A Prime Minister’s job is to make sure that the Executive branch (the various Ministers, who are like the US Cabinet) are accurately, competently, and efficiently enacting the will of the legislature, and hopefully by extension, the will of people who elected them.
The US President is also in charge of the Executive Branch but is often of a different party than the majority of the legislature. So the US President is very often attempting to enact his own (or his party’s) will to the furthest extent possible without actually breaking the laws set by the legislature, and within the budget provided by them.
In many cases, the government bogs down entirely due to what is referred to as “obstructionism” by each side. Really it’s mainly each side trying to do what it’s constituency elected them to do. Current company excepted, of course. :roll eyes:
That’s correct, but incomplete. It’s also the job of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to get the Legislature to enact the laws that will implement the programme the PM and Cabinet campaigned on.
I’d also be cautious about trying to declare that an institution from one system is “like” an institution from another system. The Cabinet in a parliamentary system has more power than the Cabinet in the US system, because the Cabinet members are all elected to the legislature (and in a Westminster system, continue to hold this seats). That means that they have more political power than a US Cabinet Secretary.
US Cabinet Secretaries have no independent political power. They’re in Cabinet because the President appointed them. If the President fires them, they’re done. That might cause some political heartburn for the Prez with his supporters, but the former Secretary is out of office.
The PM can fire Cabinet members too, but the reason they were in Cabinet in the first place is because they had personal independent political authority, as a Member of Parliament. They may have had “pull” in caucus and the PM felt he had to include them in caucus. Or the PM may have felt a particular MP had to be included for regional balance, or linguistic balance, or gender balance.
Whatever the reason, if the PM fires a Cabinet minister, the ex-Minister is still a Member of Parliament, still a member of caucus, and could potentially raise holy hell against the PM in caucus.
No sensible PM wants that fight unless it’s inevitable. It was that sort of fight that led to PM Chrétien being forced to resign to make wAy for his former Finance Minister, Paul Martin.
Also the principle of cabinet confidentiality/solidarity can allow a opponent of the PM to stridently promote their views in Cabinet discussions, but once the vote is taken they are expected to defend that cabinet decision in public else resign.
The “rather have them inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in” strategy.
Although Brexit, that persistent cancer, is playing merry hell with the principle of collective Cabinet responsibility in the UK.
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In Aus, the Premiers are state governors. We have a parliamentary system (no separation between the legislature and the executive), so the Premier is elected by the house of reps in each state. The head of state (in each state) is selected by the executive (typically the premiers department), and is given the title Governor, but doesn’t do any government…
At the federal level, the head of the executive is given the title “Prime Minister”, the head of state the title Governor-General.
There has been some talk about re-naming the Governor-General as “President”, and going to a direct-election model: if that happened at the federal level, something similar would probably happen at the state levels.
Because our Prime Minister, and our Premiers, are in and selected by Parliament, they have a different range of responsibilities than the President of the USA does, (and obviously, a different range of responsibilities than a head of state). The government of which he is part have to do all the House-of-Reps stuff as well as running the departments and the department policies.
When each of the 6 Australian states gained responsible parliamentary government (most in the late 1850s, WA in 1890) each gave their head of government the title of Premier.
From what I can tell, the role of the Premier as the head of government is mentioned in each states constitution.
So the office of Premier was in place almost half a century before Australia federated.
The leader of the Australian Federal parliament has always been known as Prime Minister rather than Premier though the term is not mentioned in the Australian Constitution.
I don’t know why that is the case, but think it’s likely a reflection of the States history as being British colonies while Australia was founded as independent.
addendum:
New Zealand doesn’t have state governments and it’s political leaders from 1869 were called Premier. In 1901 Premier Seddon began calling himself Prime Minister and the term was formally adopted in 1907.
Whether that is a reflection of Australia’s leaders being called Prime Ministers from 1st January 1901 or not and it was just a bit of title envy, I don’t know.
Strict parliamentary discipline isn’t a feature of every system. Knowing in advance whether or not a law will pass isn’t necessarily obvious. Combine lack of parliamentary discipline and a coalition government relying on a number of more or less enthusiastic allied parties, a dividing issue and some influential MPs with an agenda of their own, and passing a piece of legislation isn’t just a matter of being able to count.
Quite right - I meant my reference to the Westminster system to apply to all of my post there, contrasting Westminster Cabinet to US Cabinet. Slip of my fingers.
Your comment reinforces my point, though: when doing comparative discussions, one has to be cautious about assuming that one part of one system is “like” a similar part in another system.
Specifically in the UK, Lords can be cabinet ministers, and there’s not actual law against someone from neither house being one. It would probably be unacceptable to Parliament to have someone not accountable to either house be there though.
clairobscur, in the French system, how does Cabinet selection work? Can the President choose anyone to be in Cabinet, whether they’re elected to the Assembly or not? If they are a member of the Assembly, do they have to resign?
Anybody can be member of the cabinet. Except, precisely, MPs. So yes, if they have been elected to the parliament (which happens quite often), they must resign.
Anybody can be member of the cabinet. Except, precisely, MPs. So yes, if they have been elected to the parliament (which happens quite often), they must resign.
There’s a great variability in French governments. Some are heavily politized, with political heavyweights in all important positions. Others are at the contrary very technocratic, with a lot of nobodies in them.
Interesting sidepoint: this used to be the case in the UK (kinda) until the nineteenth century: it was seen as bad in the 17th Century for MPs to undertake paid service for the Crown, as it was feared the King could simply employ every MP and have Parliament in his pocket. So it was expected that any MP taking paid work for the Crown must immediately resign their seat.
But - loophole - there was nothing in the law forbidding a paid official of the Crown becoming an MP; so the convention grew that all Ministers had to resign their seats but then stand for election, and then everyone would be happy.
It was done away with under Victoria at some point I believe, but it still has vestigial relevance in the fact that the only way to ‘resign’ from the House of Commons is to be appointed to one of two sinecures - Crown Steward and Bailiff of the three Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough and Burnham, or Crown Steward and Bailiff of the the Manor of Northstead.
The requirement for appointed Ministers to be re-elected all over again was dropped under the Re-election of Ministers Act 1919, provided it was within nine months of the last general election. In practice, it had often been an contest without any other candidates. An amending Act of 1926 abolished it totally.