1 / 32

Presidential vs. Parliamentary Democracy

Presidential vs. Parliamentary Democracy. Overview. Dimensions for evaluating democratic institutions. Normative Positive Defining presidential, parliamentary, and mixed democracies How do they work? Implications of executive-legislative relations for policies and stability of democracy.

tex
Télécharger la présentation

Presidential vs. Parliamentary Democracy

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Presidential vs. Parliamentary Democracy

  2. Overview • Dimensions for evaluating democratic institutions. • Normative • Positive • Defining presidential, parliamentary, and mixed democracies • How do they work? • Implications of executive-legislative relations for policies and stability of democracy.

  3. Dimensions for analyzing democratic institutions • Protection of liberty • Protection of minorities • Decisiveness, especially under stress • Credibility of commitments • Stability • Quality of democracy • Representativeness • Accountability • Rent-seeking and corruption

  4. Dimensions for analyzing democratic institutions (cont.) • Public versus private goods • Broad versus targeted programs and expenditures • The extent of redistribution • Budget deficits • Size of government as a share of GDP

  5. What are the features that distinguish parliamentary and presidential regimes?

  6. What are the features that distinguish parliamentary and presidential regimes? • Crucial questions: • How is the executive selected? • Is the executive dependent on legislative confidence?

  7. What about France?

  8. French Prime Minister French president

  9. Dimensions for evaluating institutions • Protection of liberty, prevention of tyranny.

  10. Dimensions for evaluating institutions • Protection of liberty, prevention of tyranny. • Some issues: • Madison and Hamilton: Ambition should counteract ambition • But tyranny in parliamentary democracies? • Too much power in hands of president? Russia? Too easy to fall into authoritarianism?

  11. Dimensions for evaluating institutions • Decisiveness, especially under stress.

  12. Dimensions for evaluating institutions • Decisiveness, especially under stress. • Some issues: • Madison and Hamilton again: Good to have one individual rather than collegial executive • Can’t a PM be decisive? • What about presidents without legislative backing?

  13. Dimensions for evaluating institutions • Credibility of commitments, policy stability

  14. Dimensions for evaluating institutions • Credibility of commitments, policy stability • Some issues: • Uncertainty about coalitions • Decree authority • Gridlock

  15. Dimensions for evaluating institutions • Stability of democracy. • What did you learn in the readings?

  16. Dimensions for evaluating institutions • Stability of democracy. • What did you learn in the readings? • Why do presidential democracies fail? • Gridlock, divided government • Why do presidential systems end up with divided government?

  17. Dimensions for evaluating institutions • Stability of democracy. • What did you learn in the readings? • Why do presidential democracies fail? • Gridlock, divided government • Why do presidential systems end up with divided government? • Geography • Balancing

  18. Why are presidential systems so fragmented? • The disciplining role of the no-confidence procedure • What incentives do individual members of the legislature face?

  19. Presidentialism and gridlock • Is there a problem with presidential democracy, or perhaps a problem with multi-party presidential democracy?

  20. How do presidents get things done? • In the United States? • In a multi-party presidential system like Brazil?

  21. Dimensions for evaluating institutions • Rent-seeking and corruption?

  22. Dimensions for evaluating institutions • Rent-seeking and corruption? • Some issues: • Parliamentarism: Politicians can collude, less oversight because of lacking division of power • But what about the problem of decree authority under presidentialism?

  23. Dimensions for evaluating institutions • Pork versus national collective goods

  24. Dimensions for evaluating institutions • The “quality” of democracy • What did Bagehot say? • Accountability • Responsiveness

  25. Endogenous institutions • What kinds of countries choose presidentialism?

  26. Endogenous institutions • What kinds of countries choose presidentialism? • Moments when demands for strong leadership are overwhelming. • Constitutions written by “strongmen” (De Gaul, Yeltsin). • History of military involvement in politics. • Large and diverse countries?

More Related