SWEDEN AND FRANCE COMPARISON

Sweden and France Comparison

Sweden and France Comparison

Introduction

Democracy is spreading all around the world in different forms. Countries shape democracy according to their own needs and political structures. So, democracy as a political system is represented in different ways in the world. Two of the more common appearing style of democracy in the political structures of the countries' is presidential and parliamentary political systems. Parliamentary and presidential political systems also have different kind of qualities. Which one is better for the better working of political structure and as a result creating stability in the country?

Some countries unite these two and create semi-presidential and semi-parliamentary systems ((Nicholas 1999 32-66). Whether depending on these political systems or not, they have different levels of stability in politics. According to Linz, it has been argued that the terms presidentialism and parliamenatrism both cover a wide range of political institutional formulas, and the variety among these formulas is such that it is misleading to generalize about either term (Foley Owens 2006 89-117). I have chosen France and Sweden cases for research. France is governed by the semi-presidential system and Sweden is governed by the parliamentary system. They represent the one of the most powerful examples of semi-presidential and parliamentary political systems.

Main Part

In this part, the political systems in the case countries of France and Sweden are told. Firstly, in France, the concept of a semi-presidential form of government is defined only by the content of the constitution (Lewin 2008 87-116). A political regime is considered as semi-presidential if the constitution which established it combines three elements, 1) the president of the republic is elected by universal suffrage, 2) the president possesses quite considerable powers, 3) the president has opposite him, however, a prime minister and ministers who possess executive and governmental power and can stay in office only if the parliament does not show its opposition to them.

The constitution of 1958 in France is the sixteenth since the fall of the Bastille in 1789 which was the date of French Revolution. Post republican regimes, known less for their achievements than for their instability, were invariably based on the principle that parliament could overturn a government no longer backed by a majority of the elected representatives (Budun 2000 19-20). To remedy the past failures with the new constitution, the president of the republic was to become a visible head of the state. He was to be placed above the paths to represent the unity of the national community (Heper Evin 2004 124-347).

The case of France is especially germane to a project that seeks to understand the impact of presidentialism on political stability or instability. Since the introduction of the presidential regime in 1958, and its reinforcement in 1962, the French political system has undergone vast changes. The most important of these changes have been reinforced executive authority, government stability, and a more coherent party system. The central question that needs to be dealt with, and then is: Are the post 1958 changes in ...