Presidentialism, Parliamentarism and Semi-Presidentialism

Incentives and Disincentives in Achieving Multiple Democratic Goals

Djayadi Hanan

Debate about the relationship between democratic political institutions (presidential, parliamentary, and semi-presidential systems) and democratic stability has attracted a great attention since the publication of Juan Linz’s essay on “Presidential or Parliamentary Democracy: Does It Make a Difference?” which was originally written in 1984. Scholars have been trying to provide empirical evidence supporting or disproving Linz’s arguments since then and the results are still ambiguous. Meanwhile, other scholars try to contribute to the debate by looking at the effect of these types of democratic institutions on the performance of government in terms of political process, policy making, and economy.

One side of the debate argues that presidentialism is less likely to sustain democratic stability compared to parliamentary system. Evidence supporting this conclusion is the fact that presidentialism’s record is so poor, while most of stable democracies—predominantly Western democracy—are practicing parliamentary system. On the other hand, another tentative conclusion says that presidentialism contains many advantages that can be maximized so that it can compensate its perils (Mainwaring, 1997).

Another way of assessing this debate is by looking at the multiple democratic goals and relating them to the government’s ability in achieving them. Some scholars assess how these different formats of political institution affect the government’s ability with regard to conflict management, representativeness, responsiveness, policy making effectiveness, and protection of the interests of vulnerable minorities. This potentially fruitful area of research, however, has been relatively unexplored (Gunther, 1999: 80). Efforts in this subfield is also important because the government’s performance and achievement regarding these multiple democratic goals are related to the people’s trust to the government and hence to the sustainability of democracy.

This paper will assess the strengths and weaknesses of presidential, parliamentary, and semi-presidential systems in dealing with these issues. Bearing in mind that other variables such as social, economic and political contexts are also important (Gunther, 1999: 80; 2001: 161), this paper will focus merely on how the different institutional formats may affect the government’s performance in achieving multiple democratic goals. I will argue that semi-presidential system is theoretically the most appropriate option for achieving multiple democratic goals.

Presidentialism and Parliamentarism: Risks and Advantages

Government policy making and implementation is the arena where we can assess the government’s ability in achieving democratic goals. Given the nature of multiple democratic goals that are not always mutually compatible, trade-off among them will happen when the government is trying to simultaneously achieve them. When representativeness is emphasized—the process and output should involve and serve as many interests as possible (including minority interest)—, the policy effectiveness will be likely to be sacrificed. Representativeness requires broad consensus among all parties, involving long negotiation and time consuming process. Emphasis on effective policy making and implementation assumes that the government is able to autonomously make decision with respect to all competing interests and hence lowering down the degree of representativeness.

Representativeness in government policy making is essential to democracy since it determines how inclusive the government is in involving all segments of society and how responsive it is to all interests of the people. Representative means all competing interests are involved. This implies that conflict among different groups in the government and expectedly in the society can be managed better. From this it can expected that the government will be successful in conflict management (one of the democratic goals). Representative also means that the policy making output (the content of the policy) has considered all needs of competing parties including the minority groups. From this we can expect that the policy will be responsive and protecting the vulnerable minority interest. At this point, we are now facing another issue, policy making effectiveness. This relates to decisiveness and substantive accuracy of the policy when dealing with the real problem in society. Unfortunately, this desire of effectiveness, in many cases, especially in new democracies, can be gained by giving low attention to consensual and democratic process of government policy making.

The diverse formats of democratic political institutions play a range of roles in achieving these goals. Presidential, Parliamentary and Semi-presidential systems provide various risks and advantages to the government in its performance to realize democratic objectives.

Presidential systems, according to Juan Linz, provides more risks than advantages. His critique over presidentialism can be elaborated into two major points (Linz, 1990; 1994) i.e. dual democratic legitimacy and rigidity. With regard to dual democratic legitimacy problem, either the president or legislators is elected by people and therefore both could claim owning full mandate of the people. In addition, there is a possibility that the majority of legislators are from different parties from those of the supporters of the president. A problem arises when there is a conflict between the two in which the president’s policies are not supported or denied by the legislature. Since both are enjoying the legitimacy from the people, a dramatic conflict is very likely to occur and since there is no democratic mechanism to resolve it, the stalemate (immobilism) can be expected. In the country where social and political cleavages and ideological polarization are high, this conflict can be worse and lead to the breakdown of democracy. According to Linz (8):

“ …, it becomes easy for a president encountering resistance to his program in the legislature to mobilize the people against the oligarch, to claim true democratic legitimacy, deny it to his opponent, and confront his opponents with his capacity to mobilize his supporters in mass demonstrations.”

