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WB HS Political Science study materials
WB HS Political Science study resources

WB HS Political Science: Organs and Forms of Government

WB HS Political Science · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.

All guide sections

Organs and Forms of Government

The three organs

Legislature (makes law, represents, scrutinises, controls finance), executive (formulates and implements policy; political versus permanent/civil-service wings), judiciary (adjudicates, interprets, reviews). Understand the functions of each and the devices of legislative control: question hour, motions, committees, confidence votes.

Parliamentary vs presidential

  • Parliamentary: executive drawn from and responsible to the legislature; fusion of powers; collective responsibility; head of state distinct from head of government; flexible tenure; typically weak separation.
  • Presidential: separately elected executive; fixed tenure; no legislative confidence requirement; strict separation with checks; head of state and government combined.
  • Semi-presidential: dual executive (directly elected president plus cabinet responsible to legislature).

Unitary vs federal

  • Unitary: single centre of authority; sub-units created and devolved by the centre; constitution usually flexible.
  • Federal: division of powers entrenched in a written constitution, shared sovereignty, a supreme court as arbiter, bicameral representation of units, and units with their own constitutional competence.
  • Confederation: units retain primary sovereignty; weak centre.

Traps

'Fusion of powers' applies to parliamentary systems; do not say presidential systems fuse powers. A unitary state can be decentralised without being federal. Holding elections does not make a system federal. Do not equate 'flexible tenure' with instability in a way that denies the parliamentary executive's capacity for strong government.

Rule of thumb

Test federalism by asking: are the units' powers constitutionally entrenched and arbitrated by an independent court? If yes, it is federal; if the centre can unilaterally reshape them, it is unitary.

Worked example: A system where the prime minister must retain a legislative majority, and where ministers are also legislators, is parliamentary: it displays fusion of powers and collective responsibility.