Talk:Parliamentary system

Redirect

Any reason Parliamentary redirects to Parliament instead of here? I ran into the problem looking for information parliamentary systems and when I was sent to Parliament thought maybe the page didn't exist at all.

Or perhaps add this to the disambig page for Parliament. Peyna 19:14:44, 2005-08-29 (UTC)

Another thing: Parliamentary Democracy and Parliamentary democracy do not redirect to the same page Cheesus (talk) 19:05, 5 July 2025 (UTC)

Help me to revert this latest "vandalism"

Here look this trash edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=1182276512&oldid=1181816650&title=Parliamentary_system

The problem: I would simply revert, but some good people like @Mr Serjeant Buzfuz edited out a little but not most of that trash, instead of me reverting the latest edits of the good guys, I'll leave this warning to get them to do it. If not, I'm a noob, so the simplest path is for me to revert until to before the vandalism, but I wait until you decide the best path. Santropedro (talk) 23:45, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Hi Santropedro, I was editing on my phone when I did that partial revert, and obviously didn't notice how many irrelevant wikilinks had been inserted. Thanks for drawing it to my attention. I think I've cleaned them all up. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 02:05, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for doing that job! I came back after remembering this situation. I sent you a thank you notification for your edit. See you. Santropedro (talk) 20:38, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

Parliamentarism

There seems to be a wiki item in 22 languages called parliamentarism. This mentions concepts like negative parliamentarism and positive parliamentarism. So it's mainly how governments function and how parties cooperate within a parliament. Scandinavian countries have the first variant which leads to two bloc politics and a lot minority cabinets. As a Dutchman I am familiar with the second variant which leads to majority cabinets and center politics. Countries like Germany and Belgium also use this system. So, now my question: why isn't there an English page on this subject? Or should these wiki data items be merged into one? The bottom line is: there is more than the Westminster and consensus model of parliament. Btw, these Scandinavian countries are the highest ranked democracies in the world so it's describing how they function and what makes them unique. Klaasgroen (talk) 22:01, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Recent edits

User @Lilasdst recently made some very large edits to this page, focusing on economics. Considering they are the accounts' only edits on wikipedia and deal with theories I wouldn't call settled science, I would appreciate if someone would take a look at them to maybe trim and contextualize them.

The references 41 to 46 that were added during these edits are broken ("Article ([[Special:EditPage/{{{1}}}|edit]] | [[Talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] | [[Special:PageHistory/{{{1}}}|history]] | [{{fullurl:Special:WhatLinksHere/{{{1}}}|limit=999}} links] | [{{fullurl:{{{1}}}|action=watch}} watch] | logs | views"), so those sections are currently uncited. I would appreciate if the editor could add them to support his contributions. — jonas (talk) 02:26, 16 November 2025 (UTC)

LLM content?

by whom or how was LLM content detected here? can't we nail down the user or edits in question? since the policy is simply to remove, I'd be happy to just revert. what other leg work is needed? thanks, skakEL 22:04, 30 April 2026 (UTC)

I tagged the content, as seen in the edit history. The edits in question are these -- it appears to be a case of (probably piecemeal) AI copyediting, but also a case of AI copyediting with poor review given the various formatting issues (among other problems) Gnomingstuff (talk) 03:08, 11 May 2026 (UTC)

These appear to be the edits mentioned in #Recent edits immediately above as having broken sources. What LLM would result in the way the text is broken up over multiple lines? That is the sort of error I'd expect from copying from a pdf or some other document with existing line breaks. CMD (talk) 06:01, 11 May 2026 (UTC)

But these edits have been removed... TheUzbek (talk) 10:29, 11 May 2026 (UTC)

"Fusion of powers" and "Responsible government"

@Rankedchoicevoter Fusion of the executive and legislative powers is not a necessary attribute of the parliamentary system; only the fact that the executive's term is completely linked to enjoying the legislature's confidence is. It admittedly is an essential element of the Westminster subtype of parliamentary systems which are more predominant in English-language scholarship due to being what the vast majority of Anglosphere parliamentary countries use, but the Westminster subtype is not the end-all-and-be-all of parliamentary systems as a whole because there's also the Continental European subtype. In addition, using the term "responsible government" as a descriptor for "the government is dependent on parliamentary confidence" is something that's only done in the constitutional theory of Westminster-system states, particularly Canada, and is once again completely foreign to the Continental European subtype of parliamentary systems.

