Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2018 October 9

= October 9 =

Parliamentary republics' presidents
In many constitutional monarchies, the monarch has extensive discretionary powers on paper, even if those powers are always exercised by the government, and plays some figurehead role in legislation; for example, in the UK the monarch officially runs everything, even though in practice her commissions always decide to grant assent on her behalf to whatever Parliament decide to do. Conversely, in Japan, the monarch doesn't even have a convention-bound role in government; quoting his article:"Unlike most constitutional monarchs, the Emperor is not even the nominal chief executive. Article 65 explicitly vests executive power in the Cabinet, of which the Prime Minister is the leader. The Emperor is also not the commander-in-chief of the Japan Self-Defense Forces. The Japan Self-Defense Forces Act of 1954 also explicitly vests this role with the Prime Minister."Are there any parliamentary republics whose presidents are like the Emperor of Japan, i.e. they basically just preside at banquets (to quote Tolkien) and receive foreign dignitaries? I've checked several articles (on the presidents of Ireland, Germany, Italy, Israel, and India), but in all cases the president has the responsibility to sign bills (even if convention dictates that he follow the government's advice), and in some he has the authority unilaterally to refer the bill for review to the supreme court or the electorate. This topic isn't addressed in the Parliamentary republic article. Nyttend (talk) 01:15, 9 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Heads-of-state in parliamentary governments often have the discretion to designate a party leader to try to form a government, if no party has a majority of seats in the parliament, and the leader of the party with the largest number of seats has been unable to form a government (I think the UK monarchy still has this power). A head-of-state (president or king or queen) who lacked this power might not have much left other than presiding at banquets... AnonMoos (talk) 07:37, 9 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Hi, have a look at Head_of_state - besides Japan, it also mentions Sweden (the monarch only opens Parliament, receives ambassadors, and chairs a couple of committees, Ireland (the president gets a briefing session but no paperwork, also they also hold the power to refer bills to the supreme court), and Israel (described as "the most extreme non-executive republican Head of State"). 70.67.193.176 (talk) 19:54, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Note the Israeli President, whist largely ceremonial, does have certain reserve powers. He can commute prison sentences and grant pardons. He also chooses which party gets the first chance at forming the governing coalition after an election. Usually this is the biggest party (i.e. the party that won the most seats), but not always (e.g. if the biggest party will be unable to form a coalition due to the second-biggest having more potential coalition allies, as has occasionally occurred). Eliyohub (talk) 06:10, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

If you're talking about low-power heads of state, check Irish head of state from 1936-1949; the British monarch had so little power it was debatable (and debated) whether he was head of state at all. jnestorius(talk) 15:43, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

How is office space distributed in short rich world cities?
Like London (especially 20th century) and especially Rome and Athens. I presume that just having height laws doesn't much reduce amount of office space used compared to similar but more skyscrapery cities, it can't be as concentrated though. Is some of it essentially outsourced out of commuting range entirely? Are there a lot more mid-rise office buildings in places that'd normally be the inner ring of low-rise buildings? Are there more underground offices? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 22:07, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Way too many factors to draw any useful conclusions. Are alternative cities readily available? What are zoning (land use) restrictions? Do high office rents deter new business start-up, or encourage consolidation? DOR (HK) (talk) 16:05, 13 October 2018 (UTC)