It's About Coalitions Not Purity, Part One

"Governing and Political Systems"

Politics is rough business, and it has gotten progressively worse in more recent times. Political parties came into being to help bring people together who had similar ideas, where they could then use common resources to elect candidates to office to enact those ideas into law. American politics has been a bit odd in some ways, as the two major parties have been around since before the Civil War, but they haven't always been terribly ideological in their make up, at least not in a broad-based ideology sense. In times past, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party both had liberal/progressive wings that may well have shared more in common with one another than they did with the respective conservative wing of their own party, with the same only being somewhat true of the conservative wings. I say "somewhat," because, unless you know about American political history, this will be hard for you to understand, as the most conservative elements in the country were in the DEMOCRATIC PARTY until relatively recent times. Actually too, for a while, some of the most liberal elements of the country were in the REPUBLICAN PARTY. Don't faint, it's true!

You have to understand, the American governmental system is different from most other democracies. Quite a number of other democratic nations have what are typically called "parliamentary systems," and they vary, and this is only a very basic explanation, but there is a "head of state," often an elected president, but, for example, in the case of our close ally Britain (technically, "the United Kingdom"), the monarch is the head of state. For the past 60 + years that monarch has been Queen Elizabeth II. The "head of state" often has little direct power, but rather acts as the ceremonial head of the nation, meeting heads of state from other countries and attending state dinners both at home and abroad. Then there is the actual "government;" that is, the various departments or bureaus that comprise the governing structure of a nation. Each department, often termed a "ministry," has a head official, a "minister," with cabinet status. Then there is a prime minister (in some countries called a "premier" or a "chancellor"), who acts as the head of the cabinet; that is, the government, which is typically really very powerful. Then there is a "parliament" (again, with various other names according to nation), a legislative body that acts upon proposals for the laws of the nation.

The political parties in these parliamentary nations tend to be much more ideological than has been the case in America; until fairly recently, at least. Also, there are typically two or three (occasionally more) major political parties in parliamentary nations, along with some minor parties, sometimes even a multitude of smaller parties. The political parties lay out their party platforms and voters then really vote for a particular party, rather than party candidates.* If a party receives a clear majority of seats in the parliament, they enact their party's ideas into law, as the party representatives seldom stray from what the party has presented to the voters; after all, the voters were presented ideas, not really candidates, and they voted a particular party into power to enact those ideas. The leader of  the winning party becomes prime minister. The winning party gets to enact its program. The voters will then be able to see if they like or dislike the enacted and implemented polices of the ruling party. Typically, there are no excuses in a situation like this. Prime Minister XYZ can't say, "We tried to govern, but the opposition party/parties wouldn't pass what we wanted." If things go terribly awry in the nation, or if there is some major scandal involving a member or members of the government, the parliament can hold a vote of "no confidence," and the head of state must decide if new elections should be called, or if the ruling party can still continue to form a government. (This can also apply to a coalition government, covered right below.)

There are, however, times when one party does not get a majority. Depending upon their percentage of the vote, the leading party will likely attempt to work a deal with one or more other parties to form a government, in which case, it is called a "coalition government." In coalition governments there have to be compromises. These compromises typically involve giving certain cabinet positions to coalition partners. Remember, and this can't really be overemphasized, the ministers who head the various government ministries are very powerful.

So, how does this compare to the American system? That will be covered in "Part Two"

* Of course, this is the general theory behind it, but naturally, at times, there may be a party leader whose personality draws people to vote for his/her political party. You can't factor the human element out of any of this, then again, strong personality Winston Churchill was Prime Minister of Britain throughout much of World War Two, only to be ousted by voters near the very end of the war. Also an interesting note, Churchill changed political parties a couple of times during his long career.

WORD HISTORY:
Coalition/Coalesce-These words are so closely linked, it is impossible to really do them separately. "Coalition" is a compound word that is rather complicated; perhaps as complicated as building coalitions in politics, but hopefully you will be able to follow this. The first part, "co," is from Latin "co(m)," which simply means "together," as in "cooperation," which means "operate (work) together." The "co" prefix was/is typically used before vowels and "com" typically before consonants, as in "compost." The second part of the word traces back to Latin "alescere," which meant "to grow (up)," and it was derived from Latin "alere," which meant "to nourish." This all gave Latin "coalescere," which meant "to grow together, to unite," and this seems to have been borrowed by English directly from Latin in the 1500s as "coalesce;" that is, "unite, combine parts into one, merge." The past participle root of Latin "coalescere" was "coalit(o)," which gave French "coalition," meaning "fused together, united, joined parts." This was then borrowed into English in the early 1600s. Close English relative German also borrowed the word as "Koalition."