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.     

Comparative presidencies: The inadequacy of the presidential, semi-presidential and parliamentary distinction

Abstract. The role of the president is presumed to vary amongst presidential, semi-presidential and parliamentary systems. However, there are a variety of subtypes within semi-presidential systems. Debate often hinges on the prime minister and government, and to whom they are more accountable. However, the accountability of prime ministers and governments to presidents can be rather 'fuzzy'. This article looks through the prism of the president rather than that of the government. After examining definitions of presidential, parliamentary and semi-presidential systems, several dispositional categories of political regimes will be established. Then presidential power will be assessed through a series of dichotomous measures, and for all electoral democracies with a president. Finally, the character of each category will be assessed. The concept of 'semi-presidentialism' is rejected in favour of more meaningful labels: presidential systems, parliamentary systems with presidential dominance, parliamentary systems with a presidential corrective and parliamentary systems with figurehead presidents.     

The Erosion of Party Politics in Britain

This article looks at the erosion of democratic practice enacted by "New" Labour in Britain under the leadership of Tony Blair. Building on the internal reforms of the 1980s, the process of Labour Party "modernization" has created an exclusive, top-down managerial style of leadership. This type of party leadership and management has far-reaching implications for British politics more generally, not least the role of political parties. The current crisis of the Conservatives and the destruction of representative democracy within the Labour Party pose serious questions regarding the medium-term future of parties as voluntary membership organizations. These changes are placed in the context of a possible longer-term transformation of British political structures in order to exchange the long-established administration of the Conservative Party for a new type of governmental machinery. The aim is not a new "traditional" party of government, but a partyless formation built around a dominant central presidential figure and his office—a change which necessitates abolishing the Labour Party and social democracy as they currently exist. It is argued that this anticipated remedy to a protracted crisis of the British state accords closely to the requirements of neoliberal economic management, while drawing upon developments in the wider global environment. However, if this is to succeed, Blair's "modernizing" tendency needs to be able to articulate a coherent ideology that strikes a popular chord. Thus far, Blair's managerial approach to politics may have scored a few points against the old party ideologies, but it has also undermined attempts to promote an alternative ideology—even one of a "partyless" nature.     

Great Expectations: The Job at the Top and the People who do it

Anthony King thought and wrote a great deal about British prime ministers and political leadership more generally. But in contrast to the way in which single papers embodied his contribution to our understanding of ‘government overload’, ‘executive‐legislative relations’ and ‘career politicians’, his contribution to our understanding of the prime ministership was defined by a body of work. This essay explores that body of work and identifies some of the themes that characterised it. It then relates King's work to claims about the ‘presidentialisation’ of the office, as well as the importance of the expectations surrounding contemporary prime ministers. As Britain grapples with the challenge of Brexit, we should all take note of his counsel against expecting too much in the way of ‘strong’ prime ministerial leadership.     

Prime ministers' identity in semi-presidential regimes: Constitutional norms and cabinet formation outcomes

Abstract.  This article examines how presidential involvement in the cabinet formation process affects cabinet formation outcomes in the semi-presidential regimes of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. It analyzes whether the formal distribution of appointment-dismissal powers allows for the development of useful indicators for predicting a prime minister's location on the continuum between the ideal points of the president and the legislature. First, to derive theoretical expectations about a prime minister's identity in the different types of semi-presidential regimes, the article discusses constitutional variation in the formal distribution of cabinet appointment-dismissal powers across semi-presidential constitutions. Second, the empirical outcomes of cabinet formation are then compared with the theoretical predictions. Empirical tests, while providing substantial support for the hypothesized effect of variation in cabinet appointment-dismissal powers, indicate the importance of other variables. Qualitative and quantitative differences in the character of the party system and the nature of the electoral cycle also have a systematic effect on cabinet formation outcomes.     

