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[edit] Austria is semi-presidential?

This image seems to describe Austria as semi-presidential, but the Article on Austria's politics describes a parliamentry system, with a largely honorary president. If the President's only real powers are to dismiss the cabinet or dissolve parliament, and they've never done either, then that's even less presidential than Australia's system (where the Governor-General can do that and more besides, and has). Unless someone has additional information, I think the color should be changed. —Felix the Cassowary | toːk 05:34, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. I've reverted those changes. By that standard, only constitution monarchies could be considered parliamentary. The Tom 06:05, 20 February 2006 (UTC)


[edit] purple

The purple is hard to distinguish from the brown and the blue. At the next update, maybe pick a different shade to make it more clear.--Sonjaaa 14:15, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] South Africa

I believe that South Africa is with the President functioning as parliamentary head of government, with the head of state roles "tacked on." The the President is required to resign with his cabinet if a no conifence vote is taken according to Chapter 5, Section 102, Part 2 of the Constitution. This is the fundamental definition of parliamentarism, or the executive being responsible to parliament. Although not strictly required by parliamentarism, a dissolution can occur if the parliament fails to choose a new president after 30 days according to Chapter 4, Section 50, Part 2 of the Constitution. This is unlikely to happen, however, due to the ANC's overwelming majority. Gavino

It certainly is a bit of an oddball system (I think there's something comparable on one of the S. Pacific island republics, and that's it). I went with calling it semi-presidential simply because that's what the Wikipedia article reflected it as being, but I'm aware it's not directly comparable to the French system at all. If there's a more precise term in use for this form of government it might be worth doing some clarification work on both the articles and the image, alternately we can justify the "semi-presidential family" of forms of governments as mixing and matching various elements of each rather than being broadly uniform Pres+PM+Leg. combos. The Tom 04:52, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Further digging shows the Marshall Islands to be that country I was thinking about with a vaguely South African system of government. Of course, matching Pacific Islands with dots is a weird game on that map, and so the MIs are either not there or represented in American blue, oddly enough. Kiribati is also fun in its defiance of European norms for us comparative politics types. As for South Africa, it seems to be called parliamentary or semi-presidential depending on which article you look at. I'm leaning towards switching it, now, though. The Tom 05:21, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Indeed the Marshall Islands, in Section 7 of its Constitution describes a no confidence/dissolution mechanism similar to South Africa. Note that simply electing the head of government (or President) by the assembly does not make parliamentary system, but requires a confidence mechanism. Gavino
The definition of parliamentary government, at least of the political science literature I've read, is one of requiring the entire executive to constantly maintain at all time a majority in the assembly (with no cheif executive who weilds actual power being exempt from this like France), which the South Africa case is clear. If one were to take the UK system, remove the monarchy, and vest its functions in the Prime Minister, but otherwise retain all other features of system, we would still have parliamentary system, which is what the SA system is. I agree that much of the political science articles are of sketchy quality, but I wouldn't kow where to start. Gavino
Fair enough. That said, a division between a head of government and head of state is also crucial to most people's conceptions of parliamentarism. As a comprimise I've recoloured South Africa and what turn out to be three-similarly constituted states in the South Pacific as a category unto themselves. Thoughts? The Tom 00:35, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
I've found another which should be colered green. Botswana, Chapter 92 of its Constitution, provides the same sort of no cofidence mechanism. Nambia appears to be correct. We should research other African states to see what lies beneath. The combination of dominant party systems and weak constitutional rule makes determining actual politcal systems difficult. Gavino

[edit] Switzerland

Is Switzerland under a parliamentary government? The executives is a council parliament elects. But it does not have to retain parliamentary confidence.

