ABSTRACT
These institutions, however, will vary from state to state, both in their organizational design on paper and in their actual practice. Whereas all democracies in a most general sense give people the power to determine their government, various forms of political institutions help determine how people’s preferences are represented and translated into policy. How these institutions are designed matters, and knowing how they function is crucial to understanding how the political system in a given state operates. This chapter will introduce you to features of parliaments (often known better in American English as legislatures) in Europe, with subsequent chapters taking up executives, constitutions and legal systems, and political parties.
