Parliamentarians ... what happens if govt. falls apart during a crisis?

Coming from a constitutional republic headed by a President elected by voters, rather than a country with a Parliament-chosen Prime Minister, I must confess I have little understanding of the Parliamentary system.

What happens when the government falls apart (I understand it’s the current coalition, not the actual government itself) during a time of national crisis? Say, Sharon orders some move that sends the Israelis to outright war, the opposition party has a fit, and the govt. falls apart. What now? Do they choose a new Prime Minister while they’re in the middle of the crisis? Does Sharon maintain control via some sort of emergency powers clause?

Depends on the constitutional arrangements of the country in question, obviously, and I can’t say what the deal is in Israel. But, in general, the person who was prime minister continues to be prime minister until a new prime minister has been chosen. Whether that will happen immediately or after a lapse of time, or even after an election, will depend on the laws of the country in question and the particular circumstances which led to the fall of the government.

In the UK the queen has the power to ask someone to try and form a coalition gov, usually someone interim can be found to be PM until a new elections can be held, else she can just dissolve parliament. In commonwealth countries that role is done by the governer general.

As parliaments actually do little that is urgent or often very useful, then a 4 month delay with no government will probably not even be noticed.

So by “government” (as in, the coalition broke down and the government fell apart) most Parliamentarians are usually referring solely to the legislative body, exclusive of the executive?

I think the key point is that in every Parliamentary country, while the Prime Minister/Premier/Chancellor is answerable to Parliament and must command a majority in the appropriate house there in order to maintain effective government, he or she is appointed by and resigns to the monarch, viceroy, President, or other species of “head of state.” Hence he or she would remain in office dealing with the crisis while the political parties try to put together a coalition to continue the government (or a new P.M. is named by the majority party to replace the rejected incumbent, as would have happened in England in 1940 if Labour and the Liberals had not agreed to serve under Churchill).

Doesn’t parliament generally control the purse strings (I’m pretty sure that’s the case in the UK and Commonwealth countries)? It seems to me that if a war started, the government collapsed, and no money for things like replacement ammunition, paying called-up reservists, paying ‘combat duty’ rates etc. could be allocated for four months, there’d be a big problem. Maybe I’m missing something.

You are thinking in regular monetary terms - as if the government is the only one that knows the pin number for the ATM

Using britain as an example…

what you have to remember is that the money is already there, and is controlled by the treasury - a civil service body. As a civil serivice body it is technically responsible to the queen and NOT to the government. technically it only takes advice from the government and acts according to their wishes because its told to by the queen.

Therefore in a crisis they would carry on as usual - and if they needed to make any funding decisions then as long as the queen approves its not a problem

the only thing that they would be unable to do is raise any new taxes - since only parliament can approve that.

Oh yeah, and if the worst came to the worst and they needed more money and couldn’t raise new taxes - they’d just re-allocate some of the funds set aside for the Arts, Schools, hospitals etc. to the military.

In Canada the Prime-Minister is “selected” by the Governor General, who represents the Queen. The case of ‘the government falling apart’ would actually be a vote of non-confidence in the Prime Minister: this last happened in 1980, when Joe Clark’s Conservatives attempted to pass a tough budget while in a minority in the House (Social Credit, the ‘swing’ party they were counting on, voted against the budget and got wiped out in the ensuing election).

There was then the choice of what to do: Joe had to submit his resignation as PM (this is automatic following defeats on money bills), but the situation could be resolved either by another PM gaining the confidence of the existing House, or by a new election. I can’t remember the details (and certainly wasn’t privy to the back-room machinations!) but basically the only logical alternative was Pierre Trudeau (of the Liberals), who was eager for an election and got one. He was returned to power (having lost to Clark in 1979) with a big majority.

A lot would depend on just how urgent the crisis was, and just how much consensus there was in the House on how it should be dealt with. Canada 1980: the desirability of raising gasoline taxes was a matter of opinion, but nobody was claiming the world would fall apart if there was a three month delay while an election decided the issue. Great Britain 1939: a lot of urgency and much more consensus.

Israel 2002: I’m afraid I just don’t know. If Sharon and his supporters were to become convinced that an invasion of Syria was imperative, but were defeated on the motion - my guess is an election would follow (Israel would not be at war, hence there would be time for an election). If they were invaded by Syria, however, and there was a major confrontation about whether they should extend the war to Jordan - I would guess that a new coalition would form and elections postponed until the shooting stopped.

The Prime Minister appoints the cabinet (virtually always from members of parliament - just who the last Canadian Cabinet Minister who was not an MP was is a trivia question that I can’t answer!) The PM would continue to be the PM until the election was held and cabinet has a fair amount of authority to keep things running without reference to Parliament.

In most parliamentary democracies, parliament controls both the raising of money and its expenditure. It follows that no executive can govern for more than a very short time without some support from parliament. Successful parliamentery democracies must either (a) develop mechanisms for changing the executive very rapidly if the executive in office loses the confidence of parliament (in the UK this can happen in the space of hours) or (b) adopt laws or conventions under which parliament continues to provide funds for government during a longer period until the executive is replaced or © have both options available.

In the UK (and I think in most commonwealth countries) if a Prime Minister loses the support of Parliament he goes to the Queen (or the Governor-General) and either advises her to invite someone else to form a government (e.g. when Margaret Thatcher resigned she advised the Queen to ask John Major to form a government) or asks her to dissolve parliament and call a general election.

In Israel, I read, where the executive loses the confidence of the Knesset the Prime Minister has 90 days within which to decide to try and put together a government which will command support or to call a general election. Presumably there are either laws or conventions in place which ensure that government can continue, under the same Prime Minister, during that 90 days.

Actually, it’s the other way round. In the UK the term ‘the government’ is usually restricted to the executive, although this is not to say that those who are unaware of the distinction do not sometimes use it in a sense closer to the American meaning.

No, the money is controlled by ministers, while civil servants are responsible to their departmental ministers. Of course, it is true that ministers have those powers because they have been delegated to them by the monarch, but almost all powers exercised by civil servants are ones which have, in turn, been delegated to them by ministers.

The question of what happens if the government needs money in a hurry and cannot command a majority in the Commons is not a major problem. All governments have contingency funds for unforeseen emergencies and they can borrow funds from the markets to cover any further shortfalls. Budget crises can arise, such as the Australian constitutional crisis of 1975, but then exactly the same thing can happen in a presidential system, such as with the U.S. budget crisis of 1995, and such stalemates are usually easier to resolve under a parliamentary system.

No, in a parliamentary democracy the executive typically needs parliamentary authority to borrow, and it needs parliamentary authority to spend funds already in hand. A government which has lost the support of parliament can only continue for so long as its existing powers to tax, to borrow and to spend (which are always time-limited and nearly always amount-limited) do not expire. And where parliament has authorised funds to be expended for one purpose they cannot be spent for any other purpose.

The result, as I say, is that either the change of executive must be completed very quickly, or there must be some mechanism whereby parliament makes funds available during an interim period. In the UK a change of government takes hours (if no general election is called) or about a month (if there is a general election).