Electing Presidents In Presidential And Semi Presidential Democracies

This primer discusses the constitutional rules for choosing presidents in countries where the president exercises significant governance powers. This includes both: (a) countries where presidents perform the functions of both head of state and chief executive; and (b) countries where presidents, although required to share power with a prime minister who is responsible to the legislature, nevertheless have an active role in governance and more than merely formal or ceremonial powers. In a democracy, presidents with such powers must be chosen by a process that confers upon them a democratic mandate and legitimacy —the norm being direct popular elections. International IDEA’s Constitution-Building Primers are designed to assist in-country constitution-building or constitutional-reform processes by helping citizens, political parties, civil society organizations, public officials and members of constituent assemblies make informed constitutional choices. They also provide guidance for staff of intergovernmental organizations and other external actors working to provide well informed, context-relevant support to local decision-makers. Each Primer is written as an introduction for non-specialist readers, and as a convenient aide-memoire for those with prior knowledge of, or experience with, constitution-building. Arranged thematically around the practical choices faced by constitution-builders, the Primers aim to explain complex constitutional issues in a quick and easy way.

Explores the effect of semi-presidentialism on newly-democratising countries. In recent years semi-presidentialism - the situation where a constitution makes provision for both a directly elected president and a prime minister who is responsible to the legislature - has become the regime type of choice for many countries.

This is the first academic study of the impact of semi-presidentialism in emerging democracies outside of Europe. Semi-presidentialism is where there is both a directly-elected fixed-term president and a prime minister who is responsible to the legislature. For the most part, semi-presidentialism is seen as being a risky choice for new democracies because it can create potentially destabilizing competition between the president and prime minister. And yet, there are now more than fifty semi-presidential countries in the world. Moreover, many of these countries are in Africa, the former Soviet Union and Asia, often in places where democracy has yet to establish a firm foundation. This study begins with a chapter that discusses the advantages and disadvantages of semi-presidentialism and provides the theoretical framework for a wide-ranging series of country chapters presented in the second part of the book. Written by country/area specialists, the case studies highlight the political processes at work in young semi-presidential democracies. Semi-Presidentialism Outside Europe will appeal to those researching and studying in the fields of comparative politics, development and democracy.

Contributed articles on executive power.

This book examines the relationship between semi-presidentialism and democratic performance. Semi-presidentialism - where a constitution provides for both a directly elected president and a prime minister and cabinet responsible to the legislature - has become the regime type of choice for new democracies. There are now over 50 countries in the world with a semi-presidential constitution and the vast majority of these countries have chosen this form of government since the early 1990s. This book operationalises Shugart and Carey's distinction between president-parliamentarism - where the prime minister is responsible to both the legislature and to the directly elected president - and premier-presidentialism - where the prime minister is responsible to the legislature alone. The book shows that, all else equal, the president-parliamentary sub-type is more likely to be associated with a poorer democratic performance than its premier-presidential counterpart. The evidence is based on a mixed-method approach, including large-n comparative statistical studies of all semi-presidential democracies since 1919, as well as in-depth case studies. Comparative Politics is a series for students, teachers, and researchers of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are characterised by a stress on comparative analysis and strong methodological rigour. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research. For more information visit: www.essex.ac.uk/ecpr

Semi-Presidentialism is the term used to describe the constitutional arrangement where there is a directly elected president and a prime-minister who is responsible to parliament. Examples of semi-presidential regimes include Finland, France, Portugal, Poland, Russia, and Ukraine. These countries share certain constitutional features, but the exercise of presidential and prime-ministerial power varies greatly from one to another. Semi-Presidentialism in Europe examines the politics of semi-presidentialism and explores why it is that seemingly similar political systems operate in such different ways. Furthermore, the book examines the constitutional powers of political leaders, the role of political parties and the importance of past precedent.

This book provides a framework for analyzing the impact of the separation of powers on party politics. Conventional political science wisdom assumes that democracy is impossible without political parties, because parties fulfil all the key functions of democratic governance. They nominate candidates, coordinate campaigns, aggregate interests, formulate and implement policy, and manage government power. When scholars first asserted the essential connection between parties and democracy, most of the world's democracies were parliamentary. Yet by the dawn of the twenty-first century, most democracies had directly elected presidents. David J. Samuels and Matthew S. Shugart provide a theoretical framework for analyzing variation in the relationships among presidents, parties, and prime ministers across the world's democracies, revealing the important ways that the separation of powers alters party organization and behavior - thereby changing the nature of democratic representation and accountability.

The book analyzes the presidencies of three neighboring Central European countries – Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia – in the context of their interactions with cabinets (and prime ministers), parliaments and the constitutional courts, all which have proved crucial actors in the region’s political and constitutional battles. Using both institutional and behavioral perspectives along with an innovative definition of semi-presidentialism, the book argues that presidential powers – rather than the mode of the election of the president – are crucial to the functioning of the regimes and their classification into distinctive regime types. Focusing on intra-executive conflicts and the interaction of the president with other constitutional players it argues that, regardless of the mode of the election of the president, regimes have traditionally been very similar not only in their institutional settings, but also in the way they function. Finally, it shows that Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia should be classified as parliamentary regimes. This text will be of key interest to scholars and students of Central and East Europe studies/politics, post-Communist studies, presidential studies and more broadly to political elites and institutions, comparative politics and legislative studies.