Hello!, I'm interested in knowing more about the political system in each European Country.
I want to know things like how is decided the winner of the elections, how is the assembly, how laws are approved….
More or less your country political system in a nutshell.
Thanks!
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Classical parlamentarism (national elections)
You vote for parties (in your district/region). Each region has XX amount of representatives that they send to the parliament. Those representatives are distributed according to how many percentage they (each party)got. There are also some extra mandates that isn’t restricted necessarily to region, but to correct a bit.
When all representatives is elected/mandate is distributed. Several parties try to go together to make a majority (normally/sometimes the have done it in advance) Then they can make a majority government and quite much of the real politics is taken on the back room (in the government).. If parties can’t make up a majority government they have to negotiate from case to case seeking support in parliament from different parties. As Norway is a monarchy, it’s the king that appoints the government. So normally the PM will go to the king and tell him what majority there is for a government. The PM also resigns to the king. Each friday the government meet at the royal castle to report to the king about “what’s happening in the government”. National election held every 4th year on 2nd monday in september. Election is to be held in 2025. Current norwegian government is a minority government. Which mean that they from case to case negotiate in the parliament. Normally getting support from the socialistic party. Minority governments have been the most common in norway since the 1960s. Back in the 50s or 60s the labour party managed absolute majority for some period.. and a few times several parties have managed to make a majority.
Pretty stable system. Think post ww2 only 3 governments have resigned. Generally each side of the political scale have mutual respect for the system and eachothers as oponents.
So, in a nutshell:
Slovakia is a parliamentary republic – the executive government is responsible to and must maintain the confidence of the legislature. However, unlike many parliamentary systems like the UK, the ministers, including the Prime Minister are not members of parliament. Their mandates as MPs are suspended during time they serve in the executive and they are replaced by the candidates who received the next most votes from their party lists but failed to get into the legislature.
The unicameral legislature of Slovakia is the National Council of the Slovak Republic (NR SR). It consists of 150 members elected for a four-year term by proportional representation with a 5% electoral treshold – parties with more than 5% of the vote get into the NR SR and get seats proportional to their amount of votes (the treshold is 7% for smaller coalitions of parties and 10% for larger coalitions of parties). There are no electoral constituencies, so a person from Bratislava can vote for candidates from Košice. The National Council creates laws and can amend the Constitution by 3/5 majority vote.
The government requires the confidence of the legislature to govern, and thanks to proportional representation, getting an outright majority in the NR SR os unlikely (has happened only once, after the 2012 election), which means that coalition governments are very common. The current government is a coalition of 3 parties who together have 79 seats in the NR SR.
The head of state of Slovakia is the President of the Slovak Republic. They are elected directly by the people for a term of 5 years by a two round system. In the first round, all candidates run, and if none of them gets a majority of the votes, a second round is held with only the two most successful candidates. Candidates may be proposed by MPs (the support of 15 MPs is required iirc) or the people (the signatures of 15k people are required iirc). The President is the head of state, appoints the Prime Minister, appoints other ministers on their advice, appoints the members of the Constitutional Court from a shortlist of candidates provided by the NR SR, is the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, dismisses the government or ministers after a motion of no confidence, signs bills into law and grants pardons and amnesty. The President may refuse assent to a law, but this may be overriden by an absolute majority of votes in the NR SR. The President may serve an unlimited amount of terms, but only two consecutively, but most serve just one term and don’t seek reelection.
Belgium is complex.
The country is divided between two large language communities – French and Dutch (Flemish), with a small German-speaking minority. These are the three Communities. Communities are responsible for “people things”, like schools and cultural affairs.
The country is split geographically into Flanders (north), Wallonia (south), and Brussels (more-or-less in the middle). These are the Regions. Regions are for ”exterior things” like roads and highways, energy, technology, tourism, etc.
Each Community and each Region have a parliament. The Flemish Community and the Flemish Region merged. The French/German Communities and the Walloon Region did not merge, so these parliaments are separate.
