CSS Political Science: the state, government and comparative politics

These notes cover the core theory and comparative content of the Political Science optional subject in the FPSC CSS Competitive Examination (200 marks, set as Paper I and Paper II). They take you through the nature and scope of political science, the state and where it comes from, sovereignty (including the Islamic concept of sovereignty) and nationalism, forms of government, political parties and pressure groups, electoral systems, separation of powers and judicial review, and approaches to comparative politics. The examples come from the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Turkey, India and Pakistan. These are six of the countries in the comparative part of the syllabus, but the syllabus lists others as well, so check the current FPSC syllabus for the full list. Section numbers are not given because the FPSC revises its syllabus from time to time, so check the current syllabus for the exact wording of each topic. The notes end with comparison tables, eight CSS-style essay questions with answer outlines, a glossary, a set of CSS-style MCQs and a short-answer self-test.

1. Nature and scope of political science

Political science studies power, authority and the institutions through which societies make binding decisions. The word "politics" comes from the Greek polis, the city-state. Aristotle called the study of the polis the "master science", because in his view every other human activity takes place within the political community.

Definition to learn: political science

Political science is the organised, evidence-based study of how power is gained, used and limited: in the state and its government, and more widely in society. It deals with political ideas, institutions and behaviour, and with the relations between states.

Well-known definitions you can quote with their authors:

• Harold Lasswell (1936): politics is about "who gets what, when, how". This is a power-centred view.
• David Easton: politics is "the authoritative allocation of values" for a society. This is a systems view.
• Max Weber (1919): the state is the human community that successfully claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.

Is political science a science?

Writers disagree on this, and CSS papers often ask about it.

• The case for: political scientists collect data, test hypotheses and look for regularities. Examples are voting studies, and Duverger's observation that plurality elections tend to produce two-party systems. The behavioural movement of the 1950s and 1960s pushed hardest for this approach.
• The case against: human behaviour cannot be controlled in a laboratory, values cannot be separated from facts, and predictions are often wrong. Traditionalists therefore treat the discipline as closer to the humanities. The usual answer is that it is a social science: systematic, but not exact in the way physics is.

Scope

The discipline is usually divided into these sub-fields:

1. political theory and philosophy
2. comparative politics
3. international relations
4. public administration and public policy
5. public law, meaning constitutional and administrative law
6. political sociology and political economy

It also overlaps with history, economics, sociology, law, psychology and ethics.

2. The state

2.1 Elements of the state

Definition to learn: the state

A state is a political association with a permanent population and a defined territory. It is governed by an organised government that holds sovereignty, meaning supreme authority inside its borders and independence outside them.

Political scientists traditionally name four elements: population, territory, government and sovereignty. International law sets out a similar list. The Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States (1933) requires a permanent population, a defined territory, a government and the capacity to enter into relations with other states.

Element	Meaning	Point to add in an exam answer
Population	People living permanently in the state	There is no minimum size. Tuvalu and India are equally states.
Territory	Land, territorial waters and airspace	Borders can be disputed (for example, Kashmir) and the state still exists.
Government	The machinery that makes and enforces decisions	Government is the agent of the state. Governments change and the state continues.
Sovereignty	Supreme internal authority and external independence	This is the element that separates a state from a province or an NGO.

Key idea: state versus government versus nation

The state is the permanent, abstract political unit. The government is the temporary group of people and institutions acting for it. A nation is a community of people who see themselves as sharing an identity. A nation can exist without a state, as with the Kurds. A state can also contain several nations, as the United Kingdom contains England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

2.2 Theories of the origin of the state

Theory	Main claim	Associated thinkers	Main criticism
Divine origin	God created the state and rulers answer only to God	Medieval theologians; James I and Robert Filmer (divine right of kings)	It cannot be tested and it justifies absolutism
Force theory	The state began when the strong conquered the weak	Heinrich von Treitschke and Friedrich von Bernhardi; Franz Oppenheimer (Der Staat, 1908); Edward Jenks	Force explains how some states were founded but not why people obey them over long periods
Patriarchal / matriarchal	The state grew out of the family, clan and tribe	Henry Maine (patriarchal); McLennan and Morgan (matriarchal)	It generalises from particular societies
Social contract	People left a "state of nature" by agreeing to create government	Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau	No such agreement ever happened historically. The idea is a hypothetical device.
Evolutionary / historical	The state developed gradually through kinship, religion, war, economic need and political awareness	Widely accepted in textbooks; Garner and Gettell are often cited	It describes the process more than it explains it
Marxist	The state appeared with private property and class division, to protect the ruling class	Marx; Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884)	The state also provides public goods, and the predicted "withering away" did not happen

2.3 Social contract theorists compared

Point	Thomas Hobbes	John Locke	Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Main work	Leviathan (1651)	Two Treatises of Government (1689)	The Social Contract (1762)
State of nature	A war of all against all; life "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short"	Governed by natural law, but with no neutral judge to settle disputes	Humans were free and simple; property and society later corrupted them (Discourse on Inequality, 1755)
Terms of the contract	Individuals give all rights to a sovereign in return for security	People give limited power to government to protect life, liberty and property	Each person gives themselves to the community, which is ruled by the "general will"
Where sovereignty lies	An absolute sovereign	Limited government; ultimately the people	The people as a whole (popular sovereignty)
Right of revolution	None, except self-preservation	Yes, if government breaks its trust	Yes in effect: government is only the agent of the sovereign people, who may change or dismiss it at any time; the general will cannot be alienated
Influence	Absolutism and the modern theory of sovereignty	Liberal constitutionalism; the US Declaration of Independence	The French Revolution; theories of democracy

3. Sovereignty

Definition to learn: sovereignty

Sovereignty is the supreme, final legal authority within a state, above which no higher authority exists. Externally it means independence from control by other states.

Jean Bodin set out the modern concept in Six Books of the Commonwealth (1576). Hobbes developed it further, and the Peace of Westphalia (1648) is conventionally treated as the point where sovereign states became the basis of the European order. John Austin (The Province of Jurisprudence Determined, 1832) put forward the monistic legal theory: law is the command of a determinate sovereign whom most people habitually obey and who obeys no one.

Kinds of sovereignty

• Internal and external: supremacy at home, and independence abroad.
• Legal and political: legal sovereignty is the body that makes law. In the UK this is Parliament, as A.V. Dicey argued. Political sovereignty is the force that legal sovereignty must in practice follow, such as the electorate.
• De jure and de facto: de jure sovereignty is authority by law. De facto sovereignty is authority actually exercised, for example by a regime that has seized power.
• Popular sovereignty: ultimate authority lies with the people. The idea runs through Rousseau and modern democratic constitutions.

