Talk:Presidential system

Contents

1 term "presidential system" 2 Removals 3 World presidentialism 4 Impeachment of a President 5 Parliamentary systems can also slip into authoritarianism, but have done so less commonly. 6 POV vs NPOV 7 Congressional System 8 South Korea 9 This article is propaganda 10 Defining characteristic: apparent contradiction 11 Frenzel, "Checks and Balances" - need ref details?

term "presidential system"

It seems like a very poor term, since by far the majority of countries with a president also have a prime minister. I've never heard it before, does it have academic currency? I can imagine it might be use in the US to contrast with Westminster systems, but it seems very misleading as a general term. Is there a better term? "Congressional system" seems to be just as US-centric, and implies something about the relationship between the two houses, but any term would seem better than "presidential system".

(the term "Presidential System" comes from Walter Bagehot. It has been widely used among political scientists for decades)

Many political scientists use the term. The term refers to the executive (or president) possessing executive power and being independently elected from the legislature.

Removals

I removed the following, which I think had little to do with the topic:

World presidentialism

A frequent demand is that the UN become "more democratic." This raises fundamental questions about the nature and role of the UN. The UN is not yet a world government, rather a forum for the world's sovereign states to debate issues and determine collective courses of action. Since the large majority of the world's states are now democracies, the UN is in a sense an "indirect democracy" already - the majority of countries cast votes at the UN in accordance (at least in theory) with the wishes of the electorates that elected them.

A direct and participative democracy would request the election of the United Nations Secretary-General by vote of the citizens of the democratic countries (World presidentialism).

See: United Nations#Reforming the UN, totalitarian democracy, world democracy.

David.Monniaux 09:03, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

Didn't this used to be its own page? - Nat Krause 09:43, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

Impeachment of a President

Someone doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground; some previous contributor thinks it's impossible to remove a President from office early.

You can't remove a president early unless it's for misconduct. Contrast this to a prime minister, who can be removed for incompetence or unpopularity. Usually impeachent requires a super majority too. In contrast, a vote of no confidence simply requires a 51% vote.

A fixed term of office is one of Giovanni Sartori's three definitions of a pres system.

Actually, a PM in a parliamentary system can be removed by impeachment. In the UK, some MP's wanted to impeach Tony Blair because they felt he lied about the Iraq war. However, the process of impeaching a sitting British PM is an obscure convention and has only been operated once in the history of the United Kingdom.

Parliamentary systems can also slip into authoritarianism, but have done so less commonly.

"Parliamentary systems can also slip into authoritarianism, but have done so less commonly. Where parliamentary systems slip into authoritarianism, such as in Ghana, the dictator will often change the constitution to a presidential one. Apparently, dictatorships are more easily sustained in a presidential system than a parliamentary."

I have some problems with this paragraph. The author's claim that parliamentary systems less commonly slip into authoritarianism versus presidential systems might not be accurate. The British installed the parliamentary system in places like Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Zambia, Iraq, and Burma, all of which slipped into authoritarianism.

Germany and Italy both fell into dictatorship under the parliamentary system.

I don't think the corruption of democracy has much to do with whether the system is parliamentary or presidential (as defined here) but more to do with the development of political culture. Africa has had a mix of parliamentary and presidential systems which fell into authoritarianism.

I am curious if the statement, "Parliamentary systems can also slip into authoritarianism, but have done so less commonly," is correct. And if correct, I am not sure whether being parliamentary or presidential has any correlation with falling into authoritarianism.

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, but I think the author's intent wasn't to say that dictatorships don't arise in parliamentary systems, but to say that that authoritarianism, once it arises, doesn't usually persist in a parliamentary system — either the authoritarianism fades again, or the parliamentary system is changed (formally or informally) to a presidential system. The statement reads "parliamentary systems ... have done so less commonly", and I'd suggest that this is different to saying "countries with parliamentary systems...".

I agree that the nature of a country's system doesn't necessarily make it more or less likely to become a dictatorship — I think the point being made is that when a country does fall to dictatorship, that country is unlikely to persist with a parliamentary system (if it had one). I'm not sure if that was the intent, but if it was, the phrasing should probably be changed, I agree. (Personally, I'd rather not make comments about the frequency of authoritarianism at all, in either system, because who decides what counts as authoritarianism?) -- Vardion 21:12, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Unfortunately the statistic was deleted, but other than the United States, every country that has experimented with a presidential system has had at least one authoritarian interruption. Of 40 third world countries to use parliamentarism since 1945, 27 stayed democracies.

