The Normative Debate

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Chapter 3: Independent Variable, Hypotheses

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the two branches and the fixed term of office hinder responsiveness to the popular will.

Finally, term limits make incumbents unaccountable to the public.¹⁸⁴

Parliamentary government seems to be advantageous especially in the period of democratic transition. Stepan and Skach argue that correlational analysis suggests that in democratic transitions parliamentary regimes enjoy an advantage over presidentialism and the institution of the presidential system in new democracies, where civil society is flat, only invites trouble. When explaining their finding, they question the popular myth of the efficiency of presidential regimes, pointing to the fact that more than half of the time presidents do not enjoy a majority in the legislative branch and that in 83% of the time the governing party enjoyed a majority in the legislature of parliamentary regimes. Their points are rather similar to those of Linz: divided government leads to deadlock and presidential frustration in office that makes it more likely that presidents will turn to extra-constitutional means. Deadlock endangers existing presidential democracies in an additional way. It leads to unpopular presidents, who cannot be thrown out of office before their term expires, thus, political crisis is more likely to lead to regime crisis, increasing the likelihood of military coups.¹⁸⁵

Finally, judging parliamentarism and presidentialism in light of their majoritarian and consensual tendencies, Arend Lijphart reasons that presidentialism may be better then the Westminster model because the separation of powers points toward the need for consensus

184 Linz, Juan J. 1990. “The Perils of Presidentialism.”Journal of Democracy 1 (1): 51-69; Linz, Juan J. 1994.

“Presidential or Parliamentary Democracy: Does It Make A Difference?” In Juan J. Linz and Arturo Valenzuela, eds.The Failure of Presidential Democracy. The Case of Latin America. Vol. 1. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 3-90. See also Shugart and Carey 1992, 28-34; Mainwaring, Scott and Matthew Sobert Shugart. 1997a. “Juan Linz, Presidentialism, and Democracy: A Critical Appraisal.”Comparative Politics29 (4): 450-451; Mainwaring, Scott and Matthew Sobert Shugart. 1997b. “Presidentialism in Latin America:

Rethinkings the Terms of the Debate.” In Scott Mainwaring and Matthew Sobert Shugart, eds.Presidentialism and Democracy in Latin America. New York: Cambridge University Press, 30-33.

185 Stepan, Alfred and Cindy Skach. 1994. “Presidentialism and Parliamentarism in Comparative Perspective.” In Juan J. Linz and Arturo Valenzuela, eds.The Failure of Presidential Democracy. The Case of Latin America.

Vol. 1. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 129.

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seeking.¹⁸⁶ Yet, elsewhere he contends that dual legitimacy causes problems in presidential regimes, because the president is the only office holder elected by the whole people (Congress is only elected by the whole people as a collective body), he has a much stronger claim to legitimacy than Congress. Consequently, presidents are “righteously unwilling to compromise.”¹⁸⁷ Thus, it follows, Lijphart concludes, that presidential systems are inherently majoritarian in all cases, as opposed to parliamentary systems that may or may not be.¹⁸⁸

Shugart and Carey go beyond theoretical arguments and engage in an empirical study of the strong and weak points of presidentialism. They imply that presidential regimes may reduce political conflict in cabinet appointments: it is pointless for the Senate to fight on political grounds for a candidate closer to its preferences, since presidents would dismiss a minister who leans too much toward the Senate. Therefore, objection to presidential appointments goes on other (moral, ethical, professional etc.) grounds.¹⁸⁹ While term limits are present in many presidential systems, the prohibition of term limits agrees most with the spirit of presidential government. Such a solution would not only increase accountability but also increase assembly cooperation as assembly members could utilize presidential election success for their own reelections only when the president is not a lame duck.¹⁹⁰

As for regime survival, the most problematic presidential regimes are those where presidents have considerable (legislative) power. But systems with a great deal of non-legislative presidential powers (e.g. cabinet composition) and a low degree of separation of survival of the assembly and executive branches are also troubled types. Safer combinations are presidential systems that take up low values with respect to the separation of survival of the branches and to presidential power over the cabinet. Finally, a high degree of separation of

186 Lijphart 1999, 139.

187 Lijphart, Arend. 1994. “Presidentialism and Majoritarian Democracy. Theoretical Observations.” In Juan J.

Linz and Arturo Valenzuela, eds.The Failure of Presidential Democracy. The Case of Latin America. Baltimore:

Johns Hopkins University Press, 103.

188 Lijphart 1994, 102-103

189 Shugart and Carey 1992, 107, 110.

190 Shugart and Carey 1992, 107, 90.

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survival of the branches combined with little presidential legislative powers is also a successful setup. Successful presidential regimes combine either a great degree of separation of powers with a low-level of presidential legislative powers or low separation of powers with low authority over the cabinet.¹⁹¹

However, the superiority of parliamentary regimes over presidential ones is not so obvious.¹⁹² First, historical developments are called to the witness’s stand to substantiate the lack of superiority of parliamentarism. If in the 1960s and 1970s democratic breakdowns involved presidential regimes, in the previous wave of democratic breakdowns (the 1920s and 1930s), it was overwhelmingly parliamentary regimes that failed to survive.¹⁹³ There were twelve presidential and twenty-one parliamentary regimes that broke down in the course of the twentieth century.¹⁹⁴ But while more than half of the presidential regimes in the less developed world would surface as democracies later on, the same cannot be said about any of the failed parliamentary regimes.¹⁹⁵ Academic consensus over which is the better regime type sharply differs from practitioners’ judgment: some parliamentary regimes turned into presidential ones, but no presidential regime has ever turned into a parliamentary regime.¹⁹⁶ Moreover, divided government does not suggest irresolvable deadlock. In the US, there is no difference between the legislative records (major legislations passed successfully) of presidents who operated under united or divided government.¹⁹⁷ The cases of Argentina and Brazil, where the performance of majority and minority legislatures are very similar, warrant

191 Shugart and Carey 1992, 148.

192 See for example Peters, B. Guy. 1997. “The Separation of Powers in Parliamentary Systems.” In Kurt von Mettenheim, ed.Presidential Institutions and Democratic Politics. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 67.