Then we have the federal parliament for everybody, the provinces (for residual powers), and the 581 local municipalities.
Belgium uses proportional voting – if I’m not mistaken, a party needs 5% of the votes to earn one seat in any parliament.
This is the basic information about Belgium.
At National level, it’s the “Westminster” system – winner takes all, and there is almost always an outright winner in elections. However, it’s very common for someone to be elected with less than 50% – even 40% – of the vote, and a government can have a huge majority with a relatively small proportion of the vote. For example, in the 2024 general election, Labour got well over 400/650 seats with only 37% vote share. Royal Assent is given by the King, and he still signs each bill into law.
The systems are different in the Devolved Administrations (Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales) but the big difference is that they all have some form of proportionality in the electoral systems for their respective chambers.
The House of Lords isn’t elected.
Most bills originate in the Commons and must be agreed by both houses, apart from the annual Finance Bill. However, convention is that the Lords will ultimately respect the will of the elected House, and cannot veto a bill.
Mostly on fire, but less on fire than before July 4th when we got a new government
Mostly on fire, but less on fire than before July 4th when we got a new government
Nutshell: highly democratic and highly representative, the problems aren’t systemic so much as cultural.
Ie. Whereas in the UK, USA or Canada the system is designed to constrain real choice and the politics are unrepresentative shitshows as a result, in Ireland the politics are a real reflection of how shit Irish people are at self-government.
A parliamentary democracy with proportional elections. The 349 members of parliament should be as close an approximation of how the people voted. There’s a 4% limit to get in. At the moment we have eight parties in parliament. Up until 2014 the parties coalesced into two blocs, one on the left and one on the right. But then the Sweden Democrats entered, a populist party which some on the right can tolerate while others (the centre-right liberals) can’t. So since then the forming of a government has been a bit more complicated, as the centre-right can’t really agree with the far left on economic issues, and there can’t be a centre-left government unless it’s tolerated by the far left.
Laws are passed in parliament but have to be initiated by the government, with a mandatory study before it can be made into a proposition from the government. The government is required by our constitution to initiate such a fact-finding study before they can propose anything to parliament. Then parliament handles it in a parliamentary committee. Usually it’s just rubber stamping what the government wants to do, but sometimes the committee actually makes additions. Then it’s put in front of parliament, but by then it’s usually already decided and it’s just a way for the public to be able to hear the arguments from each party publicly.
At the moment our government consists of the liberal-conservative Moderate party, the conservative Christian Democrats and the centre-right Liberal party, with support (but no cabinet positions) from the Sweden Democrats. The Liberals have had a hard time with this and are polling well below the 4% limit.
The opposition consists of the centre-left Social Democrats, the centre-left Green Party, the far-left Left party and the centre-right liberal Centre party (in ideology and politics close to the centre-right Liberal party, but representing the centre-right liberal voters who couldn’t stomach cooperation with the right-wing populists in the Sweden democrats).
Ireland’s parliamentary system in Dáil Éireann (lower house) is derived from the Westminster model, but in the framework of a constitutional republic and with proportional representation using multi seat constituencies with ranked choice voting (PR-STV). There are no party lists etc and you can vote for multiple parties with different preferences – just ranking 1, 2,3 …. as far as you want to go on the ballot.
The cabinet is made up of members of the house, and can include a couple of senators (but never does).
The executive is rather similarly structured to Westminster, and is a creature of the parliament and responsible and accountable to it. The Taoiseach (Prime Minister) is elected by the parliament and must be an MP (TD) and the ministers are appointed and accountable to parliament but decisions are made by cabinet collectively.
The committee system is filled on the basis of proportionality, with members of each having the same ratio as electoral representation, with independents forming ‘The Technical Group’ which is a virtual party to give them speaking time and committee access.
The upper house, Seanad Éireann (Senate) is *much* less powerful, and has a similar role to the House of Lords – primarily discussion and nuance. Senators are mostly elected by county and city councillors acting as an electoral college, having been nominated to vocational panels that are supposed to represent society.
