Lesson video

Hello, my name's Mrs. Tomassi, and I'm gonna be working with you on your Citizenship lesson today.

Hopefully you're all settled, you've got everything you need and you're good to go.

And now we'll get started.

So the title today's lesson is, "How are decisions made in other countries?" And this forms part of the Unit on How do democratic systems work across the world.

Hopefully, by the end of the lesson today you're gonna be able to explain what parliamentary and presidential systems are.

We have three keywords to look out for in the lesson today.

They're gonna be in bold throughout, so if you ever need to and you're like, "Oh, can't remember that," just refer back to 'em here.

So the first one's government.

This is the group of people with the authority to govern a country.

So in the UK, the government is chosen and led by the Prime Minister.

The next is Parliament.

Now this is an institution of government found in many countries.

It often includes one or more parts, e.

g, houses, chambers.

Its main roles are to debate, propose and amend laws and scrutinise those in power.

The final keyword is Prime Minister.

Now Prime Minister is the leader of the political party who is in power and head of government.

As I said, you need to, they're always here if you need to come back to them.

So we'll make a start.

We have got two learning cycles and we're gonna make a start on the first.

That is how do countries make decisions? So you can start thinking, do you know how countries make decisions or what happens? So countries have political systems. Now these are a set of processes and structures that work together to make those political decisions and manage a country's governance.

So depending on what that structure is, depends on how the decisions are made.

There are different types of political systems or forms of government.

So there are different types of political systems that come together that then depend on how governments make decisions.

Now these are dependent if it's an authoritarian state.

So in these states, power might be quite limited.

The leader might have more power.

Democracies.

Hopefully, you know that that's about having a vote and having a say.

Monarchies, do you know what the monarchies? That's when it's king or queen is involved.

Totalitarian states.

And again, quite similar to an authoritarian state, it's a lot more focused on the person or the group that is in control.

Now, if we look at democracies, that's where our focus is gonna be today.

Decisions are often made by elected representatives and they're usually structured through systems of government.

So we are gonna look at three types of structured systems today that are mainly to do with democracies, maybe a bit more some hybrid regimes in there as well.

Those countries that adapted some democratic ideas.

We'll have a look at some of those 'cause they do overlap as well.

And some of them have these systems we're gonna look at.

So these are the three that we're focusing on.

The first is parliamentary systems. As you can see there, we've got the houses of parliament, so that's a parliament system.

So you might give you a clue as to one of the countries that uses these systems. We then have presidential system.

And again, do you know what that picture's of? So that is the White House.

That might give you a clue that that's to do with the US president.

They have a presidential system.

The third one, you might not be so familiar with.

Now that's called a hybrid system.

If you've heard the word hybrid before, have a look at those pictures.

What do you think it might mean? And actually it's incorporating both of them.

That's quite simple.

It is quite simply that's what it's doing.

It's adapting maybe ideas from the parliamentary system and the presidential system to create a hybrid.

We'll have a look more at detail at each of these as we go through.

To start with though, can you identify which type of political system is missing? So we had three.

Which one is missing? Did you manage to get presidential system? Well done if you did and now we will carry on.

So, if we look at the parliamentary system, it has two main parts.

Now this is the executive branch, which is government, and then it has the legislative branch, which is Parliament.

What's important to remember about parliamentary system is we take that executive branch, it comes from the legislative.

So if you think about, and you know much about the UK, if we look at that, when we look at the House of Commons, we've got our elected representatives in parliament, the government is formed from mostly the political party that wins the majority in the general election.

And then from that, the leader is the prime minister.

And this is what happens in a parliamentary system, they are interlinked like that.

This means that that executive branch is held accountable by the legislative.

They will also most have a separate judicial branch, which will be, you know, the judges and the courts and they'll just act separately.

As we were just saying, the head of the executive branch is a Prime Minister.

This is important 'cause other systems, the leader is not always called the prime minister.

So that's one to remember.

There's also a separate Head of State.

Now, this could be a President or a monarch, and they would have more of a ceremonial role.

The Prime Minister's role is to be the head of the executive branch, which is the Head of Government.

There is a separate Head of State.

