Search

Letters written by Count Gondomar reveal that King James I devised a secret plan to dissolve the parliament of 1621 before it was recalled for a second session. Because of the escalating war in the Holy Roman Empire, James faced a belligerent parliament in England which pressured him to mount an effective defence of the Lower Palatinate against Spanish and imperial forces. James resisted and decided instead to maintain his rapport with Spain, and therefore it became necessary to sacrifice the parliament of 1621. Motivated by a genuine desire for peace, the king provoked a confrontation with the House of Commons in order to give him a pretext for dissolving parliament.

The 'events approach' claims for a new explanation of cabinet termination and cabinet survival in parliamentary democracies. The failure of the universal laws set by the culturalist approach and the party system approach raised the question whether one should search for random or probabilistic events of cabinet termination and survival. It is argued that the events approach fails both for the epistemological weakness of its premises and for the poverty of its empirical conclusions. A reappraisal of theoretical enterprise is advanced and a new research perspective is sketched, which requires a more careful treatment of the non-uniform institutional features of parliamentary democracies., It is the desire for explanations which are at once systematic and controllable by factual evidence that generates science; and it is the organization and classification of knowledge on the [...]

This paper undertakes a quantitative examination of underlying rates of government termination in West European parliamentary systems. Most previous research assumed that these rates remain constant over the lifetimes of governments, but this assumption has never been subjected to careful scrutiny. A variety of tests is performed on a new data set that covers 16 systems over the 1945-89 period, each of which points to a general tendency for the rate of termination or 'hazard rate' to increase with the length of time a government remains in power. This information is incorporated into an empirical model of government survival that also includes ideological/policy differences within governments and die impact of economic trends.

The requirements of the Australian Constitution for dissolution of both houses of Parliament were not met by the treatment of Native Title Amendment Bill 1997. The amendments made in the Senate were rejected by the House of Representatives and the bill was not returned to the Senate. Due to the way this bill and the Public Service Bill 1997 were treated, the Governor-General may decline to grant a dissolution., At the end of last year Senate passed the Native Title Amendment Bill 1997 with amendments which were subsequently rejected by the government in the House of Representatives. Contrary to [...]

It is interesting to consider why the dissolution of the Soviet Union and of Czechoslovakia took place peacefully, while the dissolution of Yugoslavia was characterized by violence. The key to explaining violent, rather than peaceful, state dissolution is to identify factors that are directly connected with the question of international conflict and cooperation and that also unite the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia in contrast with Yugoslavia. Institutional differences led to Yugoslavia ending differently from either the Soviet Union or Czechoslovakia.

The Moscow Soviet was dissolved in accordance with the Presidential decree issued on Oct 7, 1993. The decree calls for the holding of elections for a representative body of power in Moscow. The Mayor of Moscow is to present draft status on the election and the system of governing Moscow in the transitional period to the President. The Deputies were promised jobs in similar positions.

The Russian Federation Ministry of Justice based its Oct 4, 1993 declaration on Boris Yeltsin's decree No 1400. It ordered the suspension of the activities by opposition parties and restricted the publication of their newspapers. The banned organizations included the Great Power Revival Party founded in 1991, the Russian Union of All the People and the Russian Party.

Gunfire continued even after the White House was emptied of the people who had taken refuge in it but it gradually died down. A fire however continued to rage from the 15th story upward and no efforts were made initially to put it out. The Alpha group was busy taking control of the White House and evacuating people from it. The House of Soviets was entirely taken over by 9 pm on Oct 4, 1993 but by then the top two floors of the White House were burnt out.

Russian Pres Boris Yeltsin's decree dissolving the Parliament and declaring President's rule until the election of a new governing body in Dec 1993 elicited varying reactions from political parties. The governments of Georgia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhastan, Moldova, Ukraine and Chechnya approved Yeltsin's strategy to steer the nation to the road of political recovery. Tatarstan's Prime Minister Mukhammat Sabirov remained indifferent to the situation, claiming that the decrees did not affect him as his duty comprised loyalty only to the Tatrarstans.

The support from Western States to Yeltsin's decree dissolving the Supreme Soviet and establishing President's rule in the country until the election of a new governing body in Dec 1993 is an affirmation of autocracy and the departure of democracy. Yeltsin's decree is civilized, and the only means of resolving the current political situation. Western States choose to ignore the Constitutional Court's denouncement of Yeltsin's actions as illegal and dictatorial. This is probably a prelude to the death of Russian democracy.

The political turmoil in Russia after the President's dissolution of the Parliament was intensified by the Chairman of the Russian Federation Supreme Soviet Ruslan Khasbulatov's address to the nation denouncing Decree 1400 as unconstitutional. He insisted that Aleksandr Rutskoi, Vice President, be elected President and that Pres Boris Yeltsin be removed from power. Portfolios were allocated, Yeltsin's decree was declared a coup d'etat and Russian Federation members were urged to abide by the constitution.

An evaluation of Russian political parties' responses to Decree 1400 devaluing the Supreme Soviet's power reveals that despite the unconditional backing from most democratic parties, centrists such as Igor Yakovenko, Cochariman of the Russian Federation Republican Party, and oppositionists believe that Yeltsin's strategy will guide the country's slide to a civil war because of the apparent political discord. Russian trade unions and the National Salvation Front also oppose the President's action as it is unconstitutional.

The Parliament continued to work on Sep 23, 1993, despite the President's decree dissolving the Supreme Soviet. However, the Supreme Soviet Vice-Chairman Nikolai Ryabov and the Chairman of the Joint Committee on Defense and Security Sergei Stepashin submitted their resignations to the Supreme Soviet to counter Yeltsin's strategies. Prosecutor General Valentin Stepankov appealed for a peaceful settlement of the dispute between the President and the Supreme Soviet, an attitude which greatly displeased the Deputies.

The Russian Army, under the leadership of the Minister of Defense Pavel Grachev, applauds Yeltsin's directive dissolving the Congress and imposing President's rule as the only means of resolving the political crisis in the country. The army pledges its support to the President and voices its non-acceptance of the unlawful election of Aleksandr Rutskoi as the political leader. It condemns the appeal of General Vladislav Achalov requiring authorized military personnel to submit their allegiance to the Supreme Soviet.

Pres Boris Yeltsin declared during an address to the nation that the Supreme Soviet's indecision toward political reforms prompted him to dissolve the Parliament and announce fresh elections. He introduced amendments to the constitution and declared the Federal Assembly the supreme legislative body. Until a new governing body is elected in Dec 1993, Russia will abide by its President's decrees and the dictates of the Russian Federation.

Pres Boris Yeltsin's dissolution of the Russian Parliament was neither an attempt to assume dictatorial powers nor a coup d'etat, and a civil war in the present context is unlikely. Russia has not had an accepted form of government since the disintegration of the former USSR. The confusion and conflict reflects a process by which Russia will finally establish a system of government approved by its society.