Three waves of semi-presidential studies

This article reviews the scholarship on semi-presidentialism since the early 1990s. We identify three waves of semi-presidential studies. The first wave focused on the concept of semi-presidentialism, how it should be defined, and what countries should be classified as semi-presidential. The second wave examined the effect of semi-presidential institutions on newly democratized countries. Does semi-presidentialism help or hinder the process of democratic consolidation? The third wave examines the effect of semi-presidential institutions on both recent and consolidated democracies. Third-wave studies have been characterized by three questions: to what extent does the direct election of the president make a difference to outcomes; to what extent does variation in presidential power make a difference; and what other factors interact with presidential power to help to bring about differential outcomes? The article argues that the concept of semi-presidentialism remains taxonomically valid, but that the empirical scholarship on countries with semi-presidential institutions needs to respond to broader developments within the discipline if it is to remain relevant.     

Examining the Lagged Effect of Economic Development on Political Democracy: A Panel-VAR Model

The debate about the relative merits of presidentialism and parliamentarism has a long history, but it was revived in 1990 with Juan Linz's articles about the supposed perils of presidentialism and the virtues of parliamentarism. The argument presented in this review is that we are now witnessing a ‘third wave’ of presidential/parliamentary studies since 1990. The ‘first wave’ began with Linz's articles. It was characterized by a debate in which there was one explanatory variable (the regime type) and one dependent variable (the success of democratic consolidation). The ‘second wave’ of presidential/parliamentary studies began around 1992–93. In the ‘second wave’ there is more than one explanatory variable (the regime type, usually, plus the party system and/or leadership powers) and often a different dependent variable (‘good governance’ as opposed to democratic consolidation). The ‘third wave’ is quite different. This work is informed by more general theories of political science. Here, the respective merits of presidential and parliamentary regimes are not necessarily the sole focus of the work. However, its overarching approach informs the debate in this area in a more or less direct manner. The argument in this review article is that the ‘third wave’ of studies has much to offer the ongoing debate about the relative merits of presidentialism and parliamentarism.     

Democracy,autocracy and the news: the impact of regime type on media freedom

Mass media is critical for the functioning of every contemporary political system. Thus, we can expect a variation in media freedom depending on the type of government since political regimes differ with regard to the political, legal and economic framework in which news coverage operates. This article investigates the effects of regime types, namely democracy and autocratic subtypes, on media freedom. It is argued that regime legitimation and governance are the driving forces behind diverging media policies in autocracies. From this theory, hypotheses regarding media freedom and regime type are derived and tested empirically, relying on statistical analyses that cover 149 countries over a period from 1993 to 2010. The empirical results demonstrate that democracies lead to significantly higher levels of media freedom than autocracies, with other things being equal. Within the autocratic spectrum, electoral autocracies, monarchies and military regimes have the freest media, whereas the most illiberal media can be found in communist ideocracies, where the ruling party holds a communication monopoly. Media freedom in personalist and non-ideological one-party regimes is on an intermediate level.     

Semi-presidentialism in lusophone countries: diffusion and operation

This article analyses the degree to which diffusion of Portugal's semi-presidential constitution occurred within lusophone countries following their move to multipartism in the 1990s. To do so, we first identify the main characteristics of the 1976 Portuguese constitution. Next, the constitutional choices made in Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe, and East Timor are mapped. Using existing typologies, we classify these regimes and contrast them with their European and francophone African counterparts. Finally, we investigate the effective dynamics of lusophone semi-presidential systems by focusing on how heads of state deal with heads of government and parliamentary majorities. We claim there is a “family resemblance” among lusophone semi-presidential regimes. This finding is important because it accounts for constitutional choices in a group of recent democratizing countries, and shows how external influences interact with local factors to produce major political outcomes.     

Semi-presidentialism,moderating power and inclusive governance. The experience of Timor-Leste in consolidating democracy

The relationship between the choice of a government system, namely semi-presidentialism, and the performance of democracy is the subject of current debate. This article considers Elgie's proposal for a positive correlation between premier-presidential forms of semi-presidentialism and the success of democratic transitions, and discusses the way in which Timor-Leste fits the model as well as the need for a clear view of the incentive mechanisms at play. It further analyses the importance of “independent” presidents with “moderating powers” as a way of achieving inclusive governance and to facilitate democratic consolidation. Contrary to suppositions that attribute a tendency for president-parliamentary regimes to succumb to conflict between the main political actors, the case of Timor-Leste suggests that the definition of the president's role as a “moderator”, and the exercise of the function by “independent”, non-party personalities counteracts such inclinations with positive effects on democratic consolidation.     