True, there is no litmus test to use on a country to tell if it is democratic or authoritarian, but people can recognize an authoritarian country when they see it. Of the countries that have used presidentialism - the Philippines, South Korea, Indonesia, every non-Commonwealth country in Latin America - no one would claim that they have had consistent democratic governance.

1. Between 1946 and 1984 Bolivia had experienced 12 coups, Argentina 8, Ecuador 7, Brazil, Venezuela and South Vietnam 6, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Peru 5, Panama 4, Dominican Republic 3, Colombia and South Korea 2, Chile, Cuba, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Uruguay 1. The Philippines fell under presidential authoritarianism in 1972. Although Costa Rica and Mexico did not experience coups during this period, Mexico, after a stormy political history, came under the domination of a hegemonic party, the PRI; and Costa Rica experienced uprisings in 1917 and 1948, but since promulgation of the Constitution of 1949 has had the most stable presidentialist regime, after the United States. All but forgotten are the abortive Chinese (1913) and Philippine (1898, Malolos) republics and the unfortunate Liberian case. Most of the surviving parliamentary regimes are mini-states, but they also include gargantuan India, plus Jamaica, Mauritius, Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, Trinidad and Tobago. Fiji had not experienced a coup before 1984, but succumbed to one in 1987. These data are unavoidably rough because complex historical events defy simple coding.

Culture is a more important determinant in a country's success as a democracy than its consitution, but if you compare countries with similar cultures, parliamentarism seems to do better. Look at Eastern Europe, countries that chose parliamentary systems have evolved into democracies since 1989-1991, countries that chose presidential systems have faired more poorly (Russia).

I never found out the details, but I know Ukraine's parliament just reduced the powers of the president. Apparently, they thought that presidentialism was an issue in their democratic breakdown.

http://www2.hawaii.edu/~fredr/pres.htm

I think this whole discussion hinges too much on circumstances respective to the countries and thus is of questionable use. Other than the United States, most nations adopting presidential systems were impoverished nations with little, if any, experience in self-rule before independence. Is the history of democracy in Latin America that much different from that of Africa, where parliamentary systems have been used in a number of countries, with differing degrees of success? I think we can agree that it often takes time for nations to become accustomed to self-rule, and that the ones that gradually ease into it (like the U.S., Canada and Australia during their colonial periods and Western Europe during the 19th century) tend to become more successful than the ones that suddenly receive it after authoritarian rule (e.g. Latin America, Africa). (Incidentally, it should be noted that the United States originally used a parliamentary system -- under the Articles of Confederation -- and replaced it with a presidential system 11 years later.)

As for the Eastern European example cited above, note that the more successful countries were independent of Communism from 1918-1939, while the less successful countries were under Soviet rule during that period. Again, it stands to reason that the more experience a nation has with self-rule, the more successful it becomes. -- Funnyhat

POV vs NPOV

I think some of the "some says" are unnecessary. No one would disagree that a directly elected president is inherently more democratic than having a indirectly elected PM. People would disagree about whether or not having a directly head of government is important, or whether or not having a directly elected head of govt leads to the most talented person becoming head of govt.

Also, no political scientist would dispute that the USA is the only presidential nation to get a democracy right on teh first try. It isn't POV to say that presidentialism has failed everywhere else it has been tried, at least once.

If you can think of a country to use a fully presidential constitution other than the US that has _not_ had a coup then the wording should be changed.

What you or I (or any political scientist) thinks isn't really important. If anyone disputes it, it's POV, and so shouldn't be in there. I'll address the biggest issues in your latest edit individually.

• Some people don't think that a directly elected president is "inherrently more democratic". Some people think it makes no difference, as the people's choices are the basis of both direct and indirect election. Not necessarily true, but some argue it.
• A claim about whether a country is authoritarian or not is always a POV claim. The people running these authoritarian systems are obvious examples of people who might dispute it.
• The idea that "failures can be generally attributed to political cultures unconducive to democracy" is not only blatantly POV, but is also likely to be offensive to many people.
• "Constitutions that only require plurality support are especially undesirable" cannot help but POV — obviously, some people desire them, or there wouldn't be any.

