The Role of Elections in the US and the UK Political Systems

Introduction

Only in representative democracies do people attain the right to ask elected politicians about the power that they have, its source, in whose interests it is used, and to whom they are accountable. While all democracies share common features, there is no single model of democracy. For example, the United States is a republic and the United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy. While both share a common language and enjoy fully functioning democracies, their democratic political systems could not have been more different.

This essay will compare and contrast the US and the UK political systems, exploring the different roles that elections play in the key political institutions of these two liberal democracies; namely, the executive, legislative, and judiciary. It will also consider the distinct functions of elections in distributing power among these institutions and the role of the actors within them. Furthermore, it will discuss Lijphart’s model that compares and plots different democratic political systems along a majoritarian/consensus spectrum. Finally, it will briefly discuss the influence of political parties on the US and the UK governments.

The US political system

By participating in free and fair elections, people in liberal democracies mandate their representatives and expect them to defend their interests at every state level. The first thing we notice when exploring the similarities and differences of the political systems of the US and the UK is the extent to which the distribution of power among their political institutions varies. For example, the US is a federal-state: it is a union of states, where each state recognizes the sovereignty of the central government, while at the same time retaining certain local authority. The US political system separates power vertically; namely, between the executive (the government), the legislative (the branch that makes and passes laws), and the judiciary (the court system). In other words, power in the US political system is separated within the federal government. The US political system is also separated horizontally; namely, between the central government and the 50 local states that constitute it (The Open University, 2019a). Because the US comprises several political states that enjoy a degree of constitutional independence and autonomy, the central government “cannot interfere with the rights of those states that form a federation” (The Open University, 2019b).

The US executive branch (the President)

The US executive is headed by the president and is directly elected by the people. His or her power lies in attaining “an electoral and political independence from the legislature” (Foley, 2000, p. 11, quoted in Heffernan, 2015a, p. 6). However, to become a president of the US, the candidate must be (a) born in the US, (b) over the age of 35, (c) have resided in the US for 14 years, (d) nominated by a party, (e) win a majority of the US electoral college (not necessarily a majority of the popular vote of the total electorate), and (f) serve for a four-years-term (eligible for a second term, if re-elected) (The Open University, 2019c).

Although a would-be US president is nominated by his or her party, he or she “is merely a leader of his or her party, not the leader” (Heffernan, 2015b, p. 50). Crucially, the US president serves directly at the behest of the people, not at the behest of politicians or his or her political party. Presidents who are equipped with a strong electoral mandate cannot be sacked for political reasons, “although they can be impeached should they be deemed to have committed a ‘high crime or misdemeanor’” (Heffernan, 2015b, p. 43). For all these reasons, the US is seen as a presidential state. It separates the executive and legislative branches, given that “each [is] elected differently, both autonomous of the other, and both having to work together to enact legislation and to check and balance the other” (Heffernan, 2015a, p. 31).

The US legislative branch (the Congress)

The US legislature, known as the Congress, is divided into two chambers: the House of Representatives and the Senate, consisting of 435 and 100 members, respectively. The people directly elect the House and the Senate, the former mirroring the federal state in its structure. For example, the members of the House are “allocated to states on the basis of population size” (Heffernan, 2015a, p.17) (Wyoming, a small state, elects one member; California, the largest state, elects 53 members), whereas the Senate is comprised of two elected senators from each state. Furthermore, the Congress is a symmetrical bicameral legislature; “in terms of making laws both chambers are coequal” (Heffernan, 2015a, p. 15). Because of the separation of powers and the fact that Congress is elected separately from the president, the former is fiercely independent of the latter. As such, the US president often “has to bargain and compromise with Congress and often accept defeat by it” (The Open University, 2019d). However, the president has the right “to veto legislation presented to him by the Congress, but Congress can override a presidential veto by a vote of two-thirds of its members” (Heffernan, 2015b, p. 47).

