics 75, no. 2 (April 2013): 300–316, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1017/s0022381613000029; Jennifer Gandhi and Adam Przeworski, “Authoritarian Institutions and the Survival of Autocrats,” Comparative Political Studies 40, no. 11 (November 2007): 1279–1301, https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414007305817. Authoritarian legislatures provide a venue where key social groups may make their voices heard in policy debates, encouraging that stability. Ora John Reuter and Graeme B. Robertson, “Legislatures, Cooptation, and Social Protest in Contemporary Authoritarian Regimes,” Journal of Politics 77, no. 1 (January 2015): 235–248, https://doi.org/10.1086/678390; Jennifer Gandhi, Political Institutions under Dictatorship (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008). Additionally, the legislature maintains a role in the policy process, as the authoritarian leader may choose to delegate decision-making authority in particular policy areas to actors with their own policy preferences. Scott Williamson and Beatriz Magaloni, “Legislatures and Policy Making in Authoritarian Regimes,” Comparative Political Studies 53, no. 9 (August 2020): 1525–1543. Although legislatures exist on a spectrum of power and independence, with legislatures in democratic systems tending to be more powerful and independent than legislatures in authoritarian regimes, all legislatures play a significant role in their systems of government. Organizing the Legislature’s Work The work of legislatures requires a large number of people to collaborate. Every legislator has their own goals, things they want to take credit for, and blame they are trying to avoid—and everyone thinks they are right. Even when individuals agree that a particular policy is worth working on, they may disagree on the exact solution. Legislatures must create structures to keep their members moving productively in roughly the same direction. Political Parties One of the main ways legislatures organize themselves is through political parties (which are discussed in detail in Chapter 8: Interest Groups, Political Parties, and Elections ). Political parties are groups of people who typically have similar ideas on policy that they use to help candidates run for election and govern. “Political Parties,” United States Senate, last modified October 12, 2021, https://www.senate.gov/reference/reference_index_subjects/Political_Parties_vrd.htm. One of the ways political parties help govern is in determining decision-making authority. Because most votes require a majority to pass, many political systems give additional decision-making and leadership authority to the political party that holds a majority of seats. The majority party , or the political party that holds more than 50 percent of seats in the chamber, is often granted the ability to set the schedule for what bills get debated. They also typically control more seats on legislative committees , and because of these powers, they are typically more likely to get their preferred policies enacted into law. A minority party is any political party that does not have more than 50 percent of seats in the chamber. In democracies, minority parties can play an important legislative role, as they provide official expression of political and policy ideas that differ from those of the majority. They present their ideas in debate and vote against legislation they disapprove of, even when that legislation is likely to pass and become law. John Patrick, “Majority Rule and Minority Rights,” Annenberg Classroom, Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, August 4, 2017, https://www.annenbergclassroom.org/glossary_term/majority-rule-and-minority-rights/. The exact nature of the relationship between the majority and the minority depends on the number of parties in the legislature, and that number depends on what electoral system is in place. Some systems result in the dominance of two main political parties. In the US government, for example the Democratic and Republican Parties have primary control. Other systems make it easier for many parties to end up with seats in the legislature. In legislatures where many political parties hold seats, parties often need to join together in coalitions to create a majority in the chamber. For example, in the 2020 Irish elections, no single party gained a majority. The party that gained the most votes, Fianna Fáil, joined with two supporting parties, Fine Gael and the Green Party, to form a majority coalition. “Irish Government: Parties Agree to Form Coalition Government,” BBC News, BBC, June 26, 2020, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53181372. Coalition governments can be more fragile than outright majority governments because if the relationship between the parties in the agreement breaks down, a party might withdraw its support from the coalition, throwing the balance of power in the legislature back into question. Ireland Coalition Deal: Fiana Fáil, Fine Gael, and Greens to Form Coalition Government Why might some parties want to be a part of a coalition government? Why might some parties not want to be in a coalition government? In this news segment, members of the Irish parliament from different parties discuss what their parties were looking for from a new governing coalition following the 2020 elections. Following the 2020 elections in Ireland, no single party had enough seats in the Dáil Éireann, the lower chamber of the Irish legislature, to form a majority government. Instead, the largest party, Fianna Fáil, created a coalition to govern the country with the backing of Fine Gael and the Green Party. Note: This figure represents the numbers of seats each party secured, but not necessarily the actual seating arrangement. (attribution: Copyright Rice University, OpenStax, under CC BY NC-SA 4.0 license) Committees Another way legislatures organize is through legislative committees , groups of lawmakers who work together on the same policy area. Legislatures try to have enough committees to cover all major policy areas, and while the number of members on each committee varies, most systems require that all parties be allowed space on a committee. That means individual members of small parties typically serve on more committees than members of bigger parties, which can afford to spread their members around. Organizing legislative work through committees facilitates specialization and legislative delegation . When individual legislators specialize, they delve more deeply into one or two policy areas and develop expertise on those issues. This expertise helps them better understand the nature of the problem and analyze different solutions. Legislative delegation goes hand in hand with specialization: when a legislator is tasked with voting on an issue outside their areas of expertise, rather than having to do extensive research, that legislator can rely on the opinion of members of their political party who are on the relevant policy committee. If those members support the legislation, it can help the legislator decide whether they should support the legislation, too. The party delegates responsibility for learning about that issue to party members who sit on the relevant committee. Often, when people think of legislators, they think of people for whom writing laws and doing the work of government is a full-time job. While that may be true in many situations, not every legislature is a professional legislature . Professional legislatures meet year-round. The work of the legislature is the legislators’ only or primary job, they have paid professional staff, and they earn a salary that reflects the status of the office and the effort it requires. For example, the California State Assembly, the lower chamber of the California State Legislature, is in session from January to September every year; during the September to December period, members are often in their home districts, continuing to do work and preparing for the next legislative