Similarities Between The United States And France

Every nation requires an institution that creates laws, executes the practices of the laws, and decides whether laws have been violated, but how each country goes about creating this institution is as unique as each country itself. As shown in the textbook American Difference by Lori M. Poloni-Staudinger and Michael R. Wolf, there are many differences among the types of democracies and each runs according to the will of the people. Of these differences is the way in which power is divided within each individual government. Two distinct governmental systems, the parliamentary and the presidential, both have their fair share of unique differences, but they also share significant aspects that allow each system to perform efficiently. While

Foremost, the President of the United States and the President of France are both the Head of State and the Head of Government. While this role may seem like it provides more benefits than that of the queen and prime minister, it also requires one person to be the face of the nation and the sole unifying figure of the country. Furthermore, the way in which the president is elected is also quite different when compared to other forms of democracies. Citizens cast their vote for the presidential candidate they prefer, but they do not vote directly for the president. Instead, the United States has a system known as the Electoral College that casts the official presidential vote. After the president is decided by the Electoral College in a race to 270 votes and sworn into office, he or she then appoints the members of their cabinet. Separately, citizens elect a legislature, known as the Senate, which approve or disprove of these appointments. Because the president is usually elected based on the majority of votes, the winning candidate has many supporters who want him or her to aggressively and efficiently champion the policies on which the campaign was run. Contrary to the parliamentary system, it is possible for the House of Representatives and Senate to hold a majority of the opposite party of the president. This occurrence causes the process of voting bills into laws much more

For instance, while both systems of government go about it differently, the leaders in both systems are selected by the people. Elections are held in order to understand the wants and needs of the governed, which, in theory, gives citizens an immense amount of power. Furthermore, the leaders of these systems are held to a higher standard than the average citizen, and, when this standard is not met, both systems have a way of overruling and even replacing the leaders. The parliamentary system uses a “vote of no confidence,” in which a majority of parliament members vote to remove the prime minister from office. The presidential system uses a similar process known as