| Political System (CONTEXT) | Political systems vary across countries according to how the country set up their executive, legislative and judiciary branches of government. In other words, it is how political power is divided between the 3 branches of government. |
| Political System (DEFINITION) | The political system is a set of interrelated institutions that formulate and implement the collective goals of society. |
| Political System (EXAMPLE) | An example would be the Netherlands which is a constitutional monarchy with representative democracy and a bicameral parliamentary government. |
| Constitution (CONTEXT) | The constitution is defined as a set of rules that manage the division of power between the branches of government. |
| Constitutions (DEFINITION) | It's a written and unwritten legal document which establish the broad rules of politics, the basic rights for citizen and protect citizens from arbitrary decisions by the state. Constitutions are indeed the highest law of a country. |
| Constitutions (EXAMPLE) | An example of a constitution would be the constitution of the United States which is the supreme law, and comprise of 7 written articles which explain the separation of power and the rights and responsibilities of the state governments. |
| Separation of Power (CONTEXT) | The concept of separation of power is a principle that proposes the separation of 3 chief functions of the government into 3 branches. |
| Separation of Power (DEFINITION) | The branches of the government are the legislature, executive and judiciary. In this way, the power of the government is shared to ensure that there are checks and balances. This principle is mostly applied in presidential systems of government. |
| Separation of Power (EXAMPLE) | An example would be the United States where the separation of power is the basis for the constitution. |
| Executive Branch (CONTEXT) | The executive is a branch of government that separate the functions of government. |
| Executive Branch (DEFINITION) | The executive branch is responsible to administer laws and policies of the state and formulates and implements the policy process made by the parliament. The executive exists out of the chief executive, the cabinet, senior officials and security and intelligence services. |
| Executive Branch (EXAMPLE) | An example would be the President of the United States with the ministers that he appointed for his cabinet. |
| Legislative Branch (CONTEXT) | The legislative is a branch of government that separate the functions of government. |
| Legislative Branch (DEFINITION) | The legislative branch is responsible for making laws and is usually embodied in parliaments or representative assemblies. Their function is to represent and express the views of constituents, check the executive branch and hold them responsible. They legitimize the diversity of view and expressions and publicize important issues. Furthermore, they come in 2 forms. Unicameral system and bicameral system. |
| Legislative Branch (EXAMPLE) | A clear example where you see these branches are the United States where the legislative branch is made up out of the congress which is bicameral. The senate and house of representatives. |
| Judiciary Branch (CONTEXT/DEFINITION) | The judiciary is a branch of government that separate the functions of government.
Its the system of courts that interpret, defend and applies the law with in a government and society. |
| Judiciary Branch (EXAMPLE) | A clear example where you see this branch is the United States where the judiciary branch is the supreme and federal courts. |
| Prime Minister (DEFINITION) | The Prime Minister is the head of government whose powers are derived from his or her leadership of the majority party or coalition in the parliament. They are vested with more modest constitutional power than a president. |
| Prime Minister (CONTEXT) | Prime ministers you will find in parliamentary systems of government or semi-presidential one. And operate within a formal system of cabinet government. |
| Prime Minister (EXAMPLE) | An example of a prime minister would be Mark Rutte who is the head of government in the Netherlands. |
| President (CONTEXT/DEFINITION) | The president is the formal head of state. There are constitutional and executive presidents. Constitutional presidents are the head of state within a parliamentary government and tend to have more ceremonial duties. Whereas, in a presidential government, the executive presidents is head of state and head of government. |
| President (EXAMPLE) | And example of a constitutional president would be Willem Alexander who has ceremonial duties and an example of an executive president would be Donald Trump, who have more responsibilities and political power. |
| Head of government vs. head of state (CONTEXT) | The head of government and head of state are the chief executives of the executive branch. |
| Head of government vs. head of state (DEFINITION) | The head of government deals with everyday tasks of running the state which in a parliamentary government this is the prime minister. In a presidential government, this would be the president.