session. Members earn a salary of approximately $115,000 per year plus per diem. “2020 Legislator Compensation,” National Conference of State Legislatures, June 17, 2020, https://www.ncsl.org/research/about-state-legislatures/2020-legislator-compensation.aspx. In contrast, nonprofessional legislatures , sometimes also called citizen legislatures, are part-time legislatures where members meet for a set period of time and then, once the legislative session ends, go home to their districts to the job they held prior to the session or to other work. The Texas Legislature is an example of a nonprofessional legislature: members meet starting on the second Tuesday in January for 140 days in odd-numbered years and make $7,200 per year plus a per diem when in Austin, the state capital. “Frequently Asked Questions,” Texas House of Representatives, accessed October 15, 2021, https://house.texas.gov/resources/frequently-asked-questions/. The governor, who has the power to recall the legislature to special sessions for 30 days at a time, generally handles any decisions that need to be made in between sessions. This tends to make governors in states with nonprofessional legislatures very powerful. Legislative professionalism can have a substantial impact on a legislature’s capacity to do its work. Short legislative sessions limit the amount that legislatures can accomplish in a given session, requiring clear prioritization and swift leadership. Proponents of nonprofessional legislatures argue that shorter sessions help constrain the cost of legislators’ salaries and the size of their staffs and that they prevent the expansion of government. William Ruger and Jason Sorens, The Citizen Legislature: How Reasonable Limits on State Legislative Salaries, Staff and Session Lengths Keep Liberty Alive , Policy Brief No. 11-04 (Phoenix, AZ: Goldwater Institute, 2011), https://goldwaterinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/cms_page_media/2015/2/10/Citizen%20Legislatures%206-21.pdf. While each government must decide for itself whether a professional or a nonprofessional legislature is the correct fit, it is certainly true that the capacity of nonprofessional legislatures is limited. Representation of Constituents Every member of a legislature has constituents , the people they are elected to represent. The connection between legislator and constituent can take many forms, and the particular form can have a substantive impact on the relationship. Single-Member Districts versus Multimember Districts The way in which legislators are assigned to their districts affects the legislator-constituent relationship. In some systems, each legislator is elected to represent a specific geographic district. For example, in Canada, the House of Commons represents 338 ridings. The member of Parliament elected from Halifax, Nova Scotia, is only responsible for representing the constituents in Halifax, and only the voters in that district can vote in the election to select the representative for that district. This type of system can allow a legislator to become familiar with the particular issues that affect their district and to potentially be more responsive to their constituents; however, it can also heighten geographic differences and potential tensions between regions. Each area outlined represents one riding, or federal electoral district, in Canada and is represented by one member of Parliament in the House of Commons. (credit: modification of work by IntrigueBlue/derivative of work by TastyCakes/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain) This contrasts with countries such as Mozambique or Israel, where the legislature represents the country as a whole, without any geographic divisions. For example, in Israel, voters indicate their preferred party, and regardless of whether they are voting in Eilat in the south or Haifa in the north, they are voting for and will be represented by the same politicians. In these systems of national legislatures, members are less likely to have particular regional loyalties that could affect policy making; however, political parties often play a larger role, so whether specific geographic or national legislative districts produce better representation is debatable. Andrew C. Eggers and Alexander B. Fouirnaies, “Representation and District Magnitude in Plurality Systems,” Electoral Studies 33 (March 2014): 267–277. Whether or not members of the legislature are elected from specific geographic districts, there is considerable variation in the number of legislators who can represent a single district. National-level districts such as Mozambique, where every member of the legislature could potentially be elected by every voter, are the extreme, but many systems have multimember districts , where multiple legislators represent a single geographic district. Depending on the rules of the system, these members may be elected at the same time or at different times, and they may be from the same party or different parties. For example, in the United States Senate, each state is its own electoral district with two members, each of whom is elected on separate six-year cycles. These two members may or may not be of the same political party. After the 2020 electoral cycle, Jon Tester, a Democrat who will be up for reelection in 2024, and Steve Daines, a Republican who will be up for reelection in 2026, both represented Montana. The number of seats allotted per district can vary considerably in multimember districts. In the Folketing , or Danish Parliament, there are 12 constituencies. The smallest constituencies have two seats in Parliament, and the largest district has 20 seats. The division of seats across constituencies is often done to recognize differences in population density. One of those smaller constituencies is Bornholm, which had 31,214 voters in 2019 and elected two members to Parliament, one each from the two largest parties in the legislature: Venstre, also known as Denmark’s Liberal Party, and Socialdemokratiet, or the Social Democrats. “Resultater: Bornholms Storkreds.” Folketingsvalg Onsdag 5. Juni 2019, Danmarks Statistik, last updated June 13, 2019, https://www.dst.dk/valg/Valg1684447/valgopg/valgopgStor13.htm. Compare this with the largest constituency in the country, Sjællands, which had 628,910 voters and divided 20 seats across eight different political parties based on the percentage of the vote that each of those parties received in the constituency. “Resultater: Sjællands Storkreds.” Folketingsvalg Onsdag 5. Juni 2019, Danmarks Statistik, last updated June 13, 2019, https://www.dst.dk/valg/Valg1684447/valgopg/valgopgStor14.htm. By contrast, some electoral systems use single-member districts . In these systems, the legislature is made up of many geographic districts, with only one legislator representing each district. The US House of Representatives uses a single-member district system in which the total number of seats in the chamber is distributed across the states based on population, with more populous states receiving many more seats. Each state can decide how it wants to draw its individual districts. The relationship between the legislator and the constituent, which varies depending on whether a political system uses single-member or multimember districts , has been the subject of considerable research. Some scholars argue that geographically based single-member districts can better represent racial and ethnic minorities because members of a community who are clustered together can elect a representative from that community, Susan Welch, “The Impact of At-Large Elections on the Representation of Blacks and Hispanics,” Journal of Politics 52, no. 4 (November 1990): 1050–1076, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2131682. but scholars have also found that multimember districts can better ensure that women are elected to public office because each community can select more than one representative. Susan Welch and Donley T. Studlar, “Multi-Member