Gah. Totally asleep at the switch there. Even if the executive had to retain parliamentary confidence, the fused head-of-state/head-of-gov arrangement would have put them in the same boat as South Africa. I've decided to stick it into the South African oddball crowd (although to be fair to the Swiss, they did come up with their system before pretty much everyone else) and redefine the parliamentary linkage somewhat. My hasty research across the web indicates there's still some legislative linkage in the Swiss system, so I'm not quite putting it in the American category. Any further thoughts from anyone? The Tom 16:59, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

I would agree that Switzerland doesn't really fit anywhere. How about creating an oddball category rather than calling the oddballs something they are not? — The Swiss parliament can easily make the executive do things; the motion in particular is a very powerful and versatile instrument. (Procedural form of demands or requests for action or for information (English)) Given that the four parties represented in the executive account for about 80% of the parliament seats, one might expect that executive and parliament never disagree. However, the parties have little direct influence on their members in the executive, and vice versa (and whips are not nearly as effective as they are elsewhere). Thus, motions and weaker instruments are used quite regularly. (current list (German/French)) – Several times a year, Swiss citizens are called to vote on all three levels (federal, cantons, municipalities), making changes in the constitution, laws, spending decisions, etc.; if the voters are so inclined, they can override pretty much anything parliament and executive could possibly do. – That simply doesn't fit any definition of presidential republic or executive presidency I've heard of. Rl 19:20, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Question

In a seperate map from this (As this one is quite crowded with good information already), could shading be used to indicate how much control over the whole country the internationally-recognized government has? In Somalia, for example, the central government's power extends little beyond the temporary administrative center. Warlord state/provinces, definetly not to be considered semi-presidential republics, flourish, as do two or three self proclaimed independent countries. Similar situations where internationally-recognized government holds quite a bit less than full control over the country occur in Colombia, Ivory Coast (Cote de Ivoire?), Sri Lanka, etc, So I beleive a map to show this would be very helpful. I'd offer to make one, but I have no skill in graphics whatsoever. And please forgive me if this has been suggested already. Picaroon9288 00:37, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Wonderful idea, I just think tracking down verifiable data online about lines of control would be something of a bitch. I had pondered including Abkhazia and Somaliland and so on on the map (in fact, if you check the history you'll the very earliest draft had only Somaliland and no regime in Somalia proper) which at least seemed reasonably doable, but tossed the idea in light of it being a lot of work for little payoff and lots of nagging grey areas about including this and excluding that. As for accurate lines of control that FARC or the Tamil Tigers or various Afghan warlords rule behind, I think it would be a great project to document (there's a Tamil Tiger and Sahrawi Arab Republic map on Wikipedia somewhere, actually, which is something of a start) but I can't imagine it would be very easy to compile without, say, clearance for the map room at Langley, Virginia. I also imagine it would probably be out of date within a week in some cases. The Tom 04:25, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Good point. Rebel/Freedom Fighter territory seems to change every hour. Anyways, good job as is. Picaroon9288 19:54, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nepal

After the Loktantra Andolan and the Nepali House of Representatives passing the Act of 18 May, the King was stripped of all his powers. Shouldn't this mean that Nepal ought to be colored red now?? Lockesdonkey 03:39, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Yup. Update coming with that fix and a few more. The Tom 03:45, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Couple of updates in the latest update, including Nepal. The Tom 04:37, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Peru

According to Matthew Shugart at http://fruitsandvotes.com/ Peru is a semi-presidential type, the only one in South America. Recently a no confidence vote was threated prior to the runoff election. It appears to be more of a Russia or Taiwan system rather than a French or Sri Lanka system. Gavino

[edit] Libya

A "jamahiriya" is not a military dictatorship - it is a "state of the masses". As this page wishes to report states as they are "de jure", I suggest that you invent a new term or at least compromise as discussed below. Colonel Qaddafi has no constitutional role and Libya has both a PM and President who preside over the jamahiriya.

If your colour scheme can't cater for that, then stick it in as a semi-presidential system.

I speak Arabic, too, and "jamhariya" just means "republic." The whole "jamhariya" thing is just like the insistance of Cote d'Ivoire that it never be called "Ivory Coast." And Libya is a de facto military dictatorship. I wonder why Egypt and Pakistan aren't olive, too. (then again, Mubarak has never been a soldier, so strictly speaking Egypt is just a one-party state) LD 03:36, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

> Your example is pathetic. A more appropriate comparision would be the the USA insisting that it is not called the Thirteen Colonies.

Jamahiriya may well be (wrongly) transliterated as a republic so that Western people may (wrongly)understand what is being referred to, but jamahiriya refers to a collectivist political entity that is strictly Islamic and most pertinent to the Maghreb. Even if it were to mean "republic" the very notion of a "republic" is that it is the entire opposite of tyranny and despotism which you attribute to Qaddafi. If the system relied entirely on that, he would have been deposed a long time ago.