Another risk of this problem is the possibility of the president to expand power which can lead to the establishment of authoritarianism.

The second major criticism of Linz is rigidity. This problem comes from the fact that president is voted for a fixed term. Linz argues that “…this entails a rigidity in the political process that makes adjustment to changing situations extremely difficult; a leader who has lost confidence of his own party or the parties that acquiesced to his election cannot be replaced”(1994, 9-10). This rigidity implies that when the president does not perform or develop and implement bad policies, the presidential system does not have any mechanism to overcome it. The only way is to wait until the next election with the expectation that the voters will not vote for the same person for the post. But this is prone to risk democratic durability since it can possibly lead to a coup when the disappointment toward the unpopular president is getting worse (Mainwaring, 1993).

Linz’s argument is supported by a great amount of empirical evidence. Several scholars have also presented supporting data through their researches. Gonzales and Gillespie (1994), in their account on “Presidentialism and Democratic Stability in Uruguay” come to a conclusion that “…policy disagreements between president and opposition very easily became institutional conflict between the legislature and the president” (171-172). In line with this finding is the work of Valenzuela on Chile (1994: 94), in which he states“…the rigidities of presidentialism and the gradual erosion of arenas of accommodation, particularly the legislature, heightened the politics of confrontation in Chile, making it more difficult to negotiate political compromise.” Other work such as Colombian’s Presidentialism of Hartlyn (1994) also furnish facts on these perils of presidentialism.

Parliamentary systems, in contrast to presidentialism, following Linz’s argument, do not contain any problems pertaining to immobilism and rigidity. The Prime Minister as the head of the government is not elected by the public. His/her power comes from the parliament which means that the potential of heightened confrontation politics leading to stalemate will be unlikely to occur. The Prime Minister will only be in power as long as he/she can maintain the vote of confidence of the parliament. Rigidity also has less potential to happen. In Linz’s argument: “Parliamentarism also allows changes in leadership without a regime crisis and continuity without the fears associated with continuismo in presidential system” (1994: 64). When the head of the government fails in his/her policy performance, the parliament can call for the replacement so the cost of experiencing bad government’s policies will not last long.

Having said the perils of presidentialism and the superiority of parliamentarism (according to its supporters), the question now is how well parliamentary systems can support democratic goals achievement?

One of the advantages of parliamentarism is its potentiality of providing higher degree of representativeness. It is logically clear that forming broad coalitions among parties has been one of the characteristics of parliamentary system. Moreover, in parliamentary system, coalition government is needed since it is very probable that there is no single party with absolute majority (Linz, 1994: 65). Forming coalition requires inclusiveness, embracing as a broad range of interests as possible. This accommodation of different interests will be taken into account in the government policies, making it not only representative but also responsive to the different segments of society. We can also expect that the protection of minorities will be more possible. Coalition also means moderating and bridging any potential conflicts among different groups. Accordingly, this provides more support for the government to be better in conflict management. The absence of rigidity in which the parliament can call for replacement of the prime minister allows the opportunity for reforming the coalition and making new consensus. By doing so, the party which was previously not part of the coalition will get the opportunity to be part of the new consensus.

Presidentialism does not have this kind of virtue. Being elected by public, there is a tendency of a president to assume “an unwarranted aura of possessing a superior legitimacy, and a mandate to represent “the people” in the struggle against the “special interests” which allegedly dominate the legislature…”(Gunther, 1999: 64). This feeling of superiority can lead to the ignorance of the pluralist politics in the legislature. Besides that, it is possible that the policy making is viewed as separated from the legislative politics. Given these circumstances, the president will encounter opposition to his/her policies, making it difficult to implement the policies.

The “winner take all” character of presidential system provides the tendency of “excluding the losers,” making it less accommodative to a broad range of different interests. The defeated parties are less likely to involve in the policy making process. This means that the possibility of protecting the minority interest will be low. Consequently, the opportunity of the government in moderating and bridging the conflict among different groups is limited. Stated differently, presidentialism is less superior to a parliamentary system in serving diverse interests and conflict management.

