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An Overview of the Debate on Institutional Design:

Parliamentarism versus Presidentialism

Emily Clough
Tyranny to Democracy Term Paper
December 1, 2000
At heart, the difference between the parliamentary and presidential government structures
is minute. In parliamentary governments, of which the United Kingdom, India, and Canada are
examples, the executive branch is subordinate to the legislature. In presidential governments,
such as in the U.S., the executive is independent of the legislature, although many of the
executive's actions are subject to legislative review. The difference between a parliamentary and
a presidential system seems small on paper, but are they in practice?
In order to evaluate the presidential and parliamentary systems, basic political structure
must first be understood. In most modern political systems, the legislature represents the
population. The legislature is composed of many members chosen directly or indirectly by a
popular vote and is empowered to make, change, or repeal the laws of the state and to levy and
regulate its taxes. Legislatures that provide direct representation are usually considered more
democratic in practice because they are less susceptible to being dominated by a single
faction. The executive branch is devoted to administering and enforcing a country's laws as
created by the legislature. The key to the difference between parliamentarism and
presidentialism is in the type of relationship the executive and legislative share and the degree to
which they are linked.
Under parliamentarism, the executive is subordinate to the majority in the
legislature. The executive must keep a majority in the legislature in order to remain in
power. The necessity of maintaining a majority is a key to stability as it promotes the

development of cohesive and disciplined parties, emphasizing cooperation and compromise. In


order to keep the majority, a government may have to form a coalition with another party (or
parties) in parliament, building a majority based on compromise and mutual gain. The structure
of parliamentary systems allows an easy flow of power as leadership is based on the party, not
the individual. A change of power can occur within the party without a major disruption as it is
the party, not the actual Prime Minister, who is elected to a term.
As opposed to a parliamentary system, a presidential structure boasts a separation of
executive and legislature. The President does not gain power because of a majority in legislature
but by being elected: the population votes for an individual, not a party, with the winner
becoming president for a fixed term. In most cases the President is backed by a political party,
gaining popularity based on both personal qualities and party stature.
Arguments of Juan Linz -- "Perils of Presidentialism"
Linz goes beyond these foundations of political theory to criticize the presidential
structure while supporting the parliamentary system. His belief that parliamentary systems
function better for the consolidation of democracy and should replace presidential systems is
based on three main theoretical arguments. First, presidentialism is less flexible than
parliamentarism. Unlike in a parliamentary system where the party who is voted into power, in a
presidential system an individual is elected for a fixed term. Since no easy mechanisms exist to
replace presidents who have lost the confidence of the legislature, changes in governmental
leadership are difficult and can easily lead into unstable political (and thus economic and social)
situations. In parliamentary systems on the other hand, leadership changes are readily facilitated
and can be done with a minimum of governmental disruption. By replacing one leader for
another, the majority party stays in power and party policies can be kept intact. A system based
on majority party rule is more flexible to change than a system based on the rule of an
individual.
In his second argument, Linz's contends that presidentialism is more prone to immobility
and gridlock than a parliamentary system. The separation of powers between the executive and
the legislative, both of which are elected by the citizens, contributes to political conflict and
instability. In political confrontations, each branch can claim to represent the people, creating
dual-legitimacy problems that can lead to gridlock and a political stalemate. This conflict can
also lead to polarization, policy rigidity and conflict as parties attempt to differentiate themselves
and create strongholds of support. Legislative paralysis and confrontation between congress and

the president undermine regime stability. In contrast, the parliamentary eliminates the problem
of dual legitimacy and promotes effective government by curtailing stalemates between the
executive and legislative branches.
Linz's final argument is that presidentialism is not conducive to developing or
consolidating democracy because the victor alone controls the executive. The argument follows
that the political party is an essential institution for political representation in a modern
democracy. The partisan conflict that can develop due to the "winner-takes-all logic" of
presidential systems can lead to fractionalization and instability, undermining the system of
political parties. A parliamentary system on the other hand, curbs partisan conflicts and
promotes the development of cohesive and disciplined parties. In an interesting new hypothesis,
Centeno, when looking at the political tensions in Mexico, points out that the "winner take all"
mechanism is an important characteristic of authoritarian regimes where power is concentrated in
the executive branch[1]. Although Centeno is not attempting to equate the two systems, he does
argue that presidentialism is embedded within the broader structure of authoritarian regimes[2].
Although the three preceding arguments sum up Linz's main arguments on the deficiency
of presidential systems, his analysis goes much deeper than this paper has room to explain. It
will suffice to say that Linz's concerns for presidential systems do not stop at the above
arguments but go into the "alleged dysfunctionality of presidential systems as concerns the
legislatures; the role of the political parties; the stance of the military; the consequences of
electing an "outsider"; the role of plebiscitary rule; cabinet stability or instability; and the
"myths" of presidential leadership"[3].
Reactions to Linz
Mainwaring and Shugart are challenging Linz's hypothesis that presidential systems are
not supportive of democracy. They argue that Linz's theories of the evils of presidentialism and
the benevolence of parliamentarism are overstated and must be revised. They are not attempting
to negate Linz's arguments, but simply to cast doubt upon the degree to which the autonomy of
governmental structure determines the direction of democracy. Historical legacies, existing
institutional conditions and socioeconomic factors all play a large role in the development of
democracy, say Mainwaring and Shugart, arguing that governmental structure cannot be the
separated from these factors.
Mainwaring and Shugart question Linz's theory that parliamentarism is a good way to
sustain democracy, or that it is a better way than presidentialism. Parliamentarism requires
strong, healthy party systems, a requirement that is not easily met in developing