Party leadership selection in France

Abstract. The methods of selection used by French political parties can be grouped into two categories: election by a party conference with some thousands of delegates for the right wing parties or election by a party committee after the party conference with some hundreds of representatives for the left wing parties. Nevertheless, the existence of a presidential election has completely changed the meaning of these methods of selecting party leaders. Political parties have been transformed into presidential machines carrying out two types of successive duties; as a springboard for a candidate at the presidential elections, then as a relay of the President of the Republic (the 'president's party'). In these two types of situation the selection of leaders is not completely the same. First, in order to gain access to the presidential election, certain politicians have quickly understood that it was necessary to create new political parties or to transform weak political groups in altering the normal rules of selection of the leaders or in overthrowing the existing leadership. Then the leader of the President's party is directly chosen by the President of the Republic himself. The formal methods of selection only serve to ratify the President's choice.     

Ministerial Leadership and Endorsement of Bureaucrats: Experimental Evidence from Presidential Governments

Scholars have debated what constitutes effective ministerial leadership with respect to administrative competence versus political influence. The authors contribute experimental evidence to this debate through a unique survey design of endorsement experiments. Using original data from 949 national civil servants in South Korea, this article examines civil servants’ assessments of ministerial leadership in three central dimensions of public management: internal management, interbranch coordination, and policy formulation/implementation. Further, existing variation in the characteristics of agencies is used to test whether such variation induces systematic differences in civil servants’ responses. Findings show that that civil servants’ attitudes toward ministerial leadership are asymmetric in nature. Ministers with civil service backgrounds are endorsed in all three dimensions, whereas ministers with legislative backgrounds receive increased support only for interbranch coordination skills. The levels of support for ministers with different backgrounds also vary across agency types. This analysis has implications for public management practice and agency control in presidential governments.     

Local Democracy and Political Leadership: Drawing a Map

Different concepts of local democracy imply different tasks, functions and reform strategies for local political leadership. This article draws a map of local democracy that entails four non-exclusive components: representative democracy, user democracy, network democracy and participatory democracy. After reflecting on the nature of local democracy in governance and the functions of political leadership generally, the article considers in turn the bases of constructing the common good within each form of democracy. Special attention is given to the role of political leadership within these forms.     

Intra-Executive Competition between President and Prime Minister: Patterns of Institutional Conflict and Cooperation under Semi-Presidentialism

The article examines the dynamics of political competition over the control of the executive that shapes the coexistence of popularly elected presidents and prime ministers in semi-presidential regimes. It explores how variation in the political status of cabinet and the character of the party system, as well as differences in presidential and parliamentary powers over the cabinet, affects both the type and intensity of intra-executive conflict in democratic and semi-democratic environments. It demonstrates that presidents' and prime ministers' strategies in intra-executive relations in both types of political environment are systematically affected by the nature and extent of cabinet's political support in parliament, as well as by the degree of presidential control over cabinet.     

Rising to the Top: Gender,Political Performance,and Party Leadership in Parliamentary Democracies

Party leaders are the main actors controlling campaign strategies, policy agendas, and government formation in advanced parliamentary democracies. Little is known, however, about gender and party leadership. This article examines gendered leadership patterns across 71 political parties in 11 parliamentary democracies between 1965 and 2013. It shows that men and women have different access to, and experiences in, party leadership and that these gendered political opportunity structures are shaped by parties' political performances. Women are more likely to initially come to power in minor opposition parties and those that are losing seat share. Once selected for the position, female leaders are more likely to retain office when their parties gain seats, but they are also more likely to leave the post when faced with an unfavorable trajectory. Together, these results demonstrate that prospective female leaders are playing by a different (and often more demanding) set of rules than their male counterparts.     

Political Marketing Management of Parliament Under the Presidential Government System: A Lesson Learned from the Indonesia House of Representative Post–New Order Soeharto

Modern political marketing management of parties, government, and parliament have gradually taken place within and across democratic countries ruled under either the parliamentary government or presidential government systems. Little attention, however, has been directed to the extent to which modern political marketing management of parliament has taken place within countries run under the presidential system of government, especially Indonesia. As led by hypothetical-inductive approach, this work has been specifically directed to explore (1) the dynamic exchanges and interactions; (2) the nature and structure of political market arenas; (3) types of political products; and (4) models of political marketing management of the Indonesian parliament/the Indonesian House of Representatives. This work explores the extent to which institutional marketing management strategies have been advanced by the Indonesian Parliament/the Indonesian House of Representatives since Post–New Order Soeharto up to the Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) government era (2004 to 2014).     

India: Searching for a Consensus by Amending the Constitution?