So those roles are separate.

Do you know some countries that use parliamentary system? We've given away one at the moment.

So hopefully you've got that one.

Do you know any more? And think a bit of a clue is remember what we said, who's the leader? Is the Prime Minister.

So can you think of any countries that has a Prime Minister? And maybe if you know more about their parliament that the executive links with the legislative as well.

So to give you some examples, Australia, Canada, Germany, India, and the UK, which is the one that you already said.

So hopefully you managed to get some of them.

You might have found some more, 'cause obviously there's a lot more countries around the world and they also might use a parliamentary system.

To find out a little bit more about in detail.

So if we take India as an example, the Head of State is the President who has a ceremonial role.

The Head of Government is the Prime Minister and they're chosen by the majority party in the Lok Sabha, which is the lower house.

So to hopefully that sounds familiar to the UK.

The house is a parliament.

That idea, the different chambers, and the prime minister coming out of that legislative branch means that the prime minister in India and the executive branch are held accountable to parliament.

Hopefully that shows you how that works.

Now can you list three countries that use a parliamentary system? How did you get on? There's more examples there than three.

Hopefully you managed to get three of these.

I mean it'd be really interesting if you managed to get some that aren't on this list as well and you can maybe share them with other people so that others could find out about the different parliamentary systems in other countries as well.

So well done for that.

Now, we've got a presidential system.

Hopefully you might have an idea who the head of this one might be.

It's a little bit of a hint in the title.

Now, this is different because there's a clear separation of powers between the branches of government.

Do you remember those branches? So we start the executive and this consists of the President and their government.

You then have the legislative branch, which would be a Congress or Parliament, but they are separate.

Yeah, the President is elected separately to this legislative branch.

You then have, again, most will have a separate judicial branch as well.

In this case, the President is elected directly by the people and is both the Head of State and the Head of Government.

So remember in that parliamentary system, the Head of State is either a President or monarch who's separate to the Prime Minister.

In the Presidential System, that President does both, the Head of State and Government.

And the President is not a member of the legislature and does not depend on it to support to stay in power.

Yes, they might connect in some ways, but they are separate in the sense that the President is not relying on that legislative branch to say in power.

So what countries use a presidential system? Any ideas? Again, we had a bit of a hint with that image at the start, you might be able to work out what that country was.

You might know some others to see if you can have think.

Did you manage to get.

So we've got Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria, and the USA.

Now you might have got the USA because we had the picture of the White House and we spoke about that one earlier.

Great job if you managed to think of some different ones as well.

So in the USA, the President is the Head of State and the Head of Government and they are elected separately from Congress, which is legislative branch.

Can you now fill in the missing gaps with the correct terms? Monarch, Prime Minister and President.

So you've got their parliamentary system and presidential system, Head of State and Head of Government.

See if you can put them into the correct boxes.

How did you get on? So, the parliamentary system should have had two in the box.

So the Head of State could be the monarch or the President depending on the country.

The presidential system, the President is both the Head of State and Government.

And the Head of Government in the parliamentary system is the Prime Minister.

I know we keep going over this, but this hopefully if you carry on going through these will help you to remember the differences between the two different systems. We are now gonna move on and look at the hybrid system.

Now if you remember we said that's a bit of a merge between the two.

What they have here is you have the President who's Head of State.

And a Prime Minister who's Head of Government.

Now power is shared between the President and Prime Minister.

So if we remember before in the presidential system, the legislative and executive branches are different.

In the parliamentary system, the Head of State has a ceremonial role whereas the Head of Government is involved in the decisions.

In the hybrid, they share the powers.

So to give you a bit of an example, like the President might deal with things like foreign policy and defence, whereas the Prime Minister might run day-to-day government and domestic affairs.

They'll have different roles.

It can also vary slightly depending on the country.

So if there is a country you're interested in, you might wanna look in detail at how their hybrid system works.

So what countries use a hybrid system? Do you know this already? Obviously, this one's a little bit more tricky because you might hear the word President or Prime Minister in relation to that country.

But if you tend to hear both of those and you know that they have both, then it might follow a hybrid system.

Give you some examples.

