Bicameralism

A bicameral legislature is one in which the legislators are divided into two separate assemblies, chambers or houses. Bicameralism is distinguished from unicameralism, in which all of the members deliberate and vote as a single group, and from some legislatures which have three or more separate assemblies, chambers or houses. As of 2015, somewhat less than half of the world's national legislatures are bicameral.

Often, the members of the two chambers are elected or selected using different methods, which vary from country to country. Enactment of primary legislation often requires a concurrent majority, the approval of a majority of members in each of the chambers of the legislature. However, in many Westminster system parliaments, the house to which the executive is responsible can overrule the other house.

Bicameralism is an essential and defining feature of the classical notion of mixed government.

Theory of bicameral congress

Although the ideas on which bicameralism are based can be traced back to the theories developed in ancient Sumer and later ancient Greece, ancient India, and Rome, recognizable bicameral institutions first arose in Medieval Europe where it was associated with separate representation of different estates of the realm. For example, one house would represent the aristocracy, and the other would represent the commoners.

Bicameralism (disambiguation)

Bicameralism may refer to:

Bicameralism (psychology)

Bicameralism (the philosophy of "two-chamberedness") is a hypothesis in psychology that argues that the human mind once assumed a state in which cognitive functions were divided between one part of the brain which appears to be "speaking", and a second part which listens and obeys—a bicameral mind. The term was coined by Julian Jaynes, who presented the idea in his 1976 book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, wherein he made the case that a bicameral mentality came to be the normal and ubiquitous state of the human mind until as recently as 3000 years ago.

The Origin of Consciousness was financially successful, and has been reprinted several times. Originally published in 1976 (ISBN 0-395-20729-0), it was nominated for the National Book Award in 1978. It has been translated into Italian, Spanish, German, French, and Persian. A new edition, with an afterword that addressed some criticisms and restated the main themes, was published in the US in 1990 and in the UK by Penguin Books in 1993 (ISBN 0-14-017491-5), re-issued in 2000.