Districts and the Representation of Women: Evidence from Britain and the United States,” Journal of Politics 52, no. 2 (May 1990): 391–412, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2131899. Some scholars contend that multimember districts can result in poorer representation of constituents overall, as the greater the number of seats in a district, the harder it is for constituents to monitor legislator behavior—and the greater the likelihood that legislators will make decisions that are not in line with the majority of constituents’ preferences. Marco Portmann, David Stadelmann, and Reiner Eichenberger, “District Magnitude and Representation of the Majority’s Preferences: Evidence from Popular and Parliamentary Votes,” Public Choice 151, no. 3–4 (June 2011): 585–610, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-010-9760-0. The Changing Face of Legislatures The numbers of women in legislatures around the world are increasing. (source: Pew Research Center analysis of data from Inter-Parliamentary Union; attribution: Copyright Rice University, OpenStax, under CC BY NC-SA 4.0 license) As discussed in Chapter 8: Interest Groups, Political Parties, and Elections , in the 21st century, the US Congress has grown more and more diverse. In 2001, only 12 percent of members of Congress were people of color, and 13 percent were women. By 2021, 24 percent of members identified as people of color, and 27 percent identified as women. “History of Women in the US Congress,” Levels of Office, Center for American Women and Politics, last updated June 15, 2021, https://cawp.rutgers.edu/history-women-us-congress; Katherine Schaeffer, “Racial, Ethnic Diversity Increases Yet Again with the 117th Congress,” Pew Research Center, January 28, 2021, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/01/28/racial-ethnic-diversity-increases-yet-again-with-the-117th-congress/. Indeed, this pattern of increasing representation is true in most places around the world. For example, the percentage of seats held by women in legislatures globally has increased from 18 percent in 2008 to 24 percent in 2019. Sara Atske, A. W. Geiger, and Alissa Scheller, “The Share of Women in Legislatures around the World Is Growing, but They Are Still Underrepresented,” Pew Research Center, March 18, 2019, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/03/18/the-share-of-women-in-legislatures-around-the-world-is-growing-but-they-are-still-underrepresented/. Though the membership of the US Congress is not yet as diverse as the US population, the trend in membership demographics echoes the country’s growing diversity. Why is this increasing diversity important? Increased diversity translates to a greater variety of life experiences and perspectives. A woman whose parents came to the United States as refugees will have a different perspective on the world from that of a man whose family has been in the United States for generations. Representatives bring their life experiences and nuances to policy making, potentially better representing their constituents. The idea that underrepresented minorities receive better representation from people with similar demographic characteristics is called descriptive representation . In contrast, substantive representation is the phenomenon in which people are represented by legislators who hold the same ideological or policy beliefs, regardless of demographic characteristics. There is no guarantee that a match between a legislator’s ethnicity or gender and some subset of their constituents means the legislator will represent the political interests of that constituency—or that a mis match between a legislator’s demographic identity and their primary constituency means they will not represent their constituents’ interests. However, descriptive representation has been found to improve the probability that a demographic group’s interests will be represented. Adrian D. Pantoja and Gary M. Segura, “Does Ethnicity Matter? Descriptive Representation in Legislatures and Political Alienation among Latinos,” Social Science Quarterly 84, no. 2 (June 2003): 441–460; Beth Reingold and Jessica Harrell, “The Impact of Descriptive Representation on Women’s Political Engagement: Does Party Matter?,” Political Research Quarterly 63, no. 2 (June 2010): 280–294, https://www.jstor.org/stable/20721490. A legislator’s identity may help them represent their constituents, but it is not a guarantee; a legislator may also effectively represent individuals of genders, races, and ethnicities other than their own. Types of Representation In democracies, those who are elected to office are entrusted with acting in the interest of the people they represent, but how do elected officials decide what is in the best interests of those constituents? Edmund Burke , a political philosopher who served in the British Parliament in the 18th century, posited two primary ways legislators can act to represent their constituents. Edmund Burke, “To the Electors of Bristol,” The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854), 1:446–448. In one view, the legislator is a delegate of the people who elected them. The legislator’s obligation is to learn the people’s policy preferences and their views about different issues and to directly convey those preferences via legislative action. The delegate model rests on the ideas that people understand politics and policy well enough to form thoughtful opinions and to convey them to their representatives and that the legislator’s personal preferences should be set aside. Alternatively, the legislator can be a trustee for their constituents. In the trustee model, though the legislator should still learn about the voters’ preferences, once in government they must use their own judgment and knowledge of policy to decide what is in constituents’ best interests, even if it is contrary to those constituents’ views. The trustee model is based on the idea that the average voter is either not sufficiently informed about politics and policy or does not have enough time to develop that knowledge in order to know what is actually in their best interests. Consequently, the representative, whose job it is to learn these facts, is better situated to make these decisions. If the delegate and trustee models are at opposite ends of the spectrum, in practice, most legislators fall somewhere in between the two extremes. This kind of representation, where the legislator seeks a balance between delegate and trustee approaches, is sometimes also called the politico model of representation. Norman Meller, “Representational Role Types: A Research Note,” American Political Science Review 61, no. 2 (June 1967): 474–477, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1953259. In this model, a legislator relies on the delegate approach, weighing the opinion of their constituents quite heavily in their decision-making, particularly when their constituents feel strongly about an issue, but in policy areas where either the legislator has more policy knowledge or there is a lack of public interest, they will rely on their own judgment. The issue of foreign aid in the United States provides a classic example of this dichotomy. When asked in opinion polls, Americans often say the United States government spends too much on aid to other countries. “US Position in the World,” Gallup, last modified March 27, 2021, https://news.gallup.com/poll/116350/position-world.aspx. However, in reality, foreign aid accounts for only about 1 percent of the federal budget and has broad support from both Democrats and Republicans in Congress. George Ingram, “What Every American Should Know about US Foreign Aid,” Policy 2020, Brookings Institution, October 15, 2019, https://www.brookings.edu/policy2020/votervital/what-every-american-should-know-about-us-foreign-aid/. Despite the expressed opinions of constituents, members of Congress often support these policies because of a discrepancy in information between legislators and constituents, where the