Multicameralism

  Nations with a bicameral legislature.
  Nations with a unicameral legislature and an advisory body.
  Nations with a unicameral legislature.
  Nations with no legislature.
  Data not available.

In contrast to unicameralism, and bicameralism, multicameralism is the condition in which a legislature is divided into more than two deliberative assemblies, which are commonly called "chambers" or "houses".[1][2] This usually includes tricameralism with three chambers, but can also describe a system with any amount more. The word "multicameral" can also relate in other ways to its literal meaning of "many chambered" with use in science or biology.

  1. ^ Democratic constitutional design and public policy : analysis and evidence. Roger D. Congleton, Birgitta Swedenborg, Studieförbundet Näringsliv och samhälle. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. 2006. ISBN 978-0-262-27073-1. OCLC 74275466. Multicameralism remained commonplace within Europe until approximately 1800, after which most European governments gradually became bicameral, partly as a consequence of reforms associated with the French Revolution, but also as a consequence of new constitutional theories and subsequent pressures for constitutional reform{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  2. ^ Passaglia, Paolo (2018). "Unicameralism, Bicameralism, Multicameralism: Evolution and Trends in Europe" (PDF). Perspectives on Federalism. 10 (2): 4. The real patterns of the past are those that disappeared because they were abolished more or less recently. Most of them can be jointly defined as 'multicameralism', because they featured a number of chambers greater than two.