In my quest for inspiration for "ambidextrous" this week, I stumbled across the idea of "cohabitation" in government. In semi-presidential political systems (the country is governed by a President as well as a prime minister and parliament), cohabitation refers to when the President and majority of the parliament are from different political parties. The President selects the prime minister, who needs to be sort of "politically ambidextrous" in that the prime minister should ideally reach across party lines so that both the President and the parliament are happy with this selection.
Cohabitation caused a sort of political pendulum swing in France, and then some pretty significant overhauls in the system. Here is a pretty good explanation of cohabitation and some pretty big changes that it led to in the French political system. Essentially what has happened is that the presidential term was shortened to 5 years, and more importantly there was the general election that directly follows the presidential election. So this basically guarantees the President political majority with the parliament.
In theory, I can see advantages to both systems. In the instance of cohabitation, a "politcally ambidextrous" prime minister seems like a pretty great idea for getting two parties that may butt heads to coexist and govern accordingly. However, in such systems as in France, the "cohabitators" don't tend to really work together, with the prime minister having more domestic influence and the President having more power on foreign policy. And as we can clearly see from the example of American politics, it's pretty difficult for a President to get anything done if the legislative branch is so divided that no agreement can be reached. So having political majority basically guaranteed seems like a lot will get done during the Presidential term, but all depends on the Presidential elections and which party gains the most momentum. So it also seems to still lend itself to extreme shifts in policy. That's just my comments on the scenarios in theory. I'm interested to hear your thoughts.
First comment! Also, I fed your fish....but that is beside the point.
ReplyDeleteI like your take on our word of the week. It seems like any Prime Minister has his/her hands full! Unfortunately, I tried your link and I can't get it to work; however, you seem to give a brief explanation of it so thanks for that!
I definitely support your thought process behind the idea of using a Prime Minister. For those that follow politics in the United States definitely know the problems that can come from having multiple parties and how terrible the interaction between the two can be. I will also have to agree with your point that when you have situations as they seem to have in France, with the Prime Minister and President having varying ideas about the country.
My question for you is: Do you think that having a Prime Minister in the United States would help the standstills that our government continually occurs?
The fishies appreciate it. :)
DeleteI don't know if there's any way to resolve extreme disagreements within governments that aren't dictatorships. With our (basically) two-party system here, we have extremists on both sides who refuse to talk, and moderates who try to bring the two together. What we get is a constant pendulum with one party gaining power over over the other until the roles reverse. Back and forth, back and forth! Even with France's semi-presidential system, the same thing basically happened each election. And now I think it's even moreso the case because of the general election directly following the Presidential election. There is more likelihood that the President and the majority of parliament are from the same party.
Do I think it'd work in America? I don't know...it seems like it still lends itself to extreme shifts back and forth. Now, if the two were always from different parties and could successfully bring together two opposing parties (such idealism, Katie!) that'd be another story entirely.
Government is such a fickle thing...
This is a very interesting post Katie on Politics :)
ReplyDeleteI think we will all agree that the task of ruling a country is very tough for an individual. That is why some countries have installed the the President and Prime mister roles so they can be of help to each other.
Nii, that's a good point. Having both a President and Prime Minister means the two can rely on each other when governing. It'd be nice to have that dialogue on all issues, both domestic and foreign affairs.
DeleteThats pretty awesome! I feel like this system would get more done since they will all work together instead of fighting each other the whole way, but it is too much swayed towards one side. Do they consider the whole population when they make decisions or just decide based on their party's beliefs?
ReplyDeleteAshley,
DeleteIt does seem like it can be a more productive system! As I understand it, how the system works is that the Prime Minister deals more with domestic affairs and the President more with foreign affairs. A lot of emphasis is of course put on keeping the party's momentum going for the next election, which seems to put a lot of emphasis on political campaigning and keeping your own party happy.
Katie,
ReplyDeleteYour post revives half-forgotten lessons from my French civ class with Sylvie. First there was the 7 year presidential term, the "septennat," which then got shortened to the "quinquennat," which I've always thought was a difficult word to pronounce or remember. I couldn't get your link to work. Why was it exactly that they wanted to shorten the term? I feel like there was a president who served for an objectionably long time under the septennant system. Chirac maybe? With consecutive seven-year terms you're talking 14 years. I think I'd feel pretty depressed by that prospect when it wasn't my party in power.
I think it's funny but not surprising how the prime minister was intended as a mediator between the president and the parliament during periods of cohabitation, but instead of working together the two offices have just ended up trying to stay out of each other's way by attending to domestic and foreign affairs, respectively. However, that's probably an oversimplification on my part. It would be interesting to see what, if anything, a prime minister could accomplish with our government. We could use rep-dem mediation am I right?
Kate,
DeleteWeird, it looks like that page has completely been removed from diplomatie.gouv. I can't even find it if I search their website. The main reasoning though for the new quiquennat was essentially to prevent cohabitation. Having the presidential and legislative elections so close to each other means that whichever party wins the presidency is likely also to win the majority of legislative positions.
Actually, that's sort of how I viewed it as well. Instead of really capitalizing on this phenomenon of cohabitation, the goal was to ensure the party's success in the next election. I think cohabitation is a great idea in theory, but obviously it didn't usually work out in such a way that they really worked together. We could absolutely use mediation here! I think that for successful cohabitation and mediation between parties, there needs to be a give on both sides...maybe that's just too big of a job for one person.