legislators have far more information than the average constituent about the costs and benefits of the programs. Information can change perceptions. (source: Kaiser Family Foundation Health Tracking Poll (conducted December 2-9, 2014); attribution: Copyright Rice University, OpenStax, under CC BY NC-SA 4.0 license) Foreign policy demonstrates the complexity of delegate representation. Many Americans have only a little bit of knowledge about how much the United States spends on foreign aid, generally believing that the United States spends a significant portion of the budget in that policy area. However, when Americans are presented with information about how much the United States actually spends, their opinions tend to change, with more respondents saying that the United States spends either “too little” or “the right amount.” This gap between constituents’ knowledge and their opinions means that legislators must decide when, on which policies, and to what degree to weigh their constituents’ preferences against their own. A fourth type of representation, partisan representation , differs from the other three. In delegate , trustee , and politico representation, the primary relationship is between the elected official and the constituent. In partisan representation, the primary relationship is between the legislator and the political party. Partisan representation relies on the idea that legislators must always vote with their political party. Depending on the wishes of the constituents, partisan representation can appear very similar to delegate or trustee representation, but it is motivated not directly by the desires of the constituents about a particular policy area but instead by a legislator’s belief that their constituents want them to be a loyal party member across all issues. Russell Muirhead, “The Case for Party Loyalty,” Nomos 54 (2013): 229–256, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24220179. The prevalence of partisan representation varies across countries, as in some political systems, the baseline expectation is that legislators will vote with their parties the vast majority of the time, while in other political systems, members are allowed more freedom from their political parties. Shaun Bowler, David M. Farrell, and Richard S. Katz, eds., Party Discipline and Parliamentary Government (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1999). Contact Your Representative Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit of Dominica (center) meets one-on-one with residents of Sineku in 2017. Most politicians want to hear from their constituents, as this can help them understand the issues that people are facing and the areas that might benefit from additional government work. (credit: “PM Meets One-on-One with Residents in Sineku” by Roosevelt Skerrit/Flickr, Public Domain) In many democracies, members of the legislature care what their constituents think about various issues. They want to know which issues their constituents think are important, whether there is support or opposition for particular pieces of legislation, and whether or not their constituents approve of their performance in their job. This means that it is very important for constituents to reach out to their representatives. There are a number of ways you can contact your representative: via letter, email, or phone call. Check USAGov to find contact information for national, state, and local representatives. While every legislator prioritizes what kinds of communications they take most seriously, Kathryn Schulz, “What Calling Congress Achieves,” New Yorker , February 26, 2017, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/06/what-calling-congress-achieves. research suggests that many forms of contact will have at least some effect on legislators. Partnership for a More Perfect Union, Communicating with Congress: Perceptions of Citizen Advocacy on Capitol Hill (Washington, DC: Congressional Management Foundation, 2011), https://www.congressfoundation.org/storage/documents/CMF_Pubs/cwc-perceptions-of-citizen-advocacy.pdf. It’s easy these days to find contact information for your legislator on the Internet, so use your voice to reach out. Some key things to keep in mind: be polite, be clear about which issue or concern you are contacting them about and whether you support or oppose it, and remember: you are most effective when you are contacting your own representative! The Legislature’s Oversight Role The process of regularly monitoring and reviewing the actions of agencies or other political actors, oversight , is important in democracies where a system of checks and balances between the different branches of government is designed to ensure that power is shared across the system. In these democracies, legislative oversight of the bureaucracy provides an important check on the power of the executive branch. “Separation of Powers: Legislative Oversight,” National Conference of State Legislatures, last modified May 6, 2019, https://www.ncsl.org/research/about-state-legislatures/separation-of-powers-legislative-oversight.aspx. Members of the European Parliament hold a hearing on the suitability of incoming members of the European Commission. (credit: “Hearings: Ylva Johansson (Sweden) Home Affairs” by European Parliament/Flickr, CC-BY-4.0: © European Union 2020 – Source: EP) Hearings Just as committees hold hearings to learn more about policy areas, they can also hold hearings to conduct legislative oversight. In these hearings, committees can gather information to ensure that an agency’s actions are in line with that agency’s assigned mission. Committees and agencies are often paired up based on relevant policy jurisdiction. For example, in the UK Parliament, the Health and Social Care Select Committee has jurisdiction over the Department of Health and Social Care and its 29 agencies and public bodies, which include the National Health Service (NHS). The committee regularly holds inquiries into issues in its domain, which in 2020 included the delivery of core NHS services during the COVID-19 pandemic and the safety of maternity services in England, among others. “Health and Social Care Committee,” Committees, UK Parliament, 2021, https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/81/health-and-social-care-committee/. Parliamentary Questions Hearings are not the only way legislatures get information. In many systems, particularly parliamentary systems, a formal process allows legislators to ask questions of the bureaucracy that the bureaucracy is then required to answer. This process can take many forms. In some countries, there is a designated time during the week when legislators can question ministers, including the prime minister, in person. In other countries, legislators must submit questions in writing, but they can do so at any time, and the bureaucracy must respond in writing by a specific deadline. Sometimes governmental systems have a mechanism for both in-person and written questions. For example, in the German Bundestag , after every weekly cabinet meeting, ministers are available to answer questions about current policy for 35 minutes. This is followed by a two-hour question-and-answer session relating to questions submitted in advance. “Fragestunde,” Parlamentsbegriffe A–Z, Deutscher Bundestag, May 26, 2014, https://www.bundestag.de/services/glossar/glossar/F/fragestunde-245420. Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs), 28 April 2021 In this video, Prime Minister Boris Johnson of the United Kingdom takes questions from the leader of the opposition and other members of Parliament about policy and government administration. Parliamentary questions have one key advantage over hearings: any individual legislator may submit a question. One way or another, hearings require the cooperation of multiple members of Parliament. That cooperation may be passive, as when members of the committee who are not interested in the issue choose not to participate in the hearing, or it may be active, as when members help organize the panel of witnesses or reinforce a line of questioning after a colleague’s time to speak expires. Questions, whether written or oral, do not require cooperation from any other member of the legislature. This makes questions a potent tool for members of minority parties. Rens Vliegenthart and Stefaan Walgrave, “Content Matters: The Dynamics of Parliamentary Questioning in Belgium and Denmark,” Comparative Political Studies 44, no. 8 (August 2011): 1031–1059. They can launch inquiries into issues via questions in cases where they might not be able to get cooperation for a hearing in a committee. In addition, any member of a legislative body can ask a question related to any policy area. They need not be a member of the relevant committee to participate in parliamentary questioning. Ibid. This means that legislators are not restricted from participating in policy areas that interest them simply because of jurisdiction. Budgets In many democratic systems, the legislative branch is in charge of what is sometimes referred to as the appropriations process , whereby the legislature allocates the government’s money to the various agencies in charge of implementing policy. This “power of the purse” is both a carrot and a stick that legislatures can use to gain compliance with their policy-making priorities. Rick Stapenhurst et al., eds., Legislative Oversight and Budgeting: A World Perspective (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2008), http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/545851468313500246/pdf/456270PUB0Box3101OFFICIAL0USE0ONLY1.pdf. A legislature is likely to allocate more money to those agencies that follow the legislature’s direction and do what members of the legislature consider important work—and to cut the budgets of those agencies that either do not follow the legislature’s directives or do work the majority of legislators consider relatively unimportant. For agencies, this is critical; nothing gets done without money. The legislature’s budgetary authority can be one of its greatest tools to ensure the compliance of the agencies of the executive branch. Legislatures do a lot of different things, but their primary jobs are to make laws, represent constituents, and oversee other parts of government. These jobs exemplify the fundamental reasons a political system needs a legislature. When the people empower a branch of the political system to make the rules governing their relationship with their government, the political system is equipped to resist the ways that power can corrupt. Legislative institutions must require cooperation and consensus to ensure the health of the political system. appropriations process the process by which governments decide how they will spend money coalition two or more different parties that decide to cooperate in order to form a majority in a legislative chamber constituents the people whom a legislator represents cloture motion a vote to end a filibuster and force a vote; typically requires a supermajority to enact delegate a model of representation in which a legislator acts based on the preferences of their constituents descriptive representation a type of representation in which the representative shares demographic characteristics with the people they represent filibuster a set of parliamentary rules designed to extend debate to delay or stop legislation from receiving a vote hearings sessions in which members of a legislature talk to and question a panel of people, likely made up of experts and bureaucrats, about a particular issue or piece of legislation legislative committees groups of lawmakers who work together on a particular policy area legislative delegation a system of cooperation between members of the same political party for when a legislator must vote on an issue outside their areas of expertise; rather than doing additional research, the legislator can rely on the opinions of members on the relevant policy committee legislature a deliberative body that is granted the authority to create laws that govern a society majority party the party that holds more than 50 percent of seats in a chamber majority rule the idea that the support of more than 50 percent of a voting body is required to come to any decision minority party any party that does not hold more than 50 percent of seats in a chamber multimember districts legislative districts that are represented by multiple legislators nonprofessional legislatures legislatures that meet for limited periods of time and provide members only limited pay, reflecting the part-time nature of the job oversight the process of regularly monitoring and reviewing the actions of agencies or other political actors parliamentary procedures the rules that are followed in a political system to structure and guide debate partisan representation a model of representation in which legislators are expected to vote with their political party politico a model of representation in which a legislator seeks a balance between delegate and trustee approaches professional legislatures legislatures that meet year-round, have professional staff, and pay legislators a professional wage so that legislating is their primary job public laws laws governing the relationship between a government and individuals that apply to all people single-member district a legislative district that is represented by only one legislator specialization the idea that individual legislators will focus on one or two policy areas to develop expertise on those issues, rather than learning about all issues sponsor a legislator who introduces a piece of legislation and who is often instrumental in its passage substantive representation a type of representation in which a representative shares policy and ideological beliefs with the people they represent supermajority a given proportion of a voting body greater than 50 percent that is required to agree in order to come to a decision; typically reserved for especially important or consequential decisions trustee a model of representation in which a legislator relies on their own judgment when it differs from that of their constituents

Social Sciences


What Is the Difference between Parliamentary and Presidential Systems? Learning Outcomes By the end of this section, you will be able to: Define parliamentary and presidential systems and give examples of each. Articulate the differences in member selection in different types of systems. Describe how the relationship between the legislature and the executive changes depending on the type of governing system. At this point, it should be clear that there is considerable variation across legislatures in terms of what they do and how they do it. Two institutional features can play a substantial role in influencing the legislature’s role in a political system: the type of system and the number of chambers. This section focuses on the first of these two features—namely, the differences between parliamentary and presidential systems. In most democracies, there are three main branches of government: a legislative branch, which makes laws; an executive branch, which oversees the implementation and enforcement of laws; and a judicial branch, which decides whether the actions of individuals, groups, and institutions align with those laws and determines whether those actions, as well as any laws, are in conflict with the constitution. The differences between the main types of systems center on how the legislative and executive branches relate to each other. In a parliamentary system , there is a very close relationship between the legislative and executive branches, as the head of the executive, often called the prime minister , is also a leader in the legislative branch. In a presidential system , there is a much stronger separation of powers between the legislative and the executive. In these systems, the head of the executive, often called the president , has only a limited role in the legislative process. A