A fundamental political-institutional question that has only recently received serious scholarly attention concerns the impact of different constitutional frameworks on democratic consolidation. Little systematic cross-regional evidence has been brought to bear on this question. This article reports the findings of the analysis of numerous different sources of data, all of which point in the direction of a much stronger correlation between democratic consolidation and the constitutional framework of pure parliamentarianism than between consolidation and pure presidentialism. The systematic analysis of these data leads the authors to conclude that parliamentarianism is a more supportive constitutional framework due to the following theoretically predictable and empirically observable tendencies: its greater propensity for governments to have majorities to implement their programs, its greater ability to rule in a multiparty setting, its lower propensity for executives to rule at the edge of the constitution and its greater facility in removing a chief executive if he or she does so, its lower susceptibility to a military coup, and its greater tendency to provide long party-government careers, which add loyalty and experience to political society. In contrast, the analytically separable propensities of presidentialism also form a highly interactive system, but they work to impede democratic consolidation by reducing politicians' degrees of freedom.
At the end of the Cold War, semipresidentialism became the modal constitution of the postcommunist world. In Russia and other post-Soviet states, however, this system of government has impeded consolidation. Semipresidentialism combines a popularly elected head of state with a prime minister responsible to the legislature; though this framework seemed to promise the best of all constitutional worlds, when put into practice in many countries during their transitions, the framework began to pose serious design dilemmas and facilitate democratic backsliding rather than consolidation.
Many emerging democracies across the globe are scrambling to craft new constitutions. The modal constitution being chosen in this most recent wave of democratization is a rather unknown, and under-theorized, type: semi-presidentialism. This article brings semi-presidentialism back to comparative constitutional theory, distinguishing it from presidentialism and parliamentarism, and guarding against its hasty export to new democracies. This article details when, and why, semi-presidentialism can be problematic from the standpoints of democracy, constitutionalism, and the protection of fundamental rights; and the conditions under which it can be supportive of them. After establishing the analytical framework, this article compares developments in two important historical cases of regime change under semi-presidentialism, cases which have also been among the most influential countries for European politics in the twentieth century: the French Fifth Republic and Weimar Germany. The concluding section draws the evidence together. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 2005separation of powers, semi-presidential, presidential, parliamentary, K10, K42, N14, N44, N94,
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