Session 16: Parliamentary and Presidential

Systems

► Politics in Spain: Processes and

Institutions

► IES
Barcelona
► FALL 2007 PROGRAM

► Instructor:Andrew Davis
► e-mail: ad374@iesbarcelona.org
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 Types of Political System
► Parliamentary
► Presidential
► Semi-presidential (we will not touch on
this in this class)

2
 Presidential Democracy
► Originalpresidential system: USA But also
very common in Latin America, Africa, and
parts of Asia. Not popular in Europe.

► Coreelement of presidential systems:

separation of power between the executive
and legislative branches of government.
This does not imply that the branches are
independent. Rather, it refers to their
separate origin and separate survival.

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 Presidential Democracy
► Separate origin of executive and
legislative: Both branches are elected
separately, in different elections.

► Separate survival: Both branches are

elected for a fixed term, neither can dismiss
the other.

► Cabinet answers only to president.

► Personnelof each branch is non- 4

overlapping.
 Presidential Systems
► The head of government (president) is
popularly elected
► The president constitutionally is head of the
government, regardless of the composition
of the legislature. He/she directs the
composition of the government and has
some law-making authority
► Both the president and the legislature are
elected independently for a fixed term.

5
 Presidential Democracy
► Implications:

 Divided government is possible.

 Power is fragmented.

6
 Advantages of Presidential
Systems
► 1. Greater choice for voters – 2 votes
► 2. Electoral accountability and identification.
► 3. Greater legislative independence and
more effective checks and balance

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 The Perils of Presidentialism
► Linz argues that the problems of
Presidentialism are:
► History – only one long-term example of a
successful democratic presidential system -
USA
► Personalisation of political power
► System rigidity (particularly elections)
► Dual democratic legitimacy (who’s in
charge?)
► ‘Zero-sum’ game: more social divisive
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 Parliamentary systems
In contrast to presidential systems, the prime
ministers or chancellors of parliamentary systems
do not have limited terms of office, and in recent
decades some of them have had successive
election victories and have held on to power for a
long time – Gonzales (Spain), Kohl (Germany),
Menzies, Fraser and Hawke (Australia), Mitterrand
(France), Thatcher (UK) and Trudeau and Mulroney
(Canada).
► A large proportion of parliamentary democracies
are smaller states (India is an exception)
► Of the newly democratized countries of central and
east Europe, only Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia and
Slovakia are fully parliamentary.
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 Parliamentary systems
► Parliamentary systems are most
common in the older democracies of
western Europe, (including Austria,
Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, The
Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the UK)
and half of them are in British
Commonwealth countries, including
Australia, Botswana, Canada, India and
New Zealand.
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 Parliamentary Systems

► Core element: the executive and

legislature are fused. Survival and
origin of each branch are not separate.

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 Parliamentary Systems
► Origin not separate:

 One popular election fills parliament, then

cabinet (the executive) is selected from
parliament.

 Cabinet: a body of officials individually

responsible for administering a portion of the
state bureaucracy and collectively forming the
government of the day.

 Head of cabinet is the Prime Minister. PM is 12

not directly elected.

 Parliamentary Systems
► Survival not separate:

 Legislative can bring down government - Cabinet

must “maintain the confidence” of parliament
(sustain the support of a majority of MPs) or
resign.

 Executive can bring down government - Terms of

office are not fixed, so cabinet can dissolve
parliament and call new elections when it sees
fit.
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Types of Parliamentary Systems
► Majority rule: one party has a majority in
parliament, can form a cabinet and rule on its own.
Power is highly concentrated. (Most common in
two party systems, i.e., majoritarian electoral
systems).

► If no party has a majority (more common in

multiparty systems, i.e., PR electoral systems):
 Minority rule: a minority party forms a cabinet and rules
alone but depends on support from other parties in
parliament to stay in office.

 Coalition government: formal agreement between multiple

parties to form a cabinet and rule together.
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 A simple comparison: Bush v.
Brown
► Gordon Brown

 Prime Minister of Britain

 Leader of the Labour Party

 MP for the district of Kirkcaldy & Cowdenbeath

 He (and his cabinet) control virtually all aspects

of British legislation and policy

 Accountable to the legislature, which is

accountable to the electorate
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 Bush v. Brown
► George Bush

 President of the USA

 Not the chair of the Republican National

Committee

 Not a Congressman or a Senator

 Little control over legislative branch

 Directly accountable to the electorate 16

 The Pres./Parl. Debate
► Do these differences matter?