After assessing the strengths of parliamentary system and highlighting the perils of presidentialism, it is fair now to look at several weaknesses of the parliamentary systems and bring up advantages that presidentialism has.

In his criticism of Linz’s argument, Mainwaring (1997) maintains that a kind of “dual legitimacy” problem also exists in the parliamentary system. This problem is not between the executive and legislature but between the lower and upper houses in bicameral parliamentary system. If the two chambers are controlled by opposed parties or blocs, the problem can be troublesome. Mainwaring offers several examples from Canada, Germany and Japan where the upper houses have significant legislative power but cannot exert a no confidence vote over the government. There are also countries where the upper house cannot be dissolved by the government and hence giving the possibility of dual legitimacy problem between the government and part of legislature. In short Mainwaring states that dual legitimacy problem is not exclusively the problem of presidentialism.

In its relation to achievement of democratic goals, one weakness of a parliamentary system is a logrolling process of policy making. In this system, broad consensus among different parties is required in making the policy. The process of achieving this can be long, back and forth, and time consuming. In a multiparty system the process can be worse because many different parties have to negotiate their agendas and priorities—which are not always compatible─before coming to the coalition and consensus formation. One coalition theory suggests that the minimum winning coalition will be formed among parties with similar ideology (Liphart, 1984). However, in the countries where the culture and skills of bargaining are not well established such as in most new democracies, this process can be troublesome.[1] The logrolling process of policy making can also sacrifice the content of the policy since the parties will only focus on the political process rather than the substance. This assessment suggests that parliamentary system is not superior in terms of policy making effectiveness. The government decisiveness in developing and implementing the policies that will affect the society is low.

Presidentialism can offset this shortcoming. The independency of the president over the legislature provides more decisiveness to develop and implement the policies. The president does not need to go through the logrolling and tiring process of the policy making involving legislature. According to Mettenheim (1997: 136), “…once elected, presidents can deftly renegotiate legislative coalitions because they are free to appoint professional politicians to administrative post.” The president, with his/her independence has more rooms for maneuvers and will be able to focus on the content and accuracy of the policy and hence will be likely more effective both in developing and implementing it.

According to Bunce (1997), the strength of presidentialism is crucial in the countries experiencing democratic and economic transition simultaneously. Democratic and economic transitions not only provide more freedom and the establishment of democratic institutions and political process, but also reduce (in many cases eliminate) political and economic privileges enjoyed by the powerful elites in the country. Once the transition started and the government introduces transitional policies, these former privileged groups will oppose them including through the political process in the legislature. Presidentialism which gives certain degrees of autonomy to the president as the policy makers can overcome this problem and move forward with the transitional and reform policies.

Another virtue of presidentialism, I would argue, is that the president can play as an arbiter and unifying symbol in the countries where social conflict is acute and political parties’ image in the eyes of the public is negative. In a nutshell, presidentialism and parliamentarism have their own strengths and weaknesses given their own circumstances. It is now the time to discuss a possible combination between the two systems.

Semi-Presidential System

This system of government according to Maurice Duverger (1980: 166), combines three elements: “(1) the president is elected by universal suffrage; (2) he possesses quite considerable powers; (3) he has opposite him, however, a prime minister and ministers who possess executive and governmental power and can stay in office only if the parliament does not show its opposition to them.” According to Linz (1994: 48), this system is characterized by dual executives: a president elected by the people and a prime minister who needs the confidence of parliament. The president, with the support of parliament, appoints the prime minister and the president cannot dissolve parliament. Elgie (2007) simplifies the definition as: “A regime where there is both a popularly-elected fixed-term president and a prime minister and cabinet responsible to the legislature.

The main weakness of this system according to Linz (1994: 52) lays on its dependence on the personality and abilities of the president. Because the responsibility is diffused, additional conflict may arise (involving prime minister and parliament). Given the fixed term of the president, the problem of immobilism as in presidentialism is inclined to happen. The case is getting worse when there is “cohabitation”--the situation where the president and prime minister are from dissimilar political forces. This can result in the inability of the government to reach consensus and thus will sacrifice the representativeness.

Theoretically, this problem is not inevitable. The prime minister in a semi-presidential system by definition is appointed by the president with the support of the parliament. This implies that the prime minister should be somebody who can bridge between the two. Therefore this can overcome the problem of dual legitimacy as potentially happens in presidentialism. In this position, the prime minister will be able to accommodate diverse interests in policy making both from the president and parliamentary sides. Since the prime minister is responsible as the head of government, the logrolling process of policy making in parliament is also potential to be minimized.