The pluralist challenge

Pluralists such as Harold Laski, G.D.H. Cole and J.N. Figgis argued that authority is shared among many associations, including churches, trade unions and professional bodies, so the state is not all-powerful. Modern developments are also said to reduce sovereignty:

• globalisation
• international law and human rights treaties
• supranational bodies such as the European Union
• federalism, which divides sovereignty inside the state

The Islamic concept of sovereignty and the state

Key idea: sovereignty belongs to Allah; authority is a trust

• Sovereignty of Allah: in Islamic political thought, final sovereignty belongs to Allah alone. Human rulers and communities do not own authority. They hold it as khilafah (vicegerency; the Quran calls humankind a khalifah on earth, 2:30) and as an amanah (trust) to be used within the limits of the Shariah.
• Shura (consultation): the Quran describes believers as conducting their affairs by mutual consultation (42:38). Many writers treat this as the basis of consultative and representative government.
• Ummah: the community of believers is not defined by territory. This creates a tension with the territorial nation-state, which Muslim states have usually resolved by accepting the nation-state while declaring Islamic principles in their constitutions.
• Classical theory: al-Mawardi (al-Ahkam al-Sultaniyya, 11th century) set out the qualifications and duties of the caliph and treated the caliphate as a contract (bay'ah) between ruler and community.
• Mawdudi's view: Abul A'la Mawdudi described the Islamic state as a "theo-democracy". In his view sovereignty belongs to God, while the believers as a whole hold "popular vicegerency" and choose and remove their rulers.
• Iqbal's view: in The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (1930), Muhammad Iqbal argued that the power of ijtihad (independent legal reasoning) could pass to an elected Muslim legislative assembly.

Exam point: unlike Austin's sovereign, authority in this tradition is never legally unlimited. It is bound by a higher law.

Worked example: where does sovereignty lie in Pakistan?

Step 1: the religious framework. The Objectives Resolution (12 March 1949) states that sovereignty over the entire universe belongs to Allah alone, and that the state exercises authority through the people as a sacred trust within limits He has prescribed. It served as the Preamble of the 1956 and 1962 Constitutions and shaped the Preamble of the 1973 Constitution. Article 2A (added by P.O. 14 of 1985) then made the Resolution, reproduced in an Annex, a substantive part of the 1973 Constitution.

Step 2: legal sovereignty. Under the Constitution, Parliament makes law. It can amend the Constitution by a two-thirds majority of the total membership of each House (Article 239).

Step 3: limits. Laws must respect fundamental rights (Article 8). The Federal Shariat Court can declare a law repugnant to the injunctions of Islam (Article 203D). Its jurisdiction does not cover the Constitution, Muslim personal law or laws of court procedure (Article 203B). The Council of Islamic Ideology (Articles 228–230) only gives advice to Parliament and the provincial assemblies and has no power to strike down laws. Courts also carry out constitutional review: the High Courts and, since the 27th Amendment (2025), the Federal Constitutional Court.

Conclusion: sovereignty in Pakistan is limited and divided. Many Pakistani constitutional commentators therefore describe it as a trust held by the people's representatives under the Constitution, a model that does not fit Austin's idea of an unlimited, determinate sovereign.

4. Nationalism

Definition to learn: nationalism

Nationalism is both a set of ideas and a political movement. It says that people's first political loyalty should be to their nation, and that every nation is entitled to rule itself, normally in a state of its own.

Theories of the nation

School	View of the nation	Key names
Primordialist	Nations are ancient and rooted in kinship, language and ethnicity	Clifford Geertz, Edward Shils (on primordial attachments)
Modernist	Nations are products of modernity: industrialisation, print capitalism and mass education	Ernest Gellner (Nations and Nationalism, 1983); Benedict Anderson (Imagined Communities, 1983); Eric Hobsbawm
Ethno-symbolist	Modern nations are built on older ethnic myths, symbols and memories	Anthony D. Smith

Types of nationalism

• Civic nationalism: membership is based on citizenship and shared political values. France after 1789 and the USA are usual examples.
• Ethnic nationalism: membership is based on descent, language or culture.
• Liberal nationalism: self-determination for all nations, as in Mazzini and Woodrow Wilson.
• Anti-colonial nationalism: the independence movements of Asia and Africa.
• Religious or cultural nationalism: the Two-Nation Theory behind the Pakistan Movement defined Muslims of the subcontinent as a separate nation on the basis of religion, culture and history.

Assessment

Nationalism has justified independence and democracy. Liberal nationalists such as David Miller (On Nationality, 1995) argue that shared national identity creates the solidarity that welfare states and social justice depend on. Nationalism has also fuelled wars, expansionism and the persecution of minorities. Pakistan's experience shows the problem of holding together a multi-ethnic federation: the separation of East Pakistan in 1971 is often analysed in terms of linguistic and ethnic nationalism.

5. Forms of government

5.1 Democracy and its types

Definition to learn: democracy

Democracy is rule in which the people hold the final say. They use it directly or through representatives. Those representatives must win free, fair and regular elections in which different parties compete, and citizens' political rights and civil liberties must be protected.

Type	Features	Example
Direct	Citizens make decisions themselves	Ancient Athens; referendums and cantonal assemblies in Switzerland
Representative	Citizens elect representatives who decide	Nearly all modern states
Liberal	Elections combined with constitutionalism, rule of law, rights and pluralism	UK, USA, France
Illiberal / electoral	Elections are held but rights and checks are weak. Fareed Zakaria popularised the term "illiberal democracy" in 1997.	Hybrid regimes
Consociational	Power is shared among the elites of divided communities: grand coalition, mutual veto, proportionality and segmental autonomy (Arend Lijphart)	Netherlands (historically), Belgium, Lebanon
Deliberative	Legitimacy comes from reasoned public discussion, not only from counting votes	Citizens' assemblies (Ireland)

Robert Dahl used the term polyarchy for real-world democracies and identified two dimensions: contestation (competition) and inclusiveness (participation).

