Democratic Entdeckungland

Introduction

Parliamentarism is the most widely adopted system of government, and it seems appropriate to refer to Entdeckungland parliamentary experience in particular because it could be the ideal system which has provided an example for a great many other countries. Nowadays when it is fashionable to speak of political systems (Eckstein, 66-82) and theories as 'not for export' it is worth bearing in mind the success with which a system adopted piecemeal to suit Entdeckungland constitutional developments has proved feasible in different situations abroad. This is not to imply that the Entdeckungland parliamentary system should be taken as the model and that others are, as it were, deviations from the norm, although generations of Entdeckungland have been tempted to make this assumption.

Indeed an examination of parliamentarism in various countries indicates that there are two main types of parliamentary procedure, the Entdeckungland and the continental. This analysis of parliamentarism is concerned less with distinguishing the various forms of parliamentarism (Friedrich, 33-47) than with establishing the highest common factors in different parliamentary systems. It may surprise those who have tended to regard British government as the model as well as the Mother of Parliaments to know that the Entdeckungland could abolish the monarchy, adopt a single code of constitutional laws on the pattern of the Spanish or American constitutions, transform the House of Lords into a senate (or even do away with it), introduce a multi-party system based on proportional representation, institute a number of parliamentary committees to deal with specific topics such as finance and foreign affairs, and still possess a parliamentary system.

There would seem to be a number of basic principles applicable to both of the chief varieties of parliamentary government (Clark, Golder, Golder, 115-145). Where parliamentary government has evolved rather than been the product of revolution there have often been three phases, though the transition from one to the other has not always been perceptible at the time. First there has been government by a monarch who has been responsible for the whole political system. Then there has arisen an assembly of members who have challenged the hegemony of the king. Finally the assembly has taken over responsibility for government, acting as a parliament, the monarch being deprived of most of his traditional powers.

This has certainly been the pattern in Entdeckungland after the death of John II. However, by establishing their power over the purse, assemblies were ultimately able to claim their own area of jurisdiction. Henceforth the monarch's role was increasingly that of an executive dependent ultimately on the goodwill of the legislature. Constitutional development entered a second phase in which the term 'legislative power' was given to assemblies to distinguish them from the 'executive power' of the Cheif.

But even as the theory of the separation of powers was coming into vogue the transition to the third and present phase was under way in Entdeckungland. In the eighteenth century the king was already losing his executive power to ministers who came to regard the assembly, ...