America Needs a Parliament

Akhilesh Pillalamarri

Politics, Americas

The presidency is the problem.

Given the tortuous manner in which the American political system has been functioning the past decade, can a case be made for the United States to switch over to a different sort of democratic political system? While the sacrosanct status of the U.S. Constitution makes any formal change unlikely, it is still interesting to speculate over whether or not a parliamentary system would be more suitable for the United States, as well as for other countries with presidential systems.

A parliamentary system of government is preferable to a presidential system. Parliamentary systems are common throughout much of Europe, South Asia and many former British colonies. Parliamentary systems are characterized by executives, usually called prime ministers, who derive their legitimacy from an assembly or legislature, usually called a parliament, after the “mother of parliaments,” in Britain. The executive is the head of government and is usually a member of the legislature and also held accountable to that legislature. The executive is thus separate from the head of state, who is usually a ceremonial monarch or president. On the other hand, in presidential systems, the head of government is also the head of state and is in charge of an executive branch that is separate, and elected separately, from the legislative branch. The United States and most countries in Latin America, as well as Russia feature this type of system. The executive in this systems tends to have great power. The concept underlying this system is the separation of powers that played a major role in American constitutional thinking.