From Cicero through to Hobbes res publica is a form of government that protects public property as much as it may protect private property, and in Libya this is certainly the case - it is not some form of whimsical dictatorship. I know this as i have travelled and studied Libya for many years. Just because you happen to believe one thing based on I suspect Western bias in the media and academia, does not mean that you can just ignore the blatant facts on the ground. It is no different than me saying America is not a democracy because, whilst it might meet Schumpeterian definitions of minimal democracy, it certainly doesn't meet deeper and broader ones such as those espoused by Dahl. Therefore I have decided that America is "de facto" not a democracy. Fair?

If you read the article, the point of it is to demonstrate what each country is de jure, and this of course might threaten your own norms and assumptions of how the world operates. I emplore you abandon such a lazy political analysis in the future.

If this map is supposed to depict de jure political forms, Libya is not a military dictatorship. If, on the other hand, it is supposed to depict de facto political forms, you had better whip out some olive drab for Pakistan, and create a new colour for 'theocracy' and 'anarchy'. Iran and Somalia respectively. --Joffeloff 09:36, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] We really need to add a color for de facto one party states

Which is to say, one-party states which, like Egypt, do not prohibit other parties but put very high barriers to entry. Good idea? Lockesdonkey 03:38, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm skeptical... as these various suggested amendments have illustrated, keeping track of things on a relatively empirical constitution-says-this basis has not been without problems. Getting into secondary legislation about party restrictions shifts the mapping rubric into the realm of slippery slopes... do we include states that make things hard for opposition parties via some sort of citable law, or any state that makes things de facto hard because of various other pressures? If we go with the former, what's a "high barrier to entry," exactly? Turkey, for instance, has a 10% PR threshold that ensures two mainstream parties have a monopoly on power, but that's rarely cited as a reason to exclude it from more conventional categorization as a parliamentary republic. If we go with the second, we could argue for days about whether Singapore is a one-party state... some international observers say so, the electoral record suggests it, but the laws say no. If we call Singapore one-party, should we call Japan one too? As far as I know, there's no official bans on opposition parties in Uzbekistan, but it's nonetheless an incredibly repressive state where the rulers don't go to bed at night worried about losing power. Same goes for Zimbabwe, or Belarus.
The current one-party-states are easily defined because the name of the party so privileged is written into their constitutional body of law. They're open and upfront about it. Syria is a Ba'athist state, and a majority of its legislature or something like that is reserved for Ba'athists. Turkmenistan dispenses with any of the farting around with election-rigging that places like Belarus go through, with its head of state having proclaimed himself there for life. There's a certain ugly honesty that comes with it that you sorta wish Mugabe et al would have the balls to go along with and dispense with the democrat garb.
Finally, we do run the risk of trying to tackle too many variables at once. The Republic/Monarchy, Parliamentary/Presidential and Constitutional/Non-constitutional axes are all represented on the map, and throwing in every governmental nuance threatens to make the whole thing somewhat unreadable. The Tom 04:06, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Iran, Somalia, and the Holy See

Tom, before you assume I didn't read your above comment about not including every little "governmental nuance", I did, but there are three countries which, in my opinion, don't really fit with their colors

  1. Iran:

Iran, although it comes close to being a presidential republic, with a full presidential system, also has a Supreme Leader. And seeing as he is, in fact, equal with or more powerful than the President of Iran, it seems that Iran should be listed as a semi-presidential system.

Iran is undeniably a bit of an international outlier inasmuch as the Supreme Leader doesn't really fit well into our West-centric classification of governments. But the President is still the chief executive and his office operates independent of a parliament, while there is no other executive official responsible to the parliament via a confidence mechanism, so semi-presidential is definately a poorer fit. The Tom 00:06, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
  1. Somalia:

At the moment, only the Baidoa government of Somalia qualifies as a semi-presidential system. Meanwhilee, the Mogadishu government, it seems, is an example of a (theocratic) military government. (With the Islamic Courts Union being the military.)