193 Mainwaring and Shugart 1997b, 20.

194 Shugart and Carey 1992, 40. See also Mainwaring and Shugart 1997b, 29. The ratio is 50% to 44% in favor of parliamentary regimes.

195 Shugart and Carey 1992, 41.

196 Shugart and Carey 1992, 3.

197 Jones, Charles O. 1997. “The American Presidency: A Separationist Perspective.” In Kurt von Mettenheim, ed.Presidential Institutions and Democratic Politics. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 21;

Mayhew, David R. 1991.Divided We Govern. Party Control, Lawmaking, and Investigations (1946-1990). New Haven: Yale University Press.

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the same conclusion.¹⁹⁸ That is to say, presidents whose party is in legislative minority are as likely to have an influence as presidents under united government.¹⁹⁹

In some cases the defense of presidentialism follows Linz’s theoretical argument about the combined effects of various characteristics of presidentialism and parliamentarism. If accountability is problematic because of term limits of presidents, it is equally unclear in parliamentary democracies when the government is replaced between two elections. In presidentialism the fact that the survival of the executive does not depend on the support of the legislature makes it possible for assembly members to judge a bill on merit and not in light of cabinet survival. Majoritarianism is not a consequence of presidentialism but depends on the electoral and party systems and the federal or unitary nature of the given system.

Moreover, disciplined parties, enjoying a majority in a parliamentary system are much more apt to promote a winner-takes-all approach than any presidential system, where presidents often name multi-party governments to reward election-time support or ensure future support of these parties.²⁰⁰ In addition, as far as identifiability – voters’ ability to identify the potential governments in electoral campaigns – is concerned, parliamentary regimes with proportional representation present serious problems.²⁰¹ The fixed term of presidents may not be so disadvantageous as it prevents cabinet instability that could and did lead to systemic crises in parliamentary regimes as much as deadlock could and did in presidentialism.²⁰² Finally, electing outsiders in presidential democracies with institutionalized party systems is rather the exception than the rule.²⁰³

In addition, as Sartori observes, the failure of presidentialism does not automatically ensure the success of parliamentarism. After all, there are hybrid regime types, such as

semi-198 Negretto, Gabriel L. 2004. “Government Capacities and Making Policy by Decree in Latin America: The Cases of Brazil and Argentina.”Comparative Political Studies 37 (5): 531-562.

199 Mainwaring and Shugart 1997b, 40.

200 Mainwaring and Shugart 1997a, 454, 456 and 1997b, 39.

201 Shugart and Carey 1992, 44-7. See also Mainwaring and Shugart 1997b, 37-39.

202 Mainwaring and Shugart 1997a 452 and 1997b, 37.

203 Mainwaring and Shugart 1997a, 456.

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presidentialism, that are also candidates for the best performing regime award.²⁰⁴ In addition, to be able to argue that where presidential government broke down parliamentary regimes would have been more effective, a large number of counterfactual studies should be performed. These studies, however, should not only prove that parliamentarism would have been able to survive the crisis where presidentialism failed but that it would have weathered all the preceding crises that presidentialism successfully resolved.²⁰⁵

It is also unclear if the failure of presidential democracies is due to regime type or some other factors; the most often mentioned ones are regional clustering, colonial heritage, country size, culture and economic development. To begin with, parliamentarism is only present in Europe and former British colonies, which raises doubts whether parliamentarism would operate adequately outside these settings.²⁰⁶ Mainwaring and Shugart suggest that the survival of parliamentary regimes in British colonies are due to the British training of civil servants, British creation of post-colonial political institutions, pre-independence experience in local self-government, which was always based on the parliamentary model, and the lack of local land-owner control of the colonial state.²⁰⁷ Stepan and Skach doubt if colonial heritage could explain regime survival in the face of serious domestic tensions. They note that the five British colonies that started out as presidential democracies and eleven others that started out as monarchies did not survive. ²⁰⁸ This, however, does not question the logic of colonial influence: parliamentarism may have a higher survival rate in post-colonial states, because they had pre-independence experience in the working of British institutions at the colonies but none with presidential ones.

204 Sartori, Giovanni. 1994. “Neither Presidentialism nor Parliamentarism.” In Juan J. Linz and Arturo

Valenzuela, eds.The Failure of Presidential Democracy. The Case of Latin America. Vol. 1. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 107.

205 Mainwaring and Shugart 1997b, 19.

206 Mainwaring and Shugart 1997a, 459-460 and 1997b, 12; Shugart and Carey 1992, 3.

207 Mainwaring and Shugart 1997b, 23.

208 Stepan and Skach 1994, 125.

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Regionalism also plagues presidentialism, since apart from the United States presidentialism mostly appeared in Latin America and only in the developing world, which makes it difficult to disentangle regime type from socioeconomic, cultural and other factors.²⁰⁹ Small nations have an advantage in democratic stability, because they tend to be more homogeneous in ethnic and religious terms. Here parliamentarism has “a built-in advantage simply because Britain colonized many small island territories,” not giving researchers a chance to see how presidentialism might have operated within such settings.²¹⁰ It may well be that parliamentarism operates better in developing countries: stable democracies with low and medium income are all parliamentary regimes. They, however, are also former British colonies, which again points toward the importance of colonial heritage.²¹¹