Category Archives: Comparative

Presidentialism vs Parliamentarism in The West Wing

Posted on 2011/09/29 by J.W.J. Bowden

“The Wake Up Call” in season 6 of The West Wing features a sub-plot in which a Belorussian delegation came to Washington on a fact-finding mission so that they could write a new constitution for Belarus based on the American presidential … Continue reading →

Posted in Parliamentarism v Presidentialism | 10 Comments

Presidentialism vs Parliamentarism: The American Presidency

Posted on 2011/09/28 by J.W.J. Bowden

The Government of the United States of America just averted another shutdown because of failure to pass supply, or appropriations in the American lexicon. I established in earlier posts that the American form of presidential-congressional government is inherently irresponsible (in … Continue reading →

Posted in Parliamentarism v Presidentialism | 8 Comments

The Maple Crown and the Commonwealth Realms

Posted on 2011/09/22 by J.W.J. Bowden

On September 21, 2011, the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, an excellent new thinktank on public policy, hosted a presentation on a recently published book 1911: The Decisive Election that Shaped the Country precisely 100 years to the day when the results of … Continue reading →

Posted in Conferences and Speeches, Monarchism v Republicanism, The Personal Union | 21 Comments

Reversal of “Republicanism by Stealth”

Posted on 2011/09/10 by J.W.J. Bowden

Australian constitutional scholar Peter Boyce in The Queen’s Other Realms: The Crown in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand argued that all three of these Commonwealth realms have faced since the 1960s a gradual de-monarchization, or republicanism by stealth. These measures … Continue reading →

Posted in Monarchism v Republicanism | 3 Comments

Fareed Zakaria Is Right About Parliamentarism’s Efficiency, but Wrong on How It Works

Posted on 2011/08/21 by J.W.J. Bowden

Earlier I explained why the American form of presidentialism is inherently “irresponsible” (as opposed to responsible government in Westminster parliamentarism) because of its famous separation of powers, which is ultimately the source of all these fractious financial debates over the … Continue reading →

Posted in Parliamentarism v Presidentialism | 8 Comments