PARLIAMENTS AND

CONGRESSES:
Concentration Versus Division of Legislative
Power
 Pure Consensus Model
Characterized by a bicameral
Pure
legislature in which power is divided
Majoritarian
equally between two differently
Model
Concentration of legislative constituted chambers;
power in a single chamber;
 Legislative chambers
have a variety of proper
a.
names:
House of Commons
b. House of Representatives
c. Chamber of Deputies
d. Bundestag
e. Senate
f. Riksdag
g. Diet
1. UNICAMERALISM VS.
BICAMERALISM
 In the case of...
Norway Iceland
These chambers resolve disagreements through a
Until 2009, Norwegian legislators
joint session which do not necessarily point to
were elected as one body, but after Until 1991, Icelandic legislators
unicameralism because it is not an uncommon
the election they divided were divided and the second
method for unambiguously bicameral legislatures.
themselves into two chambers by chamber was formed from one-
choosing one-fourth of their third of the elected legislators.
members to form a second
chamber.
About one-third of the
countries in the world have
bicameral and about two-
thirds have unicameral
legislatures.
In 2010, only fourteen of the 36 democracies had unicameral
parliaments…
New Zealand in 1950
Denmark in 1953
From Bicameral to Unicameral Sweden in 1970
Iceland in 1991
Norway in 2009

Costa Rica
Finland
Greece
Israel
Unicameral democracies from the
Korea
beginning
Luxembourg
Malta
Mauritius
Portugal
 However, the nine formally federal systems among
the thirty-six democracies all have bicameral
legislatures. As of 2010, the twenty-seven formally
unitary systems (including those labeled semi-federal)
are almost evenly divided between unicameralism and
bicameralism: fourteen have unicameral and thirteen
have bicameral legislatures.
2. VARIETIES OF
BICAMERALISM
 The most important function of second chambers, or
“upper” houses, was to serve as a conservative brake on
the more democratically elected “lower” houses.
 a. Second chambers tend to be smaller than first
chambers.
Democracies First Chamber Second Chamber

United Kingdom 650 800

Trinidad 43 31

Spain 350 264

Germany 622 69
b. Legislative terms of office tend to be longer in second than in
first chambers.

The first chamber terms range from two to five years

US House of
compared with a second chamber range of four to nine years 2 years
Representatives
(and in Britain and Canada, respectively, life membership
and membership until retirement). Australian lower
3 years
In the case of Switzerland, a few of its second-chamber house
members are elected for terms that are shorter than the four-
year term of the first chamber. New Zealand 3years
unicameral legislature

Sweden unicameralism 4 years

legislature
c. A common feature of second chambers is their staggered
election.
Australia One-half of the membership is renewed every 3 years.

Japan One-half of the membership is renewed every 3 years.

US One-third of the membership is elected every second year.

Argentina One-third of the membership is elected every second year.

India One-third of the membership is elected every second year.

France One-third of the membership is renewed every three year.

Austria
Members of chamber are selected in a staggered manner
Germany but at irregular intervals.
Switzerland
3. STRONG VS. WEAK
BICAMERALISM
a. Formal constitutional powers that the two chambers
have
The general pattern is that second chambers tend to be subordinate to first chambers.
Bicameral Legislatures of Democracies
Argentina
Italy
With formally equal power Switzerland
United States
Uruguay
Belgium
With NO formally equal power Denmark
Sweden
b. The actual political importance of second chambers depends
not only on their formal powers but also on their method of
selection.
Indirectly elected Appointed
India Canada
Netherlands Caribbean countries
Sweden UK

All first chambers are directly elected by
the voters, but the members of most second
chambers are elected indirectly usually by
legislatures at levels below that of the
national government or more frequently,
appointed.
Second chambers that are not directly
elected lack the democratic legitimacy, and
hence the real political influence, that popular
election confers. Conversely, the direct
election of a second chamber may compensate
to some extent for its limited formal power.
 Based on the two criteria presented, the relative formal powers of
the two and democratic legitimacy of the second chambers-
bicameral legislatures can be classified as either symmetrical or
asymmetrical.
Symmetrical Asymmetrical
Symmetrical
chambers- are • Argentina
Asymmetrical
those with equal chambers- highly • India
• Italy
or only unequal
• Sweden
moderately
• Switzerland constitutional
unequal • United States powers and • Canada

constitutional • Uruguay democratic • Caribbean countries

powers and legitimacy. • UK

• Australia
democratic • Germany • Belgium
legitimacy. • Denmark
• Japan
• Netherlands
c. The second chambers may be elected by different methods or
designed so as to overrepresent certain minorities.

