8. Political Institutions: Presidentalism Flashcards
Characteristics of Presidential system
- Executive + legislative power are directly elected by the people
(Exception USA electoral college) - Chief executive is not accountable to Parliament
(Only through impeachment) - Chief executive is a single person (mostly)
- Chief executive is head of government
(Partisan, political direction)
And head of State
(Ceremonial function mostly) - chief executive has a fixed term of office
Characteristics Parliamentary system
- Only legislative is elected by the people
- The parliament selects a prime minister - who then forms the cabinet
- Chief executive is a team : prime minister & cabinet
- Chief executive is only head of government, not a head of state
What is a semi-presidential system?
both popularly elected president and parliamentary prime minister
Elected but ceremonial presidents
Elected president, but not governing power
- representative of all of the people
Explicit function: to be impartial & neutral
also function to bring parties together during crisis
Example: Italy + Czechia
rep
Accountability structure Presidentialism
Presidentialism –> dual legitimacy problem.
Both legislative + president are elected by voters.
By disagreement issue: who has final say?
–> Leads to** gridlock + clashes of power** that system can not easiliy resolve
Accountability structure Parliamentary
Parliamentary –> no dual legitimacy problem.
Prime Minister is accountable to Parliament and can be removed through a vote of ‘‘no confidence’
this ensures smoother conflict resolution within system
What are two different sources of power in presidential and parliamentary regimes?
- De jure power
- formal, constitutional power, defined by Constitution - De facto power
- practical political power
De Jure power
formal constitutional power, defined by Constitution
De jure power is more important for presidents since their autority is constitutionally defined.
Prime ministers rely on more informal power and party strength
Presidential system:
* veto power over legislation
* ability to legislate by degree in certain areas
* power to take immediate military action
* presidements/ parliaments can impeach each other.
Defacto power
**Practical, political power
**
Strength and cohesion of parties in legislature
* need majority in Parliament or alliances with other parties to pass laws.
(Biden lost majority in Congress –> led to gridlock, no legislation passes)
Electoral Legitimacy: presidents who wins only 30% votes has weaker de factor power than with 60% support.
Why is UK. Westminister system more powerful than other Parliamentary regimes?
Because:
* Prime Minister can reshuffle cabinet
* Majority party controls the government
* Prime Minister appoints their own cabinet
Executive legislative relations-
Legislative makes laws
Executive –> implement laws
In practice: no full seperation, they overlap.
Power of executive: degree in which they can ‘overrule’ laws of the legislative.
executive dominance
Executive dominace: relative power of executive in regard of legislative. The degree in which they can overrule laws of legislative
!!! de facto executive dominance is more important for power concentration/ dispersion than having a presidential or parliamentary regime.
Linz arguments against Presidentialism (7)
- Dual legitimacy = gridlock
- Fixed terms = no way to get rid of person unless you can find ground of impeachment
- president represents citizens who voted for him but also ALL other citizens
- Personalism
- Rigid –> fixed terms, gridlock
- Politics become a Zero-sum game = distance between winners and losers bigger
- Time pressure = fixed terms, influencing decisions + push through legislative agenda due to time pressure. ‘’ Presidents make worse decisions’’.
Horowitz objections against Linz (6)
1. Linz based his analysis on Latin America.
- if we look at Asia/ Africa, instability is often caused by Parliamentary systems, not just Presidentialism
2. Parliamentary systems with Majoritarian Electoral systems can also be ‘‘winner takes all’‘
- same polarization + power concentration
3. Presidentialism can include Conciliatory practices (mediator)
- can negotiate, cooperate with opposition, reducing zero-sum nature.
4. Institutions matter more than just President
(Ful linstitutional frame work: electoral system, party system, federalism)
5. Problem is not Presidency, but HOW presidents are elected.
- different electoral rules hape behaviour
**
6. Strong Prime Ministers can be more powerful than presidents in some places**
- PM power abuse
Lipsets objections against Linz’s critique of Presidentialism (5)
- Parliamential regimes also have failed
- Prime Ministers with a Parliamentary Majority can be more powerful than U.S. presidents
- Presidential systems can foster cross-party alliances
- Party structures differ between systems
- Religion & political culture matter more than institutions
! Potential negative effects Presidentialism (3)
- Authoritarian ‘‘creep’
- president changing constitution to enlarge executive power/ enlarge personal power
–> through more control over military for example - deadlock resulting from Dual legitimacy
- Zero-sum competition for power
- power concentrating: more effective but more prone to abuse.
Potential negative effects Parliamentarism (3)
- Indecisiveness
- fragmentation of Parliament
(NL coalition forming) - instability
- freuent cabinet turnover + elections - Backstage politics
- Prime minister shuffles wihtout electoral legitimation (people dont have a say)
Gallagher Index Disproporitonality
measures how closely votes shares
match seat shares.
Higher G –> more disportionality –> more power concentration /
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