Title: Presidents above Parties? Presidents in Central and EasternEurope, Their Formal Competencies and Informal Power
Abstract: In last two decades, most countries of Central and Eastern
Europe have witnessed an ongoing development of democratic
governance, and have thereby acquired a status of stable
democracies. They no more face problems connected with
post-communist transition and the challenges they have to deal
with arise rather from present political situation. Current
economic crisis challenges the traditional position of various
political actors and may lead to further personalisation of
politics. This development can be observed also in a shifting
position of president in other than presidential political
systems – a phenomenon that has not been sufficiently analyzed
yet. There may be a certain discrepancy between formal and
actual position of presidents in Central and East European
countries, which are classified as parliamentary democracies or
systems that have features of semi-presidentialism. The
constitutions usually endow presidents – regardless of the way
of their selection either through direct or indirect election –
with symbolic functions and duties shared with government (such
as appointment of important officials). Governments are thus
typically perceived as dominant executive institutions. The
influence of presidents in selected political systems is given
not only by the letter of the constitution but also by
historically rooted constitutional traditions or personal
charisma and power of concrete presidents. We can observe how
certain strong political personalities overstep their
constitutionally defined powers and interfere significantly in
the political process. The aim of the forthcoming book is to
find out whether we can trace an increasing engagement of
presidents in everyday politics in selected CEE countries. If
so, the authors will try to find out, what the causes of their
increasing engagement are, how it is manifested and whether it
is caused by the president’s personality or rather by a
changing structure of political opportunities that provides
presidents with room to manoeuvre. In case of countries where
we do not prove the presence of tendencies to “overstep”
constitutionally given powers or to enhance presidential
political influence we will try to find out why it is so.
Publication Year: 2013
Publication Date: 2013-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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