Category Archives: Comparative

Restoration of the Personal Union of the Crowns of Scotland and England

Posted on 2011/11/14 by J.W.J. Bowden

Alex Salmond, the current First Minister of Scotland, and his Scottish National Party won a parliamentary majority earlier this year – a significant first for the new Scottish Parliament and its mixed member proportional electoral system. The Scottish National Party … Continue reading →

Posted in Appointment of PM, Constructive Non-Confidence, Dissolution, Fixed-Date Elections, The Personal Union | Tagged , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

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