system with both a president and a prime minister is called a semi-presidential system . These systems share some features of both parliamentary and presidential systems. Because the differences between parliamentary and presidential systems are profound, the chapter will discuss these two types of systems in more depth. How Members Get Selected Who has the power to pick the people who make the laws? Does the public elect the members of the legislature, or do other directly elected legislators appoint them? Are legislators selected via executive appointment? The answers to these questions matter because the method of selection can indicate whose interests a legislator will represent, as the person or people who put someone in power can have a decided impact on whose values and preferences shape law. In 2021, most countries had some form of presidential, parliamentary, or semi-presidential government. (credit: modification of “Forms of Government 2021” by Newfraferz87/derivative of work by Slirski/Wikimedia Commons, CC0 1.0) Legislative Elections Most legislatures around the world select members via public elections, in which citizens vote for either a candidate or a political party to represent them in the legislature. There are three main types of direct legislative election systems: proportional representation systems, plurality or “first past the post” systems, and mixed systems. Within each of these sets of electoral rules, there are many variations, but all the political systems within a given type share certain common characteristics. Electoral systems in which the relative level of support for political parties in the population is reflected in the legislature are proportional representation systems. If 10 percent of the public supports a particular political party and shows up to vote for them, that party can expect to hold roughly 10 percent of the seats in the legislature. The principle behind this system is that all preferences should be reflected in government, not just those views that have majority support. There are many different variations of proportional representation, often based on the way in which votes are translated into seats in government. Most variations of proportional representation require multimember districts in order to have seats to divide among the winners. In the lower house of Brazil’s National Congress, the 26 federal states and the federal district are each allotted between 8 and 70 seats, based on population. E. Bradford Burns et al., “Brazil,” Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, last updated October 11, 2021, under “The Legislature of Brazil,” https://www.britannica.com/place/Brazil/The-legislature. The electoral result in each district determines the number of seats the party will receive in the legislature; this combines proportional representation by party, in which the amount of support a party has determines the amount of seats they receive, with proportional representation by population, in which more populous regions receive more representation than less populous regions. Additionally, most systems have a minimum threshold of votes needed to gain seats in the legislature, ranging from 3 to 5 percent of the electorate in most countries. So although proportional representation allows smaller parties to gain seats, minimum threshold requirements are thought to prevent small fringe political parties from gaining seats in the legislature. Arend Lijphart and Robert W. Gibberd, “Thresholds and Payoffs in List Systems of Proportional Representation,” European Journal of Political Research 5, no. 3 (September 1977): 219–244. France Legislative Elections: How Does It Work? The French Parliament uses a variant of plurality voting in which it is not enough to get the most votes of any candidate; the winning candidate must get a majority of the vote. This sometimes means that legislative elections require two rounds of voting: the first round to narrow the field to two candidates, and the second round to determine the winner. In plurality or first-past-the-post electoral systems, voters cast a vote directly for the candidate of their choice, and the candidate with the most votes wins the election, regardless of the percentage of the vote share they secure. Because there is a direct relationship between votes cast and election outcomes in these systems, they are generally considered more straightforward than proportional representation systems. However, in these systems, it is extremely difficult for small parties to gain political power. Additionally, legislators can take office in these systems even if the majority of their constituents voted for someone else. For example, in the 2020 United States Senate race in Minnesota, Democratic candidate Tina Smith won reelection with 48.74 percent of the vote. However, because Republican Jason Lewis got 43.5 percent, Kevin O’Connor of the Legal Marijuana Now Party got 5.91 percent, and Oliver Steinberg of the Grassroots Legalize Cannabis Party got 1.78 percent, a larger total percentage of voters selected someone other than Tina Smith, the winner of the race. “2020 General Election Results,” Elections & Voting, Office of the Minnesota Secretary of State, 2020, https://www.sos.state.mn.us/elections-voting/election-results/2020/2020-general-election-results/. While plurality voting is most commonly used in single-member districts, it can also be used in multimember districts. In those systems, voters are allowed to pick as many candidates as there are seats up for election, and the candidates with the most votes win. For example, in a race with three open seats, voters may pick three candidates, and the three candidates with the highest vote totals win the election. Mixed systems combine aspects of proportional representation and plurality voting systems. While every mixed system is slightly different, the South Korean National Assembly, where 253 seats are elected by plurality voting in single-member districts and an additional 47 seats are elected at the national level using proportional representation, provides a clear example of how these systems can work. Often, mixed systems use proportional representation seats to help balance out distortions in representation that arise from plurality voting. For example, if a party gained 44 percent of the vote nationally, but due to results in individual districts it received more than 51 percent of the plurality voting seats, the proportional representation–based seats could be adjusted to compensate for the less representative plurality results. “Election for South Korean National Assembly,” IFES Election Guide, International Foundation for Electoral Systems, 2020, https://www.electionguide.org/elections/id/2619/. In all of these systems, the direct election of legislators creates a system in which legislators are beholden to the people who elected them. That responsibility may be to the people who voted in support of their political party or to the constituents of their geographic districts, but regardless of the voting system, legislators who ignore the will of the people do so at their peril. Some systems offer more protection for individual legislators, such as proportional representation systems in which party leaders select individuals to fill seats, but ultimately, a legislator or party that routinely fails to respond to constituents’ desires loses the support of the people. Remember parliamentarian and philosopher Edmund Burke from the earlier discussion of representation? He practiced his idea that the proper role for a legislator was to be a trustee for his constituents and was voted out of office because people felt he did not sufficiently represent them. The type of electoral system has a significant effect on the number of competitive parties in the political system. That relationship can be summed up by Duverger’s law , which states that political systems with plurality voting and single-member districts will have two competitive political parties in each