Parliamentary Structure Unicameral vs Bicameral legislatures Unicameral legislatures One legislative chamber Mostly small countries Bicameral legislatures Most common in W Europe Two legislative chambers France National Assembly Senate UK House of Commons House of Lords Germany Bundestag Bundesrat Italy House of Deputies Senate of the Republic parliamentary structure how is power distributed between the two chambers Lower chambers have important powers in all European countries But the power of upper chambers is different in each country Powerful upper chambers Italy Germany Weak upper chambers France UK Parliamentary functions Articulate interests of their constituents Responsibility for good of the nation Conflicted law makers Making laws Executives propose new legislation Legislatures approve rubber stamp Control the executive Vote of confidence Vote of no confidence Question time The executive must continuously enjoy the confidence of the legislature MP s ask PM and cabinet ministers questions about policy This is a way for the parliament to hold the executive responsible Party discipline Members of parliament vote or endorse programs and legislation backed by party leadership European political parties have high degree of party discipline Parties control legislative process and executive accountability Dependent on party funding no fundraising Parliamentary government or party government In parliamentary and semi presidential systems parliamentary majorities necessary for Selecting the executive For passing new legislation How many parties have a majority of seats right now Majoritarian vs consensus based parliaments Majoritarian parliaments one party has majority of seats United kingdom Greece traditionally but not right now Consensus parliaments coalition of parties has majority of seats Most common Compromise among coalition partners are necessary cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 Can be unstable Its hard to get many governments to work together in support of government action rather than one discipline country Parliamentary elections ESSAY QUESTION Electoral systems Rules and mechanisms that determine how candidates or parties win elections Plurality systems one representative per district Proportional representation multiple parties will be able to represent government Each one will have a representation which is proportional to the popular vote In a congressional district one representative can be in US congress Plurality vs majority Majority the candidate wins half of the votes plus one Plurality the candidate wins the largest proportion of the votes May be less than the majority Plurality systems Country divided into electoral districts One representative per district in national legislature during an election the candidate who wins plurality of popular vote wins the district in western Europe there are two versions of this British version simpler of the two French version Includes two steps Single member district plurality system First past the post United kingdom One round of elections Two ballot plurality system France Two rounds of elections Plurality applies in both France and UK Proportional representation Single member districts one representative per district A candidate who wins the plurality will get to represent the district First round a winner is declared only if the candidate has majority of votes Second round run off election if no winner in the first round then only a limited number of top candidates advance to second round Winner is the candidate who gains plurality of votes Parties are used to working with each other because they need each other in the second round unlike the British system The number of seats each party has in parliament is proportional to tis percentage of the popular vote Country is divided into electoral districts Multiple representatives per district Number of representative depends on the size of the district Each party gets a number of representatives per district The number depends on the percentage of the popular vote it wins per district cid 127 cid 127 Electoral threshold Varies among countries Minimum percentage of votes a party needs to win seats in the legislature This threshold can have a very powerful distorting effect on the outcome of the election Duverger s law The type of electoral system determines the number of political parties Plurality rules produce two party systems Proportional representation rules produce multi party systems Effects on politics The rules of the game are in favor of the two major parties main questions why do young people participate in elections less than everybody else is there something about young people today that makes them participate in elections less than older generations or is there something about elections themselves that puts young people off what is it about young people that could cause low turnout rational choice young people think their vote is inconsequential social capital young people are less likely to belong to civil society organizations civic voluntarism young people lack resources education information job security etc to form opinions about elections what is it about the nature electoral competition that can affect turnout among young people Fieldhouse Tranmer Russell 18 25 average overall turnout 69 8 young voter turnout 50 9 closeness of parties in polls party polarizations electoral system young people s turnout follows the trends in the general electorate low turnout by young people is combined result of nature of elections and characteristics of younger generations Kumlin and Essaiasson effect of scandals on elections and on citizen satisfaction with democracy have scandals become more common in European parliamentary elections yes do scandals affect citizen satisfaction with democracy yes they become less satisfied is each new scandal more or less consequential than the scandals that preceded it with each new scandal citizens become less sensitive to scandals in general scandal fatigue hypothesis confirmed cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127 cid 127