Module 3 Checkpoint Assignment

Presidential Versus Parliamentary Systems
Student’s Name
Institution
Presidential Versus Parliamentary Systems
Thesis Statement – The presidential system is different from the parliamentary system. In a presidential system, the executive is separated from the legislature and the latter is not responsible for the assembly.
Topic Sentence 1 – In a parliamentary system, the legislature, or lawmaking body elects the president.
In the former, someone is chosen by the people or by the winning party to be president.
In the parliamentary system, however, the executive branch is only legitimate if it’s able to control the legislative branch of government (Gerring, Thacker & Moreno, 2009).
The president is held responsible by parliament unlike in the presidential system where the president is not responsible to parliament.
Topic Sentence 2 – There are differences in the roles of the president in a presidential and parliamentary system.
In a typical presidential system, the head of state acts as the head of government.
This scenario is depicted in constitutional monarchies where the monarchy heads the government while a member of parliament acts on the capacity of head of state (Carey, 2008).
The executive branch in the latter does not seek legitimacy from parliament which is a necessity in a parliamentary system.
Topic Sentence 3 – In a presidential system, the tenure of the executive is fixed while that for a parliamentary system remains unfixed.
Since presidents in the presidential system are brought to power through the majority vote in elections, their term is limited by the time from one election to another (Carey, 2008).

While in some systems the president cannot be terminated through a vote of no confidence or parliamentary procedures, many countries have this exception.
Parliamentary systems terms are unfixed, but this has changed in many countries where the timing of the parliamentary elections fixes the duration of the president.
The conclusion – The parliamentary system differs from the presidential system mainly on how the presidents rise to power. While majority votes are used in a presidential system, the majority vote helps a politician to be president; in a parliamentary system, the members of parliament are directly involved in bringing an individual to power.
References
Carey, J. M. (2008). Presidential versus parliamentary government. In Handbook of new institutional economics (pp. 91-122). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Gerring, J., Thacker, S. C., & Moreno, C. (2009). Are parliamentary systems better? Comparative Political Studies, 42(3), 327-359.