France, Portugal, Romania, Russia, and Ukraine.

So if we look at France, France has the Head of State is the President, the Head of Government is the Prime Minister, and the President is elected by the citizens and appoints the Prime Minister.

They share the powers and responsibilities between them.

Can you match the country to the type of political system used? So you've got India, USA and France.

You've got presidential system, parliamentary system, and hybrid system.

Hopefully, you worked out.

If we said India has a Prime Minister, that is a parliamentary system.

The USA has a President, so that is the presidential system.

And France has both.

So France is a hybrid system.

Brilliant work if you've got that.

That moves us on to our first task.

So can you write a postcard from the perspective of a citizen living in a country with either a parliamentary, presidential, or hybrid system.

In your message, explain to others how the government works in your country.

You should include the type of system, who is in charge and how power is separated.

So have a think which country and which system you would like to do? Have a think what your message is.

You could always design the front of a postcard as well, if you've got a bit of extra time.

If not, you could stick to just your message.

And then when you're ready, we'll go through some feedback.

How did you find that? Now, you could have picked a few different systems. Hopefully, it's just making sure that if you've done a different country to the feedback, you have picked the correct system.

So you can always double check that they do use a parliamentary or presidential, hybrid system, whatever you've picked.

So we go through the feedback now.

So if you picked a parliamentary system, you could have looked like this.

So "Hey, from the UK! We have a parliamentary system and have just elected our Members of Parliament, MPs, after a general election.

We have a new Prime Minister, who's the leader of the winning political party.

Our Parliament makes our laws and holds the Prime Minister and government to account, whilst our MPs debate issues that matter to us." We'll have a look now at presidential system.

So for this one, again, if you've picked a different country, that's fine, but it's making sure that key information about presidential system is in there.

So, "Hello from the US! Here the President is in charge of the Government and Congress makes the laws.

They run separately here, but still perform checks and balances on each other.

This means there is a strong separation of powers.

I vote for both my local representative and the President directly." Now finally, if you picked a hybrid system, you could have said, "Bonjour from France! It's interesting here.

We have both a President and a Prime Minister.

We also have a legislative branch that makes laws.

We get to vote for both roles in different ways.

Sometimes it's hard to tell who's really in charge, but the power is shared between them." And that's that final one.

How was your response? How did you get on? Did you manage to get something similar? Well done if you did.

Brilliant job if you even managed to create and decorate your postcard as well.

Now, we're gonna move on to the second learning cycle.

So this is how do different systems compare? So we've had a look at some systems and now we're gonna look at some comparisons between them.

So they can shape how decisions are made, who holds power and how responsibilities are shared within the country.

These systems can lead to key differences such as speed of decision-making, accountability, and representation.

There are obviously others as well and they could look different in each country.

So if we look at speed of decision-making, it's gonna vary depending on the political system.

But some systems do allow for quicker decisions than others because some have to involve more debate and checks to balance power.

Looking at what you already know of these different systems, can you think which one might be quicker or slower? Have you got any ideas? So if we look at a parliamentary system, laws can often be passed quicker because the ruling party usually has the majority in Parliament.

And if we are thinking we need the majority to get the laws through, if your party agree with you, then you're probably gonna get them laws for a little bit quicker.

Not all the time, but in comparison to if we looked at a presidential system, where it could be slower because the executive and the legislative are completely separate, they could disagree.

Now in this system, you can sometimes have something called gridlock.

If you've ever been stuck in a traffic jam, and it's like at gridlock.

Do you know what that means? So you are literally stuck and you cannot move.

There's no going anywhere, there's no direction out, you can't get out.

Now this is something similar that could happen in politics and we'll have a look in a sec of how this works.

Just quickly though, what we'll have a look at a hybrid system as well.

Now this one, if we remember, it's a bit of a mix.

It means actually the speak and depend on who's in power.

Because the President and Parliament could be from the same political party, they could be from different parties.

Now, if they've got times where they're part of the same party, it might be back to that idea where it goes a bit quicker.

But if they're not, it could be a slower process.

We could be reaching gridlock again.

Let's find out a little bit more about what this gridlock is.