In this case, the two chambers differ

in their composition and may be Equal Representation Unequal Representation
called incongruent. The greatest
degree of overrepresentation occurs Switzerland
when there is equality of state,
Germany
provincial, or cantonal representation United States
regardless of the populations of these Canada
federal units. Argentina
Australia

Degree of overrepresentation of eleven federal and semi-federal chambers in terms of

the degree of inequality of representation caused by the favorable treatment of the
small units.

The Gini Index is often
used for the measurement of
inequalities of income and
wealth, but it can be used to
measure any kind of
inequality.
The Index of Malapportionment, devised by David
Samuels and Richard Synder (2001) and available for nine
of the democracies in the table that will be presented
(Table 11. 1), is similar to one of the indexes of electoral
disproportionality: just as differences between percentages
of votes and seats won by political parties can be added up
to arrive at an overall measure of disproportionality, so can
differences between percentages of state or province
populations and percentages of the seats allocated to them
be used for a summary measure of legislative
malapportionment.
 Percentages of seats held by the 10
Samuels-Snyder Index of
percent best represented voters Gini Index of Inequality
Malapportionment

Argentina 44.8 0.61 0.49

United States 39.7 0.49 0.36

Switzerland 38.4 0.46 0.34

Canada 33.4 0.34 -

Australia 28.7 0.36 0.30

Germany 24.0 0.32 0.24

Spain 23.7 0.31 0.29

India 15.4 0.10 0.07

Austria 11.9 0.05 0.03

Belgium 10.8 0.01 -

Netherlands 10.0 0.00 0.00

4. THE CAMERAL STRUCTURES
OF THIRTY-SIX DEMOCRATIC
LEGISLATURES
 There are four principal categories: strong,
medium-strength, weak bicameralism, and
unicameralism.
Medium-strength
Weak bicameralism,
Strong bicameralism, one of the two
elements is missing; this
in which the
bicameralism is
category is split into two chambers are both
characterized by Unicameral
subclasses according to asymmetrical and
both symmetry whether symmetry or congruent. Legislature
and incongruence. incongruence is the missing
feature, but both are ranked
equally and have the same
index of bicameralism (3.0
points).
 Cameral structure of legislatures in thirty-six
democracies
Strong bicameralism: symmetrical and Medium-strength bicameralism: Medium-strength bicameralism:
incongruent chambers [4.0] symmetrical and congruent chambers [3.0] asymmetrical and incongruent chambers
[3.0]

• Italy
• Japan
• Argentina
• Netherlands • Canada
• Australia
• Uruguay • France
• Germany
• Belgium [2.8] • India
• Switzerland
• (Belgium before1995) • Spain
• United States
• (Denmark before 1953
• (Sweden before 1970)
 Cameral structure of legislatures in thirty-six
democracies
Weak bicameralism: asymmetrical and
Between medium-strength and weak
congruent chambers [2.0] One-and-a-half chambers [1.5]
bicameralism [2.5]

• Austria
• Bahamas
• Barbados • Iceland [1.4]
• Botswana • Ireland • Norway [1.5]
• United Kingdom • Jamaica • (Iceland before 1991)

• Trinidad • (Norway before 2009)

• Sweden [1.7]
• (Belgium after 1995)
• (New Zealand before 1950)
Cameral structure of legislatures in thirty-six
democracies
Unicameralism [1.0]

• Costa Rica
• Finland
• Greece
• Israel
• Korea
• Luxembourg
• Malta
• Mauritius
• Portugal
• Denmark [1.2]
• New Zealand [1.1]
• (Iceland after 1991)
• (Denmark after 1953)
• (New Zealand after 1950)
• (Norway after 2009)
• (Sweden after 1970)
 5.CAMERAL STRUCTURE AND
DEGREES OF FEDERALISM AND
DECENTRALIZATION

Degree of Federalism and Decentralization
Figure 11.1 The relationship between federalism-decentralization and cameral structure in thirty-six
democracies, 1945-2010
There is a strong empirical relationship between the
bicameral-unicameral and federal-unitary dichotomies: all
formally federal systems have bicameral legislatures
whereas some nonfederal systems have bicameral and
others unicameral parliaments.
As the degree of federalism and decentralization increases,
first a shift from unicameralism to bicameralism takes place
and then the strength of bicameralism increases. The
correlation coefficient is 0.70 (significant at the 1 percent
level).
Federal Austria is one of the deviant cases due to its weakly
bicameral legislature.
Finland, classified as unitary and decentralized, has a low
bicameralism score.
Israel has a unicameral parliament that is at odds with its
classification as a semi-federal system.
France, Italy, Uruguay, and Japan have a much stronger
bicameralism as a result of their unitary and largely
centralized systems.
The smaller countries tend to have unicameral or weakly
bicameral legislature in spite of their federal, semi-federal, or
decentralized status just like Austria, Israel, and Finland.
Population size is related to federalism as federal systems
tend to be larger countries.