5.2 Authoritarianism, totalitarianism, monarchy and theocracy

Juan Linz defined an authoritarian regime as one with limited, not responsible, political pluralism and no elaborate guiding ideology, in which mass mobilisation is low. A totalitarian regime aims to control every part of public and private life. Carl Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski (1956) described it by a "syndrome" of six features:

1. an official ideology
2. a single mass party
3. terroristic police control
4. a monopoly of mass communications
5. a monopoly of weapons
6. a centrally directed economy

Subtypes of authoritarian rule include military regimes, personal dictatorships, one-party states, absolute monarchies and theocracies. Pakistan has experienced periods of military or military-led rule: 1958–71 (Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan), 1977–88 (Zia-ul-Haq) and 1999–2008 (Musharraf). Formal martial law covered only part of these periods (1958–62, 1969–71 and 1977–85). In 1999 Musharraf did not declare martial law. He held the Constitution in abeyance through a Proclamation of Emergency and a Provisional Constitution Order, and later ruled as a military president under a civilianised system.

• Monarchy: the head of state holds office by heredity. In an absolute monarchy the monarch actually rules, as in Saudi Arabia. In a constitutional monarchy the monarch reigns but elected institutions govern, as in the UK. Constitutional monarchy is compatible with democracy. Absolute monarchy is not.
• Theocracy: government by religious authorities, or on the claim that the rulers act for God, with religious law as the highest law. The Vatican City is an example. Iran is often described as mixing theocratic and elected institutions: an elected president and parliament work under a Supreme Leader, a senior jurist (the doctrine of velayat-e faqih). Note the difference from Pakistan, where Islamic principles limit legislation but elected bodies, not clerics, hold power.

Feature	Democracy	Authoritarianism	Totalitarianism
Competition between groups	Open to all	Tolerated within limits	Not allowed
Official doctrine	None; rival ideologies compete	A loose "mentality" rather than a full ideology	A single ideology covering all of life
Popular participation	Voluntary	Discouraged; people are kept passive	Organised and compulsory
Law	Binds rulers too	Applied selectively	A tool of the party or leader

5.3 Federal, unitary and confederal systems

Definition to learn: federalism and unitary government

In a federal system the constitution divides power between a central government and regional units. Each has its own sphere of authority that the other cannot take away by ordinary law. In a unitary system sovereignty belongs to the central government. Any regional or local bodies exercise only the powers the centre chooses to delegate, and the centre can take those powers back.

K.C. Wheare (Federal Government, 1946) defined the "federal principle" as general and regional governments each being, within a sphere, coordinate and independent. Typical features of a federation:

• a written, rigid constitution
• division of powers through lists or residuary clauses
• a bicameral legislature with a house representing the units
• an independent judiciary to settle disputes between governments

A confederation is a looser union of sovereign states. The members give limited powers to a central body, usually by treaty or agreement, but keep their sovereignty and can often leave. The central body usually acts on the member governments rather than directly on citizens. Examples are the USA under the Articles of Confederation (1781–89), which proved too weak and was replaced by the federal Constitution of 1787, and Switzerland before 1848 (it kept the name "Confederation" after becoming a federation). Some writers describe the European Union as partly confederal.

Point	Unitary	Federal	Confederal
Where sovereignty lies	With the centre	Divided by the constitution	With the member states
Source of regional powers	Delegated by the centre and can be taken back	Guaranteed by the constitution	The members give powers to the centre
Centre acts on	Citizens directly	Citizens directly	Mainly member governments
Right to leave	No	Normally no	Usually yes

Country	Unitary or federal	Notes
UK	Unitary with devolution	Devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland from 1998–99. In law, Westminster can still legislate on any matter.
USA	Federal	50 states. Powers not delegated to the federal government are reserved to the states or the people (Tenth Amendment).
France	Unitary, decentralised	Regions, departments and communes. Decentralisation laws were passed from 1982 onwards, and Article 1 was amended in 2003 to say the Republic's organisation is decentralised.
Turkey	Unitary	81 provinces headed by governors appointed by the centre
India	Federal with a strong centre ("quasi-federal", in Wheare's description)	Union, State and Concurrent Lists (Seventh Schedule); President's Rule under Article 356; residuary powers lie with the Union
Pakistan	Federal	Four provinces plus the Islamabad Capital Territory. The 18th Amendment (2010) abolished the Concurrent Legislative List and strengthened the provinces. The Council of Common Interests (Article 153) and the NFC award manage relations between the centre and the provinces.

5.4 Parliamentary, presidential and semi-presidential systems

Definition to learn: parliamentary and presidential systems

In a parliamentary system the executive (prime minister and cabinet) comes from the legislature, depends on its confidence and can be removed by a vote of no confidence. The head of state is separate and mostly ceremonial. In a presidential system a directly (or nearly directly) elected president is both head of state and head of government. In the US model the president serves a fixed term and cannot be removed by the legislature on political grounds, only by impeachment. Turkey's post-2018 system departs from this: the president and the Assembly can each call early elections, which are then held for both at the same time (Article 116).

Feature	Parliamentary	Presidential	Semi-presidential
Executive	Dual: head of state and a PM who governs	Single: the president	Dual: an elected president plus a PM responsible to parliament
Link between executive and legislature	Fusion of powers	Separation of powers	Mixed
Tenure	Depends on confidence	Fixed term	President fixed; PM depends on confidence
Dissolution	The PM can usually advise early dissolution	No dissolution in the US model. Turkey is an exception: the president, or the Assembly by a three-fifths vote, can trigger early elections for both (Article 116).	The president can dissolve (France: Article 12)
Strengths	Flexible, accountable, avoids deadlock	Stable, clear separation, direct mandate	Combines a strong leader with parliamentary accountability
Weaknesses	Unstable under fragmented party systems; "elective dictatorship" (Lord Hailsham, 1976)	Gridlock, rigidity, "winner takes all" (Linz, "The Perils of Presidentialism", 1990)	Conflict during cohabitation
Examples	UK, India, Pakistan	USA, Turkey (since 2018)	France

