Duverger's concept: Semi-presidential government revisited

Abstract The article attempts to follow up the fate of the concept Maurice Duverger created to explain the regime of the French Fifth Republic: semi–presidential government. Duverger expounded the concept in his fundamental book Échec au roi in 1978, trying to illustrate the fact that regimes of this type worked quite differently in the seven Western and Northern European countries that institutionalized it. 'Semi–presidentialism' is now widely, but very often controversially, used. The recent appearance of such regimes in newly democratizing states points to the fact that this form of government is often the preferred solution in times of transition. A critical review of Duverger's concept seems expedient as the diversification of these regimes raises new and perhaps intriguing questions. Due to the rejection of Duverger's concept or its ignorance in parts of the European scientific community, it is necessary to defend it as an important tool for political analysis. Moreover, it opens the opportunity for the examination of fundamental problems in political science.     

Models of Executive Politics: a Framework for the Study of Executive Power Relations in Parliamentary and Semi–presidential Regimes

The study of executives politics has been characterized by dichotomous country–specific debates about whether there is, for example, prime ministerial or cabinet government. Recent work has established new terms for these debates leading to more pluralistic conceptualizations of executive politics. Nevertheless, this work has not created the conditions for rigorous cross-national comparison. This article establishes a framework to compare executive branch power relations. It identifies six models of executive politics comprising a comprehensive set of ways in which power may be distributed amongst chief executives, cabinets, ministers and bureaucrats. On the basis of this framework it is argued that it is necessary to engage in empirical observation to determine which models of government occur and to identify the reasons why these models emerge.     

Limited government: An incoherent concept

Advocates of limited government argue that the role of government should be limited to preventing the use of coercion in exchanges and stopping people from harming others. They believe that government should not seek to change the distribution of wealth from that arising through voluntary exchange nor to influence the preferences people hold. But this view proves to be self-contradictory or incoherent. In order to define coercion and permissible harm, governments must make enormous numbers of determinations about how people are entitled to behave. These determinations, in addition to demanding extensive government activity, will also have important effects on the distribution of wealth and the preferences people hold.     

Party system nationalization,presidential coalitions,and government spending

This paper argues that there is a strong relationship between geographical patterns of political parties' electoral performance and the composition of central government expenditures. When party system nationalization is high, the composition of spending will focus more on non-targetable expenditures, while targetable expenditures increase as the party system distribution of votes across different districts becomes less homogenous. However, the effect of party nationalization on spending type is conditioned by the size of the presidential coalition; targeted transfers will increase if the coalition size decreases, even if party nationalization is high. I find support for these hypotheses with an empirical analysis of district-level electoral and government expenditure data for several countries in Latin America between 1990 and 2006.     

Duverger's Laws: Between social and institutional determinism

Abstract. The purpose of this article is to relocate Duverger's Laws within the debate about the effects of electoral systems on the number of parties. Although Duverger's theory has always been seen as the best example of a purely institutionalist approach to the issue, it is possible to argue that this is only true if one overemphasises the meaning of the laws without considering Duverger's justification and explanations for them. However, if one takes into consideration not only the laws, but also Duverger's theories about the effects of electoral systems on the number of parties as a whole, one can argue that his theses do not have a purely institutionalist character and can therefore coexist with theories that try to take into account variables other than electoral rules.     

The influence of presidential heads of state on government formation in European democracies: Empirical evidence

Theories of coalition politics have paid little attention to the role of presidential heads of state in the government-formation process. This article investigates the influence of presidents on the two most important features of government-formation outcomes: the identity of the party of the prime minister and the party composition of the coalition. Substantial evidence is found that presidents in European democracies have managed to induce their preferred governments from the potential alternatives. The results also suggest that parliament-selected presidents and popularly elected presidents have different mechanisms of influence on these outcomes. The investigation sheds new light on the government-formation process in semi-presidential as well as in pure parliamentary systems.     

Multi-party competition with exit: A comment on Duverger's Law

Contrary to Duverger's Law, there exist multi-party systems in conjunction with simple majority single-ballot systems. At least three exceptions exist to this law. Rae (1971) and Riker (1976; 1982) offer explanations for two of the most prominent exceptions, i.e. Canada and India. I also discuss another exception, Great Britain. In this paper, I use a simple one-dimensional spatial model to show that a multi-party system can be supported under a simple majority single-ballot system. This explanation depends on the way political parties exit the system. If parties decide sequentially whether or not to exit, a multi-party system can not be maintained. If political parties make this decision simultaneously, a multi-party system may be able to sustain itself.I am grateful to Evelyn Fink, Ken Shepsle, and Gordon Tullock for their very helpful comments. I would especially like to thank John Kautsky who introduced me to Duverger's Law.     

