New answers tagged germany
4
There is no ‘historical flag of the BRD’. The current Federal Republic of Germany (German abbreviation: BRD) is contiguous with the state that was founded in 1949. The only changes to the federation were the reorganisation of states in the South-West (creating Baden-Württemberg out of three predecessor states) and the admission of the Saarland in the 1950’s ...
5
What you probably saw was this:
That is the government flag of Germany.
The government flag may only be used by federal government authorities
and its use by others is an offence, punishable with a fine.
However, public use of flags similar to the Bundesdienstflagge (e.g.
using the actual coat of arms instead of the Bundesschild) is
tolerated, and such ...
0
In Germany, the Bundestag is usually elected around September, but its
term does not begin until the newly elected Bundestag assembles for
the first time.
This seems true by definition. Legislators typically don't have any sort of power or responsibilities unless that legislative body is in session. I'm not sure what practical benefit you would have by ...
5
Looking at it from the United States side I think it is for a few reasons. First and most importantly people are elected for a set term in office if someone was replaced as soon as the election was confirmed that would mean an officer holder could serve a longer or shorter term depending on how long it takes to confirm the vote each cycle. This is important ...
3
Elected officials who continue to exercise power after an election causing someone else to win the offices in question is called a "lame duck".
In parliamentary systems, there is usually an unwritten convention that lame duck officials act only in a care taking and emergency role, and don't make major decisions or start new initiatives. They are a &...
18
There are two basic reasons for the 'lame-duck' period between the date new officials are elected and the date they take office:
To allow election results to be contested should evidence of fraud or malfeasance arise
To ensure an orderly transition of power, by giving new officials time to move residences and acclimate themselves to the duties and powers of ...
29
There are two obvious reasons. I'll refer to the US specifically, but I would imagine other countries are fairly similar.
First, the historic. Before modern transport & communications, the election process could take weeks or months. California became a US state in 1850, when it could take more than four weeks to travel from there to Washington (or ...
16
ohwilleke's answer is correct that most people in the U.S. aren't familiar with many of the particular political parties in Europe, aside from maybe those in the UK. Aside from the UK Labour and Conservative parties (and, during the campaigning for the Brexit vote, UKIP,) particular European political parties rarely make the news in the U.S., aside from ...
14
The relative position of the European parties relative to the US can't really be classified as simply left or right. Here is a helpful image/diagram on the issue. This diagram was produced by the New York Times, but the data was gathered by the Manifesto Project.
70
Does the American public know, that their perception of left and right
is is skewed and right-shifted in comparison to many other Western
countries?
The American public is mostly oblivious to the domestic politics of countries other than their own, although there is some vague familiarity with the leading political parties of Canada, Mexico and the U.K. ...
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