race. Maurice Duverger, Political Parties: Their Organization and Activity in the Modern State , trans. Barbara North and Robert North, 2nd ed. (1959; repr., London: Methuen, 1967). In these systems, many voters are less inclined to vote for candidates representing smaller parties, fearing that doing so would amount to “wasting” their vote given the slim chance those candidates have of winning. Joseph A. Schlesinger and Mildred S. Schlesinger, “Maurice Duverger and the Study of Political Parties,” French Politics 4, no. 1 (April 2006): 58–68, https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.fp.8200085. This phenomenon occurs at the district level; for example, in a race for the United States Senate seat representing Illinois, only two political parties will be competitive. Duverger’s law does not guarantee that there will only be two competitive parties in the legislature. In some settings, two dominant parties do emerge in the legislature, as is the case with the Democratic and Republican Parties in United States politics, but in other settings, there may be different competitive parties around the country. Following the 2019 elections for the Lok Sabha , the lower chamber of the Indian Parliament, 37 political parties won seats. Yet in individual states, the parties that were most competitive varied considerably. In Gujarat, a state on the western border with Pakistan, the two most competitive parties were the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Indian National Congress, which together received over 95 percent of votes in the state. In the state of Andhra Pradesh, the two most competitive parties were the Telugu Desam Party and the Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party, which accounted for approximately 90 percent of votes in that state. EDM Division, “State Wise Seat Won & Valid Votes Polled by Political Parties,” Election Commission of India, October 11, 2019, https://eci.gov.in/files/file/10961-17state-wise-seat-won-valid-votes-polled-by-political-parties/. Additionally, Duverger’s law does not guarantee that the two competitive parties will stay the same over time, as parties can cycle in and out of power. In the United States, the current Democratic and Republican party system While the names of the parties have remained the same since the mid-1860s, it is important to note that the policy beliefs and positions of the parties have changed over time, so a deeper study of American party systems recognizes further realignments. replaced the Democratic and Whig party system, which replaced the Democratic-Republican and Federalist party system. Theodore Rosenof, Realignment: The Theory That Changed the Way We Think about American Politics (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003). What Is Duverger’s Law? In this video, Eric Sanders and Aaron Hamlin of the Center for Election Science explain Duverger’s law and explore why third parties have so little success in the United States. In some systems, members of the legislature are elected not by the people but by other elected officials. The United States Senate used to be structured this way; members of the state legislatures, who were directly elected by the public, had the power to vote for members of the Senate. Though this practice ended in the United States in the early 20th century, similar practices still exist around the world. In the National People’s Congress in China, members of the national legislature are elected by the provincial-level legislatures, who are elected by lower levels of assemblies. This means that a successful delegate in the National People’s Congress must rise through many rounds of voting at successively higher levels of government, though the first level they must pass through is the public. Tony Saich, The National People’s Congress: Functions and Membership (Cambridge, MA: Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, Harvard Kennedy School, November 2015), https://ash.harvard.edu/files/ash/files/the_national_peoples_congress.pdf. This electoral design likely means that members of the National People’s Congress are more closely aligned with other elected officials and the political party than they are with ordinary voters. Appointment Selection In some systems, the executive has the authority to appoint members to legislative chambers. In systems with either an absolute monarchy or another supreme leader, that leader is empowered to appoint members to the chamber without any public input. Depending on the exact relationship between the leader and the legislature, the appointed members may have the power to propose and pass legislation that originates in the chamber, or they may only be able to approve or reject legislation created by others. Additionally, some places have institutions that claim to be legislatures but lack any independent legislative authority. For example, in Bahrain’s National Assembly, the members of the lower chamber, the Majlis al-Nuwab or Council of Representatives, are elected by the people, while the Majlis al-Shura , also known as the Consultative Council, is made up of 40 seats directly appointed by the king. “Bahrain,” The World Factbook, Central Intelligence Agency, last updated October 12, 2021, under “Government,” https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/bahrain/#government. All legislation originates in the Council of Representatives, but in order to become law, it must also be approved by the Consultative Council. However, because of the king’s role in selecting and reappointing members, members of the Consultative Council may feel an obligation to support or oppose a piece of legislation based on the king’s preference, rather than their own. Brunei, on the other hand, only has one chamber, a legislative council whose members are appointed by the sultan. That council does not have any independent lawmaking authority, in part because the sultan, the crown prince, and the cabinet are also on the legislative council. “Brunei: Government,” globalEDGE, Broad College of Business, Michigan State University, 2021, https://globaledge.msu.edu/countries/brunei/government; “Brunei,” The World Factbook, Central Intelligence Agency, last updated October 6, 2021, under “Government,” https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/brunei/#government. Instead, the sultan creates all laws, and the function of the council is to be a venue for the sultan to discuss different policy ideas. In other systems, legislators are appointed by a chief executive, such as a president or a prime minister, who is directly accountable to the people. In the Parliament of the Bahamas, the governor-general, in consultation with the prime minister and the leader of the opposition, appoints members to the 16-person Senate. The prime minister alone gets to select nine members, the leader of the opposition gets to select four members, and, after consulting with the leader of the opposition, the prime minister selects an additional three members. “Bahamas,” Political Database of the Americas, Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, last updated June 10, 2021, https://pdba.georgetown.edu/ElecSys/Bahamas/bahamas.html. While the public does not directly select the members of the chamber, the leaders who appoint them routinely face public elections. Although public accountability is more distant, a change in the Bahamian public’s support for a political party would result in significant changes to the membership of the Senate, which may help make those senators more responsive to the public. Executive appointments can also be used to fill a vacancy between elections. In the United States Senate, a state governor can appoint an individual to fill a vacant seat for the remainder of the term. US Constitution, amend. 