5.5 The six countries at a glance

Point	UK	USA	France	Turkey	India	Pakistan
Constitution	Uncodified: statutes, conventions, common law and works of authority	Written, 1787 (in force 1789); 27 amendments	Fifth Republic, 1958	1982 constitution, heavily amended (2017 referendum)	Adopted 26 Nov 1949; in force 26 Jan 1950	1973 (after the 1956 and 1962 constitutions)
System	Parliamentary; constitutional monarchy	Presidential	Semi-presidential	Presidential (since 2018)	Parliamentary republic	Parliamentary republic
Territorial structure	Unitary, devolved	Federal	Unitary	Unitary	Federal (strong centre)	Federal
Legislature	House of Commons (650) and House of Lords (mainly appointed life peers, plus bishops and a shrinking number of hereditary peers; see the note below)	House of Representatives (435) and Senate (100)	National Assembly (577) and Senate	Grand National Assembly (600), unicameral	Lok Sabha (543 elected) and Rajya Sabha	National Assembly (336) and Senate
Lower-house electoral system	FPTP	FPTP (most states)	Two-round system	List PR, d'Hondt, 7% national threshold	FPTP	FPTP for 266 general seats. The 60 women's and 10 non-Muslim seats go to parties from lists in proportion to the general seats each party wins (Article 51(6)), so they magnify FPTP disproportionality rather than correct it.
Judicial review of legislation	No power to strike down Acts of Parliament; declarations of incompatibility under the Human Rights Act 1998	Yes, since Marbury v. Madison (1803)	Constitutional Council: review before promulgation, plus the QPC procedure since 2010	Constitutional Court	Yes; basic structure doctrine (Kesavananda Bharati, 1973)	Yes. High Courts (Article 199). Since the 27th Amendment (2025) a Federal Constitutional Court hears constitutional cases, including the original jurisdiction the Supreme Court used to exercise under Article 184(3). The 26th Amendment (2024) had earlier set up constitutional benches.

Seat numbers and institutions change, so check current figures before the exam. In Pakistan the 26th Amendment (2024) created constitutional benches and the 27th Amendment (2025) created a Federal Constitutional Court, so check the current article numbers in the amended Constitution. In the UK, a Bill introduced in 2024 aims to remove the remaining hereditary peers from the House of Lords, so check whether it is now law.

Country notes

United Kingdom. Parliamentary sovereignty (Dicey), the rule of law and constitutional conventions are the pillars of the system. The executive dominates Parliament when it has a majority. The Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949 limited the Lords to a delaying power. The Supreme Court began work in 2009 under the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, which separated the top court from the House of Lords.

United States. The system is built on separation of powers with checks and balances:

• the presidential veto, which Congress can override by a two-thirds vote in each house
• Senate confirmation of appointments and ratification of treaties by two-thirds of senators present
• impeachment by the House and trial by the Senate
• judicial review

The president is chosen through the Electoral College of 538 electors, and 270 votes are needed to win.

France. The Fifth Republic was designed around Charles de Gaulle in 1958. The president has been directly elected since the 1962 referendum. The term was cut from seven to five years by the 2000 referendum, first applied in 2002. Cohabitation, where the president and a prime minister from opposing camps share power, happened in 1986–88, 1993–95 and 1997–2002. Article 49.3 lets the government pass a bill without a vote unless a censure motion succeeds. Since the 2008 revision it can be used only for budget and social-security financing bills, plus one other bill per session.

Turkey. The Republic was founded in 1923 under Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. The 1982 constitution was written under military rule. Since 2014 the president has been directly elected, following a 2007 amendment. The April 2017 referendum, approved by about 51% of voters, abolished the office of prime minister and created an executive presidency that took effect after the June 2018 elections.

India. India combines Westminster-style parliamentary government with a written federal constitution, an extensive list of fundamental rights and an activist judiciary. The President is elected indirectly by an electoral college made up of the elected members of both Houses of Parliament and the elected members of the legislative assemblies of the states and of the Union Territories of Delhi, Puducherry and Jammu and Kashmir.

Pakistan. The 1973 Constitution set up a parliamentary federal system. The balance of power between the President and the Prime Minister changed several times:

• The 8th Amendment (1985) added Article 58(2)(b), which let the President dissolve the National Assembly.
• The 13th Amendment (1997) removed that power.
• Musharraf's Legal Framework Order 2002 revived it, and the 17th Amendment (2003) validated it with a new condition: a dissolution had to be referred to the Supreme Court.
• The 18th Amendment (2010) removed it again and returned the system to a parliamentary one.

6. Political parties and pressure groups

Definition to learn: political party and pressure group

A political party is an organisation of people with broadly similar aims whose purpose is to take control of government, normally by standing candidates at elections. A pressure (interest) group also organises people with shared aims, but it tries to shape what government does without itself trying to become the government.

Functions of parties

• representation
• aggregating interests into policy programmes
• recruiting and training leaders
• forming governments and oppositions
• political education and mobilisation
• linking citizens to the state

Types of party

• Cadre and mass parties (Maurice Duverger, Political Parties, 1951). Cadre parties are small elite groups of notables. Mass parties have large paying memberships.
• Catch-all parties (Otto Kirchheimer, 1966). These play down ideology to attract voters from every group.
• Cartel parties (Richard Katz and Peter Mair, 1995). These are parties that draw ever more on state resources and collude to keep newcomers out.
• Personalist and dynastic parties. These are common in South Asia, and many analysts see this as a feature of Pakistani and Indian parties.

Party systems

Party system	Description	Example
One-party	Only one party is permitted	China (Communist Party)
Dominant-party	Many parties compete but one wins over a long period	India under Congress, roughly 1952–77; Japan's LDP
Two-party	Two parties alternate in power	USA (Democrats and Republicans); UK traditionally (Conservative and Labour)
Multi-party	Several parties; coalitions are normal	Pakistan, France, and India since 1989

Giovanni Sartori (1976) distinguished moderate pluralism (three to five parties, centripetal competition) from polarised pluralism (six or more parties, anti-system parties, centrifugal competition).

Pressure groups

• Sectional (interest) groups defend the interests of their members. Examples are trade unions, chambers of commerce, bar councils and the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association.
• Promotional (cause) groups promote a cause, such as environmental or human rights groups.
• Insider and outsider groups (Wyn Grant). Insider groups are consulted regularly by government. Outsider groups lack access and turn to protest and the media.

Pressure groups work through lobbying, consultation, the courts, the media, demonstrations and funding. Pluralists such as Robert Dahl see them as spreading power and improving representation. Elitists such as C. Wright Mills argue that they reinforce inequality because business groups have far greater resources.

Point	Political party	Pressure group
Goal	To win office	To influence policy
Range of issues	Broad programme	Usually narrow
Accountability	To voters through elections	To its members, and sometimes to no one
Contests elections?	Yes	Normally no

7. Electoral systems

Definition to learn: electoral system

An electoral system is the set of rules that turns votes cast in an election into seats won by parties and candidates.

