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Systems of government



The main systems of government in the world are:

  • Parliamentary systems
  • Presidential systems
  • Mixed systems

Parliamentary systems are those where the government is made up entirely or mainly of people who have been elected to parliament. So the government must have the support of parliament to continue in office. Countries with this sort of system include the United Kingdom, India, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Israel, most European countries including Scandinavia and most of those of Eastern Europe, as well as Nepal.

Presidential systems are those where the head of government does not need the support of the legislature to form a government or stay in office. The President is always elected by the people in these systems, and is the head of state as well as the head of government. Examples are the USA, Nigeria, several Latin American countries and some of the countries of the former Soviet Union.

Mixed systems can be of two types:

  • those in which the powers of head of state and head of government are combined in one person (but the President can still be removed by the mechanism used in parliamentary systems)
  • those in which the powers of government are divided between the head of government (Prime Minister) and the head of state (usually President).

Examples of the former are South Africa, Kiribati in the Pacific, and Kenya. Examples of the latter are France, Sri Lanka, Portugal and a number of countries of Latin America and Eastern Europe.

Among countries that have both a head of government and a head of state, hardly any one country is identical to any other country in the way powers are distributed between those two offices. Even among countries that have only a President, the ways in which the President's powers are checked varies from country to country.

An important aspect of the system of government is the choice of the Ministers. They will be chosen by the head of government (whether that person is also the president or not). But in some presidential systems the president's choice must be approved by the legislature . In parliamentary systems, if the Prime Minister is removed by a vote of no confidence in the parliament the whole government (the Ministers) goes too. In presidential systems there is a method for the President to be removed for misbehaviour; that procedure is often called "impeachment" and involves the legislature.

There is a useful paper on the UNDP Governance website "Presidential, Parliamentary and Hybrid Systems"

For some more information on heads of state, including links to the websites of a number of individual heads of state click here. More information will be available on this topic soon.

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