Mapping ‘Hybrid Regimes’: Regime Types and Concepts in Comparative Politics

This article addresses the conceptual challenges involved in mapping political regimes. The first section offers a critique of regime typologies that adopt a uni-dimensional approach to differentiating between political regimes. The second section shows why a two-dimensional typology is better grounded in liberal democratic theory as well as for analytically grasping the empirical variation between political regimes and regime change. The penultimate section proposes a classificatory scheme on the basis of a clear set of defining attributes of the two constitutive dimensions of liberal democracy – electoralism and constitutionalism. Equipped with this two-dimensional classificatory device the article proceeds in the last section to propose a regime typology with four main types of regime: democratic, constitutional-oligarchic, electoral-autocratic, and authoritarian. This provides a conceptual map in which the categories and subcategories developed by the literature on hybrid regimes can be located and analytically related to each other. The last section further divides the category of democratic regimes into four subtypes: liberal, constitutional, electoral, and limited.     

‘Big Men’ Rule: Presidential Power,Regime Type and Democracy in 30 African Countries

This article provides a systematic overview of the institutional basis of presidential power in 30 sub-Saharan African countries, using a broad comparative scheme to assess presidential power developed by Siaroff (2003). The dual purpose is, first, to compare the power of African presidents to patterns found by Siaroff for countries worldwide, looking particularly at the relation between regime type and presidential power; and second, to make a preliminary analysis of the political consequences of high levels of presidential power in the light of earlier theoretical claims associating it with regime problems such as democratic breakdown.

The article's comparative framework illustrates the high levels of institutional power of presidents in 30 African countries. As argued by Siaroff, regime type tells us little about presidential power; in these African cases, semi-presidential systems score even higher than presidential systems. One ‘parliamentary’ system also shows a high degree of presidential power. Moreover, there is very little difference in presidential power between democracies and non-democracies, and ‘minimal’ electoral democracies score higher on average than non-democracies and liberal democracies.

Examination of the consequences of high levels of presidential power also shows that more than a quarter (28.6 per cent) of such regimes experienced a democratic breakdown, although this is not a statistically significant level. A weak correlation is found between presidential power and freedom and democracy ratings, again not at a statistically significant level, while correlations with governance ratings are strong and statistically significant. A repeated measures test, however, does show a statistically significant relation with freedom and democracy. Although more research is needed, including a larger N and more variation in the independent variable, the evidence supports intuitive knowledge: a high degree of presidential power bodes ill for democracy and good governance in Africa.     

Populism and democratic crisis in semi-presidential countries

This article demonstrates how different political opportunity structures in semi-presidential countries either enable or inhibit the overreach of populist presidents. In Turkey, for example, political leverage has been used to hamstring the opposition and transform a democratic regime into an authoritarian one. In Bulgaria, democracy also faded under a populist prime minister. Ukraine’s democracy had a checkered history, with frequent changes of power culminating in presidential breakdown. The Czech Republic introduced popular elections for the president to strengthen legitimacy, but that exposed the regime to conflict between the president and the prime minister.     

Consistency in constitutional design and its effect on democracy

ABSTRACT

Does the art of crafting and amending a constitution lead to an internal consistency among constitutional provisions, and if so, what effect does that have on countries’ democratic performance? Drawing from theoretical claims on the separation of power and electoral legitimacy, this article develops a concept that identifies the institutional characteristics of consistency and inconsistency in the constitutional design with the example of the presidency. Empirically, this concept is focused on aligning or counterbalancing the mode of presidential election and the de jure power of the president. Based on a comparative perspective of republican parliamentary and semi-presidential systems, the article focuses on the empirical trends of consistent and inconsistent design and addresses their effect on democratic development. The findings show a balance between consistent and inconsistent design in terms of quantity. The influence on democratization varies considerably across different measures but I find significant support for a positive effect of inconsistency on liberal democracy, freedom, horizontal accountability and the rule of law.     

Party systems in Latin America: institutionalization,decay, and collapse,edited by Scott Mainwaring

Although coming of age under a totalitarian regime drastically reduces the chances of acquiring democratic values or supporting democracy, factors other than the formal nature of the political regime shape political values as well. The informal structure of the political regime, which consists of rules developed in political practice and economic and human development, may shape individual values and attitudes and produce different attitudes towards democracy in different totalitarian regimes. This article focuses on the effect of early socialization on the support for democracy among citizens who have been ruled under two different non-democratic regimes. We compare the dynamics in Spain and Romania during the post-totalitarian period with the aim of identifying how coming of age operated in these two different totalitarian regimes and how each type of non-democratic regime affected the legitimacy of the new democratic rule. Using survey data from various sources (Standard Eurobarometer, Central and Eastern Eurobarometer and Candidate Countries Eurobarometer) that allow both longitudinal and cross-sectional comparisons, we decompose the social change in support for democracy over the post-totalitarian period in both countries using cross-classified fixed effects models. The analyses demonstrate the different effects of socialization on support for democracy in these two different totalitarian contexts.     