Indeed. My very first draft just left Somalia proper without any government period and had Somaliland in a presidential system. Later editors wanted the map to represent de jure Somalia insofar as the internationally-recognized government and boundaries are concerned, which is totally reasonable IMHO, and so by those standards we go by the Baidoa government. There's no shortage of states where de jure government control is restricted to only a portion of their territory... Ivory Coast, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sri Lanka come to mind. The Tom 00:06, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
  1. The Holy See (I think it's colored purple)

The Holy See, I believe, should be listed as a full presidential system. Yes, it sounds silly, I know, but the Pope is an elected, not hereditary ruler. Once elected, he is a President for Life, with no one else nearly as powerful as him; therefore, I think the Vatican should be colored blue, not purple.

The difference between a president and a monarch isn't purely a matter of the presence or absence of an election. Obviously there have been no shortage of unelected presidents throughout history, and a quick perusal of elective monarchy would show that hereditary succession is by no means a requirement. In any case, the line between theocracy and monarchy gets mildly blurry in most cases, because of stuff like the divine right of kings. Yes, the Pope claims to draw authority from God Himself, but so does the King of Bhutan and the Sultan of Brunei. And to call the Vatican a republic would be simply ridiculous. The Tom 00:06, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Methinks you need a separate color for theocracy. :) Picaroon9288 01:03, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Obviously, if there's strong enough support for the idea, fine, it's not in my hands. But I would personally advocate against this, instead sticking with us describing Iran as a "republic" (a term which the regime there styles itself) in which theocratic principles guide and constrain the exercise of power, just as the United States is a republic in which democratic principles guide and constrain the exercise of power or China as a republic in which Maoist principles guide and "constrain" the exercise of power. I prefer to have an image speaking about the nuts and bolts of systems of government rather than the ideological underpinnings of the systems or the institutions that might reinforce them (like separated judiciaries guaranteeing individual liberties, or dedicated religiously-dominated upper-houses). The point of the colours is to show broad similarities in function between the institutions of various states. And aside from the fact a character called God plays a pretty central role in both of their bodies of law, there simply aren't very many similarities between Iran and the Vatican, much less Iran, the Vatican, and the quasi-established regime controlling a portion of Somalia without any external recognition. And for reasons above, I'm not keen on adding colours just for single states. The Tom 00:06, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Iran is not a democracy - the Supreme Leader and his cadre of mullahs pick out the political parties who are allowed to participate in the election. --Joffeloff 09:47, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More consistent colour-coding

One objection I have with this map as it stands now is that colours seem to be assigned rather randomly, in the sense that similar political systems do not have similar colours (e.g. the United States is blue while Canada is red). This makes it difficult to interpret the map at a glance. I am proposing to change the colours around so as to reflect the similarities between systems. For instance, we could use shades of green for democratic republics, shades of blue for constitutional monarchies, etc. -- Nikodemos 23:17, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Aside from both being liberal democracies (which isn't really what this image seeks to capture), Canada and the United States have incredibly divergent political systems. Constitutional monarchy vs. republic, linked vs separated executive and legislative branches, unified vs separated offices of head of state and head of government. I actually did have something of a colour continuum in mind when I did the legend. With the exception of the one-party and military colours, which I just pulled based on mental association, the flow from blue to green to yellow to orange to red to pink to purple does roughly correspond with the incremental addition of similarities and differences (I can do up an explanation if people would find it useful). Red was picked because it's traditionally associated with the British Commonwealth and thus the Westminister tradition, Blue as a contrasting "American" colour, Purple as the traditional colour of the monarchy, and the intermediaries fell in from there. The Tom 00:06, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
Ok, good points. Nevertheless, the colours used for one-party states and military dictatorships right now don't stand out. I propose using shades of green instead (even though there is no association between this colour and the states in question, it was the only possibility left). I've already made a slightly edited version of the map, using cyan for presidential republics with an executive presidency linked to a parliament (in order to free up the colour green), light green for one-party states and dark green for military dictatorships. Would you be okay with me uploading it? -- Nikodemos 17:25, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Finland

I think Finland should be coloured yellow (semi-presidential) instead of orange. The Finnish president is elected by the public vote separate from parliamentary elections. The president leads the Finnish foreign policy (in cooperation with the government) and is the Commander-in-Chief of the Defence Forces. Finland is defined as semi-presidential also in other sections of Wikipedia (Politics of Finland, Finland). [Apursula 27 June 2006].

