Title: The Impact of Semi-Presidentialism on Democratic Consolidation in Poland and Ukraine
Abstract: Abstract: This article compares the influence of two subtypes of semi-presidentialism, premier-presidentialism and president-parliamentarism, on democratic consolidation in post-communist Poland and Ukraine. It distinguishes several periods of institutional development in Poland and Ukraine and then juxtaposes them against each other. Doing this makes it possible to disaggregate the impact of various institutional features on democratic progress in the two countries and explain discrepancies in their paths toward consolidated democracy. Two additional explanatory factors are employed to better capture the causes behind the different democratic performance of Poland and Ukraine: the clarity of the division of executive power and the level of commitment among the main political actors to existing formal rules. The conclusion examines the relative significance of the semi-presidential frameworks and actors' behavior in the democratic development of Poland and Ukraine. ********** Despite the growing popularity of semi-presidential models among constitution-designers in recent decades, scholars are not as enthusiastic about this regime type. Ever since debates on semi-presidentialism entered the wider discussion about the influence of regime types on democratic performance, the general consensus in the literature has been that semi-presidentialism is dangerous for young democracies. All of the many objections against this type of government can be reduced to two main points: (1) semi-presidentialism can produce intra-executive branch conflicts between the president and prime minister; and (2) it can lead to the unrestrained domination of the president. In either case, the chances of democratic survival are thin, as the first scenario could lead to the use of extra-constitutional means to resolve the deadlock and the second scenario could undermine the existing balance of power and result in the erosion of democracy. Juan Linz (1) popularized this way of thinking and his approach has gained significant support among other scholars. (2) Still, there are students of semi-presidentialism who defend it on the basis that it can deal with the shortcomings of both presidential and parliamentary systems. For instance, Giovanni Sartori argued that semi-presidentialism could, first, avoid the rigidity of presidentialism by shifting the leadership of the executive between president and prime minister and, second, alleviate the majoritarian component of parliamentarism by mechanisms of executive power sharing. (3) In a similar vein, Gianfranco Pasquino supported semi-presidential constitutional choices on the grounds of their flexibility and adaptability to changing circumstances. (4) Regardless of which position seems to be more plausible, the issue of choosing an adequate explanatory variable remains. Noting the great variety of semi-presidential regimes, Robert Elgie insists that semi-presidentialism as such should not be used as an explanatory variable. Instead, it should be disaggregated into subtypes which are better suited to be utilized as factors that could influence democratic performance? The most common classification of semi-presidential systems was offered by Matthew Shugart and John Carey, who distinguished premier-presidential and president-parliamentary models. In the first, the cabinet is responsible to the parliament, while in the second, it is responsible to both the parliament and president. (6) In this article, I will follow Elgie's logic and look at the influence of the two types of semi-presidentialism, premier-presidentialism and president-parliamentarism, on democratic consolidation in Poland and Ukraine. The existing literature points to the considerable advantage of premier-presidentialism over president-parliamentarism. On the theoretical level, premier-presidential systems create incentives for both president and parliament to cooperate, because the former has no other channel of influence on the cabinet after its installation and the latter usually doesn't want to be solely responsible for possible cabinet failures. …
Publication Year: 2014
Publication Date: 2014-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 2
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