Is successful democracy promotion possible? The conceptual problem

There is a standard academic consensus that semi-presidentialism is perilous for new democracies. In particular, this is because semi-presidential countries run the risk of experiencing difficult periods of ‘cohabitation’ between a president and a prime minister who are opposed to each other, and because they may also experience periods of divided minority government that encourage the president to rule by decree and subvert the rule of law. This article examines the evidence to support these two arguments. It finds very few cases of cohabitation in young democracies and only one case where cohabitation has led directly to democratic collapse. By contrast, it finds more cases of divided minority government and more cases where divided minority government has been associated with democratic failure. However, the article also finds that young democracies have survived divided minority government. The conclusion is that, to date, there is insufficient evidence to support the long-standing and highly intuitive argument that cohabitation is dangerous for new democracies. There is more evidence to support the much newer argument about the dangers of divided minority government. Even so, more work is needed in this area before we can conclude that semi-presidentialism is inherently perilous.     

Observing incumbent abuses: improving measures of electoral and competitive authoritarianism with new data

Electoral and competitive authoritarian regimes have become a major focus of comparative research. Yet, finding measures that distinguish these regimes from democracies is challenging, especially for scholars conducting large-N cross-national research, as this conceptual distinction rests on incumbent abuses that are difficult to systematically observe. This article reviews common measures that simply utilize extant regime indicators to draw the line with democracy, demonstrates their poor performance in mirroring a benchmark from case-based measurement, and illustrates the adverse implications for theory building. The article then shows how data on incumbent abuse from the National Elections Across Democracy and Dictatorship (NELDA) and Varieties of Democracy (VDEM) projects can be utilized to construct alternative measures. A NELDA-based measure far outperforms extant alternatives in mirroring the case-based benchmark. The article then discusses why a VDEM-based alternative should be a superior option once data is available and how one might be constructed.     

Popular perceptions of political regimes in East and Southeast Asia

Political regimes in East and Southeast Asia run the full spectrum from liberal democracy through various hybrid democratic-authoritarian types and on to full-blown authoritarianism and totalitarianism. While political scientists have invested much effort and ingenuity in creating typologies of regimes to better understand the empirical diversity of political structures and processes, much less attention has been paid to what the citizens think. How do people in East and Southeast Asian countries perceive their own institutions and performance of governance? This article uses public opinion data derived from the AsiaBarometer 2006 and 2007 Surveys of 12 East and Southeast Asian countries to map what citizens actually think about their structures, processes, and outcomes of governance and compare these with the regime classifications of political scientists. The results revealed universal commitment to elections but disillusionment with political practice, positive estimations of the institutions of governance in Southeast Asia but much less enthusiasm in East Asia, and a preference for moderate opinions. There is no clear overall correlation between regime type and popular perception.     

Organizing to rule: structure,agent, and explaining presidential management styles in Africa

Recent studies of comparative presidentialism have emphasized the importance of informal relationships between presidents and other political actors in explaining how presidents build governing coalitions. What has generally been under-investigated in the literature is how the characteristics of “presidents as agents” impact how they interact with other political actors – in particular, how presidents relate to their cabinets in terms of turnover and inclusiveness. We hypothesize that presidents who were former rebel leaders will behave very differently from presidents that do not have such backgrounds. To test our hypotheses, we collected data from 36 countries that are classified either as presidential or semi-presidential systems in Africa with 93 individual presidential administrations from 1990 to 2009. We found that presidents who were former rebel leaders were less likely to have major cabinet turnovers than other presidents. However, former rebel leaders did not have less politically inclusive cabinets (at least in partisan terms) but did have less ethnically inclusive cabinets than presidents with other backgrounds. The results suggest that agent characteristics, that is, the previous experiences of the president as a decision maker, are as important as the structural constraints he or she faces.     

Does economic inequality breed political inequality?

Does economic inequality generate political inequality? While there is a large literature on the effect of inequality on regime change and support for democracy, there is little research on its effect on political equality across socioeconomic positions. Yet democracy and political equality, although related, are distinct concepts. While political power tends to be more evenly distributed in democracies than in autocracies, there is substantial variation in both regime types. This study argues that economic inequality should decrease political equality through multiple mechanisms: (1) it increases the resources of the rich relative to the poor; (2) it widens the gap in policy preferences across income groups; (3) it reduces participation; and (4) it depresses support for democracy. Using three measures of inequality and data on more than 140 countries between 1961 and 2008, it was found that economic inequality tends to increase political inequality, even when one controls for the level of democracy. Results hold when the sample is restricted by regime type. Finally, evidence in favour of the mechanisms is provided.     

