Parliamentary versus Presidential: a Visual Guide to Distinguishing the main forms of Democracy

welcome to another social studies vocabulary building video we're gonna try something ambitious this time we're gonna try to learn the difference between a parliamentary and presidential system of government now if you've watched my videos before you know that I like to appeal to the visual learners among us by using a system of icons to teach government vocabulary terms in this case we are using stick figure icons the beauty of the system is once you've learned to associate a particular icon with a vocabulary term then you have learned all of the most important features of that particular type of government let's take for example our three basic categories of citizen participation autocratic oligarchic and democratic by counting the number of stick figures on each of these icons we can tell who has the power in each of these governmental systems for example once we see that there's only one stick figure on our autocratic icon we know that just one leader rules in an autocratic system this small group of stick figures on our oligarchic icon tells us that a small group rules and this large field of stick figures on our democratic icon reminds us that the citizens rule in a democracy we can also look at the background of each of these symbols to see something about the level of citizen participation the fact that there's no one in the background on our autocratic symbol tells us that there is no citizen participation in an autocratic system likewise there's very little citizen participation in an oligarchic system and of course a democratic system with all those people in the background has lots of citizen participation we've also learned that we can add some details to our basic icons here to make them more meaningful and make them a lot more specific take for example our democratic icon here if we were to highlight some of those stick figures in the middle we have a Republic now like before those stick figures in the background remind us that this is in fact a democratic system the citizens are the ones with the power and the highlighted group in the middle shows us our elected representatives yes a republic is a form of representative government where we have a legislature now to today's topic parliamentary and presidential you'll find that there are three main differences between parliamentary and presidential forms of democracy those boiled down to the leadership the structure of the government and the way that elections are done we normally associate a parliamentary democracy with countries like Canada or the United Kingdom on the other hand presidential democracies are most often associated with countries like the United States let's take a look at the definitions a parliamentary system is a democratic system in which the leader of the government is part of the legislature that tells us the leadership component right there a presidential system on the other hand is a democratic system in which the leader of the government is constitutionally separate from the legislature all right so let's analyze the icons let's first look for some similarities between our parliamentary and presidential I cause now there's parliamentary right there at the top and presidential there at the bottom now the first obvious similarity is the fact that we have all of these stick figures in the background that reminds us that these citizens rule both of these systems are democratic the other obvious thing that stands out is that highlighted group in the middle in each of these icons we see representatives that means that both of these are republics you'll also see that there is a slightly larger icon in the middle there that seems to represent the leader of each government but now let's take a look at the differences first of all on the parliamentary icon there you'll see that the leader is part of that group of legislators in the middle so that means that the leader in a parliamentary system is the leader of the legislature so the leader of the legislature is also the leader of the country most often that leader has the title prime minister let's take a look at the presidential icon though there's something very different about that on our presidential icon you'll see that there is a gap there between the leader of the government and the legislature that in fact is the primary difference between a parliament in presidential democracy the leader and the legislature are separate and usually that leader is called the president now let's take a look at how the election process works in both of these systems now both parliamentary and presidential are of course both Democratic the way they do elections is significantly different now we're going to start with presidential because that's what most Americans are familiar with and in the presidential model of course it starts with the citizens and the citizens will have an election and during this election they will vote for the president they also vote for their representatives in the legislature now in step two these people form the government and the president becomes the head of the executive branch the Congress becomes the legislative branch then and in a presidential system the executive and legislative branches are separate now a parliamentary system also starts with the citizens and in step one the citizens have an election where they vote for their representatives in the legislature often referred to as the members of parliament and in step two those members of parliament or legislators then choose their prime minister that Prime Minister becomes the leader of the Parliament and in a parliamentary system the executive and legislative branches are combined let's get some more notes to further contrast these two systems in a parliamentary system your leader is usually called a Prime Minister although they can sometimes go by other titles such as Chancellor in the case of Germany in a presidential system the leader of the government is usually called the president your legislature in a parliamentary system is usually called the Parliament whereas in a presidential system the legislature is often called Congress in a parliamentary system the Prime Minister is elected by the Parliament not by a vote of the people on the other hand a presidential system has citizens voting for the president separately from the Congress in a parliamentary system your executive and legislative branches are combined in a presidential system there's strict separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches if you've learned about the three branches of government used in the United States along with the separation of powers and the checks and balances that's a very clear example of what makes a presidential system stand out in a parliamentary system one political party is usually in charge of the entire government now sometimes that could be through a coalition but at any rate still one group in charge of the whole government in a presidential system very often you can have more than one political party in power at the time this video was made the democratic party in the United States controlled the White House or the executive branch while the Republican Party controlled the Congress in a parliamentary system you usually have some sort of a ceremonial head of state it might be a ceremonial president or a constitutional monarch Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom is a great example of this her job is primarily ceremonial in a presidential system though the leader of the government is also the head of state so the president of the United States is also responsible for all those ceremonial duties in a parliamentary system there is no fixed term of office for the Prime Minister the Prime Minister could stay in office for 10 years or could be booted from office after just 10 days as long as the Prime Minister has the support of their particular political party that Prime Minister can stay in power once the Prime Minister loses that support from the members of parliament they can be removed pretty much immediately through a thing called a no-confidence vote in a presidential system on the other hand the president serves for a fixed term of office this means that regardless of how popular or unpopular the president may be they are entitled to fulfil their entire four-year term unless they commit a serious crime that results in an impeachment and of course the parliamentary model is the most common type of democracy in the world most often modeled after the United Kingdom the presidential system is less common and usually modeled after the United States to summarize the differences first of all leadership a parliamentary government is led by a prime minister who is both the leader of the government and the leader of the legislature the presidential system on the other hand is led by a president who is separate from the legislature let's talk about the structure of government in a parliamentary system the executive and legislative branches are combined in a presidential system however they are separate and finally there's a big difference in the way elections are done in a parliamentary system your representatives elect the leader of the government in a presidential system the citizens elect the leader of the government so there you have it parliamentary democracy versus presidential democracy thanks for watching

Channel: Social Studies with Mister Parker

Views: 76,530

Keywords: DaniellPedia, CRCT, Social Studies, milestones, GSE, SS7CG4, SS7, Parliamentary Democacy, SS7CG1, SS7CG6

Id: _cQdd_JJLyU

Length: 10min 6sec (606 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 24 2015