PRESIDENTIAL SYSTEMS AND ELECTORAL INSTITUTIONS

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PRESIDENTIAL SYSTEMSAND ELECTORAL INSTITUTIONS
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WEEKLY READING

• Smith, Democracy, chs. 5-6
• Carey, Presidentialism and Representative
  Institutions
• Coppedge, Venezuela Popular Sovereignty versus
  Liberal Democracy
• Cepeda Ulloa, Colombia The Governability
  Crisis

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THE CHALLENGE

• Survival and consolidation of democracy
• Avoidance of the past (and military coups)
• Questions Would institutional changes help?
  Did prior crises result from institutional
  problems? And could they be repaired?

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THE NEW INSTITUTIONALISM

• Individuals seek to maximize gain
• Institutions (rules) shape incentives
• And can therefore determine behavior
• Ergo, institutional design can affect the
  collective behavior of political actors

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PRESIDENTIALISM OR PARLIAMENTARISM?

• Presidentialism
• Head of government (president) is directly
  elected
• Fixed term in office
• Cannot be removed by legislature (except through
  impeachment)
• Selects cabinet ministers
• Head of government is also head of state
• Separation of legislative-executive powers

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• Parliamentarism
• Voters elect MPs
• MPs select head of government (PM)
• MPs approve cabinet appointments
• PM (and cabinet officers) dependent on continuing
  confidence of parliament
• Head of government (PM) is not head of state
• Fusion of legislative-executive powers

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PRO-PARLIAMENTARY ARGUMENTS

• Avoid temporal rigidity, so crises of
  government would not become crises of regime
• Avoid polarization from zero-sum game
• Avoid paralyzing deadlock
• Thus superior durability of parliamentary regimes

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PRO-PRESIDENTIALIST ARGUMENTS

• Clarity of fixed time horizon
• Checks and balances
• Democratic election of head of government
• Not the cause of immobilism (PR the cause)
• Empirical findings result from selection bias

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PROPOSALS FOR REFORM

• Brazil
• Argentina
• Chile
• Why not?
• Insistence on election of chief executive
• Advent of polling, reduction of uncertainty
• Low esteem for congress, parties
• Politics of nostalgia

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ENGINEERING PRESIDENTIAL SYSTEMS

• Electing presidents
• Plurality vs. MRO
• Reelection or not?
• Power domains
• Constitutional or partisan?
• Bureaucracy, judiciary, military
• Decree authority

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THE LEGISLATIVE ARENA

• Electoral Systems
• SMDs and two-party politics
• PR and multi-party politics
• Effects of district magnitude
• Closed-list vs. open-list ballots
• The problem of term limits
• Institutional Performance
• Essentially reactive legislatures
• Removing presidents?

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THE PLIGHT OF POLITICAL PARTIES

• Diversity of party systems
• Levels of popular confidence

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Counting Political Parties N 1 / (S
pi2) Where pi is the proportion of votes earned
by the i-th party (or, alternatively, the
proportion of seats in the legislature)
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THE POLITICS OF DISENCHANTMENT

• Weakness of representative institutions
• Constraints on modern-day democracy
• Inadequate policy performance
• Tendency toward delegative or illiberal
  democracy
• Thus 55 would now support authoritarian
  government if it could improve economic situation