Government survival in semi‐presidential regimes

As semi‐presidentialism has become increasingly common in European democracies, so have the debates about the consequences of several of its political and institutional features. In particular, in those regimes, cohabitation between presidents and cabinets of different parties and cabinet dismissal powers on the part of presidents are thought to be a source of inter‐branch conflict and government instability. However, so far, most empirical work on government survival has failed to confirm any of these expectations. This article addresses this disjuncture between theory and empirical results by making a twofold contribution. First, it takes into account the internal diversity within semi‐presidentialism, modeling the implications for government survival of different configurations between presidential powers’ of cabinet dismissal, parliament dissolution and cohabitation in European semi‐presidential systems. Second, it reconsiders traditional government survival using the competing risks framework by adding a distinction between two different types of non‐electoral replacement: those where replacements imply a change in the party of the prime minister and those where they do not. Once such an approach is adopted, that presidential powers of parliamentary dissolution and cabinet dismissal indeed emerge as highly relevant for explaining government survival in these regimes.     

The political context and Duverger's theory: Evidence at the district level

A central tenet of electoral systems' research is that more parties should get votes in districts with large magnitudes than in districts with smaller magnitudes. This proposition is largely untested at the district level, even though that is the level at which relevant pressures are expected to work. At the aggregate level, research has found that there are systematic deviations from Duverger's law related to incentives from ethnolinguistic fragmentation, institutions, and strategic voting. This analysis confirms that many of these results hold at the district level, which is the most appropriate level for testing Duverger's law. District level party-system fragmentation patterns in 44 countries support Duverger's basic hypotheses. The effect of electoral institutions is contingent, however, upon the presence of social cleavages that generate pressures for additional parties, the establishment of patterns of party-system competition that help voters evaluate contenders' viability, and the absence of competing incentives generated by districts of varying magnitudes. These effects are robust to different specifications of social heterogeneity. However, we find no evidence that institutional features like federalism or presidentialism reduce the strategic effects of district level factors.     

Duverger's Law in mixed legislative systems: The impact of national electoral rules on district competition

How do institutional factors shape district competition in mixed legislative systems? Preliminary evidence suggests the distinction between sub‐types of mixed systems alone poorly explains variation in district results. Consistent with the contamination thesis, this analysis suggests three additional national‐level factors at play: fused ballots, the electoral threshold for proportional representation seats, and the existence of compulsory voting laws. Regression analysis on an original dataset covering 90 mixed system elections in 23 countries (1990–2012) finds that while mixed member majoritarian systems correlate with fewer district candidates, these three often overlooked factors are also statistically significant. This analysis highlights the complexity of mixed systems and suggests why many of them diverge from Duverger's Law.     

Direct presidential elections: a world summary

This paper first examines the frequency of direct presidential elections among the 170 countries of the world with a working, directly elected parliament. We find that there is a directly elected president in more than half of the countries and in about two-thirds of the republics. Former British colonies are less likely to hold direct presidential elections, which are otherwise very popular in North and South America and Africa. We then examine the kind of electoral formula that is used for the election of presidents. Most elections are held under the majority rule, most of the time under the majority runoff procedure. The majority rule is clearly predominant in Europe and Africa, and is unpopular in North America. Finally, no relationship is observed between the level of economic development or of democracy and the use of direct presidential elections or the choice of an electoral formula.     

《政府信息公开条例》彰显的现代行政理念

《政府信息公开条例》以法规的形式给予政府信息公开予以强制性的规定,并作出了较严格的制度安排,标志着政府行政理念正在实现从传统管制行政向现代服务行政的转变,彰显着现代行政的透明、人本、诚信、廉洁、高效、责任等理念。     

Elections presidential and parliamentary: Contrasts and connections

Different systems have been adopted for the popular election of a President. A comparison shows that the workings of parliamentary electoral systems and the behaviour of voters in legislative elections will be influenced by the fact that the head of state is chosen by the people. Certain aspects of this influence can be seen with particular clarity when a military hero steps forward as presidential candidate. The three cases of Hindenburg in Weimar Germany, Eisenhower in the United States and de Gaulle in France are compared.