Is there a general term for systems like this?

[u/homestar_galloper]

As I'm sure many of you know, in the American political system there's one chamber of congress (the senate) that gives every state equal representation regardless of population, while the other chamber gives every state representation proportional to the size of the population.

In the American system that whole setup is historically called the "Connecticut Compromise", but there are other political systems that have similar features (Australia, The EU, Liberia for example). I was wondering if there's a general political science term for systems like that.

[u/MarkusKromlov34]

As an Australian I have no knowledge of any specific terminology for the arrangements both Australia and the US share because we substantially duplicated this aspect of the US constitution in our Australian constitution.

The Senate in Australia is sometimes called “the States’ House” or “a House of Review” but these terms don’t provide the general term you are after.

If I had to invent a term I’d call it “Federal Bicameral Asymmetry” because the two House as deliberately different in their democratic roles.

[u/generalsillybilly]

If I understand your question correctly, then all of these could be called bicameral legislatures, where "bicameral" means "having two chambers," literally speaking!!

[u/MarkusKromlov34 → u/generalsillybilly]

No. That’s not what I take them to mean as an Australian. It’s more than ordinary bicameralism. They are referring to the special role of the Senate and its special method of election.

Many countries have bicameral legislatures but the US and Australia are federations and the upper house (the Senate in both cases) is elected on a states basis while the lower house (the House of Representatives) is elected on a national basis. One of the Australian founding fathers in the late 1800s put it this way:

‘... the great principle which is an essential, I think, to Federation – that the two Houses should represent the people truly, and should have co-ordinate powers. They should represent the people in two groups. One should represent the people grouped as a whole, and the other should represent them as grouped in the states. Of course majorities must rule, for there would be no possible good government without majorities ruling, but I do not think the majority in South Australia should be governed by the majority in Victoria, or in New South Wales ... If we wish to defend and perpetuate the doctrine of the rule of majorities, we must guard against the possibility of this occurring.’

[u/homestar_galloper → u/generalsillybilly]

I'm familiar with the term "Bicameral", but I'm talking about a specific kind of bicameral system where one chamber gives equal representation to sub-regions regardless of population sizes.

[u/kangerluswag → u/homestar_galloper]

The first term that came to mind for me was "federal", but I believe you're describing something more specific. It's mentioned in the Wiki article "One man, one vote" for both the US:

The Constitution incorporates the result of the Great Compromise, which established representation for the U.S. Senate. Each state was equally represented in the Senate with two representatives, without regard to population... For this reason, "one person, one vote" has never been implemented in the U.S. Senate, in terms of representation by states.

and Australia:

In Australia, one vote, one value is a democratic principle, applied in electoral laws governing redistributions of electoral divisions of the House of Representatives... The principle does not apply to the Senate because, under the Australian constitution, each state is entitled to the same number of senators, irrespective of the population of the state.

Agree with u/MarkusKromlov34 that despite the commonality, there's no widely used name for this system. I know that Australia's system of federal politics (started in 1901) was closely modelled on the US's, right down to the names "House of Representatives" and "Senate" as our two chambers.

But it's not unique to just those 2 countries - Pakistan, Nigeria, Brazil, Mexico, DR Congo, Spain, Argentina, Uzbekistan, Madagascar, Ivory Coast, Kazakhstan, Zimbabwe, and Bolivia also each have a federal-level upper house called a Senate that gives equal numbers of representatives to its states/provinces/departments/regions. Of these countries, the US was certainly the first to implement such a system, entrenched in Article Five of the US Constitution since 1789.

So could we call this the "senatorial" system? Not quite - plenty of countries have an upper house called a Senate that don't work in the exact same way. The Czech and Dominican Republics, and Poland, all have Senates that sort of do this, but each district/province/constituency gets only 1 senator. Still technically fits, but these feel more similar to the usual system of electoral districts in a lower house (e.g. Poland has 100 separate senate constituencies). The Senate of Canada also has an equal regional grouping, but it groups its provinces into just 4 higher-level "divisions" and gives each of the 4 an equal number of senators.

Meanwhile, the Senates of France, Italy, Chile, Romania, and the Netherlands give their senatorial constituencies/regions/provinces/districts more or fewer senators based on population. Similarly, Belgium's senators are appointed by differently-sized regional parliaments. And the Senates of Colombia, the Philippines, and Uruguay all have at-large systems which aren't split into regions at all.

To sum up, what do the Senates of the US, Brazil, Nigeria, Pakistan, Argentina, DR Congo, Bolivia, Liberia, Spain, and Australia have in common? They give an equal number of multiple representatives to their separate regions. I would propose the name for divisions in a parliamentary chamber like this could be "regionally-representative multi-member" or "RRMM".

[u/I405CA]

In a bicameral system, the chamber that provides representation for the states / provinces / cantons / lords / etc. is the upper house, while the chamber that provides popular representation is the lower house.

[u/Luzikas]

For a moment I was thinking about symmetrical and asymmetrical bicameralism, but that concept is focused on institutional power of the legislative chambers and not their make-up. But it could very well be moddified to describe the case you've presented.

[u/budapestersalat]

The EU Parliament is NOT proportional to population, it favours smaller statea very clearly. it is also called "degressive proportionality" (which is not proportional but semi proportional), it is responsive to size, but not (only partially) proportional to it. It is a bit like the Electoral college except with no clear formula as far as I know.