History of No-Confidence Vote Mischaracterized

To the editors:



I appreciated reading your article about no-confidence votes in Friday’s Crimson (“Parliamentary Roots of Confidence Vote Highlight Motion’s Strategic Uses,” news, Feb 10). However, my knowledge about the function of no-confidence votes differs from your exposition.

You seem to be knowledgeable only about the British system. In most other countries, a no-confidence vote leaves plenty of alternatives besides dissolution of Parliament and a new election. Actually, such a radical conclusion does only make sense in Britain, which is a rare example of a country with parliamentary structure and majoritarian election system. In most other countries, parliament is elected proportionally, and a no-confidence vote usually paves the way to a new government with a new set of coalition partners. This, obviously, cannot make sense in Britain, where it’s either Conservative or Labour.

Furthermore, I strongly object to your wording “The no confidence vote is a relic of systems in which the executive needs approval from the legislature in order to rule.” Actually, it’s the American presidential system that is a relic of a time where the only system one could conceive was one with a central and independent executive power. In almost all European monarchies, the reforms of the 19th century gradually eroded the power of the king and his prime minister, and made the latter accountable to the democratically elected Parliament. The American presidential system did not undergo this transition and still has this curious feature—which has proven to work well only in the U.S.—that the executive power may find itself opposed by the legislature.



DAVIDE W. CANTONI

Cambridge, Mass.

February 11, 2006



The writer is a student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.