countries. Without such parties, parliamentary systems would do no better than presidential
systems in fostering a stable government. Sartori argues that "parliamentary democracy cannot
perform (in any of its varieties) unless it is served by parliamentary fit parties, that is to say,
parties that have been socialized . . . into being relatively cohesive or disciplined, into behaving,
in opposition, as responsible opposition, and into playing, to some extent, a rule-guided fair
game.... The bulk of Latin America does not have, and is still far from acquiring, parliamentary
fit parties."[4] Mainwaring and Shugart also critique parliamentarism's tendency to form a
government-by-committee where there is no clear leadership or responsibility and no strong
center to hold the polity together. By adding in new prescriptions, such as the need for a strong
party structure, Mainwaring and Shugart believe it would be better to reform the presidential
system and avoid Linz predicted evils instead of a structured and automatic implementation of
the parliamentary system.
Using case examples from Latin America, Mainwaring and Shugart point to a major
practical statistic that forces a reassessment of Linz's dismissal of presidentialism: in every
country where presidentialism-parliamentarism has been debated, presidentialism won. As
stated above, parliamentary systems can suffer from the lack of a strong center and the weakness
of coalitions that must be formed in order to keep a legislative majority. Mainwaring and
Shugart propose that it is the fear of disorder or disintegration that spurs the choice for
presidentialism in Latin American as countries look to a strong president to tackle corruption,
stabilize out of control economies, and restructure inefficient bureaucracies.
Despite Linz's concerns about newly democratizing states adopting presidential systems,
Power and Gasiorowski claim that there is still not enough good statistical evidence to back this
claim[5]. First, the research of Shugart and Carey (1992) shows that of the five premierpresidential regimes they identified (Austria, Finland, France, Iceland, and Portugal), there were
no cases of democratic breakdown[6]. In addition, though research shows that parliamentary
systems are more likely to survive than presidential ones, there is no clear evidence of why they
survive. Linz would argue that parliamentary systems are inherently more stable, but other
research shows a strong correlation between parliamentary success and economic strength,
pointing to the strong influence of colonial Britain in establishing many of today's parliamentary
systems.[7]
A new consensus is developing around the theory that context is extremely important in
assessing the appropriateness of institutional structure. Although parliamentary systems have
helped to develop and stabilize democracy for some developing countries, that does not mean

that a parliamentary government is a good prescription for all nations. As Sartori argues,
parliamentary government is not necessarily the answer to the governability problem in Latin
America, and should not be imposed on all transitioning nations.
With new theories disproving the ultimate value of parliamentary systems, and other
arguments rising to restore the value of the presidential government, many researchers are left
with the hypothesis that governmental regime is not an all-important factor is determining the
democratic abilities of the state. A recent study of 56 transitions to democracy in the Third
World between 1930 and 1995, fails to find support for the "perils of presidentialism" thesis[8] as
proposed by Linz. The research of Power and Gasiorowski suggests that:
Institutional variables may have a weaker impact on democratic survival than is
commonly imagined. If this is true, then the advocates of different institutional
options should redirect their attention away from the regime survival debate and
toward more nuanced issues of political process, policy outputs, and economic
performance.
Although Power and Gasiorowski were unable to find statistically significant data
between democracy and institutional design, they still recognize that governmental structure has
important implications for new democracies, especially in terms of public policy, economic
performance, civil unrest and "governability" issues, and the overall "quality" of democratic
life.[9]
Juan Linz's proposition that institutional design is a significant factor in democracy
propelled the theory of governmental structure to the forefront of international politics. Scholars
looking for a more holistic analysis of democracy are currently challenging Linz's proposal that
presidential systems are unable to create and sustain a liberal democracy as well as a
parliamentary system. The current consensus it seems is that in order to assess the state of
democracy, simply defining a country as presidential or parliamentary is far too limiting. As
opposed to biologists or chemists, political scientists cannot dissect a country and a government
down to its base components; they cannot scrutinize each part of a government to identify the
root cause of every political outcome. With this basic premise, Mainwaring, Shugart, and others
believe those factors such as electoral laws, type of political parties and socioeconimic problems
must be included in the argument. Whether a government has a parliamentary or presidential
system is simply too small a component of government: it cannot be separated from the
multitude of other factors affecting the success of a regime in a democratic transition. The
success or failure of a democracy is too complex to be narrowed down to a single variable in a
multivariate system.

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