英文摘要 |
Parliamentarism has become the paradigmatic type of constitution for most scholars, based on the successful experiences in U.K. and in some multi-party countries in West Europe. Some particular conditions such as long-term democratic experiences and high economic growth have fostered these advanced countries to successfully operate with parliamentary systems. However, some newly democratic countries did not have those factors to contribute to the operation of parliamentary system and even failed in some cases. The main purpose of this paper aims to explore how some particular political features contribute the failure of parliamentary system in some new democracies. Why some new democracies failed in operating parliamentary system, why some new parliamentary countries with a two-party system did not succeed like advanced parliamentary countries, what political features cause that result are the research questions posed in this paper. By drawing the parliamentary countries suffering democratic breakdown in the second wave of democratization and the experiences in Malaysia and in Sri Lanka, this paper has four findings. First, when faced serious social and economic crises, the prime ministers in two countries were in a quagmire of division within the party and could not respond to those crises. Second, prime ministers with high popularity in parliamentary countries have to step down due to the rebellion against government by junior members of parliament (MPs). Third, because of the fusion of executive and legislative power in parliament system, the ruling party can be predominant in elections and form a predominant-party system or the opposition is too weak to compete with the ruling party. Fourth, the combination of parliamentarism and the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system has exacerbated the problem of social cleavage, even directly facilitating communal violence in a divided society. Overall, parliamentary system has some fragilities and drawbacks. Without some contributing factors, parliamentary systems might fail as well. |