As for the claim that the Constitutions of Croatia, Germany, and Finland explicitly establish a separation between legislature and executive, here's the relevant constitutional provisions:

Article 4. In the Republic of Croatia, government shall be organised on the principle of separation of powers into the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, and limited by the constitutionally guaranteed right to local and regional self-government.
[...]
Article 70. The Croatian Parliament shall be a representative body of the people and shall be vested with legislative power in the Republic of Croatia.
[...]
Article 98. The President of the Republic shall[...]entrust the mandate to form the Government to a person who, based on the distribution of seats in the Croatian Parliament and completed consultations, enjoys the confidence of the majority of all Members of Parliament;
[...]
Article 107. The Government of the Republic of Croatia shall exercise executive power in compliance with the Constitution and law.

— Constitutional Court of the Republic of Croatia, The consolidated text of the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia as of 15 January 2014 (2014)

All state authority is derived from the people. It shall be exercised by the people through elections and other votes and through specific legislative, executive and judicial bodies.

— Federal Ministry of Justice of Germany, Article 20, paragraph (2), Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany (2025)

Section 3

Parliamentarism and separation of powers

Legislative powers are exercised by Parliament, which also decides on the central government finances.
Governmental powers are exercised by the President of the Republic and the Government, the members of which shall enjoy the confidence of Parliament.
Judicial powers are exercised by independent courts, with the Supreme Court and the Supreme Administrative Court as the highest instances.

— Ministry of Justice of Finland, Constitution of Finland (731/1999; amendments up to 817/2018 included) (2018)

Glide08 (talk) 13:19, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

Fusion of powers IS the the executive's term is completely linked to enjoying the legislature's confidence.

These constitutions may name separation of powers, but in this respect, there is fusion. Fusion can appear in investiture and in removal, of which removal is more important and investiture is often just procedural (like in Westminster). Parliamentary systems have fusion with investiture (de facto) and fusion with removal.

Fusion of powers doesn't mean the powers are not distinct, these constitutions do make the distinction and make different bodies responsible for it, but the legislative and executive are in fusion. Rankedchoicevoter (talk) 20:02, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

No it's not, it's the name for what's also known as "strict monism" - i.e. that government ministers must be simultaneously members of the legislature (except for lame duck periods) - the legislative and executive are considered to be in fusion because their memberships are required to overlap, not because the executive's term is dependent on legislative confidence.

Incidentally, fusion of powers/strict monism is also a feature of Westminster parliamentarism that's much less common in Continental european parliamentarism - CEP is much more likely to employ soft monism (ministers can, but don't have to, be members of the legislature) or even dualism (ministers can't be legislators simultaneously). Glide08 (talk) 22:49, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

That's a different thing, the terms strict monism, dualism and strict dualism, etc. are sufficient for that. Fusion of powers is opposite to separation. Separation demands there is no confidence relationship, no political accountability of one to the other. In softer forms, it allows for election of one by the other, see Switzerland's executive, while the opposite would be separate elections but fused survival (directly elected prime ministers or mutual death clauses)

Continental parliamentarism has separation of powers, but not between the executive and the legislature, those are fused (although strict dualism is sometimes seen as such, i would say that is not separation, just distinction - the fused confidence structure remains) Rankedchoicevoter (talk) 22:01, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

Present-day sources such as the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, the Cambridge University Law Society's journal "Per Incuriam", and the "Federalism-E" journal of the Queen's University at Kingston and the Royal Military College of Canada, clearly use "fusion of powers" and "separation of powers" as a descriptor for personnel overlap between the legislative and executive branches, not for the confidence relations (or absence thereof) between them:

One of the many questions to be answered in the process of designing or reforming political institutions is, ‘Should ministers be members of the legislature?’ or, put another way, ‘Should ministerial office be incompatible with membership of the legislature?’

