Parliamentary and presidential government are the two principal models by which democracies are organized. In a parliamentary system, the chief executive and cabinet are responsible to the legislature: the legislature chooses them and the legislature can remove them from office. In a presidential system, the chief executive is a single person, popularly elected for a constitutionally prescribed period of time, who, under normal circumstances is not subject to removal by the legislature (Lijphart 1984, 1992).
A parliamentary system is one in which the executive is drawn from the majority party in the legislature.
It also means that the executive is accountable to the legislature. Governments in the British system can be brought down by a motion of no confidence passed in the House of Commons. This is part of the convention of collective responsibility: if the government resigns then all ministers are replaced. Also ministers are individually responsible to Parliament for what happens in their departments, and must answer questions put to them in the Commons by MPs. Ministers who are considered to have presided over failures in their departments are expected to resign.
There is an absence of separation of powers in a pure parliamentary system, that is the government draws its powers from its majority in the legislature: ministerial actions are authorised by an Act of parliament (the enabling Act) and they have no separate constitutional powers. In some hybrid systems such as that of France, there is a separately elected president. Presidential government is also used to describe a style rather than a form of government; for example the presidential thesis concerning UK prime ministers since the 1960 s.
The Term Paper on Parliamentary System Party Legislature Government
... voted out of legislature, the executive also changes. Continued cooperation between the executive and legislature is required for the government in a parliamentary system to survive and ... based on their promotion of the party platform, the Prime Minister can be made accountable to his / her party and the ...
