From semi-presidentialism to parliamentarism: Regime change and presidential power in Moldova

This article examines Moldova's constitutional change in 2000 from a semi-presidential to a parliamentary regime and analyses what the Moldovan case tells us about the nature of executive power. One of the interesting issues that this case raises is whether our definition of regime really captures the locus of political power. While Moldova has evolved from a semi-presidential to a parliamentary regime, the president is more powerful under the current regime than previous presidents were in a semi-presidential regime. The consolidation of the president's party in the parliament explains the concentration of executive power more than constitutional prerogatives.     

Political Business Cycle in Taiwan—Evidence from Central Government Expenditures

The political business cycle (PBC) refers to the phenomenon of an incumbent utilizing fiscal or monetary policies to create an economic boom before an election so that periodic fluctuations are induced according to election calendars. This article uses panel data from 1992 to 2010 to examine the effect of presidential elections on central government departmental expenditure in Taiwan. The results suggest an opportunistic PBC in Taiwan after the first Taiwanese presidential direct election in 1996. Furthermore, Taiwan’s government expenditure cycles have been significantly stronger in the years of the “new democracy.”     

The Philippine presidency in Southeast Asian perspective: imperiled and imperious presidents but not perilous presidentialism

ABSTRACT

Among the neglected cases of presidential systems in Southeast Asia, the Philippines is particularly interesting as the oldest in the region and as a ‘pure’ case of presidentialism which provides seemingly strong evidence for its ‘perilousness’. ‘First wave’ presidentialism theory appears to explain how competing legitimacy claims between a president and the legislature contributed to the downfall of a sitting president (Joseph E. Estrada in 2001). Yet, Philippine presidents have usually dominated other branches of government. O’Donnell's concept of ‘delegative democracy’ helps elucidate the hegemonic position of Philippine presidents generally and sheds light on the illiberally transgressive nature of the Marcos and Duterte presidencies in particular. When these twin perils of imperiled and imperious presidents are examined regionally, however, striking parallels are apparent in parliamentary Thailand while the Indonesian case provides a contrasting example of a relatively stable presidential system.     

Farewell to the Caucasus: Regional ethnic clan politics and the growing instability of the ruling elite after the 2012 presidential elections in Russia

One of the most lingering questions about Russian politics that dominates public discourse and media coverage is the future of political regime after the 2012 presidential elections. The answer to this question is inextricably linked to the extent of differences between President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, how long their “tandemocracy” will last and what can bring about regime change as scarce critics of the Kremlin, from ultra-liberals to communists, have been haphazardly co-opted into the power system, leaving no political ambitions that they would not, in principle, be ready to abandon in return for proper compensation.In sharp contrast to the views of many regional experts and commentators, the present-day Russian Federation is the world's most anti-Soviet state. It is based upon a very different set of values: private ownership, dire individualism, the cult of money, a clan-based political system, and pervasive corruption at all levels of government. The North Caucasus ethnocratic elites, however, do not have access to abundant resources for sale, and are forced to look around for alternative sustenance, as rigid centralism and unification limit their rent-seeking capabilities. Alexander Khloponin, the incumbent presidential envoy in charge of the North Caucasus Federal District, seems to continue the policy of buying the loyalty of regional archaic clan-based elites that aggravates rather than improves the situation.The paper addresses this puzzle: why, against rigorous rhetoric and demonstration of tight grip over the region, neither Putin nor Medvedev has real power to bring change to the North Caucasus? In an attempt to solve this puzzle, the paper examines the triadic relationship among central political elite, who benefited from the massive privatisation of lucrative segments of Soviet industry in the early 1990s, regional clan-based ethnocracy, and non-systemic religious opposition. Drawing on the works of Russian scholars and experts in Russian politics, the paper explores the hypothesis that on-going instability in the North Caucasus can no longer be explained by a well-known set of theories of ethnic violence, because it is carefully negotiated by regional and central political elite, who do not see the North Caucasus as an indispensable part of the Russian Federation and whose clan-based rent-seeking agendas have gradually driven Russian statehood into a complete dead-end. Instead of facing the real challenges that are addressed in this paper, it is only able to make a public show of action on the eve of crucial political campaigns: the 2012 presidential elections and the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. The paper concludes that the deep freeze in the Russian political system has exhausted its debatable potential for change through the existing tandem model of government with its obscure division of roles between two leaders. What we actually see is an imitation of political reform and the resulting degradation of the entire system of governance. Over the past century, Russian polity has never been as weak as today, because the only legitimate source of power in Russia is corruption.     

