Democratic Stress and Political Institutions: Drives of Reforms of Bicameralism in Times of Crisis

Vercesi, Michelangelo

doi:10.1080/00344893.2019.1635195

Cited by 2 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…The chapter thus also contributes to the literatures on cabinet formation under different forms of government (Cheibub et al 2004) and on the stability and reform of second chambers (Russell and Sandford 2002;Vercesi 2019).…”

Section: Design Matters: Second Chambers Cabinet Formation and Consti...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It became not only less restrictive, with the cabinet becoming accountable only to the first chamber, but also asymmetrical. In 2014, it was weakened further and lost its participation in the standard legislative procedure (Goossens and Cannoot 2015;Vercesi 2019).…”

Section: Belgiummentioning

confidence: 99%

“…What is crucial here is that the proposal went far beyond reducing the Senate's restrictiveness. It would have turned the Senate into a much smaller and asymmetrical chamber: indirectly elected and with only suspensive veto power on ordinary legislation (Romeo 2017;Vercesi 2019). Moreover, the reform was connected to a previously passed-and subsequently replaced-electoral reform that would have increased the disproportionality of the electoral system (D' Alimonte 2015).…”

Section: Italymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Beyond Presidentialism and Parliamentarism

Ganghof¹

2021

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In a democracy, a constitutional separation of powers between the executive and the assembly may be desirable, but the constitutional concentration of executive power in a single human being is not. The book defends this thesis and explores ‘semi-parliamentary government’ as an alternative to presidential government. Semi-parliamentarism avoids power concentration in one person by shifting the separation of powers into the democratic assembly. The executive becomes fused with only one part of the assembly, even though the other part has at least equal democratic legitimacy and robust veto power on ordinary legislation. The book identifies the Australian Commonwealth and Japan, as well as the Australian states of New South Wales, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, and Western Australia, as semi-parliamentary systems. Using data from 23 countries and 6 Australian states, it maps how parliamentary and semi-parliamentary systems balance competing visions of democracy; it analyzes patterns of electoral and party systems, cabinet formation, legislative coalition-building, and constitutional reforms; it systematically compares the semi-parliamentary and presidential separation of powers; and it develops new and innovative semi-parliamentary designs, some of which do not require two separate chambers.

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Section: Design Matters: Second Chambers Cabinet Formation and Consti...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Belgiummentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Italymentioning

confidence: 99%

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