The Taoiseach (PM) nominates 11 senators. These are in theory supposed to be to allow the government to bring in external expertise into the system, a sort of similar idea to the appointed cabinet members in other systems, but with much less power. In reality it tends to get used as a place to put various parties’ members who are on the way in or out of politics to raise profile or they get used for horse trading in coalition formation in the lower house. It has on occasion been used well though, for example WB Yeats was a senator for 6 years.
Then we have the 6 university seats, which are elected only by graduates of the two oldest university groups as they were in 1922 basically. Both universities expanded to other institutions by awarding their degrees, but it bizarrely excludes a number of modern universities like UL (University of Limerick), DCU and the universities that evolved from institutes of technology. It’s being expanded, but there was ludicrous foot dragging. It will finally happen this year. The concept is a bit elitist, but the idea was to bring academic discussion to the upper house, and it often has.
The idea of university seats in Ireland goes back to 1613, so it’s really a carry over from quite an arcane concept that is considered by many to be a more than a bit obsolete, but it has brought in some interesting senators over the years and their power basically extends to making speeches.
Then we’ve the directly elected president, who is non executive much like Germany, Iceland, Finland etc. They have one significant power, to be able to refer a bill to the Supreme Court for constitutional review before signing if they doubt its constitutionality, but mostly they’re just a figurehead.
Bills pass, as you’d expect by going through various stages of debate and analysis by committee in the two houses and then go on to the president.
The courts have a significant role in checks and balances, anyone can bring a case to the courts challenging the constitutionality of an enacted law, and the courts can rule to strike down, which like the US, operates retroactivity!
Governments in the modern era are highly unlikely to ever be formed by one or even two parties. They’re usually complicated coalitions. The current government even agreed to share the role of prime minister, giving us our first ever “Rotating Taoiseach”.
Generally Ireland doesn’t tend to form the usual clear left/right dichotomy that you might see elsewhere. This is both because of the system’s structure trending to always slide into the centre, with the idea of what the centre is moving as the eras have changed. It tends to be about finding a consensus to hold a coalition together, so that’s always going to be the case.
However, we also don’t have a traditional heavy industrial history, so Irish Labour has tended to be quite a small party.
Ireland also uses a lot of referenda, which is how we amend the constitution. So that’s why you’ll occasionally see major Irish votes on various topics.
Overall it ranks very highly on the democracy index etc. the main criticism you could make is that it can be a bit prone to inertia and indecisiveness.
Parliamentary democracy, republic with publicly elected president (so sometimes described as not „fully parliamentary”). Bicameral parliament, unitary country.
The parliament’s lower house is called Sejm (460 MPs), upper house is Senat (100 MPs), both elected for 4 years term. Lower house is determined by the d’Hondt method with electoral districts and country-wide 5% threshold (8% for party coalitions). The upper house is determined through winners within single-member districts, no second round.
The prime minister is appointed by Sejm majority after the elections, then forms and leads the government and effectively holds the power. The PM is typically either the winning party’s leader or someone selected by that leader. The parliament can dismiss the prime minister or any government member.
The president is publicly elected for 5 years term (two terms maximum), but effectively holds mostly ceremonial and representative functions. Their main power is to veto a law passed by the parliament, the veto can be overruled by 3/5 majority in Sejm though.
Legal acts are passed by simple majority in both houses of parliament, however the lower house has an option to overrule the upper one’s rejection. Constitution can be amended or changed with 2/3 majority in Sejm.
The country is unitary, divided into three-level administrative units (smallest to largest: gmina, powiat, voivodeship). Local elections held every 5 years determine the local councils and city or village mayors, who also have a limit of two terms. Both local mayors’ and presidential elections have second rounds of two, if no candidate surpasses 50%.
Well, we have the parliament, the senate and the government (the ministers plus the King). All laws have to be approved by all three.