► One argument: YES. Presidential

democracies are less stable than
parliamentary ones.

► The retort: NO. Both systems can be stable

or unstable, depending on context.
Furthermore, we can’t study them in
isolation. They interact with the party
system to shape outcomes.
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 The Case Against
Presidentialism
► Divided
government => Deadlock =>
War between branches of government
=> Democratic breakdown.

 In contrast, in parliamentary systems, you

can’t have divided government, so this
never happens.

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 The Case Against
Presidentialism
► Becauseof the fixed term of office,
coups are the only way to get rid of a
unpopular president.

 In contrast, in parliamentary systems,

parliaments can remove unpopular
cabinets at any time. This produces
cabinet instability, but not democratic
instability.
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 The Case Against
Presidentialism
► Presidentialism is “winner takes all.”
The office of the president can’t be
shared. The winner gets all of it. The
loser gets nothing.
► Losers in more unstable democracies
might initiate a coup

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 The Case Against
Presidentialism
► Andthe winner gets to rule however
he wants – even if he won by a small
margin, and even if he won less than a
majority.

 In contrast, coalition governments in

parliamentary systems are more inclusive
and force parties to work together.
Furthermore, losers continue to play an
active role in politics. 21
 The Counter-Argument
► Presidential systems have better
“identifiability,” i.e. the link between voting
and government formation is more
transparent.

 Presidential systems: very transparent. The

candidate with the most votes wins.

 Parliamentary systems: when there is no

majority, government formation is a result of
bargains between parties, not just voting. So
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transparency is lower.
A Hypothetical Election Result . .
.
► Anelection is held and five parties win
seats:
 The Greens: 45% of the seats
 The Reds: 30% of the seats
 The Blues: 15% of the seats
 The Purples: 10% of the seats

► What coalition forms?

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 The Counter-Argument
Less accountability in parliamentary systems,
particularly consensus models with coalition
governments.

 Accountability: degree to which elected leaders

rule in the interests of the electorate. The threat
of losing an election is said to promote
accountability.

 However, if there is a coalition in power:

► How do you vote it out if you didn’t vote it in in the first
place?
► If things are going badly, who do you blame? 24
 The Counter-Argument
► Presidential
systems are not
necessarily more “winner-takes-all.”

 Executive branch might be this way, but

the system as a whole can split and divide
power.

 Furthermore, parliamentary government

can be extremely winner-takes-all, i.e.
under majority rule. 25
 The Counter-Argument
► Cabinets can be highly unstable in
parliamentary systems, especially
when there is no majority.
► Not the same as democratic instability,
but can still be problematic.

26
 The Counter-Argument
► The
performance of each of these systems
depends on the party system.

► Parliamentary systems:
 Majority rule: stable, high identifiability, winner-
takes-all. Most likely with 2 parties.

 Coalition government: unstable, low

identifiability, inclusive. Most likely with >2
parties.
27
 The Counter-Argument
► Presidential systems:
 Divided government is most severe when the
President’s party is weak in the legislature
 This is most likely when many small parties split
the vote.

► Thus,we can’t consider presidential and

parliamentary systems in isolation. We also
have to look at their interaction with the
party system.
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 A Typology of Democratic
Regimes
SMP Electoral System
Parliamenta “Westminster” Democracy
ry - ≈ 2 parties
Democracy - Minority government rare
- Stable government based
on majority party
- High identifiability
- But winner-takes-all.
Tyranny of the majority?
Presidential “USA” Democracy
Democracy - ≈ 2 parties
- Divided government less
likely
- High identifiability
- Winner-takes-all? Tyranny
of the majority? Probably
less than Westminster.
PR Electoral System
Multi-Party Parliamentary
Democracy
- Multiple parties
- Sometimes a minority
government forms
- Unstable cabinets, but not
necessarily unstable democracy
- Low identifiability
- Inclusive. Minorities often get
into the cabinet
Multi-Party Presidential
Democracy
- Multiple parties
- Divided government likely.
Deadlock?
- Likely that President’s party is
weak in the legislature
- Of these four types of
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democratic regime, this is
probably the most unstable.
 What About The Empirical
Record?
► Moststable democracies since WWII
have been parliamentary, not
presidential.

