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Oct 29, 2002 Different countries have different political systems. I would like to put 2 systems next to each other. The USA system and the Dutch system. I will try to keep my own preference out of this article, but please don’t get upset if you find I did not. I am Dutch. The USA citizens vote for the president, congress, governors, mayors, judges, chiefs of police, and maybe even more positions. The Dutch citizens vote for members of political parties in three levels, country, province and county. Since Holland is very small there are no states, but just provinces. (Provinces have less power than states). Since Holland is a kingdom the head of state is the Queen or King. The equivalent of a president is the pri-minister. The pri-minister, mayors, judges, chiefs of police, etc. are not elected but appointed. This may seem very undemocratic to the USA citizens. However, there are some advantages to it as well. The law determines which qualifications these people must have. Only people that qualify get the jobs. This results in highly qualified people in the right places and no bending the law a bit in order to stay popular. Disadvantage may be that things are a little less dynamic. The president can be a member of only one party of course. With that, the other parties have nothing to say anymore or just indirectly via the congress. That may seem very undemocratic to Dutch citizens because if you voted for another party, that vote basically is lost. It does not show up in the government. In the Dutch system, the 2 or 3 biggest parties have to join forces in order to form the government. Ministers come from the 2 or 3 parties that have joined forces. (they do not become 1 new party, they just join forces) The biggest party generally gives the pri-minister and the second-biggest the vice pri- minister. This whole system of parties working together, results in the need for compromises. I know that this word has a kind of bad taste in the USA. In the USA compromise means you didn’t get all that you wanted. In the Netherlands it means everybody gets part of what they wanted, which they consider a good thing. And since we all live in the same country, that is good for the whole country. This, in short, describes the differences between the Dutch political system and the USA political system. Putting my chauvinism aside, I have to say that it is not really possible to determine which one is better. Both countries are doing fine, the political systems do not seem to effect the essence of what a democratic country is all about. It is not possible to be more democratic than another country. A country is either democratic, or it is not. ------------ Peter Faber is Dutch and has recently moved to Brazil. Visit Peter's website. Email Peter: getting_there@uol.com.br Comment on this column in the forum. ------------ |
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