Two major themes have dominated the debate over India's constitutional destiny since the 1980s: parliamentary versus presidential government and federalization of its predominantly parliamentary system. India will do well to continue with its parliamentary form of government. Besides familiarity with it through British colonial experience and practice for nearly half a century, India's social diversity and fragile democracy are better served by a “collective” parliamentary/cabinet system than a “singular” presidential one. The latter may prematurely centralize the system and promote executive aggrandizement and adventurism. But India's continental diversity and complexity cannot be adequately represented solely along the parliamentary axis; they require the additional — and more vigorous — federal axis for democratic accommodation and national integration. The impact on India's parliamentary/federal system of the changing nature of the party system and premiership styles is also analyzed. Six phases of party system evolution are identified: (1) predominant party system-I (1952–1969); (2) multi-party system-I (1969–1971); (3) predominant party system-II (1971–1977); (4) two-party system (1977–1984); (5) (a stillborn) predominant party system-Ill (1984–1989); and (6) multi-party system-II (1989–to date). Three styles of prime ministerial leadership are delineated: (1) pluralist, (2) patrimonial, and (3) federal. Federal forces and features of the political system were generally accentuated when the party system was not a one-party dominant one and the prime ministerial leadership was not a patrimonial one. Some viable constitutional amendments designed to promote federalization are considered. The two particularly promising avenues of federalization that combine “responsible federalism” with “responsible parliamentary government” are those that establish a series of autonomous federal instrumentalities recommended by the Sarkaria Commission and create a President-in-Council interlocked with the Inter-Governmental Council that takes away the power of proclaiming president's rule in a state from the federal Home Ministry.     

Presidents and Patronage

To what extent do presidents select appointees based upon campaign experience and connections? The answer to this question has important implications for our understanding of presidential management and political leadership. This article presents a theory explaining where presidents place different types of appointees and why, focusing on differences in ideology, competence, and non‐policy patronage benefits among potential appointees. We develop a formal model and test its implications with new data on 1,307 persons appointed in the first six months of the Obama administration. The empirical results broadly support the theory, suggesting that President Obama was more likely to place appointees selected for non‐policy patronage reasons in agencies off his agenda, in agencies that shared his policy views, and where appointees are least able to affect agency performance. We conclude that patronage continues to play an important role in American politics, with important consequences for campaigns, presidential politics, and governance.     

THE ROLES OF GOVERNMENT A PARTICIPANT'S PERSECTIVE*

Hasluck is unusual in the lengths he went to the define the responsibilities of the various offices in which he was involved. Many of the functions and processes of government have changed since Hasluck was an active participant in the political process. Interest groups have increasingly influenced political decision-making, organisations external to the public service now play a greater role in influencing the development of public policy, the operation of a number of areas of the public service has become more visible and open to external scrutiny, there has been a constant trend towards political appointments within the public service, and it appears unlikely that the emphasis on public relations and marketing techniques as an integral feature of government communication will diminish. Likewise, the demands on ministers' time have increased and, while it is questionable whether ministers now handle a larger ministerial workload than Hasluck did, it is doubtful whether very many then or since have had his capacity for hard work or for handing the matters which cross their desk without the support of a professional advisory staff. The functions and operations of government evolve and the adaptation of roles and functions may not necessarily weaken the effectiveness of government administration. However, the fundamental tenet of Hasluck's writings on the roles of government remains compelling: the participants in the various areas of government should have an appreciation of the constitutional responsibilities of their position, its relationship to other areas of government and the fundamental principles which are required to maintain the credentials of the office into the future.     

Dodging the bullet: How crises trigger technocrat‐led governments

Governments led by nonpartisan, ‘technocratic’ prime ministers are a rare phenomenon in parliamentary democracies, but have become more frequent since the late 1980s. This article focuses on the factors that lead to the formation of such cabinets. It posits that parliamentary parties with the chance to win the prime ministerial post will only relinquish it during political and economic crises that drastically increase the electoral costs of ruling and limit policy returns from governing. Statistical analyses of 469 government formations in 29 European democracies between 1977 and 2013 suggest that political scandals and economic recessions are major drivers of the occurrence of technocratic prime ministers. Meanwhile, neither presidential powers nor party system fragmentation and polarisation have any independent effect. The findings suggest that parties strategically choose technocrat‐led governments to shift blame and re‐establish their credibility and that of their policies in the face of crises that de‐legitimise their rule.     