The government and the parliament can propose laws. The senate can only accept or decline laws, and checks if laws are in line with other laws and have no unintended effects (in reality they also do party politics).
The parliament has 150 seats and they are directly voted for. So if you get 1 out of 150 votes you get into parliament. Seats go to the first person on the party list first, then to the second person, etc. Unless you had enough preferential votes to break the party list.
The senate is voted for by provincial politicians, who in turn are directly elected.
The government is unelected. The parliament and senate just make an agreement on who become the next ministers. And then the King appoints those people. Our current Prime Minister for example was not a member of any party, but just a neutral person.
The government has ministers and the King. They speak in one voice to the public, so you never know who said what inside the government. All laws have to be signed by 1 minister plus the King. The King advises the ministers and ensures the democratic process is followed, and the ministers decide on issues by majority vote within the government. And the government appoints all judges, prosecutors, city mayors, etc.
The Prime Minister and the King are both the face of the government, but the Prime Minister is more political, while the King is above the parties.
There is also an advisory organ appointed by the King, called the Council of State, who advises the government and politicians on issues. Politicians seldom go against their advice, because the Council of State has a different department, which is the Supreme Court. So going against their advice risks getting your policies getting shot down in court.
And we have a lot of planning agencies, who work out the plans for the government.
Italy, the only perfect bicameral parliamentary system in the world (we elect two chambers, Senate and Parliament, in the exact same way, and they have the exact same powers – it’s highly inefficient)
Basic division is One Federation, 26, cantons, around 3000 municipalities. Each municipality has a statute, every canton a constitution, the Federation too.
Parliaments on all levels are elected with proportional representation and voting lists. Many municipalities have the assembly of their citizens a few times per year instead of an elected parliament.
The Federal Parliament is called Federal Assembly. It consists of two chambers, a bit modelled after the US Congress. The National Council has 200 members, with every canton having a number of representatives in proportion to their population. The Council of States has two members per canton.
There are six half-cantons which form three pairs of full-cantons for historic reasons. These only send one representative to Council of States each.
Both chambers of parliament are equal in rights and duties. The Councillors of State are not bound by their canton’s instruction.
The United Federal Assembly (when both chambers are in the same room) elect the Federal Council, which is the cabinet. Each member is elected individually.
The Federal Council consists of seven members. They are each other’s equal, and all decisions are made together as a team. Publicly, they are supposed to only ever express the opinions of the FC as a whole on a given issue, and not their own.
Each of them also presides over one of the seven ministeries. The ministeries are further divided in different offices and authorities, presided by a chief Secretary. These are part of the administration, but are not political offices.
The Federal Council is a collective head of state. The office of Federal President rotates yearly among the members, traditionally in order of seniority. The next President is always whoever has been around the longest without having been it.
The President of the Federation presides over the weekly meetings and decides when votes are split.
The FC technically can not do “state visits” to other countries, because an individual Councilman is not a head of state.
The composition of the FC is that all the regions are supposed to be represented adequately.
In practice, there are always minimum two non-German speakers (sometimes called “Latins”) and minimum two women. The three most powerful parties get two members each, the fourth-strongest one.
Other than that, Switzerland works like many other countries, probably.
The FC proposes a law, the NC and CS discuss it individually, send it a few times to and fro until everybody’s happy, and then vote on it to make it law, unless the following things happen:
If a promulgated law touches the Constitution, the People must vote on it in a Obligatory Referendum. If it does not, anybody else who is unhappy with it and collects enough subscribers until a given deadline may challenge it too and force a Facultative Referendum.
The People itself may propose changes to the Constitution at any time. This is called Initiative. The initiative comittee works out a new article(s), and when the Parliament approves the proposal, the committee gets a deadline until which to collect enough subscribers, and thus force a popular vote.