System	How it works	Used in	Effects
First-past-the-post (FPTP, simple plurality)	Single-member constituencies. The candidate with the most votes wins, even without a majority.	UK Commons, USA, India, Pakistan general seats	Clear winners and a strong constituency link; disproportional; wasted votes; favours big parties
Two-round system	If no one wins a majority in round one, a second round is held (in France, candidates reaching a threshold qualify)	France	The winner has majority support; encourages alliances
Alternative vote (AV)	Voters rank candidates. The lowest candidate is eliminated and preferences are transferred until someone has a majority.	Australian House of Representatives	Majority winner; still majoritarian and not necessarily more proportional than FPTP
List PR	Parties win seats in proportion to their votes in multi-member districts (d'Hondt or Sainte-Laguë formula)	Turkey, Netherlands, Israel	Proportional; coalitions; strong party leadership
Single transferable vote (STV)	Ranked voting in multi-member constituencies with a quota	Republic of Ireland; Northern Ireland Assembly	Proportional; voters can choose between candidates of the same party
Mixed-member proportional (MMP)	Some seats elected by FPTP, others by list to correct disproportionality	Germany, New Zealand	Keeps local MPs while being broadly proportional

Duverger's law: plurality rule tends to produce a two-party system, while PR tends to produce multi-party systems. There are two reasons: a mechanical effect, where small parties are under-represented, and a psychological effect, where voters avoid "wasting" their votes. India and Pakistan are often cited as partial exceptions, because regional parties that are strong in particular areas survive under FPTP.

Worked example 1: allocating seats by the d'Hondt method

A 6-seat district. Votes: Party A 48,000; Party B 30,000; Party C 14,000; Party D 8,000. Total = 100,000.

Step 1. Divide each party's votes by 1, 2, 3, … (divisor = seats already won + 1).

Divisor	A	B	C	D
÷ 1	48,000	30,000	14,000	8,000
÷ 2	24,000	15,000	7,000	4,000
÷ 3	16,000	10,000	4,667	—
÷ 4	12,000	7,500	—	—

Step 2. Award the 6 seats to the 6 largest numbers in the table:

1. A 48,000
2. B 30,000
3. A 24,000
4. A 16,000
5. B 15,000
6. C 14,000

Step 3: check the cut-off. The next largest values are A 12,000, B 10,000 and D 8,000. All are below 14,000, so none of them wins a seat.

Result: A 3 seats, B 2, C 1, D 0.

Step 4: check proportionality.

• A: 48% of votes and 3/6 = 50% of seats (+2.0 points)
• B: 30% of votes and 33.3% of seats (+3.3 points)
• C: 14% of votes and 16.7% of seats (+2.7 points)
• D: 8% of votes and 0% of seats (−8.0 points)

All three larger parties are slightly over-represented, and the smallest party (D, 8%) gets nothing. In a small district d'Hondt raises the effective threshold, which works against small parties. That is the main bias the method shows.

Worked example 2: how FPTP distorts results

Five constituencies of 10,000 voters each. Party X wins four of them with 4,000 votes each against Y's 3,500 and Z's 2,500. In the fifth, Y wins with 7,000, X gets 2,000 and Z gets 1,000.

Step 1: total the votes.

• X = (4 × 4,000) + 2,000 = 18,000
• Y = (4 × 3,500) + 7,000 = 21,000
• Z = (4 × 2,500) + 1,000 = 11,000
• Check: 18,000 + 21,000 + 11,000 = 50,000 ✓

Step 2: convert to vote shares. X 36%, Y 42%, Z 22%.

Step 3: count the seats. X 4 (80%), Y 1 (20%), Z 0.

Conclusion: the party with the most votes (Y) lost the election. Its support was piled up in one seat, and the rest of its votes were "wasted". This is the "wrong winner" problem that FPTP can produce. It happened in UK general elections in 1951 and February 1974.

8. Separation of powers and judicial review

Definition to learn: separation of powers

The separation of powers is the principle that the legislative, executive and judicial functions of government should be given to separate bodies with separate personnel, so that no single body can gather all power and threaten liberty.

Locke distinguished legislative, executive and federative (foreign-affairs) power, though he left executive and federative power in the same hands. Montesquieu set out the three-way division in The Spirit of the Laws (1748), drawing on his reading of the English constitution. He argued that when legislative and executive power are united in the same person, there can be no liberty. James Madison (Federalist No. 47 and No. 51) added the idea of checks and balances: each branch is given the means to resist encroachment by the others.

Country	Degree of separation
USA	Strict separation of personnel: members of Congress cannot hold executive office (Article I, Section 6). Functions overlap through checks and balances. Richard Neustadt described the system as "separated institutions sharing powers".
UK	Fusion of executive and legislature: ministers must sit in Parliament. Walter Bagehot (The English Constitution, 1867) called the cabinet the "efficient secret" and the "hyphen" joining the two. Judicial independence was strengthened in 2005.
France	Ministers may not keep their parliamentary seats while in office (incompatibility rule, Article 23). The executive is strong compared with Parliament ("rationalised parliamentarism").
India and Pakistan	Parliamentary fusion of executive and legislature. The judiciary is separated constitutionally. In Pakistan, Article 175(3) required the judiciary to be separated from the executive, and the Supreme Court enforced this in the 1990s.

Definition to learn: judicial review

Judicial review is the power of courts to examine laws and executive actions and to declare them invalid if they conflict with the constitution.

Origins: in Marbury v. Madison (1803), Chief Justice John Marshall held that it is "emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is". The US Constitution does not state the power expressly; the Court inferred it.

Models of judicial review

• Decentralised (American): any court can review, and the Supreme Court is final.
• Centralised (European / Kelsenian): a special constitutional court reviews. Examples are Germany, Turkey, and France's Constitutional Council.
• Weak-form (UK): courts declare incompatibility but Parliament decides what to do.

Judicial activism in India and Pakistan

In India, public interest litigation expanded from the late 1970s, and Kesavananda Bharati (1973) held that Parliament cannot amend the "basic structure" of the Constitution. In Pakistan, the Supreme Court's original jurisdiction under Article 184(3), in matters of public importance involving fundamental rights, was used widely, especially under Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry (2005–13). Critics argued it was over-used. Parliament then restructured constitutional adjudication. The 26th Amendment (2024) sent such cases to constitutional benches, and the 27th Amendment (2025) moved constitutional and original jurisdiction to a new Federal Constitutional Court.