In some countries, ministers are chosen from amongst the members of the legislature and then remain members of the legislature while in ministerial office; ministerial office and legislative membership are ‘fused’.

In other countries, ministers are normally chosen from outside the legislature, or, if members of the legislature are appointed to ministerial office, they must resign their legislative seats; ministerial office and legislative membership are ‘separated’.

Both the ‘fused’ and ‘separated’ models have their own advantages and disadvantages—although the balance between the pros and cons will depend much on the institutional and political context.

— Elliot Bulmer, International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance Constitution Brief: Should Ministers be Members of the Legislature? (2019)

It’s already necessary to rephrase our question. The concept of “fusion” is no longer on trial — some degree of fusion is critical to the effective operation of the separation of powers doctrine. But how far should the fusion extend, and more specifically here, is the fusion of the legislative and executive in the United Kingdom, as described by Bagehot, really appropriate or even necessary?

Bagehot explains how the American Founding Fathers “wished to keep ‘the legislative branch absolutely distinct from the executive branch’; they believed such a separation to be essential to a good constitution”.[2] Furthermore, they felt that “to the effectual maintenance of such a separation, the exclusion of the President’s ministers from the legislature is essential.”[3]

With those aims in mind, it’s obvious as to why the Presidency and the executive branch is so isolated from Congress. Suffice it to say, the same approach was categorically not taken in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister, and all of her cabinet, are as much members of the legislature as any other MPs. Their executive function is built directly on top of their legislative function. This overlap (or indeed fusion) and it’s [sic] positives and negatives are what warrants consideration.

— Rory Hamilton Coggins, Bagehot and Executive Fusion, Per Incuriam (2018)

Although each branch of the Canadian government has its own unique role and responsibilities, it is necessary to understand the system of government that operates in Canada. Canada is a unique example when discussing the separation of powers because, although there are three distinct branches of government, Canada is classified as a bipartite system, rather than a tripartite system, as formally introduced through the work of Montesquieu. This phenomenon exists as the Canadian federal government operates as a fused system; this is referred to as a fusion of powers. The executive and legislative branches are intermingled as members of the executive branch, the Prime Minister and his cabinet, also hold seats in the legislature. Although this causes the two branches to be fused together, it is necessary to understand that they remain distinct, constitutional branches by law. Each branch of government has its responsibilities separated in a way that ensures each branch of government will verify the actions and responsibilities of another. (The idea file, 2011)

— Melissa Sanfacon, Bagehot and Executive Fusion (2017)

Glide08 (talk) 00:15, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

Ganghof, S., 2021. Beyond presidentialism and parliamentarism: democratic design and the separation of powers. Oxford University Press:

"Under parliamentary government, the executive is selected by the assembly and can also be dismissed by it for purely political reasons—there is a fusion of powers between the executive and the assembly majority. In a single chain of delegation, voters elect one collective agent, the assembly, which then selects a prime minister and cabinet as agents of the assembly (Strøm 2000)."

Comparative Executive–Legislative Relations Matthew Søberg Shugart

The Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions:

"When a single party obtains a majority of seats, a parliamentary system is every bit as

hierarchical as it is portrayed in Fig. 18.1. The hierarchical accountability of the cabinet

to parliament is what generates the “fusion of powers” described famously by Bagehot

(1867/1963). Post-Bagehot, scholars increasingly recognized that effective power is

concentrated in the leadership of the majority party, rather than within parliament (e.g.