► Coups are much more common in

presidential systems.

► Amongst new democracies, countries

with parliamentary systems have been
more likely to stay democratic. 30
 What About The Empirical
Record?
► BUT,correlation is not the same as
causation.
 Most parliamentary systems are located in
Western Europe. Most presidential systems are
located in Latin America and Africa.
 Western Europe is rich, LA and Africa are poor.
 Democracy is established in Western Europe, but
not in LA and Africa.

► Thus, correlation between democratic

stability and parliamentary government may
simply reflect levels of development.
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 The Case of Spain
► Linz argues that by creating a
parliamentary style system, Prime
Minister Suarez was able to maintain
his job in the 1977 elections:
► How was that the case?
► First, under a consensus system, all
political parties stood to gain in a
parliamentary system, none were
forced to strongly compromise their
position.
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 The Case of Spain
► Under a Presidential system, the
parties would have had to form pre-
election coalitions and possibly
nominate one nominee for President
from several parties.

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 The Case of Spain
► He argues that, for example, if the
system were Presidential, a ‘Popular
Front’ type campaign would have been
run from the left.
► Socialists would have had to
compromise with Communists and
would have had to put forward a much
more hard left platform.

34
 The Case of Spain
► On the right, conservatives who had
supported the democratic reforms
would nonetheless have been forced
to compromise with other forces who
were less supportive of the transition,
including the AP, which at that time
was more ‘continuist’.
► The effect is that Adolfo Suarez may
not have even been the right’s
candidate. 35
 The Campaign of 1977
► Instead,the UCD runs a campaign
against BOTH the POSE and the AP.
► And the PSOE attacks the AP as well.

► RESULT? Reduced polarization and a

run towards the center.
► What would have happened if the
system were Presidential?
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 The Campaign of 1977
► The left would have been attacked for
their ‘dangerous’ support of
Communism and regionalism.
► The right would have been painted as
directly linked to Francoism, as wolves
in sheep’s clothing.

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 The Campaign of 1977
► This could have produced a left-wing
victory with a leader to the LEFT of
both Suarez (UCD) and Gonzalez
(PSOE),
► That President could have pushed
through a more radical agenda,
claiming a mandate, even though he
would have had only a plurality of the
votes, rather than a majority.
38
 Linz’s Conclusions
► Presidentialism
is less likely than
parliamentarism to sustain stable
democratic regimes.

► Why?

► First,
in presidential systems the
president and assembly have
competing claims to legitimacy.
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 Linz’s Conclusions
► Second, the fixed term of the president's
office introduces a rigidity that is less
favorable to democracy than the flexibility
offered by parliamentary systems, where
governments depend on the ongoing
confidence of the assembly.
► Winners and losers are sharply defined for
the entire period of the presidential
mandate. . . losers must wait four or five
years without any access to executive
power and patronage. 40
 Linz’s Conclusions
► Third, presidentialism "introduces a
strong element of zero-sum game into
democratic politics with rules that tend
toward a 'winner-take-all' outcome."
► In contrast, in parliamentary systems
"power-sharing and coalition-forming
are fairly common, and incumbents
are accordingly attentive to the
demands and interests of even the
smaller parties."
41
 Linz’s Conclusions
► Fourth, the style of presidential politics is
less propitious for democracy than the style
of parliamentary politics.
► The sense of being the representative of the
entire nation may lead the president to be
intolerant of the opposition. "The feeling of
having independent power, a mandate from
the people is likely to give a president a
sense of power and mission that might be
out of proportion to the limited plurality that
elected him”. 42
 Linz’s Conclusions
► Finally,political outsiders are more
likely to win the chief executive office
in presidential systems, with
potentially destabilizing effects.
Individuals elected by direct popular
vote are less dependent on and less
beholden to political parties. Such
individuals are more likely to govern in
a populist, anti-institutionalist fashion
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