8. Political institutions: presidentialism Flashcards
characteristics of presidential system
- the executive and legislature 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
2: because he is elected by the people, not parliament. only under a few circumstances.
characteristics parliamentary system
- only the legislative is elected by the people
- the parliament selects a minpres who then forms the cabinet
- chief executive is a team: PM & 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 no governing power
- examples are italy and czechia
- represents all of the people
- explicit function to be impartial and neutral
- explicit function to bring parties together during crises
italy and czechia etc still called parliamentary bc the parliament chooses the governing executive
what are different accountability structures
presidential vs parliamentary
- dual legitimacy problem for presidentialism
- since both the legislature and president are elecetd by voters, who is right when they disagree?
- creates gridlock, clash of powers cannot be resolved within the system
- parliamentary doesn’t have this, because the minpres is accountable towards the parliament
sources of power presidential and parliamentary regimes
de jure power
constitution defines:
- presidents veto power of legislation
- ability to legislate by decree in certain areas
- ability to take immediate military action if needed
- presidents and parliaments power to impeach each other: limited and varied
de facto power
- strength and cohesion of incumbent parties in legislature: need to have a majority in parliament or other parties voting with you
- electoral legitimacy: president limited de facto power if he/she won by only 30% of the votes compared to 60%
- de jure power meaning that the constitution says what the president can and cannot do
- de jure power more important for president, PM’s more informal power
- example of strength and cohesion needed biden losing majority in congress, no legislation will pass through
- UK (Westminster regimes) more powerful than other parliamentary regimes because they can reshuffle their cabinet, majority and can appoint their own cabinet
executive-legislative relations
executive dominance
- legislative makes laws and executive implements laws
- in practice there is no full separation, they overlap
- power of executive is degree in which they can overrule laws of the legislative
- executive dominance is the relative power of the executive in regard to the legislative
- so: de facto executive dominance is more important for power concentration/dispersion than having a presidential or parliamentary regime
linz’s arguments against presidentialism
- dual legitimacy and gridlock
- fixed terms: there is no way to get rid of this person unless you can find a ground for impeachment
- president represents citizens that voted for him/her AND all citizens (partisan vs non-partisan, head of government and state)
- personalism
- rigid: fixed terms, gridlock
- politics becomes a zero-sum game: distance between winners and losers bigger
- time pressure: fixed term, make decisions and push through legislative agenda due to time pressure. linz argues it makes presidents make worse decisions
only advantage is stability (compared to frequent government crises, reshuffles, and snap elections in parliamentary system), but the surface instability in parliamentary systems avoids overthrowing regime, which will happen in presidential systems
6: also in majoritarian parliamentary systems with single party in power, but they can get kicked
horowitz’ objections against linz
- linz based his analysis on latin america, if focus is on africa and asia you can see instability is caused by parliamentary systems
- under parliamentarism, majoritarian electoral systems can have same winner-take-all effect
- under presidentialism, conciliatory practices can exist as well
- under presidentialism opposition and government can cooperate –> need to look at full set of institutions like electoral system, party system, and federalism
- it’s not the presidency per se, it’s the electoral system by which the president is elected
- strong prime ministers in parliamentary systems can be more powerful in practice than presidents, causing weak cabinets and potential power-abuse
lipset’s objections against linz
- adds to horowitz’ cases the cases of parliamentary regimes that broke down in interwar europe
- pm with a majority in parliament is much stronger than american president –> assumption that president is inherently stronger than pm is wrong
- in presidential systems representation of diverse interests can lead to cross-party alliances –> assumption that power is more concentrated in presidential regimes also wrong
- political parties in presidential regimes more umbrella organisations, collection of diverse and loosely coupled interests in two major opposing camps; in parliamentary regimes more coherent and disciplined parties and therefore more party system fragmentation
- religion and political culture is more important than institutions
potential negative effects of presidentialism
authoritarian “creep”
- president changing constitution to enlarge executive power/gaining personal power through “ruling-by-decree”/through control over military
- examples are russia/venezuela/turkey
deadlock resulting from dual legitimacy
- president vetoing parliamentary legislation versus parliament refusing to approve budget/legislation
- examples are US federal budget crisis
zero-sum competition for power
- presidentialism makes politics a zero-sum game; in other words power-concentrating systems (more effective, but more prone to abuse)
this depends on executive dominance, only in powerful presidencies
potential negative effects of parliamentarism
indecisiveness
- fragmentation of parliament leading to indecisiveness/lack of action
- netherlands coalition government forming example
instability
- frequent cabinet turnover and elections creating instability
- example italy because divided country
backstage politics/pm shuffles without electoral legitimation
- think of uk with boris, sunak, liz truss, people didn’t have a say.
