Is the United States’ System of Government More ‘democratic’ Than That of the United Kingdom?

Is the United States’ system of government more ‘democratic’ than that of the United Kingdom? Compare and critically evaluate presidential and parliamentary systems of democratic government.

Notes

Not all democracies are the same. Even superficial comparison of the liberal democratic systems of the United States and the United Kingdom reveals huge differences between their respective institutions, in the organisations of powers and functions of government, elections, and law-making procedures. Richard Rose (1974: 131, cited in Lijphart, 2012:9) writes that, ‘with confidence born of continental isolation, Americans have come to assume that their institutions….are the prototype of what should be adopted elsewhere’; Lijphart adds that ‘political scientists… have tended to hold the British system of government in equally high esteem’ (Lijphart, 2012:9).So which system is ‘better’? In this essay, you will need to think about the question from the point of view of democracy. Is it possible to say that presidential systems of government, or the US system of government in particular is more ‘democratic’ than that of the parliamentary systems like that of the UK? And what exactly does it mean when we say that one system is more democratic than another? Is this even a useful claim for a political scientist to make?

In the essay, you might want to address some of the following questions (note that this is not an ‘essay structure’: these are suggested themes or problems that should help focus your research and writing).

• What is democracy, and how should we measure ‘levels’ of democracy, or the ‘quality’ of democracy? INTRO

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• What is a ‘presidential’ system? What are its main institutional features? PG1

• How does the US presidential system work? Are there special features of the US system of government that are not included in the term ‘presidential system’? PG1

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• What is a parliamentary system? What are its main institutional features? PG2

• How does the UK parliamentary system work? Are there special features of the UK system of government that are not included in the term ‘parliamentary system’? PG2

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• What are the main differences and similarities between parliamentary and presidential systems? What are the main differences and similarities between the UK and US systems of government? PG3

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• Which of these systems is more ‘democratic’? [NOTE: How you answer this question depends on how you define democracy, and how you measure levels or the quality of democracy]. PG4

• COCNCLUSION

Reading list

Basic readings

Lijphart, A. (ed). (1992). Parliamentary versus Presidential Government. Oxford: Oxford UP.

Lijphart, A. (2012). Patterns of Democracy. 2nded. New Haven: Yale UP. esp. Ch. 2-3, and 10-11.

Leach., R., Coxall, B. and Robins, L. (2011). British Politics.2nd ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan.

McKay, D. (2013). American Politics and Society. 8th ed. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.

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