Nent Units' Governmental Forms and Among Those of the Compo- Nent Units in Each Country

e: 4 * iif 186 DIVISION OF POWER most complete isomorphism both between the central and compo nent units' governmental forms and among those of the compo- nent units in each country. With regard to the choice of presidential or parliamentary systems, for instance, the United States is solidly presidential, with CHAPTER 11 governors serving as "presidents" at the state level. However, there has been more experimentation with the electoral system in the PARLIAMENTS AND CONGRESSES: United States than in other federations. The principal example at CONCENTRATION VERSUS DIVISION OF the state level is Illinois, which used a semiproportional system LEGISLATIVE POWER cumulative voting-for electing its lower house from 1870 to 1980. Another example is Louisiana's use of the majority-runoff method (where the first stage of the election is termed the "non partisan primary") instead of the plurality rule for electing its members of the US House of Representatives. The Australian House of Representatives and the lower houses of the Australian states are all elected by the alternative vote, he se~o~d c~mponent of the federal-unitary dimension is except one: Tasmania uses the STV form of PR. PR is the norm the d1str1butwn-concentration versus division-of power both at the national and cantonal levels in Switzerland, but a few, Tin the legislature. The pure majoritarian model calls for mainly small, cantons use majority methods. The other federations the concentration of legislative power in a single chamber; the are even more isomorphic with regard to their electoral systems: pure consensus model is characterized by a bicameral legislature Canada and India are solidly wedded to the plurality rule, and in which power is divided equally between two differently con Argentina, Austria, Belgium, and Germany to PR. The same iso stituted chambers. In practice, we find a variety of intermediate morphism is apparent with regard to the choice of presidential arrangements. In Chapters 2 and 3 we saw that the New Zealand and parliamentary systems, as already noted for the American parliament (after 1950) and the Swiss parliament are, in this re case. The only slight exceptions can be found in Germany and spect, perfect prototypes of majoritarian and consensus democ Switzerland. All of the German Lander have parliamentary sys racy, respectively, but that the other three main examples deviate tems, but in Bavaria the prime minister cannot be dismissed by a from the pure models to some extent. The British parliament is vote of no confidence. In Switzerland, the cantons deviate in one bicameral, but because the House of Lords has little power, it can respect from the hybrid parliamentary-presidential system at the be described as asymmetrically bicameral. The same description federal level-their collegial executives are popularly elected fits the Barbadian legislature because its appointed Senate has but they are similar to each other in this respect. It is symptom delaying but no veto power. The prefederal bicameral Belgian atic that the drafters of the constitution of the new canton of Jura, parliament was characterized by a balance of power between the which formally came into being in 1979, discussed the British two chambers, but these chambers hardly differed in composi and German examples of parliamentary systems but that in the tion; in the new federal legislature, elected for the first time in end they stuck to "accepted Swiss norms" (Tschaeni 1982, 116). 1995, the Senate is still not very differently composed from the 187 188 PARLIAMENTS AND CONGRESSES PARLIAMENTS AND CONGRESSES 189 Chamber of Representatives, and it has also lost some of its for and Iceland until 1991. Until 2009, Norwegian legislators were mer powers. elected as one body, but after the election they divided them The first topic of this chapter is the simple dichotomous clas selves into two chambers by choosing one-fourth of their mem sification of parliaments as bicameral or unicameral. Next, I dis bers to form a second chamber. The two chambers, however, had cuss the differences between the two chambers of bicameral leg joint legislative committees, and any disagreements between the islatures, especially with regard to their respective powers and chambers were resolved by a plenary session of all members of composition. On the basis of these two key differences, I develop the legislature. Roughly the same description fits the Icelandic a quantitative index of bicameralism. Last, I explore the relation case as well, except that the second chamber in Iceland was formed ship between the strength of bicameralism, as measured by this from one-third of the elected legislators. These legislatures there index, and the degree of federalism and decentralization dis fore had some features of unicameralism and some of bicameral cussed in the previous chapter. ism; the resolution of disagreements by means of a joint session Two additional introductory comments are in order. First, leg does not necessarily point to unicameralism because