McKenzie 1912). As party leaders in the cabinet gained greater autonomy over their own

backbench members (Cox 1987), the fusion of executive and legislative powers was

essentially extended to a fusion of party and executive."

Why the EU Should Have a Single President, and How She Should be Elected Simon Hix

"In other words, a fusion of powers in the EU (where the same majority elects the executive

and enacts legislation) would probably lead to faster European integration, through the

centralisation of more policy competences, and more redistributive policies – such as tax

harmonisation, greater labour market regulations, and a larger EU budget."

Your first source does indeed use "this fusion" once, although where you highlighted, it say only "fused". I would say it supports an interpretation where the personal fusion is just an element of "fusion of powers" as a broader concept.

Similarly with the second: " It emerges from another feature of executive fusion — legislative dominance by the government. A party’s invitation to form a government will almost always be by virtue of their having gained a majority in the House of Commons. ", " In a system without executive fusion, it’s equally conceivable that a single party could gain control of both the executive and legislative branches separately — the unique feature of executive fusion is that it makes it a technical certainty." - I hope you agree these don't make sense if fusion was just overlap or strict monism.

Your third source seems to cite a dubious blogpost on this.

I would say, let's move forward with clarifying "fusion" as primarily confidence relationship (while the "distinction" of powers is still made, with distinct bodies and responsibilities, in contrast to "unified state power"), with may or may not be amplified with overlap and even strict monism. Let's start introducing the term strict monism where needed. Meanwhile, for separation, the lack of political accountability to and from the other body is the main identifier. We can maybe write where needed that separate election increases the separation of powers (but does not seem to be a universal precondition to use that phrase) and strict dualism may be regarded by some as an aspect of (personal) separation of powers. Rankedchoicevoter (talk) 06:29, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

While you do make a good case that there is more to fusion of powers than just the personnel overlap, calling systems which expressly negate this personnel overlap, or which describe their legislative and executive powers as "separate" on the constitutional level, as having "fusion of powers", seems very absurd. (In other words, the presence of a confidence requirement and some degree of monism certainly make for fusion of powers, but I doubt the presence of just one of these elements does as well). I also don't need to remind you that the line between impeachment and a motion of no-confidence is blurrier than one might think - for example, Peru's extremely liberal impeachment mechanism create a form of de facto political accountability of the President before Congress. Glide08 (talk) 11:16, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

I would say yes, Peru is de facto more fusion/confidence based than de iure, I think this is established in the literature. Of course, there is never going to be perfect terminology, even terms such as "parliamentary", "presidential", "semi-presidential", "elected prime-ministerial" are never going to be definitive.

I still would say, fusion is primarily about the political accountability / confidence relationship of one to the other, while when there is only legal accountability (impeachment) as a check/balance that is a marker of some separation (even if let's say the election of executive is done by the legislature).

So I could suggest clarifying that fusion of powers systems have an institutional "distinction" (not separation, not unified powers), but have structural and often also personal fusion (to both we do see sources clearly). Although strict dualism is clearly more to the separation side of the spectrum than soft monism, at least on the personal level that is separation I think we can acknowledge that spectrum, just as much as we can acknowledge than confidence votes and impeachments are not 100% binary. But "separation of powers" is more than the simple distinction and dualism.

In any case, let's try to find good sources for monism/dualism since many articles seem to lack this aspect.

I would argue we should try to extend this analysis to other branches too. Modern parliamentarism does have separation of powers and checks and balances, but more between the executive/legislature and the judiciary or constitutional court, etc. So fusion of powers is not a redundant synonym to parliamentary, same as separation of powers is not synonymous with presidential (assembly independent executives...). We should use these terms in a meaningfully different way. Rankedchoicevoter (talk) 12:15, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

To be fair, in a fusion between the legislature and executive there's also checks and balances - the motion of no confidence is counterbalanced by the dissolution. Glide08 (talk) 14:32, 27 September 2026 (UTC)