The Electoral Dynamics of Human Development

This paper analyses the impact of elections, partisan and political support effects on the dynamics of human development in a panel of 82 countries over the period 1980–2013. A Generalised Method of Moments(GMM) estimator is employed and the results point out to the presence of an electoral cycle in the growth rate of human development. Majority governments also influence it, but no evidence is found regarding partisan effects. The electoral cycles have proved to be stronger in non-OECD countries, in countries with less frequent elections, with lower levels of income and human development, in presidential and non-plurality systems and in proportional representation regimes.     

Mis-coordination and political misalignments in ticket-splitting: the case of Chile, 2005–2009

Voters normally split their tickets when they do not feel sufficiently represented by only one political party or when politicians cultivate a personal vote regardless of party identification. Yet, voters might also split their tickets when they feel indifferent about like-minded parties or individual candidates. The authors distinguish between misalignment ticket-splitting (MATS), caused by a mismatch between voters’ preferences and the alternatives offered by the party system, and mis-coordination ticket-splitting (MCTS), when like-minded parties offer choices equally acceptable to voters. MCTS is likely to occur under proportional representation systems with multiple parties. The authors apply our categorization to concurrent presidential and legislative elections in Chile in 2005 and 2009. There was plenty of MCTS but little MATS. The authors suggest that the two forms should be separately analyzed as they are reflective of different political phenomena.     

Autocracy, Elections, and Fiscal Policy: Evidence from Malaysia

Authoritarian regimes often use fiscal policy to reward political supporters and to punish political opponents. In many authoritarian regimes with political institutions like parties, legislatures, and elections, elections become a focal point for budget expenditures and the distribution of government patronage. A time-series analysis of Malaysian fiscal expenditures from 1967 to 1997 shows that the ruling coalition systematically increases federal government spending before elections. In addition to marshalling private resources to distribute patronage, the Malaysian government manipulates the government’s official position. These findings have important implications for the growing literature on political institutions under autocratic regimes and the politics of patronage and redistribution in the developing world. They also suggest a new empirical domain for existing theories of political business cycles.     

When hybridity breeds contempt: negative hybrid peace in Cambodia

Algeria's third plural presidential election caught the imagination of the Algerian electorate like no one has done before. Previously, the results were known in advance and elections served only to confer legitimacy on decisions made elsewhere, invariably by the military. This 2004 election seems to be more open. At least in theory, for the first time in Algeria's history, the winner of this election is not going to be the explicit choice of the military. In addition to the neutrality of the army, the autonomy of the former ruling party, the FLN and the unprecedented criticism of the President, the ingredients for an open and exciting election were in place. While most candidates engaged in negative campaigning, sometimes even at the expense of their political manifestos, the incumbent president stressed his achievements, particularly on the security front. ‘National reconciliation’, the way towards the establishment of further peace, dominated his political campaign and turned the election to a referendum on stability.     

Compartmentalized ideology and nation-building in non-democratic states

What are the mechanisms of legitimation in non-democratic and linguistically divided states? How do regimes in these states use and manipulate the ideology and nation-building for the purposes of regime legitimation? The article focuses on the concept of compartmentalized ideology in non-democratic regimes with substantial divisions in the so-called titular and minority group where socio-linguistic divide allows regimes to construct diverse audiences and even political communities with their own distinct narratives and discourses about the nation, state and the regime. The compartmentalized ideology is only sustainable under the conditions of the regime's power to control and facilitate these discourses through the system of authoritative presidential addresses to the nation and/or other forms of regime's communication with the polity. The shifting of these discourses and themes contribute to the regime stability but also may constitute its re-legitimation.     

