Open Educational Resources
Document Type
Lesson Plan
Publication Date
Spring 4-27-2022
Abstract
This lesson plan is designed to introduce students to three forms of government: presidentialism, parliamentarism, and semi-presidentialism. After briefly covering the key characteristics of each form, the lesson plan examines the process of government formation in parliamentary systems. The scenario covers different possible cabinet types and is designed to help students to distinguish between governments with a majority vs. minority status and to differentiate among different coalition arrangements—from minority to minimal winning to surplus to grand coalitions. The lesson plan concludes with an assignment that asks students to identify the current cabinet types in four countries that have parliamentary systems—Canada, Australia, South Africa, and Ireland.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License