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Political Science Paper
Rachel Valenti
Dr. Ivan Savic
Question #1
Political Science 1000
Final Exam
Dec 1st, 2014

The two most common types of democratic governmental systems are Parliamentary systems and Presidential systems. For many years, people have studied the effectiveness of both and have given reasons why a certain country should obtain a certain form of government. Examples of two countries that use these systems are Canada and the United States. Canada uses a traditional parliamentary system, and the United States uses a presidential system. In this paper, I will focus on the strengths of a parliamentary system, and the weaknesses of a presidential system, to prove my argument. Canada is better off with a parliamentary system then a presidential system for many reasons. In order for my argument to be persuasive, I will explain the differences in the two. In comparison to a presidential system, a parliamentary system has more closure in making decisions, the parties that exist within the system tend to be stronger, and there is a responsible government, which allows for the government leader to be more actively involved with its citizens.
A parliamentary system is a system of governing in which there is a close interrelationship between the Prime Minister and the parliament (Mintz, Close, Croci 325). A presidential system is a system of governing in which the president and congress each separately derive their authority from being elected by the people, and has a fixed term of office (Mintz, Close, Croci 349). When dealing with the strengths of a parliamentary system, we must first consider responsible government. Responsible government is when the political executive is accountable to parliament for its actions and mist retain the support of the elected members to remain in office (Mintz, Close, Croci 325). Of course, in the presidential system, there is no form of responsible government. This to me is a weakness of presidential systems. There are three



Cited: Mintz, Close, Croci. Politics, Power, and the Common Good: An Introduction to Political Science. Pearson, 2013.

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