Agreed, Finland is Semi-Presidential, it has a joint executive, with the Finnish President heading foreign and defence policy I believe. That is certainly not Parliamentary.

[edit] Haiti

I believe that Haiti should be coloured yellow (semi-presidential) instead of blue (full presidency). Jacques-Edouard Alexis is Haiti's current Prime Minister. Although the Prime Minister is chosen by the President, it's my understanding that the convention is that the Prime Minister is chosen from the opposition party and that he is more than a figurehead.

Macho Philipovich 22:18, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] USA

Why is the United States indicated as a parliamentary consitutuional monarchy (red)? It is a presidential republic with a full presidential system (blue). (Obi-Jon 03:18, 28 June 2006 (UTC))

Um, the US IS blue, in fact the only countries in North America that are red are Canada, a country on the isthmus and several Caribbean Islands... Perhaps you're confusing the US with Canada? IMacWin95 00:05, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Uzbekistan

Coloured blue above, but according to the Uzbekistan article 'IHF, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, as well as United States Department of State and Council of the European Union define Uzbekistan as "an authoritarian state with limited civil rights"'

Hmmm. It'd be cool if the map could be generated from a table, because tables are easier to edit and are wikifiable. Haven't used gd in a while. Hmmm. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kfor (talk • contribs) 11:32, 10 August 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Niger

Niger has a semi-presidential system and should be colored yellow. Everyking 05:06, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

If nobody is going to fix it, it should be taken down. Everyking 23:34, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sudan

Sudan is either a single party state or a military dictatorship.Why does this map show the country as a full presidential republic?Dimts 13:25, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How de jure should the map be?

Overall, I must say that this is a great map. However, I do question some of the choices for colorings. Single Party States

Some sort of consensus needs to be reached on just how de jure the single party states are. Eritrea is very much a de facto single party state, but is shown as a presidential republic because it says so somewhere in their constitution (the Eritrean government has just never acted on it). Syria, on the other hand, is shown as a single party state, even though they go through the fiction of having a "popular front" in which the Ba'ath Party is just one member. I am pretty sure that North Korea has a similar popular front. East Germany most definitely had such an organization, and yet no one doubted that it was a one-party state. I think that the de jure status should not be interpreted so narrowly and that Eritrea should be included as a single party state (or else these other "multiparty presidential republics" should be removed from the one-party list.

Semi-presidential Republics

I cannot speak to all the CIS countries, but as far as I know Kazakhstan has a system extremely similar to Russia: the President of Kazakhstan appoints a Prime Minister, who acts as head of government (once again, this is the theory). Granted, I do not know if the Kazakhstani Prime Minister must be confirmed in his role by the parliament, as the Russian or French Prime Ministers are...but is this really necessary in a semi-presidential republic? I would argue that Kazakhstan at least, and perhaps other former Soviet republics(like Georgia) should be re-rated as semi-presidential systems.

Military Dictatorships

This is another group that needs a stonger definition. Mauritania and Burma are openly run by the military...but Libya is not (there are People's Congresses technically governing - once again, the de jure issue. Libya should be rated the same as Pakistan, which is openly governed by a uniformed president who is also Chief of the Army: either they both are military, or have some other sort of government. Michael Kidron and Dan Smith in their 1990 The New State of War and Peace ISBN0671701037 proposed a "military dominant" category of government, which would be a system where a country is not governed through an open military chain of command, but countries "where power is in effect exercised by the military, although this reality is obscured by the existence of a civil constitution, a seemingly independent judiciary, or even competing political parties and elections. In such states the military dispose of the important departments of state - typically defence and internal security - or occupy the presidency or its equivalent, or do both." This seems like a good definition for Libya and Pakistan, and perhaps even Thailand.

Transitional Governments

I think a category should be created for governmental systems that are transitional governments, "caretaker" governments, or governments monitored by a peace process and/or by international organizations. Kosovo comes to mind (as it is in effect run by the UN and NATO), perhaps Bosnia, and perhaps even Sudan, since President al-Bashir has (according to the CIA Factbook) dropped his military title and is technically running Sudan with the SPLA under the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, with elections to be held in the near future.

Konchevnik81 15:57, 9 December 2006 (UTC)Konchevnik81

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