Rubber stamp (politics)
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A rubber stamp, as a political metaphor, is a person or institution with considerable de jure power but little de facto power — one that rarely or never disagrees with more powerful organizations.[1] Historian Edward S. Ellis called this type of legislature a toy parliament.
In situations where this superior official's signature may frequently be required for routine paperwork, a literal rubber stamp is used, with a likeness of their hand-written signature. In essence, the term is meant to convey an endorsement without careful thought or personal investment in the outcome, especially since it is usually expected as the stamper's duty to do so. In the situation where a dictator's legislature is a "rubber stamp", the orders they are meant to endorse are formalities they are expected to legitimize, and are usually done to create the superficial appearance of legislative and dictatorial harmony rather than because they have actual power.
In a constitutional monarchy or parliamentary republic, heads of state are typically "rubber stamps" (or figureheads) to an elected parliament, even if they legally possess considerable reserve powers or disagree with the parliament's decisions.
Rubber-stamp legislatures may occur even in democratic countries if the institutional arrangement allows for it.
Examples
Historian Edward S. Ellis described Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II's General Assembly of the Ottoman Empire as a toy parliament. It was created in 1876 with the sole purpose of appeasing the European powers.
One of the most famous examples of a rubber stamp institution is the Reichstag of Nazi Germany, which unanimously confirmed all decisions already made by Adolf Hitler and the highest-ranking members of the Nazi Party. Many legislatures of authoritarian and totalitarian countries are considered as rubber stamps, such as communist parliaments like the Chinese National People's Congress, or the Italian Chamber of Fasces and Corporations during the Fascist regime.
Unlike in the United States Congress, where the legislative leadership is exercised by a Majority Leader chosen separately from the President of the United States, the dominant figure in the French Fifth Republic's National Assembly is a presidentially-appointed Prime Minister (who is still dependent on the parliamentary majority's support). Since the French National Assembly is elected two months after the President, which results in a coattail effect guaranteeing the President's party a parliamentary majority, the French President can effectively control the legislative agenda through appointing a subordinate as Prime Minister.
During the reign of Adolf Frederick, King of Sweden (1751–71), the Riksdag of the Estates had the power to sign binding documents with a literal name stamp, sometimes against the will of the king who by law was an absolute monarch.
In many instances, the refusal of a constitutional monarch to rubber stamp laws passed by parliament can set off a constitutional crisis. For example, when then-king Baudouin of Belgium, because of his religious objections, refused to sign a bill legalizing abortions in April 1990, the Belgian Federal Parliament declared him temporarily unable to reign. That effectively transferred his powers to the Cabinet, for a single day, consequentially overriding his veto.[2]
List of rubber-stamp legislatures
Defunct legislatures
Reichstag – Nazi Germany
Chamber of Fasces and Corporations – Fascist Italy
General Assembly – Ottoman Empire
Grand National Assembly – Turkey (1920–1950)
Congress of Soviets, Supreme Soviet – Soviet Union
Great National Assembly – Communist Romania
Volkskammer – East Germany (apart from last legislative period following the first free election in East Germany in 1990)
Supreme Soviet – Byelorussian SSR
Supreme Soviet – Ukrainian SSR
2017 Constituent National Assembly – Venezuela
Cortes Españolas – Francoist Spain- Roman Senate and Byzantine Senate – Roman Empire, Papal States, and Byzantine Empire
National Consultative Assembly – Pahlavi Iran[3]
Revolutionary Command Council – Ba'athist Iraq
Estates General – Kingdom of France before the French Revolution
National Assembly and Federal Assembly – Communist Czechoslovakia
Batasang Pambansa – Fourth Philippine Republic
Legislative Council – Zaire
Southern Court - The French protectorates of Annam and Tonkin (French Indochina)
Legislatures with rubber-stamp history
National Assembly – Communist Hungary
Louisiana State Legislature – Louisiana under Huey Long
Sejm – Communist Poland
National Assembly – Estado Novo
Federal Senate – Brazil under Military dictatorship between 1977 and 1985[4]
National Assembly – South Korea prior to democratization
Legislative Yuan, Control Yuan and National Assembly – Chinese Republic on Taiwan under martial law and civil war
Congress of the Union – Institutional Revolutionary Party rule between 1946 and 2000
Current rubber-stamp legislatures
National Assembly – Belarus
National People's Congress – People's Republic of China
National Assembly of People's Power – Cuba
Parliament – Egypt[6]
Assembly of Experts – Iran (not a parliamentary chamber but a deliberative body)[7]
Supreme People's Assembly – North Korea
Federal Assembly – Russia (after the 2003 elections)[8][9][non-primary source needed]
People's Assembly – Syria
National Council – Turkmenistan
National Assembly – Vietnam
References
- ^ Webster's New World Dictionary, Second College Edition, ISBN 0-671-41809-2 - page 1242 - "*rubber-stamp 2. [Colloq.] to approve or endorse in a routine manner, without thought - *rubber stamp - 2. [Colloq.] a) a person, bureau, legislature, etc., that approves or endorses something in a routine manner, without thought, b) any routine approval"
- ^ Montgomery, Paul (5 April 1990). "Belgian King, Unable to Sign Abortion Law, Takes Day Off". New York Times. Retrieved 12 March 2022.
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Townson, Duncan (2001). The New Penguin Dictionary of Modern History: 1789-1945 (2nd ed.). Penguin Books. p. 459. ISBN 0140514902. Retrieved 7 August 2022.
- ^ "Anos 60 e 70: ditadura, bipartidarismo e biônicos - Notícias". Portal da Câmara dos Deputados (in Brazilian Portuguese). Retrieved 2021-09-24.
- ^ "The Macau Precedent". Wall Street Journal. 16 March 2009.
- ^ "Critics decry 'rubber-stamp' role of Egypt parliament". AW.
- ^ "The Assembly of Experts".
- ^ Rosefielde, Steven; Hedlund, Stefan (2009). Russia Since 1980. Cambridge University Press. p. 174. ISBN 9780521849135. Retrieved June 16, 2021.
- ^ Troianovski, Anton; Nechepurenko, Ivan (2021-09-19). "Russian Election Shows Declining Support for Putin's Party". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-09-27.