17. The appointed senator then must go up for reelection, so although there may be some sense of obligation between the senator and the governor who appointed them, the upcoming election increases the likelihood that the appointee will be responsive to their constituents. Legislative–Executive Branch Relations While the power of a legislature is greatly shaped by the method used to select its members, that power is also strongly influenced by the relationship between the executive and legislative branches. Remember, most systems have some sort of legislative, executive, and judicial branch structure, but the relationships among the branches and the powers they have can vary widely. Perhaps the most important of these relationships is that between the legislative and the executive. In democratic systems, the key differences between presidential and parliamentary systems relate to the degree of independence of the legislative and executive branches and how much power each has to oversee the actions of the other. Independence In presidential systems, there is a clear separation of powers between the legislative and the executive. That separation of powers means that one branch makes decisions independently of the other branch, and certain types of authority, such as the authority to raise taxes or declare war, are strictly reserved for one branch. The strength of this separation of powers is that it prevents the aggregation of power in the hands of any one part of government. The weakness, however, is that policy making can be difficult, particularly when different political parties control the branches, which can lead to heightened political conflict and even gridlock , preventing the government from functioning effectively. Parliamentary systems, on the other hand, have no separation of powers between the legislative and the executive. In fact, the process of selecting an executive comes directly through the legislature. In a parliamentary system, the process starts when the public elects a legislature. Whatever party or coalition gains the majority in the legislature then has the power to pick the prime minister. Prime ministers are part of both the legislature and the executive, exemplifying a complete interdependence of legislative and executive decision-making. The strength of the parliamentary system is that because a legislative majority is required to have executive authority, it is much easier to pass legislation. The weakness of the parliamentary system is that the stability of the government relies on a party or coalition maintaining its control. If there are conflicts within a party or coalition, a vote of no confidence or members defecting can break the majority, which can require new elections, potentially resulting in a new legislature and a new executive. In Sri Lanka, the prime minister and the president are partners in governing, as Sri Lanka is a semi-presidential system. In this photo from 2010, then prime minister Manmohan Singh speaks with then president Mahinda Rajapaksa. (credit: “Photo WA-5486L” by Public.Resource.Org/Flickr, CC BY 2.0) Semi-presidential systems blend the structures of presidential and parliamentary systems. Every semi-presidential system is slightly different. The blending of the systems leads to some areas of independence, though not the complete independence of a presidential system. Semi-presidential systems often have an independently elected president and a prime minister who is the leader of the legislative majority. In some systems, the two individuals share policy-making power. This is the case in France, where the president and prime minister both have policy-making authority. Anne Stevens, Government and Politics of France , 3rd ed. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 83–105, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4039-3996-8. In semi-presidential systems, the president’s authority is not dependent on the legislature, but because of the shared power and responsibilities, the president must still work with the legislative branch to accomplish their goals. Oversight Earlier, the chapter discussed oversight as it relates to the power the legislature has to oversee the bureaucracy, but oversight can also refer to the powers of the legislative and executive branches to supervise and limit each other’s powers. This type of oversight aims to prevent an institution from securing too much power and exerting a corrupting influence. These concerns are fundamental to the presidential system, which was first created in the United States in response to colonists’ experience of being subject to the absolute authority of the English monarchy. In a presidential system, each branch has powers separate from those of the other branches, but each also has powers that overlap with the other branches’, allowing one branch to step in to stop the excesses of the other. The legislative veto is one example of this kind of oversight. In a typical presidential system, the legislature must pass a piece of legislation, and the president must sign off on it before it goes into effect and becomes a law. A president who does not agree with the legislation can veto the bill, which sends it back to the legislature, providing a check on the legislature’s power. In many presidential systems, if the legislature passes the bill again, which usually requires a supermajority, the bill becomes law without the president’s support, which is a clear check on the president’s power. The two branches are each empowered to oversee and correct the actions of the other. Oversight in parliamentary systems, and thus the relationship between the legislature and the executive, is much different. Because the executive is a part of the legislature, the minority party, rather than another branch of government, is primarily responsible for conducting oversight. Minority parties can use methods such as question time to interrogate the majority’s government and then take that information to the public to gain their support. Because parliamentary governments rely on public support to maintain power, a minority party that is able to sway public opinion and potentially get members of the majority to defect on votes can seriously check the power of the majority party. When a majority party is so large, with such strong public support, that the minority party’s threat to go to the public is rendered ineffective, the majority party can hamper the minority party’s oversight efforts. At the national level, there are two primary types of governing systems, parliamentary and presidential. The largest difference between the two types of systems relates to the relationship between the legislative and executive branches of government. In a parliamentary system, the executive power, or the power to see that the laws are followed, is vested in a prime minister, who is also the head of the legislative branch. This means that power flows from the people to the legislature and then from the legislature to the executive. In a presidential system, the executive, usually in the form of a president, is completely separate from the legislature. The people separately elect the legislature and the executive, so the power flows from the people to the legislature and from the people to the executive. Duverger’s law a principle that states that electoral systems with plurality systems of voting and single-member districts will have two main political parties mixed systems electoral systems that combine features of proportional representation and plurality election systems parliamentary system a political system in which the executive, often a prime minister, is also a part of the legislature plurality an electoral system in which the candidate who receives the most votes wins the election proportional representation an electoral system in which the relative support that political parties receive from the population is reflected in the makeup of the legislature presidential system a political system in which the executive, often a president, is separate from the legislature semi-presidential systems political systems that have some characteristics of presidential systems and some characteristics of parliamentary systems

Social Sciences