Federal Bicameralism and Second Chamber Powers in Parliamentary Form of Government: A Brief Analysis of the Ethiopian System

Abstract

The conventional wisdom about the original idea of federal bicameralism is that it works effectively along with a presidential rather than parliamentary governmental form. Second chambers exercise real powers normally associated with their traditional function as institutions organized for representation of vertically dispersed subnational power entities at the national level when the presidential system of governance ensuring clearly separated horizontal and cross-checking distribution of power is superimposed on the federal state structure. In this sense, the parliamentary system adopted in the Ethiopian federation has produced a second chamber significantly weaker than the first chamber. However, a multiplicity of other factors adds to form of government to impact the power configuration in the upper house. Proper concern for these factors in the political design or redesign of the federation would remedy the apparent power deficit second chambers display in the parliamentarian governmental form, and even making parliamentary governance the preferred form for ensuring the central representation of politically salient territorial cleavage patterns in ethnically diverse polity such as Ethiopia.