--Vardion 23:36, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

You are being too strict about what is and what is not POV. There are certain claims which cannot be proven, but are so widely recognized that they are objectively true.

For instance, the notion that we cannot say in wikipedia that a country is authoritarian is ridiculous. If you cannot call an authoritarian nation "authoritarian," then the term has no meaning. The word "authoritarian" may be an adjective, but there are certain countries which are factually authoritarian. It does not matter if the person running the country claims that his nation is a democracy, such speak is called propaganda. To use extreme examples, no one would dispute that Libya, China, Cuba, and North Korea are authoritarian, despite what the leaders of those countries claim.

How can you say that political culture has no bearing on a country's success as a democracy? The point of wikipedia isn't to be PC. If want a political scientist who has said that, use Seymour Martin Lipset, he has written an essay called "the Centrality of Political Culture."

I respectfully disagree that by view on POV is too strict. It is not for Wikipedia to act as an arbiter of truth, nor to decide which sources are reliable and which are not. The fact that a regime is authoritarian is subject to debate, and Wikipedia should not take sides in that debate. (I have my own views on what counts as authoritarianism, and I actually suspect they're quite similar to your own. But why am I qualified to say? Who decides what views get to count?) This does not mean, however, that we can't point out the regime's authoritarian status — we just have to attribute that claim to someone who readers are likely to trust the judgement of. But it isn't our place to make that judgement for people. As such, I quite accept that we can quote Lipset on the relationship of culture to democracy, and I've just added that into the article. But we shouldn't merely present Lipset's view (or anyone's view) as legitimate just because we think it is. The nature of Wikipedia requires that we don't take sides, and let the readers decide which claims they believe.

I've added some attributions (Linz, Lipset) to the article, and would be happy to see more. But adding their claims as simple facts isn't possible without making the article non-neutral. I am not arguing the facts of this case — I have an opinion on the matter of presidential systems and authoritarianism, but it isn't at all relevant — what matters is that it is an opinion, however right or wrong it might be. If you wish to explain in detail the arguments made for your case, feel free, but it isn't this article's job to argue a line, however correct it might be. The truth should be judged by readers — it's our job to present the arguments.

-- Vardion 02:03, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

(Addendum: Regarding the point about "failures can be generally attributed to political cultures unconducive to democracy". I realise that you are correct about this — when reading it, I skipped over the word "political", which makes a substantial difference to the meaning. I apologise for that mistake, and have reworked that sentence a bit. Feel free to alter it more. -- Vardion 02:09, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)).

"Failed" is a loaded term. If a nation has a successful 50-year run of democracy interrupted by one military coup, does that really mean that the political system failed? Could it simply be a case of the military acting out of line? I made an edit to write that "many of the nations using a presidential system have slipped into authoritarianism." I like the word "many;" it can be interpreted however you wish. I think it is a good, NPOV word to use. Funnyhat

Congressional System

Can it please be made clear what exactly is the difference between a Congress and a Parliament? The "Congress" link leads to a disambiguation with a "congressional system" link which redirects back to this page. Is the difference that a congress is seperate from the executive, or is there something more complex?

I have the same question, what is the difference between a Congress and a parliament? If there is no difference that makes sense in the context of the article (and that most political scientists accept) I suggest that the line "a presidential system can function with a parliament or Congress" be removed. dinopup

Reading the section on differences from a cabinet system, I notice the mention of fixed terms for the legislature. Perhaps we can thus define a "Congress" (a legislature in a congressional system) as having fixed terms while "Parliaments" can be dissolved early or have no fixed schedule at all? Ddye 18:18, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

South Korea

South Korea is on the presidential and semi-presidential pages. Which one is it? --Woohookitty 19:21, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This article is propaganda

I keep coming back to this article about the so called "presidential system" because I find it so bad. The term "presidential system" is a misnomer when describing the United States government. And because dictators like to call themselves presidents and not prime ministers does not mean the Cuban government or the government of Zimbabwe are using a system similar to the United States.

And if you notice the depth of criticism of the "presidential system" and then check out the pages for the Westminster system or parliamentary system where there is no criticism at all, it is obvious that someone out there does not like the concept of a government having a president.