To give you an example, in 2018 to 2019, the US government partially shut down for 35 days due to gridlock.

Now this isn't the first time in the US that gridlock has happened and that the government has partially shut down.

It's just happens to be the longest time in a period so far.

So what happened was, President Trump, who is the executive branch and Congress that legislative couldn't agree on a spending bill to fund the government services.

Now what happened was that the President wanted funding for a border wall of Mexico, but Congress refused to include this and they blocked the Bill.

And it continued to kind of going back and forth because neither of them would budge on it.

And what ended up happening was around 800,000 workers went unpaid and some services such as airport security, parks were disrupted, because the time had elapsed to make a decision and therefore the services were no longer funded.

Some workers had to continue to work without pay, others were furloughed and couldn't go to work.

(indistinct) shutdown ended was that the President should signed a short term deal without the wall funding to ensure that the spending Bill went through.

This actually shows you the impact that gridlock can have on citizens as well because the amount of workers that that impacted, and it cannot move forward until there is some form of compromise or some agreement has been made.

True or false? A gridlock in the decision-making process happens when all branches of power agree on a policy.

That is false.

Why is that false? What have we seen? Gridlock in the decision-making process happens when branches of power cannot agree on a policy.

For example, the 2018 to 2019 US Government shutdown.

So in all systems, now if we look at accountability, leaders must answer forward decisions.

However, it varies how they are held accountable depending on the different type of system that is followed.

So in parliamentary systems, the Prime Minister is directly accountable 'cause if we think they're part of the legislative branch.

They're also not required to serve the full term in office.

They could choose if they wanted to resign or if they lose parliament support, there could be a vote of no confidence put through.

And if that vote of no confidence is one and the majority agree, then they could be forced to resign, or a request that the dissolution of parliament and there will no be a new general election held earlier than expected.

The important thing to take out that is that a Prime Minister does not have to serve their full term for a variety of different reasons.

To give you an example, in 1999, Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee lost a no confidence vote by just one vote and had to resign.

So this does happen across countries with a parliamentary system.

There are situations where the Prime Minister is either forced to resign or due to a loss, a no confidence vote.

You then got presidential systems. Now these are different because the President is elected for a fixed term.

For example, for five years.

It is not easy to remove them.

So Congress can check power, but removal requires something called impeachment, which is like a charge of misconduct and a trial.

So it has to be very serious breach for a President to be removed.

To give you an example, so the US president, Donald Trump, was impeached twice in 2019 for abuse of power, and in 2021 for encouraging a violent protest.

However, this didn't lead to his removal because the Senate did not reach the required majority to convict him.

Although three times he had an impeachment because it didn't reach trial and there wasn't a majority there, then it didn't start the process to be removed.

And actually in the US, no president yet has been removed in this way.

It shows how difficult it is actually to remove a President.

If we think of we've got our final one, the hybrid systems, how do we think they're gonna work? So in this case, the accountability is shared between the President and the Prime Minister.

Now the Prime Minister can be removed the same way as the others in the parliamentary system, but the President remains.

Again, same idea as the other systems. But this could lead to confusion because now in the country you've got two people that are leaders, one could be removed and one can't.

So sometimes this can create a bit of a power struggle and more so, if they're from the completely different parties as well, people especially if you don't understand the system might look at that and go, "Well this isn't fair." So there's a little bit of difficulty in this one.

Give you an example.

So during 2022 to '24, France had a cohabitation government where President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Elizabeth Borne, had to work with opposition parties to pass legislation.

Now this resulted in frequent political gridlock.

So like we were talking earlier about gridlock and challenges in implementing policies because it's not so easy when working with different political parties and different ideas.

There has to be a lot more compromise to try and reach some form of agreement.

True or false? A hybrid system incorporates part of both parliamentary and presidential systems. That is true.

So representation is our final one we are gonna look at.

Now this is about how the voices the public are included in government.

So it's thinking about how each system ensures representation.

Have you got any ideas already? They might use different things.

To give you an idea.

So there are different ways and different people that can be voted for and how leaders are chosen.

So parliamentary system, they would vote only for the parliament representatives.