The courts' record on military takeovers is a classic exam topic. The courts first validated them with Kelsen's theory of revolutionary legality, the idea that a successful revolution creates its own legal order (State v. Dosso, 1958, overruled in Asma Jilani, 1972). They then used the doctrine of necessity, which was first applied in the Governor-General's Special Reference No. 1 of 1955 (after the Maulvi Tamizuddin Khan case) and later in Begum Nusrat Bhutto (1977) and Zafar Ali Shah (2000). Both lines of reasoning are widely criticised.

The debate

• For judicial review: it protects rights and minorities, upholds constitutional supremacy and checks majoritarian excess.
• Against judicial review: judges are unelected, which raises the "counter-majoritarian difficulty" identified by Alexander Bickel. It risks politicising the judiciary and entangling courts in policy.

9. Approaches to comparative politics

Definition to learn: comparative politics

Comparative politics is the study of political systems, institutions and behaviour across different countries, in order to identify similarities and differences and to build and test general explanations.

Approach	Focus	Key names / works	Limitation
Traditional / legal-institutional	Formal constitutions, laws and institutions; descriptive and historical	James Bryce, Herman Finer, Carl Friedrich	Formal rules often differ from actual practice; centred on the West
Behavioural	Observable behaviour of individuals and groups; quantitative methods; separates facts from values	Easton's "credo of behaviouralism"; the Michigan voting studies	Neglects values and institutions. The "post-behavioural revolution" (Easton, 1969) called for relevance.
Systems approach	The political system as inputs (demands, supports), conversion, outputs (decisions) and feedback within an environment	David Easton, The Political System (1953); A Systems Analysis of Political Life (1965)	Abstract; biased towards stability
Structural-functional	Which structures perform the functions every system needs: interest articulation, aggregation, rule-making and so on	Gabriel Almond; Almond and Powell (1966)	Conservative; functions are hard to measure
Political culture	Attitudes and orientations towards politics: parochial, subject and participant cultures	Almond and Verba, The Civic Culture (1963)	Treats the Anglo-American model as the ideal; culture may be a result as much as a cause
Political economy / dependency	How economic structures and global capitalism shape politics	Andre Gunder Frank; Immanuel Wallerstein (world-systems theory)	Downplays internal factors and agency
Rational choice	Politics explained as the choices of self-interested actors maximising utility	Anthony Downs (1957); Mancur Olson (1965)	Unrealistic assumptions about human motives
New institutionalism	Institutions as rules and norms that shape behaviour; path dependence	March and Olsen (1984); historical, rational-choice and sociological variants	Hard to explain change

Worked example: applying Easton's systems model to Pakistan's 18th Amendment

Step 1: inputs (demands). Provinces demanded more autonomy and the abolition of the Concurrent List. Parties demanded the removal of Article 58(2)(b).

Step 2: inputs (supports). There was cross-party consensus in Parliament after the return to civilian rule in 2008.

Step 3: conversion. A special parliamentary committee on constitutional reform negotiated a package. Parliament passed it by the required two-thirds majorities in 2010.

Step 4: outputs. Presidential dissolution powers were removed, the Concurrent List was abolished, NWFP was renamed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and a new judicial appointments process was set up.

Step 5: feedback. New demands followed, including disputes over provincial capacity and the federal share of resources, and the process continued with the 19th Amendment on judicial appointments.

10. CSS-style questions with answer outlines

Key idea: the format of each paper

Each Political Science paper carries 100 marks. Recent papers have had a compulsory Part I of multiple-choice questions (20 marks), followed by Part II, where you answer four essay questions of 20 marks each from a wider choice. Check the instructions on the latest paper, because the FPSC can change the format. The essay questions below are Part II practice. MCQ practice follows the glossary.

Q1. "Political science can never be a true science." Critically examine this statement. [20]

• Introduction: define science (systematic, empirical, predictive) and political science. State your thesis: it is a social science with scientific methods but limited predictive power.
• Arguments for scientific status: the behavioural revolution; quantitative data; testable generalisations such as Duverger's law and democratic peace findings; comparative method.
• Arguments against: no controlled experiments; the researcher is part of what is studied; values are unavoidable; human free will; failed predictions, such as the end of the Cold War.
• Middle position: post-behaviouralism (Easton, 1969); mixed methods.
• Conclusion: "science" in the sense of systematic knowledge, not in the natural-science sense.

Q2. Compare the social contract theories of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau. Which had the greatest influence on modern constitutional democracy? [20]

• Introduction: the contractarian tradition as a reaction to divine-right theory.
• Comparison: set out the state of nature, the terms of the contract, the location of sovereignty and the right of resistance for each thinker, using a table.
• Influence: Locke on the US Declaration of Independence, limited government and property rights; Rousseau on popular sovereignty and the French Revolution; Hobbes on the theory of the sovereign state.
• Criticism: the contract is unhistorical. Hume argued that governments rest on habit and force.
• Conclusion: a strong case can be made for Locke. Louis Hartz (The Liberal Tradition in America, 1955), for example, traced American political thought to Lockean liberalism. Weigh this against Rousseau's influence on popular sovereignty, and support whatever judgement you reach with evidence.

Q3. Discuss the concept of sovereignty. Is Austin's theory of sovereignty relevant in the age of globalisation? [20]

• Definition: Bodin, Hobbes and Austin; the characteristics of sovereignty (absolute, permanent, indivisible, inalienable).
• Kinds of sovereignty: legal, political, de jure, de facto, popular.
• Austin's theory: the command theory of law and a determinate sovereign.
• Criticisms: the pluralists (Laski); Maine's argument from custom; federalism; the fact that popular sovereignty is not determinate; the Islamic view that sovereignty belongs to Allah and human authority is a limited trust (Objectives Resolution, Article 2A).
• Globalisation: the WTO, IMF conditionality (relevant to Pakistan), the EU, human rights regimes and multinational corporations.
• Counter-argument: states still control force, borders and treaty-making. Supranational arrangements are consented to, and states can leave them (Brexit).
• Conclusion: sovereignty has been redefined as "pooled" or "shared" rather than abolished.