Is there nothing to criticize about the Westminster System? Is everyone in the UK, Canada, and Australia happy with having an unelected head of state? Is there no criticism of the House of Lords in the UK or of Canada's unelected Senate? And why is there a strong movement for the establishment of a republic in Australia?

This article also criticizes the "presidential system" for concentrating power in one person, but then turns around and talks about the separation of powers and subsequent gridlock.

There are some who criticize the Westminster system for concentrating too much power in the hands of the prime minister. In Jonathan Freedland's "Bring Home The Revolution", he complains about the dictator-like powers of a prime minister as opposed to the American president who is constrained by checks and balances from two branches of government and who also is subject to national elections, unlike a prime minister. In Canada, there is a constant strain between the premiers of the provinces and the prime minister because some premiers feel too much power is concentrated in the prime minster's office in Ottawa. Premiers in Canada's provinces have a habit of threatening secession in the face of the prime minister's concentrated powers.

The concentration of power criticism regarding the American president does not hold water with me. It was Blair who went to war in Iraq without popular support, not Bush. And during the FDR administration, the US was late to enter WWII because FDR knew the American public was firmly against entering the war. It wasn't until the attack on Pearl Harbor that FDR had the popular support to enter the war in Europe. FDR was one of America's most popular and powerful presidents but did not go to war without popular support. And with Blair being highly unpopular with the British public, he is still able to hold onto the prime minister's office because he is not subject to national elections and his party has a lock on power in the House of Commons.

As a political science major, I never once heard the US government described as a "presidential system." The executive branch is only one aspect of the American system and not its defining characteristic. If we're going to define the American system by its executive branch and call it a "presidential system" then we should call the UK a "monarchical system."

This whole article to me seems to be a veiled attempt at slagging the American system in favor of parliamentary systems. A lot of people like me would rather not live under a system with a Queen and a House of Lords and a prime minister who has all the powers of an executive but who is not subject to national elections.

the term presidential system has a long history, Walter Bagehot used it in The English Constitution, you can find the term used in books like Parliamentary versus Presidential Government edited by Arend Lijphart.

I agree with you on your criticism of the concentrated power terminology. Vardion is the one who insists on using that term because he refuses to let any country be called authoritarian. Scholars like Juan Linz assert that presidentialism is a problematic regime type and has a tendency to authoritarianism. They say that a president's limited powers are actually what give him an incentive to make extra-constitutional seizures of power.

Since tendency to authoritarianism a widespread and valid criticism, I think it should be there. Other than the United States, every country that has tried a presidential government has had at least one authoritarian period.

You're 100 % right that parliamentary govts have their own problems (you can argue that a PM is an elected, temporary dictator), why don't you write a criticism section for parliamentarism?

You know, few people in the UK care if the British sovereign is unelected. Why should they, when ultimately she is a figurehead and only possesses theoretical reserve powers? Even republics have unelected heads of state. Look at Germany or Italy. A parliamentary system does not have to possess an elected head of state. The principal characteristic of a parliamentary system is that the there are no seperation of powers between the executive branch and the legislative branch.

This is besides the point, since an unelected upper house is not a characteristic of "parliamentary government" (it is only a specific characteristic of the govts of a few countries that happen to be parliamentary, like the UK and Canada) but yes, there is a big movement in Australia to become a republic, but people there want to keep their parliamentary government. An Australian president would be a ceremonial figure, not unlike a constitutional monarch. Most die hard Republicans don't want to copy the American separation of powers doctrine.Dinopup 15:14, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I disagree with the statement that the "tendency to authoritarianism is a widespread and valid criticism" of "presidential systems." Widespread perhaps in certain academic circles in Europe, but certainly not valid. It seems the argument here is that because democracy failed in Latin America in the 20th century we are supposed to take this as proof that so-called "presidential systems" are more prone to authoritarianism. I suspect that experts on Latin America would not blame the region's instability in the 20th century on the attempted establishment of republics rather than parliamentary governments. So if Latin America went with parliamentary systems we would have had fewer coup d'etats there? I'd like to see someone prove that one. Democracy failed across Europe, Asia, and Africa under both republics and parliamentary governments. And today all of Latin America is made up of democratic republics, save Cuba, yet former parliamentary systems like in Zimbabwe, Pakistan, and Iraq until recently, are all examples of parliamentary systems that fell into authoritarianism.