The US judicial branch (the Supreme Court)

As with other countries, the US judiciary regulates the legal relationship between the state and its citizens and between the different political institutions, as prescribed by the constitution that determines which powers these institutions have and do not have. Furthermore, the US constitution has been written by the founding fathers to “reconcile governmental authority with individual rights” (Heffernan, 2015a, pp. 21-22) and can only be amended by Congress, which must “gain the support of the super majority of the 75 percent of the 50 states of the union.” Consequently, making laws depends on the agreement between the executive and the legislature, which is not easily achieved due to the controversial relationship between the two. The US judiciary’s main task, therefore, lies in upholding the constitution that dictates how the executive and legislature ought to work and form laws, always under the citizens’ “‘unalienable rights’ with which the state and the government cannot interfere” (Heffernan, 2015a, p. 9).

The UK political system

In contrast to the US’s federal system, that of the UK is unitary: it comprises and governs the historic nations of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland from the center. Because the UK is a centralized state, it exhibits no separation of power other than powers that the center has granted the localities. Unlike the US president, the UK prime minister (PM), as head of the executive, is indirectly elected by a majority in the legislature, and hence he or she “lack[s] the personal mandate conferred upon the president by virtue of his or her being personally elected to the office they occupy” (Heffernan, 2015b, p. 43).

The UK executive branch (the Prime Minister)

Prime ministers serve for five years in office; they can, however, remain in office provided that (a) they retain the majority of their parties (or coalition of parties) in parliament, (b) are re-elected as members of the legislative branch, and (c) are leaders of their parties. The US executives, by contrast, can remain in office even if an opposing party held sway over the Congress, albeit with restricted power. Furthermore, the US president cannot be a member of the Congress because he or she cannot simultaneously be a member of more than one branch. Thus, the UK is a parliamentary state that fuses the executive and the legislature; the US is presidential state that separates them. This fusion enables the UK PM “to lead a legislature which is charged with supplying and supporting, as well as checking and balancing, that executive” (Heffernan, 2015a, p. 31).

The UK legislative branch (the parliament)

The members of the UK parliament rely on their respective parties because general elections in the UK are national affairs in which electors vote for parties: “UK parties are mechanisms to elect a party government, not only the party leader as prime minister” (Heffernan, 2015b, pp. 50-52). The members of Congress, by contrast, are elected in their own right and owe less to their party affiliation. As with the US Congress, however, the UK parliament is divided into two houses: the 650 members of the House of Commons that are directly elected “from constituencies of near equal size by population from the length and breadth of the country” (Heffernan, 2015a, p. 15), and the 100 unelected members of the House of Lords. Thus, the UK parliament is an “asymmetrical bicameral institution … [its] two chambers are not coequal in terms of law making” (Heffernan, 2015a, p. 15); the House is more powerful than the Lords due to its electoral mandate. Because of the centralized authority of the UK executive, the UK government has an unlimited government, and hence it is much easier for the executive and legislative to make laws, implement a political agenda, and achieve political change (The Open University, 2019b).

The UK judicial branch (the Supreme Court)

In contrast to the fixed constitution of the US, that of the UK is changeable: it is the “product of a historical experience with laws, customs and conventions being added to and subtracted from over time” (King, 2007, quoted in Heffernan, 2015a, p. 23). While the US judiciary adjudicates on constitutional rules, its UK counterpart interprets and enforces the will of the parliament because there is no fixed constitution other than an unwritten one that “determines what powers the parliament has, determined by the prime minister” (The Open University, 2019a). Furthermore, the UK constitution allows the executive-led legislature to decide what rights citizens may have (The Open University, 2019b). Consequently, the UK parliament can easily amend the constitution or make laws, provided that it has an electoral majority. “[T]he sovereignty of parliament is at the heart of UK constitution practice … no act it passes can be unconstitutional” (Heffernan, 2015a, pp. 24-25).

Lijphart’s model of political systems

Arend Lijphart, as one of the most influential political scientists to analyze and categorize political systems, produced a conceptual map, or “an ideal model,” that features two ends of a spectrum on which we can plot any particular political system on that continuum (The Open University, 2019e).

Lijphart thinks that the UK unitary/parliamentary system and the US federal/presidential system “can helpfully be seen as part of a broader distinction between majoritarian and consensus democracies” (The Open University, 2019f). A majoritarian democracy, for Lijphard, exhibits a plurality electoral system, a dominant executive over the legislature, and a single-party government; a consensus democracy, by contrast, exhibits a proportional representation, a federal system, a written constitution, and a multi-party electoral system” (The Open University, 2019e). Even though the UK and the US can be located together with this model, both are mere approximations of the majoritarian and consensus models, respectively (The Open University, 2019g). Neither meets every single one of Lijphart’s criteria. For example, the UK became a multi-party system when the Conservative Party formed a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats after the 2015 general election.

