international
Can a parliamentary government dissolve itself?
<p>The United States has a constitution with a separation of powers keeping it from becoming a dictatorship.</p>

<p>What about countries with a single-housed parliment without a constitution (such as Israel[1])? </p>

<p>If a party would win 61% of the parliament, can they just legally cancel the next election? </p>

<p>[1]: Even though Israel has "basic laws", they are legally the same as all other laws and don't require a "super-majority" or anything like that. And even if it did, the US has a <em>much harder</em> time amending the constitution.</p>

<p>You can certainly do so: it's been done many times in the past, and can be done even with a written constitution. The most recent famous example that I know of would be how the Nazi party used the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_Act_of_1933" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Enabling Act, 1933</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_Fire_Decree" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Reichstag Fire Decree, 1933</a> to amend the constitution by essentially neutering all the safeguards, and used force to ensure that they could stay in power. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_reforms_of_Julius_Caesar" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Julius Caesar's reforms</a> follow in a similar vein.</p>

<p>For someone to successfully force change like this, you generally need a political system that is unstable and has no strong (or at least effective) checks and balances. Additionally, you need the support of the military because otherwise they will generally support the existing structure.</p>

<p>Other less extreme examples I can think of where a system has changed to another system would be former colonies adopting new constitutions (e.g. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Ireland" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Ireland</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Pakistan_of_1956" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Pakistan</a>), or where there has been significant change in the country's model (e.g. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_Constitution_of_1993" rel="nofollow noreferrer">South Africa</a>). Again, you need support, but this time it is within the existing political and judicial framework.</p>
