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Challenges and Benefits of Unicameral and Bicameral Legislatures
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Added on 2019-09-21
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This article discusses the challenges and benefits of unicameral and bicameral legislatures and compares which legislative system is better at expressing a variety of interests. It provides examples of countries with each system and explains how they work. The article also explores the role of the legislative authority in maintaining a check on the executive branch and fostering independence in dealing with the executive branch.
Challenges and Benefits of Unicameral and Bicameral Legislatures
Added on 2019-09-21
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4.Discuss the challenges and benefits of unicameral and bicameral legislatures and answer the question: which legislative system is better at expressing a variety of interests?Choose one country as an example of each system (two countries total) to help your argument.Unicameral legislatures frequently occur in a system with the national government having asingle unit. It has been seen that approximately half of the sovereign states in the world areunicameral which also includes the most populous country the People's Republic of China andalso the Vatican City, least populous. (Bittner, A., 2015).It has been observed that governments having unicameral legislature are usually found in thesmall countries having homogeneous populations of less than 10 million people and are evenseen to have opposing political interests. Fewer unicameral legislatures have seen to adopt aquota system which guarantees adequate representation to certain minority groups. However,it has been argued that the upper and a lower house present in the state legislatures are highlyduplicative understanding the fact that the legislators serve the same population essentially.The same people maintain the fact that the legislative process is simplified by the unicameralsystem, therefore, allowing greater transparency and for bringing the representatives close totheir constituents and then the reduction of power along with influencing the special andmoney interests. The benefits are usually given to the public in unicameral systems due to thesimple legislative procedure which can be understood and observed easily, therefore, allowingthe higher number of participation from the people. Furthermore, the unicameralists havepointed out that the representation of the minority in these bodies is not dependent on thechamber number but on the quality of the institution. Further examples of unicamerallegislatures are New Zealand, Turkey, Zimbabwe, Portugal and several other states. The statelegislatures of Swiss cantons and Canadian states are unicameral. Whereas the bicameral legislatures are seen in the federal system. In this type of legislature,the disbursement of power takes place in the state, federal and local government. The peopleare the representative of the lower and the upper class. The representation in the lower house
is based on the population division of the districts. A same number of citizens are representedby each member of the house. Whereas in the upper houses, greater variation is seen in therepresentation of people. The upper house members are elected through the direct or indirectelections and even inherit or get appointed to the positions. On the basis of subdivisions therepresentation in the upper house takes place, for example in the United States Senate. Theauthority and the responsibilities of the chamber vary in all the nations. In the bicameralsystem, the members in the two houses include the members of the representative serving onthe different committees and having different relationship with the communities and toexperience various life experiences to draw on. Therefore these features help in creating amore responsive legislative system responding more towards the interests of the varying anddiverse communities. Therefore it enables the electorate having more than one representativetowards giving higher opportunities to the constituents on connecting to the otherrepresentatives. Therefore the goal of the Founding Fathers to adopt to the bicameral systemto thwart the tyranny of the majority and further in balancing the political interests. Thereforethis complexity of the bicameral system helps in creating additional barriers against theinfluence of special interests by forcing those interests to gain the support of larger numbersof political leaders. Examples of the bicameral legislatures include India, France, USA, UK, Australia, Switzerland etc. have bicameral legislature Expressing a variety of interestsThe legislative authority helps its members with the confidence, expertise, and ability towardsacting towards the interests of its constituents in order to maintain a check on the executivebranch and further during the policy process when the executive over reaches the authority. Ithas been seen that in the bicameral system the nature of the if te competing principals of the
two houses is split. The nature of the bicameral system is seen to thwarts the decision-makingand therefore encourages the rivalry and the conflicts in the two chambers. It has been seenthat in the unicameral legislator the beneficial pressure is felt for acquiring the in-depthexpertise as they cannot be relying on the second chamber of the identification of theirmistakes. (Roosevelt et al, 2014) Whereas the legislators in the unicameralism constrained bythe electorate, judicial review, and executive veto. The bicameral legislator, on the other hand,helps in affording the legislators towards the higher opportunity for developing the high levelof expertise in order to foster independence in case of dealing with the executive branch andfurther expressing the interests of the variety of people. However, the unicameral fails to doso due to the fewer committees and fewer opportunities are given to the members fordeveloping specialized knowledge which in turn results in weakening the legislative oversightof the executive branch. Therefore it has been seen that one house legislature does notinfluence the executive and further fails to express the interests of the variety of people.Although the bicameralists highly maintain the legislative restraints instead of the legislativeauthority on the basis of the democratic governance. Therefore, in short, the bicameral rejectsall the comparisons due to the different traditions, environment and even the expectation fromthe customers. Therefore the unicameral is seen to lack parallel experiences of the businesswork and therefore not allowing the government boards to cite with a lack or properexperience.Therefore although the bicameral system is highly complex in enacting the suitable legislatureit also fails to attract potential public, but it is able to recognize and to express the variety ofinterest which in turn helps the system and to understand the needs of the people.(Feigenbaum,2015). The bicameral system can act as a barometer for the opinion of the public. In case ofUnicameral the single house is ossible to grow out and therefore might fail in keeping iwth
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