Semi-Presidental Republic (monarchy with consultative parliament)
How is decided the winner of the elections? Well, to win presidential election you must get 50%+1 votes, nothing interesting here. What about parliament elections – the country is divided with 225 election districts (okrugs). Half of Duma deputies is elected from each okrug and the second half – by party lists, so when we have parliament elections we get 2 bulletins. (Uhh, who am I kidding? To win you should have the certain surname or a bear as symbol of your party and loyal head of the Central Election Comission)
What about the laws – they pass 3 readings and later signed by the Tsar (if a law is not going to be signed it won’t probably pass the 1 reading)
Besides national elections we have municipal ones and some regions – elections of a governor that work basically the same way as the presidental ones.
Each Canton (state) and town has a lot of decision making power. Generally any competence that isn’t explicitly assigned to a higher (federal or cantonal) authority by the constitution is generally executed by the lowest possible one. That’s why there is a ton of variation and therefore competition between cantons and towns when it comes to taxes and services.
The second unique thing is us not being governed by a single guy (president or Prime Minister) but by a council of 7 on a national level. They are equals and decide by committee. And 4 different parties from left to right are represented (and have been for decades). One of them is technically the president, but that just means they open and close meetings and represent Switzerland internationally when “the president” is needed. The presidency rotates annually according to a schedule. This creates a lot of long term stability.
And the last important point is that the people have a lot more power than elsewhere. If you don’t like a law passed by parliament, anyone can challenge the law by collecting 50k signatures to trigger a popular vote to overturn it. And anyone can propose a change to the constitution by collecting 100k signatures, again triggering a popular vote. And similar mechanisms exist on cantonal and communal levels.
Because of this, we vote 4 times a year on various matters. Such as whether our town should pay 50 million to build a new school or bridge, to whether our Canton should lower taxes or create a nature reserve. Or even whether we should raise the national retirement age, introduce a minimum wage, abolish conscription or even the whole army or legalize weed and so on.
A joke. It is at the mercy of politicking and two secessionist nationalisms with episodes as dark as Francoism itself and which they try to hide at all costs.
And they cannot do more, because legislatively and by the Constitution they cannot. But they try again and again for THEIR interests (not for THEIR duties, which they acquire as soon as they undertake to collect the deputy’s certificate). And increasingly bordering on what would have no place in any serious democracy in Europe no matter how much they deny and renounce it.
More than one attempt that they have made, surely in many countries in Europe it would have cost them the forced resignation of a little more than one (and one) in not even three months since a botched attempt to use the Legislative and Executive power for THEIR interests party or personal in politics, or from statements as irresponsible as they are out of place in the face of clear consequences of legislative changes that they made, supported and defended as they did.
They are stopped, I repeat, by the Spanish Constitution, laws and official institutions that no matter how much they try to boss around and manipulate in an increasingly cynical way. And sometimes, because they themselves stopped them and indicated that if they continued moving forward, sooner rather than later it would also come to them and they would crash against European Law.
But meanwhile they waste time, years and years. And charging too well for what they end up doing and how they do it!
A semi-presidential republic with a bicameral legislature and imperfect bicameralism.
Meaning : the executive branch (civil service and government agencies, led by the President) have more power/influence on the legislative branch (government led by Prime minister and Parliament led by its two assembly presidents). The Parliament however holds two assemblies : the National Assembly holds more power than the Senate, mainly it can force the Senate to adopt laws and it controls the government.
Executive > legislative (National Assembly>Senate).
In a nutshell, the President chooses a Prime minister from the assembly, the Prime minister creates a government and then he and his government get validation from the National Assembly. Then, the government and the Parliament can initiate laws, whose text has to be voted on simple majority by both chambers (National Assembly AND Senate) before being ratified by the president and applied by the civil service. If there is a conflict, the National Assembly can censure the government and force it to resign, while the President can dissolve the National Assembly and call for a new general election.
Both the President and the National Assembly members are elected on universal suffrage on a two turns simple majority system, for 5 years. It means that all candidates in elections are present in the first turn, if anyone gets a 50+1% share of the votes they win, but if no one get it all the candidates over a certain vote treshold (I think 20%) get a second vote, and the highest one wins.