Principal–Agent Dynamics and Electoral Manipulation: Local Risks,Patronage and Tactical Variation in Russian Elections, 2003–2012

Abstract

Why are some elections manipulated more severely than others, and why do the techniques used to manipulate them vary over time and space? This article addresses these related questions by showing that patronage resources—not incumbent popularity—make manipulation appealing to frontline agents, while local political conditions can make manipulation personally risky for them. Agents can mitigate these risks by adopting more dispersed forms of manipulation like vote-buying, rather than more centralised falsification. These hypotheses are tested using forensic analysis of electoral data from more than 90,000 precincts per election across Russia’s 83 regions, from 2003 to 2012.     

Poland's politics and the travails of transition after 2001: The 2005 elections

As previously, the 2005 election in Poland saw the defeat of the incumbent government, but unlike previous elections, it marked the end of the Solidarity – successor party divide that had characterised Polish politics since 1989. The near simultaneity of parliamentary and presidential election campaigns made the campaigns indistinguishable, and each interacted with the other. Party programmes were similar; transition-related issues dominated the election. Its unexpected victor was Law and Justice (PiS), which sought a radical break with the trajectory of post-communist development and a moral revolution in a new ‘Fourth Republic’. PiS successfully appropriated the welfare mantle of the discredited social democrats and mobilised traditional conservative and religious values. Despite formal plans for a PiS coalition with Civic Platform, the election resulted unexpectedly in PiS's coalition with the radical parties Self-Defence and the League of Polish Families.     

Is Local Development Good Politics? Local Development Expenditures and the Re-Election of Governors in the Philippines in the 1990s

Abstract

Are incumbent governors who put more weight on development spending likely to be re-elected? To answer this question, an economic model of a re-electionist local chief executive is introduced and validated with a panel data of provincial governors who ran for another term of office during the election years 1992, 1995 and 1998 in the Philippines. It is found that incumbent governors improve their re-election chances with higher spending on economic development services, other things being constant. Moreover, governors who are members of political clans also have higher development spending especially when faced with rival clans. Thus, elections are still an effective disciplining device, more especially when rivalry is intense among political clans. The policy implication then is to enhance political competition rather than just ban political dynasties to improve the performance of elected officials under decentralization.     

Democracy,development and the executive presidency in Sri Lanka

This paper examines the developmental causes and consequences of the shift from a parliamentary to a semi-presidential system in Sri Lanka in 1978, examining its provenance, rationale and unfolding trajectory. Drawing on a wide range of sources, it sets out an argument that the executive presidency was born out of an elite impulse to create a more stable, centralised political structure to resist the welfarist electoral pressures that had taken hold in the post-independence period, and to pursue a market-driven model of economic growth. This strategy succeeded in its early years, 1978–93, when presidents retained legislative control, maintained a strong personal commitment to market reforms and cultivated alternative sources of legitimacy. In the absence of these factors, the presidency slipped into crisis from 1994–2004 as resistance to elite-led projects of state reform mounted and as the president lost control of the legislature. Between 2005–14, the presidency regained its power, but at the cost of abandoning its original rationale and function as a means to recalibrate the elite–mass power relationship to facilitate elite-led reform agendas.     

A Deeper Look at the Relationship between Political Knowledge and Political Participation: Evidence from Presidential and Legislative Elections in Taiwan

This study examines the effects of political knowledge on various types of political participation by focusing on five recent presidential and legislative elections in Taiwan. The empirical findings indicate that political knowledge has positive effects on some types of political participation but the effects of political knowledge on different types of political participation vary by the types of electoral systems and elections. Besides, although the interviewer's assessment of the respondent's level of information has been widely used as an effective indicator of political knowledge, this study shows that the interviewers tend to rate men and partisans as politically knowledgeable, which might lead to a biased estimate of political knowledge. Overall, this study provides insight into the relationship between political knowledge and political participation in Taiwan.     