As far as academic wisdom, semi-presidentialism is not recommended (Elgie, 2007). The system however is still quite popular. At least 57 countries in the world adopt semi-presidentialism as their system of government. Linz (1994: 59) argues that the success of this system in the French’s Fifth Republic and the hesitance of many failed presidentialism (especially in Latin America) to radically move to parliamentarism make semi-presidentialism as a viable choice. I would argue, however, that the success of French’s Fifth Republic as empirical evidence should be explored and developed more so that it can be the viable model especially for the new democracies. The fact that this system has been so popular could be a reason for this. A more important reason is the latest findings of Elgie (2007) which says that “…there is inconclusive evidence to support some of the major problems commonly associated with semi presidentialism.” Elgie continues that “…the performance of semi presidentialism seems strongly influenced by non-institutional factors.”

Conclusion

The short discussion above implies that the different format of democratic political institutions (presidentialism, parliamentarism, and semi presidentialism) has its own virtues and risks. Nevertheless, I would argue that theoretically, semi presidentialism has the potential to overcome the risks that presidentialism (potential deadlock in policy making) and parliamentarism (potential of low degree of decisiveness) have by making the prime minister as the bridge between the president and the parliament. The challenge however is how to maintain the virtues of both presidentialim and parliamentarism when the semi presidentialism is adopted as a system of government.

Bibliography:

Bunce, Valerie. 1997. “President and the Transition in Eastern Europe,” in Kurt von Mettenheim, ed., Presidential Institution and Democratic Politics: Comparing Regional and National Contexts. Baltimore and London: The John Hopkins University Press, pp. 161 – 176.

Duverger, Maurice. 1980. “A New Political System Model: Semi-Presidential Government,” in European Journal of Political Research 8, pp. 165 – 187.

Elgie, Robert. “Varietas of Semi-Presidentialism and their Impact on Nascent Democracies,” paper presented at International Conference on “After the Third Wave,”Taipei, August 13 -14, 2007.

Gonzales, Luis Eduardo and Charles Guy Gillespie. 1994. “Presidentialism and Democratic Stability in Uruguay,” in Juan J. Linz and Arturo Valenzuela, eds., The Failure of Presidential Democracy, Comparative Perspective, Volume II. Baltimore and London, The John Hopkins University Press, pp. 151 – 178.

Gunther, Richard. 2001. “Opening a Dialogue on Institutional Choice in Indonesia: Presidential, Parliamentary and Semipresidential Systems,” in R. William Liddle, ed., Crafting Indonesian Democracy. Jakarta: Mizan, pp. 149 – 178.

_______________. 1999. “The Relative Merits (and Weaknesses) of Presidential, Parliamentary and Semi-Presidential Systems: The Background to Constitutional Reform,” in Journal of Social Science and Philosophy (Taipei), 11, March, pp. 61 – 91.

Hartlyn, Jonathan. 1994. “Presidentialism and Columbian Politics,” in Juan J. Linz and Arturo Valenzuela, eds., The Failure of Presidential Democracy, Comparative Perspective, Volume II. Baltimore and London, The John Hopkins University Press, pp.220 – 253.

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, Comparative Perspective, Volume I. Baltimore and London, The John Hopkins University Press, pp. 3 – 87.

___________. 1990. “The Perils of Presidentialism,” in Journal of Democracy, Winter, pp. 51 – 69.

Lijphart, Arend. 1984. Democracies: Patterns of Majoritarian and Consensus Government in Twenty-One Countries. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

Mainwaring, Scott and Matthew S. Shugart. 1997. “Juan Linz, Presidentialism, and Democracy. A Critical Appraisal” in Comparative Politics, pp. 449 – 471.

Mainwaring, Scott. 1993. “Presidentialism, Multipartiism, and Democracy, The Difficult Combination,” in Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 26 No. 2, pp. 198 – 228.

Valenzuela, Arturo. 1994. “Party Politics and the Crisis of Presidentialism in Chile: A Proposal for a Parliamentary Form of Government,” in Juan J. Linz and Arturo Valenzuela, eds., The Failure of Presidential Democracy, Comparative Perspective, Volume II. Baltimore and London, The John Hopkins University Press, pp. 91 – 150.

---

[1] Bunce (1997: 172) called this as “nonbargaining culture of political parties.”