Q4. Evaluate the relative merits of parliamentary and presidential forms of government with reference to the UK and the USA. Which suits Pakistan? [20]

• Definitions and features: fusion versus separation of powers.
• UK: cabinet government, collective responsibility, "elective dictatorship".
• USA: checks and balances, fixed terms, gridlock and government shutdowns.
• Linz's argument on the perils of presidentialism, and the counter-arguments of Mainwaring and Shugart.
• Pakistan's experience: presidential rule under the 1962 Constitution; the parliamentary 1973 Constitution; the presidential tilt from 58(2)(b) (1985–97, and 2002–10 after the LFO and 17th Amendment); the 18th Amendment.
• Suitability: a federal, multi-ethnic society needs inclusion. The parliamentary form allows coalitions and provincial representation, and the 1973 Constitution was built on it.
• Conclusion: the main problems have been institutional weakness and interrupted democracy rather than the form itself. This is the view of many Pakistani constitutional scholars.

Q5. "France's Fifth Republic is neither parliamentary nor presidential." Discuss with reference to cohabitation. [20]

• Background: the instability of the Fourth Republic; de Gaulle; the 1958 Constitution; the 1962 referendum on direct election.
• Maurice Duverger's term "semi-presidential": an elected president with significant powers alongside a PM responsible to parliament.
• Presidential powers: appoints the PM (Article 8), dissolution (Article 12), emergency powers (Article 16), referendums (Article 11).
• Parliamentary features: the government is responsible to the National Assembly (Articles 49–50).
• Cohabitation: in 1986–88, 1993–95 and 1997–2002 power moved to the PM. The system swings between presidential and parliamentary modes. The 2000 five-year term reform made cohabitation less likely.
• Conclusion: the system is a hybrid whose character depends on party control of the Assembly.

Q6. Examine the role of political parties and pressure groups in a democracy, with examples from India and Pakistan. [20]

• Definitions and differences between parties and pressure groups.
• Functions of parties; party typologies (Duverger, Kirchheimer, Katz and Mair).
• India: Congress dominance followed by coalition eras and BJP dominance; regional parties.
• Pakistan: multi-party competition; the dynastic and personalist character many analysts identify; weak internal democracy; the Elections Act 2017 requirements.
• Pressure groups: lawyers' movement (2007–09), business associations, farmer groups, religious groups, civil society.
• Evaluation: pluralist and elitist views.
• Conclusion: strong, internally democratic parties are needed for democratic consolidation.

Q7. Compare FPTP with proportional representation. Would a PR system improve representation in Pakistan? [20]

• How each system works; Duverger's law.
• FPTP: accountability and stable majorities, against wasted votes and distortion. Use a numerical illustration like Worked Example 2.
• PR: fairness and minority representation, against coalition instability and the power of party lists. Turkey's threshold shows how PR can still exclude parties.
• Pakistan: the current mixed arrangement (FPTP general seats, list-based reserved seats). Reserved seats are shared in proportion to general seats won, not votes (Article 51(6)), so they magnify FPTP distortion. The same rule was at the centre of the 2024–25 reserved-seats litigation. Also discuss the "electables" phenomenon and the regional concentration of party support.
• Options: list PR, or MMP on the German model.
• Conclusion: MMP could balance the constituency link with proportionality. Reform needs consensus among the parties.

Q8. Critically assess the systems and structural-functional approaches to the study of comparative politics. [20]

• Context: the move away from the legal-institutional approach after 1945; the need to study new states.
• Easton: inputs, conversion, outputs, feedback, environment; system persistence.
• Almond: input functions (socialisation, recruitment, interest articulation, interest aggregation, communication) and output functions (rule-making, rule application, rule adjudication).
• Contributions: universal concepts that allow cross-national comparison and cover non-Western states.
• Criticisms: abstraction; bias towards equilibrium and the status quo; weak on conflict and change; ethnocentrism.
• Later developments: political economy and new institutionalism.
• Conclusion: useful frameworks for organising analysis, but weak as explanatory theories.

Key terms

Term	Definition
State	A sovereign political association with population, territory and government
Sovereignty	Supreme legal authority inside a state and independence outside it
Legitimacy	The belief that a ruler or regime has the right to rule
Nation	A community that sees itself as sharing an identity and a political destiny
Nationalism	The doctrine that the nation should be the basis of political organisation and self-government
Federalism	A constitutional division of power between central and regional governments
Confederation	A union of sovereign states that give limited powers to a central body but keep their sovereignty
Devolution	Transfer of power from the centre to regional bodies, which the centre can legally take back
Khilafah (vicegerency)	In Islamic thought, human authority held on behalf of Allah as a trust, within the limits of the Shariah
Cohabitation	In France, a president and a prime minister from opposing political camps holding office together
Separation of powers	Dividing the legislative, executive and judicial functions among separate bodies
Checks and balances	Arrangements that let each branch limit the others
Judicial review	A court's power to invalidate laws or acts that conflict with the constitution
Basic structure doctrine	The Indian doctrine that Parliament cannot amend the Constitution's essential features
Revolutionary legality	Kelsen's theory that a successful revolution creates a new legal order; used in Pakistan in State v. Dosso (1958) and rejected in Asma Jilani (1972)
Doctrine of necessity	The judicial justification of otherwise unlawful acts in order to preserve the state. In Pakistan it was first used in the Governor-General's Reference of 1955, and later in Begum Nusrat Bhutto (1977) and Zafar Ali Shah (2000)
FPTP	An electoral system in which the candidate with the most votes in a single-member seat wins
Duverger's law	The tendency of plurality elections to produce two-party systems
Pressure group	An organised group that seeks to influence policy without seeking office
Catch-all party	A party that plays down ideology in order to win voters across social groups
Polyarchy	Dahl's term for real-world democracies with high contestation and inclusiveness
Political culture	The pattern of political attitudes and orientations in a society
New institutionalism	An approach that treats institutions as rules and norms shaping behaviour over time

CSS-style MCQs (Part I practice)

Choose one answer for each question. Answers follow the list.

