CPO3930 Final Exam Study Guide o The president is elected directly through a process separate from that of the Separation of origin assembly legislature Separation of function o The president administrates while the legislature legislates they serve an entirely separate function True separation of powers in presidential system p 19 Second paragraph C S o According to Carey and Shugart true separation of powers in presidentialism doesn t really exist because law making and administration overlap considerably this is why we have the checks and balances system Pure presidentialism o Key characteristics 1 popular election of the chief of executive The difference in Parliamentarism is legislative elections and coalition forming from inter party bargains 2 the terms of the executive and the assembly are fixed and not conditional on mutual confidence The difference in Parliamentarism is government coalition lasting only as long as all parties want it maintained it can fall as parties in the coalition defect or major parties call a new election legislative support of governing coalition is assessed via vote of no confidence 3 the executive once elected directs the composition of the government The difference in Parliamentarism is that the government composition can result from a negotiated bargain ministerial portfolios are allocated amongst different parties 4 the president has some constitutionally granted lawmaking authority The difference in parliamentarism is that the executive has delegated lawmaking authority from the majority in the legislature not the constitution 5 presidents are prominent politicians technocrats and professionals PMs are usually legislators leaders and technocrats o The head of the executive has a fixed term in office the US a president can only Fixed terms serve 2 terms Mutual confidence o The concept of the executive and the legislature being dependent on one another this is not the case in presidential systems according to Carey and Shugart they are independent of each other Professional experience of cabinet members in presidential and parliamentary systems o In Presidential systems Cabinets do not often change in the US they have a lot of professional experience in other presidential systems the president will choose party leaders rather than technocrats experts cabinet posts might be allocated to curry favor with particular faction leaders to overcome party indiscipline o In parliamentary systems Similar to outside of the US they do not allocate these positions based upon experience but rather to garner strategic ability within the legislature based on party clout and leadership and not professional experience Constitutional versus delegated lawmaking authority o This refers to the difference between enumerated rights of the president to make laws without the permission of the legislature versus the powers delegated by the legislature for example in the US the president has the power to issue an executive order without the permission of the legislature but has no real constitutional power outside of that Single person executive o The office of the president is indivisible it is a single person executive because no more than 1 party can have it and control of the executive at a time Proportionality in presidential systems o By simple virtue of electoral rules presidentialism is majoritarian and oftentimes not proportional at all Presidential office is indivisible No inherent place for power sharing The losers of the presidential race are now excluded for the next 4 6 years Votes of a majority of citizens might not be taken into account This could be dangerous for democracy in highly polarized societies in post conflict societies Some systems are prone to artificial majoritarianism Do all presidential systems ensure an absolute majority No Pitfalls of presidentialism and related arguments o Presidentialism does not adequately represent the people o In a good vote approximately 50 of the electorate is not represented o Does not allow for multiparty participation o Imposition of term limits a maximum term limit a president can spend in office stems from a want to prevent authoritarianism o There is a set time where elections occur i e in the US every 4 years on November 6 we vote for a new president Term limits Fixed terms Flexibility o There is no room for flexibility in a presidential system because they are temporally rigid this is contrasted by the parliamentary system which is very flexible and can last as long or as short as they need to Minority incorporations in cabinets and how that might pertain to majoritarianism in presidential systems o If the president is elected and is in the minority minority cabinet appointments further highlight the disproportionality of presidentialism Descriptive representation in presidential cabinets Minority presidentialism and winner take all examples o Chile 1973 Allende won with 36 2 of popular vote ended up in his assassination Dual democratic legitimacy dual meaning two or both Public mandate o The president enjoys the public mandate and the legislature also enjoys it hence o the public strongly approves of the president s character and as a result feels much more positively about the government as a whole Gridlock o When there is a minority and majority disagreement in the legislature and the executive as a result of a minority usually controlling the executive and the majority controlling the legislature nothing gets passed and the government as a collective is at a stand still Canonical example of the pitfalls of presidentialism o Allende and the 1973 Chile election that ended up in government overthrow and the assassination of the president Empirical limitations to the presidential pitfalls literature o Personalism and presidentialism o The office of the presidency is very personality centric each president is as powerful as he or she is as a person meaning their personality there is not much inherent to the position that makes it powerful Carey and Shugart s empirical analysis of the pitfalls of presidentialism argument o Presidential regimes breakdown at a higher rate overall but among lower developed countries parliamentary regimes rate of breakdown is higher o we find no justification for the claim of Linz and others that presidentialism is inherently more prone to crises that lead to break down Methods of popular executive election where advantages and disadvantages o First Past The Post plurality Does