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Psephology (/ s ɪ ˈ f ɒ l ə dʒ i /; from Greek ψῆφος, psephos, 'pebble') is the study of elections and voting. [1] Psephology attempts to both forecast and explain election results.
The first parliaments date back to Europe in the Middle Ages. The earliest example of a parliament is disputed, especially depending how the term is defined. For example, the Icelandic Althing consisting of prominent individuals among the free landowners of the various districts of the Icelandic Commonwealth first gathered around the year 930 (it conducted its business orally, with no written ...
In political science, a multi-party system is a political system where more than two meaningfully-distinct political parties regularly run for office and win elections. [1] Multi-party systems tend to be more common in countries using proportional representation compared to those using winner-take-all elections, a result known as Duverger's law.
A parliamentary republic is a republic that operates under a parliamentary system of government where the executive branch (the government) derives its legitimacy from and is accountable to the legislature (the parliament). There are a number of variations of parliamentary republics.
Representative democracy can be organized in different ways including both parliamentary and presidential systems of government. Elected representatives typically form a legislature (such as a parliament or congress), which may be composed of a single chamber (unicameral), two chambers (bicameral), or more than two chambers (multicameral).
In many instances, the refusal of a constitutional monarch to rubber stamp laws passed by parliament can set off a constitutional crisis. For example, when then-king Baudouin of Belgium , because of his religious objections, refused to sign a bill legalizing abortions in April 1990, the Belgian Federal Parliament declared him temporarily unable ...
With two-round elections, the field of candidates is thinned prior to the second round of voting. In most cases, the winner must receive a majority of the votes, which is more than half. If no candidate obtains a majority in the first round, then the two candidates with the most significant plurality run again for the second round of voting.
In political science, parallel voting or superposition refers to the use of two or more electoral systems to elect different members of a legislature. More precisely, an electoral system is a superposition if it is a mixture of at least two tiers, which do not interact with each other in any way; one part of a legislature is elected using one method, while another part is elected using a ...