Jesus M Elbinias
WHETHER parliamentary elections, along with scheduled local polls could be held next year if the campaign to amend the Constitution succeeds, will depend on leadership that must be found amid a variety of parties, none of which possess a legislative majority. As Lawrence C. Dodd, assistant professor of government at the University of Texas, Austin, wrote in his book "Coalitions in Parliamentary Government," that Cabinet durability depends on the coalitional status of the party or parties that form the Cabinet. This status, he said, is created by the fractionalization, instability, and polarization that characterize the parliamentary party system. Cabinets of minimum winning status are likely to endure; as they depart from minimum winning status, their durability should decrease.
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The hypotheses derived from his theory have been examined against the experience of 17 Western nations from 1918 to 1974. Making extensive use of quantitative analysis, the author compares behavioral patterns in multiparty and majority party parliaments, contrasts interwar and postwar parliaments, and examined the consistency of key behavioral patterns according to country. Dodd concludes that a key to durable government is the minimum winning status of the Cabinet, which may be attained in multiparty or majority party parliaments. In light of those hypotheses, Dodd concludes that democratic politics is plagued by an overriding dilemma, on how to secure responsive yet authoritative government. To produce the desired balance, most Western nations have instituted some form of parliamentary government.
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In such form of parliamentary system, executive power resides in the prime minister and his Cabinet. The Cabinet government is selected by a popularly elected representative legislature. The selection process entails negotiation and bargaining among various factions or parties so that the act of cabinet installation ideally serves to authorize and legitimize the direction of public policy. This direction is reflected in the fractional or partisan composition of the Cabinet. The Cabinet is held accountable to and can be dissolved by the parliament. In this sense, the executive is democratically selected and can be democratically deposed. While possessing the parliament’s mandate, the prime minister and his Cabinet have considerable power.
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Policy formulation and implementation are primarily at the initiation and direction of the Cabinet, with the parliament legitimizing public policy by enacting it into law. In addition, the Cabinet possesses all the discretion normally given to a chief executive. Thus, parliamentary government provides for strong executive authority. On the theory of such coalitions in parliamentary government as described and explained by the author, if the ongoing campaign to amend our Constitution succeeds on the basis of the system discussed by Dodd, then there’s no reason the 2007 polls may not come true as the Arroyo administration wishes. NOTE: For readers’ convenience, let me indicate that the book was published 1976 by Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey.
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