it is not an islative chambers have a variety of proper names (among them uncommon method for unambiguously bicameral legislatures ei House of Commons, House of Representatives, Chamber ofDepu ther. If one were forced to make a purely dichotomous choice, ties, Bundestag, and Senate), and in order to avoid confusion the these legislatures should probably be regarded as somewhat closer following generic terms will be used in the discussion of bicam to unicameralism than to bicameralism. But there is no need for eral parliaments: first chamber (or lower house) and second cham such a difficult choice, and the classification of all legislatures ber (or upper house). The first chamber is always the more impor presented later in this chapter simply places these two cases in a tant one or, in federal systems, the house that is elected on the special one-and-a-half chambers category. 1 basis of population. Second, the bicameral legislature as a whole In their broad comparative study of bicameralism, George Tse is usually called Congress in presidential systems-but not, of belis and Jeannette Money (1997, 1) report that about one-third of course, in France, where the term "parliament" originated-and the countries in the world have bicameral and about two-thirds Parliament in parliamentary systems of government. However, the have unicameral legislatures. The ratio for our thirty-six democ term "parliament" is also often used generally as a synonym for racies is quite different: bicameralism is much more common "legislature," and I shall follow this conventional usage here. than unicameralism. In 2010, only fourteen of the thirty-six de mocracies, slightly more than one-third, had unicameral parlia UNICAMERALISM AND BICAMERALISM ments. Five countries shifted to unicameralism during the period A dichotomous classification of parliaments as unicameral or under consideration: New Zealand in 1950, Denmark in 1953, bicameral appears to be simple and straightforward, but two leg Sweden in 1970, Iceland in 1991, and Norway in 2009. At the islatures do not fit either category: those of Norway until 2009 beginning of the period in which each of the thirty-six democra 1. The only potential difficulty of this terminology is that the first cham cies is covered, only nine-exactly one-fourth-had unicameral ber of the Dutch parliament is formally called the Second Chamber, and legislatures: Costa Rica, Finland, Greece, Israel, Korea, Luxem- , the second chamber is called the First Chamber. Similarly, the first and bourg, Malta, Mauritius, and Portugal. There were no shifts in second chambers ofthe pre-1970 bicameral legislature of Sweden were the opposite direction, from a unicameral to a bicameral parlia called the Second and First Chamber, respectively. ment (Longley and Olson 1 991). 190 PARLIAMENTS AND CONGRESSES PARLIAMENTS AND CONGRESSES 191 Most of the fourteen democracies with unicameral parliaments tures in our set of democracies if it were not for the British House listed in the previous paragraph are the smaller countries, with of Lords, which used to have almost twice as many members as the exception of Korea with its population of almost fifty million. the House of Commons; the numbers after the 2010 election were The next largest, Greece, has a population of only about eleven 650 members ofthe Commons and about 800 Lords-still a larger million. An even more striking characteristic is that none of them number in the latter, but not as lopsided as earlier. Among all of is a federal system. To put it slightly differently, the nine formally the other second chambers that are smaller than the first cham federal systems among the thirty-six democracies all have bicam bers, there is still a great variety in how much smaller they are. A eral legislatures, whereas, as of 2010, the twenty-seven formally few second chambers are relatively close to the sizes of the re unitary systems (including those labeled semifederal in the previ spective first chambers: for instance, in Trinidad the respective ous chapter) are almost evenly divided between unicameralism and numbers are 31 and 43, and in Spain 264 and 350. At the other bicameralism: fourteen have unicameral and thirteen bicameral extreme, Germany has a very large first chamber with 622 mem legislatures. This is already a strong indicator of the relationship bers after the 2009 election-almost as many as the House of between cameral structure and the federal-unitary distinction. Commons-and one of the smaller second chambers consisting This relationship is analyzed in more detail at the end of this of just 69 members. chapter, after the discussion of the different forms that bicamer Second, legislative terms of office tend to be longer in second alism can assume. than in first chambers. The first chamber terms range from two to five years compared with a second chamber range of four to nine VARIETIES OF BICAMERALISM years (and, in Britain and Canada, respectively, life membership The two chambers of bicameral legislatures tend to differ in and membership until retirement).

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