Maybe the political stablity of a country is related to the political culture of the country. This article states that Italy has possessed unstable governments for decades and this is true, but so have presidential systems. So really it is not correct to state that presidential or parliamentary system in itself will lead to greater stability.

The article describes a "presidential system" as "...a system of government of a republic where the executive branch is elected separately from the legislative." But the article also states, "Where parliamentary systems slip into authoritarianism, such as in Ghana, the dictator will often change the constitution to a presidential one. Apparently, dictatorships are more easily sustained in a presidential system than a parliamentary." If we are defining a "presidential system" as one where the executive branch is elected, then how can the president of Ghana more easily sustain authoritarianism under a "presidential system" if he is an unelected dictator? If a dictator chooses to call himself a president rather than a king or an emperor or a prime minister, does his system of government now qualify as a "presidential system," even if he seized power from a parliamentary government?

I suspect the term "presidential system" is mainly used by British academics attempting to defend the status quo in the UK and who perhaps have a prejudice against the concept of an elected head of state. The fact that the American government has a president is only one aspect of the American system of government and not its defining characteristic. Calling the US system a "presidential system" is a misnomer. This is probably why you don't hear the term "presidential system" often in the US.

I am going to delete the section on dictators preferring to call themselves presidents. There are no quotations or statistics to back it up, so I think it is invalid."

In a few instances of Latin American democratic failure, you can make a clear case that presidentialism was at fault, and not the nation's political culture. Take Chile, prior to the 1960s, Chile had been democratic for almost a century, it had a large middle class and a free press. In 1967, Salvador Allende won the presidency with ~36 % of the vote, while rightist and centrist candidates won 64 %. Because of Chile's constitution and traditions, Allende won 100 % of the power of the executive branch for what was supposed to be a 6 yr term.

As you know, as president, Allende implemented an array of unpopular socialist programs. His popularity sank even below the 36 % of the electorate that he won in his election. Though he was unpopular and incompetent, the legislature could not remove him, thus the army did.

The term "presidential system" does not encompass the entirety of the American government, but we are still a presidential system in that our executive is elected separately from our legislature. Seymour Martin Lipset is American, he uses the term in all his writings, so does Juan Linz, whois at Yale. If Americans don't use the term "presidential system," well, that is like fish not using the word "wet." People who have experience w/ comparative government know what the word means.

"I suspect the term "presidential system" is mainly used by British academics attempting to defend the status quo in the UK and who perhaps have a prejudice against the concept of an elected head of state."

The UK could still have an elected head of state and still be parliamentary. A parliamentary system is defined by how the executive/head of govt is chosen, not by how the head of state is chosen.Dinopup 02:37, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

If the overthrow of Allende's government can be blamed on "presidentialism" then the overthrow of governments in Ghana, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, Germany, Italy, etc. can be blamed on failures of "parliamentarism". I think the criticism that a country with a president is more prone to authoritarianism is invalid and based on a bias toward the parliamentary system.

Look up the Fred Riggs article. Of 41 Third World parliamentary governments, 27 have made it as democracies without interruptions. Of Third World presidential governments, zero have made it as democracies without interruptions. Yes, parliamentarism has failed in a few places, but it succeeds more often than presidentialism. BTW, sign your name if you're going to continue this discussion. Dinopup 13:06, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Defining characteristic: apparent contradiction

"The defining characteristic of a presidential government is how the executive is elected, but nearly all presidential systems share the following features."

....

"The most defining element of a presidential system being the degree in which the head of state participates in day-to-day governance."

This is a contradiction, but I don't know which of the above statements is correct, as I have not previous encountered the term "presidential system". (Also, the latter is a sentence fragment. But there's no sense in fixing it if it's going to be deleted.) --Jim Henry 20:08, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

(was fixed, thanks)

Frenzel, "Checks and Balances" - need ref details?

Republican Congressman Bill Frenzel wrote in 1995: "There are some of us who think gridlock is the best thing since indoor plumbing. ..... " (Checks and Balances, 8)

This is incomplete reference data. I tried to find the source using Google but could not. Could whoever put this in please add details to the References section? (And format the title correctly, with quotes if it's an article and italics if it's a book.) --Jim Henry 16:23, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)