Mexican Intellectuals and Policy Alternation (2000–2004)

The political and intellectual landscape of Mexico has been changed by two dramatic events: a new democratic experience, with the triumph of Vicente Fox in the presidential elections of the year 2000; and the relevant role that intellectuals are playing in public opinion. Soon, the democratic experience turned from illusion to deception, basically because Mexican political culture still is authoritarian, and this is something Mexican intellectuals could not accept. Their critics point out that democracy in Mexico is as new as it is weak, and Fox's government has been attacked in the media as no other president in recent history.     

Presidential Environmental Appointees in Comparative Perspective

The pathologies of the presidential appointment process are well documented and include appointees' frequent lack of federal government work experience and their short appointment tenures. Less well understood are whether and to what extent these problems affect different subsets of high-level appointees, such as administrators in the environmental bureaucracy. Top-tier environmental appointees tend to stay longer in their appointed positions than do presidential appointees generally, and more than 40 percent have prior federal government management experience. These and other data suggest that key problems ascribed to the presidential appointment process are less salient in the case of high-level environmental appointees. Appointees in Republican and Democratic administrations have comparable levels of academic training and federal government experience. These similarities notwithstanding, White House expectations for appointees' political loyalty varies more from administration to administration. The Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush (first term) administrations maintained the highest demands for political loyalty, with consequences for the policy–administration dichotomy in environmental agencies.     

The Social Policies Presidents Make: Pre-Emptive Leadership Under Nixon and Clinton

Grounded in Stephen Skowronek's typology of presidential leadership, this paper furthers our understanding of 'pre-emptive leadership' through a comparative analysis of the welfare and Social Security reforms pursued by US presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. Although not identical, their experience in these areas provides valuable insight into the difficulty of wielding power in an inhospitable political environment. The paper starts with a brief presentation of Skowronek's typology before discussing the electoral strategies employed by both presidents as they attempted to frame political identities that would allow them to compete successfully in unfavourable ideological and political circumstances. The paper then specifically focuses on the politics of welfare and Social Security reform as the two presidents used these issues as part of their efforts to craft distinctive political images and attract wider electoral support. This comparative analysis reinforces the concept of 'pre-emption' as a valuable tool in understanding presidential behaviour. However, it also underlines the limits of pre-emptive leadership. Pre-emptive strategies can be effective at election time, but they are less likely to succeed in the legislative arena. This reality complicates the presidential search for genuine policy legacies.     

Presidential Saber Rattling and the Economy

Saber rattling is a prominent tool of the U.S. president's foreign policy leadership. Yet there has been no study of how presidential saber rattling affects international or domestic political outcomes. This study evaluates how presidential saber rattling affects U.S. economic behavior and performance. Theoretically, the study demonstrates that presidential rhetoric affects the risks that economic actors are willing to take, as well as the consequences of these resulting behaviors for U.S. economic performance. Using monthly time series running from January 1978 through January 2005, vector autoregression methods are applied to show that increased presidential saber rattling produces increased perceptions of negative economic news, declining consumer confidence, lower personal consumption expenditures, less demand for money, and slower economic growth. More broadly, the study demonstrates an important linkage between the president's two most important roles: foreign and economic policy leadership. The president's foreign policy pronouncements not only impact other nations, but also affect domestic economic outcomes.     

Federalism in the 2000 Presidential Election

Federalism was not an explicitly prominent feature of the 2000presidential election, but it exerted significant influencein shaping the political landscape as well as the candidates'positions on the role and purposes of the federal government.America's federal system created powerful undercurrents thatinfluenced the selection of the two major presidential candidates,the campaign issues, and the candidates' messages. At the sametime, George W. Bush and Albert Gore differed considerably intheir answers to how the United States' federal system shouldfunction and the objectives it should seek. Bush favored a federalgovernment that promotes economic opportunity through a marketplaceand allows state and local governments to determine their ownmoral and policy objectives. Gore preferred a national commonwealth,where the federal government determines the moral objectivesand the states cooperate to achieve those objectives.