The elephant in the room: offshore companies,liberalisation and extension of presidential power in DR Congo

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, donors promoted rapid liberalisation and presidential elections in the aftermath of the war, and after two terms, President Kabila has not left office. This article engages with the question of how liberalisation and elections are connected, and how they are related to the extension of presidential power. It finds that the international market for minerals has shaped the domestic political economy but its nature has effectively been ignored in the formulation of donor policy; efforts at regulating trade have been concentrated on due diligence of origin in Congo but have not addressed the secrecy of international trade. Liberalisation has removed control of economic resources from Congo, provided returns for elite politicians and funded violence to control the disenfranchised population. The offshore companies are the elephant in the room; without acknowledging them, analysis of the liberalisation and its interaction with presidential tenure lacks assessment of the opportunities, interests and power that shaped the processes.     

Deliberative Democracy,Rational Participation and e-Voting in South Korea

As information and communications technologies (ICTs) have revolutionised private and public lives in many aspects, to what extent and in what way electronic voting (e-voting) can improve citizens’ electoral participation and deepen democracy has become a critical issue in political science. From the theory of deliberative participatory democracy in conjunction with a rational choice perspective, this article examines the prospect of e-voting in the electoral process in South Korea. Prior experiences in the 2002 presidential election and the 2000 and 2004 general elections in South Korea have shown a meaningful, albeit limited and partial, impact of ICTs on citizens’ election-related information consumption, reshaping of their political stance and beliefs, and voter turnout. This article contends that the premises of e-voting can be attained with a higher degree of probability if the National Election Commission serves as an information gateway, bridges the digital divide, and is ready to provide voters and election officers with necessary and accurate information about voting procedures.     

Institutional resilience of Taiwan’s semi-presidential system: the integration of the president and premier under party politics

Over the past three decades, the semi-presidentialism has been adopted in most new democracies. It is also the constitutional order in most democracies, which can be divided into three categories: established, post-Leninist, and postcolonial democracies. Semi-presidentialism is a political system with dual executive branches. Moreover, because of these dual executive branches, the constitutional order of semi-presidentialism might be similar to a presidential system if the president is the de facto head of government. It might also be similar to a parliamentary system if the prime minister is the de facto head of government with the support of the parliamentary majority. Taiwan has been considered as a semi-presidential country since 1997. According to Taiwan’s constitutional amendments, its president is directly elected, and the premier (prime minister) and cabinet are responsible to the legislature. Dual executive system in Taiwan has been effective and flexible. I attempt to examine the institutional resilience of Taiwan’s constitutional function, which means that, in properly responding to social movements, its government has continued to function well. In addition, the president has been able to continue serving in office in spite of political crises. A vague constitutional design and a presidentialized party system are two reasons for this.     

Exploring the invocation of emotion in presidential speeches

Scholars have long explored why presidential rhetoric is important and how it matters for public leadership and policy-making. However, relatively few works have considered the role that emotion plays in leadership communication and no research has conducted a thorough examination of the various types of emotions invoked in presidential rhetoric, their frequency, or how they have shaped presidential discourse over time. In this study, presidential speeches across 13 administrations (1933–2011) are examined to provide a first assessment of the extent to which US presidents have invoked fear, anger, and hope across policy domains and key types of speeches.     

Voting home or abroad? Comparing migrants' electoral participation in countries of origin and of residence

The political participation of immigrants has received increased scholarly attention over recent decades. However, comparisons between the electoral behavior of immigrants in their countries of origin and of residence are still limited. This article addresses this gap in the literature and seeks to identify the determinants of Romanian immigrants’ electoral participation in the local elections of four West European countries (Germany, France, Italy, and Spain) as compared to their turnout in their home country's legislative elections. Looking through the lenses of exposure theory, we hypothesize that contact with institutions, people, and values from the countries of residence are likely to have different effects in the two types of elections. We test the explanatory power of four main variables – time spent in the host country, social networks, degree of involvement in the local community, and the type of relationship with citizens of their host countries – to which we add a series of individual-level controls such as age, education, gender, and media exposure. To assess our claim, we employ binary logistic regression to analyze original web survey data collected in the summer of 2013. The result supports the empirical implications of exposure theory.