Whereas the head of state represents the people nationally and internationally which could be the president in a parliamentary government. Whereas in a presidential government this would be the president as well. |
| Head of government vs. head of state (EXAMPLE) | An example of this would be the Netherlands with Willem Alexander as head of state and Mark Rutte as head of government. |
| Political vs official executive (CONTEXT) | The political and official executive is a classification within the executive branch. |
| Political vs official executive (DEFINITION) | The political executive is the government of the day, the administration. These executives are elected by the people for a specific period of time. The official executive is the administrative machinery of the government and are not elected by the people. |
| Political vs official executive (EXAMPLE) | An example of the political executive would be the prime minister and the council of ministers in the Netherlands. An example of the official executive would be all the civil servants who help the government in administrative tasks. |
| Parliament (CONTEXT) | The parliament is the assembly of legislative bodies to act as a debating chamber in which policies and political issues can be openly discussed. |
| Parliament (DEFINITION) | The parliaments are composed of political parties and politicians who claim to represent the people and therefore, function as a link between the government and the people. The chief function is to make legislation, act as a representative body for the people and assist in maintaining the political system. |
| Parliament (EXAMPLE) | And example of a parliament would be the States-General of the Netherlands which exist out of the senate and house of representatives. |
| Bicameralism (CONTEXT) | Bicameralism is a concept that the legislative power is fragmented between 2 separate houses, chambers or assemblies. |
| Bicameralism (DEFINITION) | When we speak of a bicameral parliament its means that the parliament is divided into 2 legislative bodies. The main advantage of this system is that one body can check the power of the other body and can check the executive more effectively. However, this system could make legislative process complex and create conflicts in the system. |
| Bicameralism (EXAMPLE) | An example of this bicameralism would be the Dutch parliament with the senate and house of representatives. |
| Presidential government (with pros and cons) (CONTEXT/DEFNITION) | A presidential government system is a democratic system with a separation of power. The presidential government divide its power between the executive, legislative and judiciary branch and has a president who is both head of state and head of government. |
| Presidential government (with pros and cons) (FEATURES) | Some features are that the legislature and executive are separately elected, There is a formal separation of personnel between the executive and legislature. |
| Presidential government (with pros and cons) (ADVAN/DISVAN) | Some advantages are that voters have a greater choice and direct legitimacy. Furthermore, there is a fixed term which gives stability. Some disadvantages would be that there is no clear accountability and when the president is supported by parliamentary majority a winner-takes-all system can take place. |
| Parliamentary government (with pros and cons) (CONTEXT/DEFINITION) | A parliamentary government system is a democratic system which is characterized by a fusion of the legislative and executive branches, and there is no separation of power. In this system, the parliament is directly elected by voters in form of elections. The parliament creates the executive by selecting its a cabinet of officials. |
| Parliamentary government (with pros and cons) (ADVAN/DISADVAN) | In this form, there is not a conflict between the 2 branches as long as there is a majority. And the line of responsibilities is more clear than in a presidential system. Another outcome of this type of system could be that it may produce unstable governments when there is no clear majority in which they have to form coalitions. |
| Parliamentary government (with pros and cons) (EXAMPLE) | An example of this parliamentary government system would be the Netherlands. |
| Coalition (DEFINITION) | The concept of a coalition is a group of rival political actors who are brought together either by a common threat or by the recognition that their goal cannot be achieved by working separately. |
| Coalition (CONTEXT) | A form of coalition is a government coalition where different political parties make agreements to distribute ministerial portfolios to create a government. One of the reason that this happen is for example that no single party has an absolute majority after an election. |
| Coalition (EXAMPLE) | An example would be the third Rutte cabinet which is formed out of 4 parties. |
| Semi-Presidentialism (CONTEXT/DEFINITION) | A Semi-presidential system is a democratic system which combines features of a parliamentary and presidential system. In this system, the president and the legislature are directly elected by the voters. |
| Semi-Presidentialism | The head of government is the prime minister who comes out of the parliament. In this sense their is a balance of power between the executive and legislative. However, when the executive and legislative are controlled by one party this could cause a potential for authoritarian executive. When the executive and legislative are from different parties this period is called a cohabitation. |
| Semi-Presidentialism (EXAMPLE) | France |
| Member of parliament (MP) (CONTEXT) | The concept member of parliament is the representative of the people for their constituency. |
| Member of parliament (MP) (EXAMPLE) | An example of a member of parliament is Geert Wilders. He represents the party and the people who elected him. |