Their Prime Minister is the head of the party with the majority votes in parliament.

So they don't directly elect them.

In a presidential system, they would elect parliament representatives and separately elect the President.

And this is the same in the hybrid as well.

Remember the hybrid has the Prime Minister, but again the Prime Minister there is made up of the.

Can you remember? It's the leader of the political party that has the majority in Parliament.

So hopefully you're starting to get them differences now.

So in which system do members of the electorate vote directly for the leader? Is it parliamentary systems, presidential systems, or hybrid systems. It is presidential systems and hybrid systems. One to remember here though is the hybrid, they're voting for the President, they don't get to vote for the Prime Minister.

As Alex says here, "In parliamentary systems, the Prime Minister is usually the leader of the majority party in Parliament." Now we are gonna move on to the final tasks for today.

So can you complete the table to compare the three different political systems? You've got the type of system there, how they do decision-making, accountability and representation.

Take some time.

See how you get on.

And then when you're ready, unpause and we can have a look at the feedback together.

How did you get on? So your table could look like this.

For parliamentary system, decisions are often quick due to the ruling party's majority in parliament.

Accountability.

The Prime Minister is directly accountable to parliament and could be removed for a vote of no confidence.

And representation, members of the electorate vote for members of parliament.

Then we've got the presidential.

So decisions could be lower due to the separation of powers between executive and legislative branches.

The President is elected for a fixed term and can only be removed for impeachment, which is a lengthy process.

Remember they've got to go to trial, et cetera.

And then members of the electorate vote directly for the President.

In the hybrid system, decision-making speed on the political affiliation between the President and Parliament.

So did you remember if they're part of the same party, it's more likely that decisions could be made quicker compared to if they're not.

Then you've got accountability.

So that's shared between the President and Prime Minister, which can sometimes cause confusion or power struggles.

And members of the electorate vote directly for the President and Members of Parliament.

Great work if you manage to get all of that.

It's a lot to get down.

So we're gonna move on to the second part, and this is the real final part for the tasks for today.

Alex says, "I think a presidential system is a most effective political system because one person makes clear decisions and is directly elected by the people." Write one paragraph that agrees or disagrees with this viewpoint.

If you've got somebody there, you might wanna chat to them first and share what your viewpoint is.

You might not listen to theirs before you decide on your final decision of what your paragraph is gonna be and how you structure that.

You take some time.

Now you can unpause when you've got your paragraph set and we can have a look through together.

So how did you get on? Hopefully, you did have somebody that you could chat to or share ideas with so that you could have a bit of a debate on this issue.

Now, if you chose to agree, you could have said something like, "I agree that a presidential system can be more effective because it provides clear and direct leadership.

In this system, the President is chosen by the people and is separate from the legislature, which can give them the authority to make strong decisions without relying on party support in Parliament.

This could be useful in situations that require fast and decisive action." Now, you could have disagreed and if you disagreed, you could have said something like, "I disagree that a presidential system can be more effective because although a directly elected President can provide clear leadership, presidential systems often suffer from gridlock.

This is when the President and the legislature make different ideas and disagree, which slows down decision-making.

In contrast, parliamentary systems can be more efficient because the executive and legislative branches are linked.

The Prime Minister is usually the leader of the majority party in Parliament, which means they can often pass laws more quickly and effectively without the same level of conflict." Now, it doesn't matter whether you agreed or disagreed, it's making sure you're getting them clear reasons why? This will really support you in the GCSE as well.

If you can consistently show that you can write in detail and fully describe your points of view, is gonna help when you're trying to reach them higher bans.

Well done for that and well done for your work today.

We're just gonna quickly summarise and finish off now.

To summarise.

A political system is a set of processes and structures that work to together to make political decisions and manage a country's governance.

Different political systems include parliamentary, presidential, and hybrid systems. Each country follows a different political system.

For example, India has a parliamentary system.

The USA has a presidential system, and France has a hybrid system.

Each system impacts the way power is shared, who is responsible, and how quickly decisions can happen.

For example, in parliamentary systems, it's easier to change leaders during a term than in presidential systems. Thank you for working with me today and I hope you enjoy the rest of your day.