The Lijphart model, as outlined below, distinguishes between the majoritarian and consensus democracies (The Open University, 2019f).

The role of political parties in the US and the UK political systems

We should not underestimate the role that political parties play in making or breaking democratic political systems: “whether we love them or hate them, [parties] are the gatekeepers to almost all forms of democratic policies and offices” (The Open University, 2019h). Parties propose political, social, and economic programs for people to choose from. They also recruit candidates for governmental positions to help electorates “determine which actors hold what legislative and executive posts at national, regional, and local levels” (Heffernan, 2015c, p. 73).

Clearly, the influence of elections on the US and the UK’s political systems differ significantly. The effect of elections on the performance of the US government, for example, is not strong due to the “institutional separation of power within the federal government and between the federal government and the 50 states” (Heffernan, 2015c, p. 97). The UK political system, by contrast, “strongly contributes to creating a powerful party government dominance” (Heffernan, 2015c, p. 97).

Conclusion

Comparing and contrasting the political systems of two entrenched liberal democracies – the US and the UK – can shed light on the different roles that elections play in distributing power among the key political institutions of these two countries.

The separation or consolidation of political power determines the type of the liberal democracy in question, be it federal/presidential or unitary/parliamentary. The relationship between the executives and the states’ legislatures could be either contentious or complementary, depending on the electoral mandates, customs, conventions, and written or unwritten constitutions. While the Lijphart’s model plots the US and the UK along a majoritarian/consensus spectrum, neither meets the exact model’s criteria.

References

Heffernan, R. (2015a) “How the UK and the US political system differ” in Heffernan, R. and Wastnidge, E. (eds.) Understanding Politics: Ideas and Institutions in the Modern World 2, Milton Keynes, The Open University.

Heffernan, R. (2015b) “Institutional differences between UK prime ministers and US presidents” in Heffernan, R. and Wastnidge, E. (eds.) Understanding Politics: Ideas and Institutions in the Modern World 2, Milton Keynes, The Open University.

Heffernan, R. (2015c) “Elections and parties in the UK and the US” in Heffernan, R. and Wastnidge, E. (eds.) Understanding Politics: Ideas and Institutions in the Modern World 2, Milton Keynes, The Open University.

The Open University (2019a) “4 Comparing and contrasting the UK and the US?” [Audio], DD211 Understanding politics: ideas and institutions in the modern world. Available at: https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=1302811&section=5 (Accessed: March 4, 2019).

The Open University (2019b) “7.1 Review of Chapter 13” [Online], DD211 Understanding politics: ideas and institutions in the modern world. Available at: https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=1302811&section=8.1 (Accessed: March 9, 2019).

The Open University (2019c) “3 How is the US president elected?” [Online], DD211 Understanding politics: ideas and institutions in the modern world. Available at: https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=1302812&section=4 (Accessed: March 9, 2019).

The Open University (2019d) “9 The key differences between prime minister and president” [Online], DD211 Understanding politics: ideas and institutions in the modern world. Available at: https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=1302812&section=10 (Accessed: March 9, 2019).

The Open University (2019e) “6 Exploring the Lijphart model further” [Audio], DD211 Understanding politics: ideas and institutions in the modern world. Available at: https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=1302811&section=7 (Accessed: March 8, 2019).

The Open University (2019f) “5 Lijphart’s model of majoritarian and consensus democracies” [Online], DD211 Understanding politics: ideas and institutions in the modern world. Available at: https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=1302811&section=6 (Accessed: March 8, 2019).

The Open University (2019g) “5.1 Lijphart’s model applied to the UK and the US” [Online], DD211 Understanding politics: ideas and institutions in the modern world. Available at: https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=1302811&section=6.1 (Accessed: March 9, 2019).

The Open University (2019h) “6 Political parties and their role” [Online], DD211 Understanding politics: ideas and institutions in the modern world. Available at: https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=1302813&section=7 (Accessed: March 10, 2019).

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