Elections,Election Outcomes,and Democracy in Southern Africa

Elections and election outcomes are widely used as a convenient short cut to measuring democracy. If this were correct, information on elections and election outcomes would be a time- and cost-saving means of identifying regime type. However, this article shows that the influential democracy measures of Beck et al., Ferree and Singh, Przeworski et al., and Vanhanen fail to adequately identify regime type when applied to ten countries in Southern Africa. For most countries, it is not possible to distinguish democracies from non-democracies on the basis of elections and election outcomes. Multi-party elections are not always free, fair, and democratic; dominant parties and dominant party systems are not necessarily undemocratic; large election victories are not by themselves proof of foul play; and not all authoritarian regimes maintain their rule through overwhelming parliamentary or electoral majorities.     

Legislative powers,veto players,and the emergence of delegative democracy: A comparison of presidentialism in the Philippines and South Korea

This article integrates institutional and rational choice approaches to policy making to explain the emergence of delegative democracy in presidential systems. Delegative democracy, in essence, is a polyarchy which violates the rules and norms that secure the checks on the effective political power of democratically elected presidents at the horizontal level of the relations of the executive, legislature and judiciary. The article argues that delegative democracy is the result of the interaction of two variables: the strength and types of presidents' legislative powers and the configuration of institutional and partisan veto players. Strong, proactive legislative powers and weak veto players permit presidents to establish a delegative democracy; weak, reactive legislative powers and strong veto players hamper the emergence of delegative democracy. This general assumption explains why presidentialism in South Korea and in the Philippines developed in different directions in the 1980s and 1990s. The analysis shows that in case of moderate legislative powers of the president, the number, coherence and ideological distance of partisan veto players becomes particularly important. It suggests that studies of democratic regimes should give special emphasis to the rules regulating the distribution of legislative powers between presidents and parliaments and the configuration of veto players.     

Parallel authoritarian powers: an explanation of Mexico’s authoritarian regime breakdown

Regional multilateral regimes have become important instruments for promoting and defending democracy around the world. The novel nature of these regional instruments has generated a cottage industry in social science scholarship. Yet, none of these works compare the democracy promotion and defence regimes of the Organization of American States (OAS) and the African Union (AU). This article is designed to fill this gap. We argue that the unique constellation of actors that are members of each respective organization have reinforced two distinct democracy promotion and defence paths. The state-driven regime evolution characteristic of the Americas contrasts with Africa's expert-driven process of regime construction. The state-centric process of the OAS regime has bolstered a narrow interstate multilateralism that upholds traditional sovereign state prerogatives and minimizes the role for non-state actors in the promotion and defence of democracy in the Americas. The expert-driven process of AU's regime construction has fostered a legalistic approach to democratic promotion and defence in Africa and opened up space for non-state actors to play a central role in the development of regional democracy promotion and defence norms.     

An elusive transition: The slow motion demise of authoritarian dominant party rule in Mexico

Mexico's authoritarian dominant party regime is a curious hybrid.¹ The 1917 Constitution is an advanced liberal charter and some basic rules of political procedure ‐ such as the fixed timetable for federal elections and the no re‐election rule ‐ are strongly institutionalised. Yet for over 60 years the regime was also clearly authoritarian, deriving its legitimacy from the revolution rather than the electorate. This article analyses the sui generis nature of the Mexican authoritarian regime, tracing the way formal constitutional rules were supplemented (or displaced) by a coherent and relatively flexible set of informal understandings perpetuating one party dominance. It counterposes these country‐specific characteristics to comparative accounts of how authoritarian regimes ‘break down’, or introduce a ‘political liberalization’ which perhaps opens the way to a ‘transition’ to democracy. Under each of these headings Mexican reality demands significant adaptations to the standard account. During 1994 Mexico underwent severe upheavals without a ‘breakdown’ of the regime. Instead the 1994 presidential election provided a reasonably authentic electoral mandate to the current administration ‐ and yet the process of ‘transition’ to democracy in Mexico remains elusive. This article uses the current Mexican process to probe the scope and limitations of the comparative democratization literature.     

#Democracy: social media use and democratic legitimacy in Central and Eastern Europe

Since 1989, many of the former communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have made the dramatic change from communist regimes to democratic nations that are integrated in the European sphere. While these sweeping changes have given rise to a successful transition to democracy unlike any the world has ever seen, there remain issues with governance as well as citizen support for the regime. While other studies have shown that mass media can influence a person's attitudes and opinions in the region, none has explored what effect social media can have on orientations toward democracy in the region. In the following paper, I build several hypotheses based on previous studies of media effects and democratic survival. I then employ survey data to empirically test whether social media increases support for democracy. The study finds that not only does using social media increase support for democracy, but also simple usage rather than information seeking provides more consistent effects on a person's support for democracy in CEE.