Executives · Franchise

Head of state, head of government

Two jobs, one or two people.

The head of state represents the country, appoints governments formally and signs laws. The head of government leads the cabinet and runs policy. Presidential systems merge the roles; parliamentary systems split them.

Heads of state and government in the countries covered by this site
Country	Head of state	Head of government
United States	President (also head of government)	President
India	President (elected indirectly)	Prime Minister
Russia	President (directly elected, two-round)	Prime Minister (appointed by the President after Duma approval)
China	President (elected by the National People's Congress)	Premier of the State Council
New Zealand	King (represented by the Governor-General)	Prime Minister
Spain	Monarch	President of the Government (invested by the Congress)
United Kingdom	Monarch	Prime Minister
Germany	Federal President (elected by the Federal Convention)	Federal Chancellor (elected by the Bundestag)
France	President (directly elected, two rounds)	Prime Minister
Brazil	President (also head of government)	President
Japan	Emperor (symbolic; no powers related to government)	Prime Minister (designated by the Diet)
Italy	President of the Republic (elected by Parliament and regional delegates)	President of the Council of Ministers (needs both chambers' confidence)
South Africa	President (elected by the National Assembly)	President
Australia	Monarch (represented by the Governor-General)	Prime Minister
Canada	Monarch (represented by the Governor General)	Prime Minister
Mexico	President (also head of government)	President
Indonesia	President (also head of government)	President
Israel	President (elected by the Knesset, one seven-year term)	Prime Minister (must win the Knesset's confidence)

System types

Four ways to build an executive.

Political scientists classify executives by two questions: who selects the head of government, and who can remove them. The labels below follow Shugart & Carey's widely used scheme.

Presidential

Voters elect a president for a fixed term who is both head of state and head of government. Legislature and executive are separately elected and cannot dismiss each other, except by impeachment.

United States, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia

Parliamentary

The government is drawn from, and answerable to, the legislature. The prime minister stays in office while they keep a parliamentary majority's confidence. A monarch or a president chosen indirectly is head of state.

United Kingdom, Germany, India, Japan, Canada, Australia

Semi-presidential

A popularly elected, fixed-term president exists alongside a prime minister and cabinet answerable to the legislature. In premier-presidential systems the PM answers to parliament alone; in president-parliamentary systems the president can dismiss the PM too.

France and Portugal (premier-presidential); Peru and Taiwan (president-parliamentary)

Directorial

A council, not one person, is the executive. The legislature elects its members for a fixed term; it cannot remove them by a no-confidence vote. Switzerland's seven-member Federal Council is the standard case.

Switzerland

Try it · Executive builder

Design a government, name the system.

Three questions decide most of it: who picks the head of government, whether parliament can remove them, and whether an elected president shares power.

Who chooses the head of government?
Can a parliamentary majority remove the government with a vote of no confidence?
Is there also a directly elected president with real powers?

Examples

Accountability

How leaders are removed.

Impeachment

Presidents with fixed terms can usually be removed only for serious wrongdoing. In the United States the House of Representatives impeaches by majority vote and the Senate convicts with two-thirds of senators present, for "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors" (Constitution, Art. I §§2–3; Art. II §4). Removal is a legal-political trial, not a verdict on policy.

Vote of no confidence

In parliamentary systems a majority of the legislature can bring the government down at any time, for any reason. The prime minister then resigns, or in many systems asks for parliament to be dissolved and new elections held.

The constructive vote of no confidence

Germany's Basic Law (Art. 67) allows the Bundestag to remove the chancellor only by electing a successor in the same vote, so a government can't be toppled by a majority that agrees on nothing else. It has succeeded once, in 1982. Spain's Constitution (Art. 113) has the same rule; it brought down a government in 2018.

Cohabitation

In semi-presidential France the president names the prime minister, but the National Assembly can dismiss the government. When voters elect an Assembly majority opposed to the president, the president must appoint a prime minister from that majority and share power — as happened in 1986–88, 1993–95 and 1997–2002. Shortening the presidential term to five years (from 2002), with Assembly elections following soon after, has made it less likely.

Government formation

When nobody has a majority.

Under proportional systems one party rarely wins half the seats, so parties negotiate a coalition — sometimes for months — usually led by a formateur from the largest party. Some countries instead form minority governments that survive by winning votes issue by issue.

Political scientists have proposed rules of thumb. William Riker argued coalitions should be minimal winning — no member to spare — and as small as possible, so the spoils go further. Robert Axelrod argued that ideology matters too: parties prefer connected coalitions of neighbours on the left–right line. Real coalitions often break both rules. See a real case on India's coalition builder, and the electoral rules that produce hung parliaments on electoral systems.

Try it · Form a government

Find 101 of 200.

No party has a majority in this fictional parliament. Tap parties to bring them into a coalition. Parties are ordered from left to right.