1. "Who gets what, when, how" is a definition of politics given by:
   (a) David Easton (b) Harold Lasswell (c) Robert Dahl (d) Max Weber
2. Six Books of the Commonwealth (1576) was written by:
   (a) Machiavelli (b) Hobbes (c) Jean Bodin (d) John Austin
3. Leviathan was published in:
   (a) 1576 (b) 1651 (c) 1689 (d) 1762
4. Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws appeared in:
   (a) 1689 (b) 1748 (c) 1762 (d) 1787
5. The Objectives Resolution was passed on:
   (a) 23 March 1940 (b) 11 August 1947 (c) 12 March 1949 (d) 23 March 1956
6. Article 2A was added to the 1973 Constitution by:
   (a) the 8th Amendment (b) P.O. 14 of 1985 (c) the 13th Amendment (d) the 18th Amendment
7. Which body can declare a law repugnant to the injunctions of Islam?
   (a) Council of Islamic Ideology (b) Senate (c) Federal Shariat Court (d) Council of Common Interests
8. In State v. Dosso (1958) the court validated the coup mainly by relying on:
   (a) the doctrine of necessity (b) Kelsen's theory of revolutionary legality (c) the basic structure doctrine (d) Article 58(2)(b)
9. The Council of Common Interests is provided for in Article:
   (a) 153 (b) 160 (c) 184 (d) 239
10. The 18th Amendment (2010) abolished the:
    (a) Federal Legislative List (b) Concurrent Legislative List (c) Senate (d) NFC award
11. Marbury v. Madison was decided in:
    (a) 1789 (b) 1803 (c) 1857 (d) 1954
12. The basic structure doctrine was laid down in:
    (a) Golaknath (b) Kesavananda Bharati (c) Minerva Mills (d) Marbury v. Madison
13. The term "polyarchy" is associated with:
    (a) Sartori (b) Lijphart (c) Dahl (d) Almond
14. The idea of the "catch-all party" was developed by:
    (a) Duverger (b) Kirchheimer (c) Katz and Mair (d) Michels
15. Imagined Communities (1983) was written by:
    (a) Ernest Gellner (b) Anthony D. Smith (c) Benedict Anderson (d) Eric Hobsbawm
16. The Civic Culture (1963) was written by:
    (a) Easton (b) Almond and Verba (c) Almond and Powell (d) Lipset and Rokkan
17. The national threshold for Turkey's Grand National Assembly elections is:
    (a) 3% (b) 5% (c) 7% (d) 10%
18. In France, cohabitation did NOT occur during:
    (a) 1986–88 (b) 1993–95 (c) 1997–2002 (d) 2007–12

Answers: 1 (b); 2 (c); 3 (b); 4 (b); 5 (c); 6 (b); 7 (c); 8 (b); 9 (a); 10 (b); 11 (b); 12 (b); 13 (c); 14 (b); 15 (c); 16 (b); 17 (c); 18 (d).

Self-test (short answers)

These questions check your understanding. The marks in brackets show how much detail to give. They are a guide only and are not CSS mark allocations.

1. State the four elements of the state. [2]
2. Name the author and date of Leviathan. [1]
3. Define de facto sovereignty. [2]
4. Distinguish between a unitary system with devolution and a federal system. [3]
5. Identify two differences between cadre and mass parties. [2]
6. Explain the significance of Marbury v. Madison. [3]
7. Outline the changes made to Turkey's system of government by the 2017 referendum. [3]
8. Calculate the d'Hondt allocation of 5 seats when Party P has 50,000 votes, Q has 32,000 and R has 18,000. [4]
9. Explain why Pakistan's 18th Amendment is said to have strengthened federalism. [4]
10. Compare Easton's systems approach with Almond's structural-functional approach. [4]
11. Assess whether the UK Parliament remains sovereign. [6]
12. Evaluate Linz's claim that presidentialism is more dangerous for democracy than parliamentarism. [8]

1. Population, territory, government, sovereignty.
2. Thomas Hobbes, 1651.
3. Authority that is actually exercised and obeyed in practice, whether or not it is legally recognised. An example is a regime that has seized power by a coup.
4. Under devolution, powers are delegated by the central legislature and can be taken back by ordinary law, as in the UK. In a federation, the division of powers is set in the constitution and cannot be changed by ordinary law. Changing it needs a constitutional amendment, often with a role for the units: for example, ratification by three-quarters of the states in the USA, or in Pakistan a two-thirds majority in both Houses, including the Senate, where the provinces have equal representation. Courts settle disputes between the levels.
5. Cadre parties are small groups of notables built around elections and funded by a few wealthy supporters. Mass parties have large dues-paying memberships, permanent organisations and a strong ideological identity.
6. In 1803 the US Supreme Court under John Marshall declared part of the Judiciary Act of 1789 unconstitutional. This established the power of American courts to strike down federal law that conflicts with the Constitution. The power is not written in the Constitution, and the case made the judiciary a co-equal branch.
7. The office of prime minister was abolished and executive power moved to a directly elected president. The president gained wide powers of appointment and could issue decrees in some areas. The Grand National Assembly grew from 550 to 600 seats. The changes took effect after the June 2018 elections.
8. Step 1: find the quotients.
   • P: 50,000; 25,000; 16,667; 12,500
   • Q: 32,000; 16,000; 10,667
   • R: 18,000; 9,000
   Step 2: rank the five largest. 50,000 (P); 32,000 (Q); 25,000 (P); 18,000 (R); 16,667 (P). The next value, 16,000 (Q), misses out.
   Result: P 3 seats, Q 1, R 1.
9. It abolished the Concurrent Legislative List, which transferred many subjects to the provinces. It strengthened the Council of Common Interests (regular meetings and a secretariat). It gave provinces joint and equal ownership of oil and gas within their territory (Article 172(3)). It protected provincial shares under the NFC award from being reduced below the previous award (Article 160(3A)). It renamed NWFP as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, recognising provincial identity.
10. Similarities: both treat politics as a system, aim at universal comparison and emerged in the 1950s and 1960s. Differences: Easton focuses on flows (inputs, outputs, feedback) and system persistence. Almond asks which structures perform which functions, so any system can be compared even when its institutions look different. Both are criticised for favouring stability.
11. For continuing sovereignty: Parliament can legally pass or repeal any law. It repealed the European Communities Act 1972 and left the EU in 2020. The Human Rights Act lets courts only declare incompatibility. Devolution statutes could legally be repealed. Against: political limits such as referendums, the political impossibility of abolishing devolution, and executive dominance of Parliament. The Supreme Court has used common-law constitutional principles, as in the Miller cases of 2017 and 2019. Judgement: legally sovereign, but politically constrained.
12. Linz (1990): presidentialism has "dual legitimacy" (president and legislature both claim a mandate), rigid fixed terms, winner-takes-all outcomes and personalised power. He pointed to Latin American breakdowns. Critics (Mainwaring and Shugart; Cheibub) argue that breakdowns are linked more to military legacies, party fragmentation and the countries where presidentialism happened to be adopted than to the system itself. The US has been stable. Parliamentary systems have also collapsed; Pakistan's parliamentary periods were interrupted by military coups. Judgement: the risk depends on party systems, presidential powers and the wider environment. Scott Mainwaring (1993) called presidentialism combined with multipartism "the difficult combination".