Patterns of Presidential Activism in Central and Eastern Europe
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VETO ET PETO: Patterns of Presidential Activism in Central and Eastern Europe __________________________ Philipp Köker UNVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science 1 Declaration I, Philipp Köker confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where in- formation has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. Date Signature 2 Abstract The powers of Central and East European presidents have been subject to a number studies. Paradoxically, only few scholars have tried to explain how presidents actually use them. This thesis maps and explains patterns in the activism of democratic presidents in Central and East- ern Europe (CEE). It proposes a new theoretical framework for the study of presidential activ- ism, defined as the discretionary use of formal presidential powers, and argues that it can be explained by the constitutional setting and the political environment. To test these hypotheses, the study employs a nested analysis approach. Thereby, the patterns of presidential activism are assessed using an original data set on the use of presidents’ legislative powers in nine CEE de- mocracies between 1990 and 2010, and the thesis provides one of the first cross-country empiri- cal analyses of the actual use of presidents’ reactive powers to date. Based on the predictions of the statistical model 12 president-cabinet pairings from four countries (Estonia, Hungary, Po- land, 4.) are selected for in-depth case studies. The qualitative analysis then uses the results of 65 semi-structured elite interviews and ample source material to examine the validity of the sta- tistical results. A particular focus is placed on the use of presidential vetoes and presidential ac- tivism in government formation, censure and dismissal. The study finds most of the hypotheses confirmed. Most prominently, the findings show that popular presidential elections, cohabitation between president and government as well as a low seat share of the government are the most important predictors of presidential activism. These factors are not only strongly correlated with a more frequent use of powers, but the mechanisms of effect are also demonstrated in case stud- ies. Furthermore, the qualitative analysis suggests intra-governmental divisions as an additional explanatory factor which should be included in future studies of presidential activism. 3 Table of contents Abstract 3 List of tables 8 List of figures 10 List of abbreviations 11 Acknowledgements 13 Introduction 15 A study of presidential activism in Central and Eastern Europe 19 Defining presidential activism 22 Research design, data and methods 26 Overview of thesis structure and results 32 Part I: Patterns of Presidential Activism 1 Explaining presidential activism 38 1.1 Studies of presidential activism in the U.S. and Europe 39 1.1.1 Presidency-centred explanations 40 1.1.2 President-centred explanations 54 1.1.3 Summary 59 1.2 A unified theoretical framework of presidential activism 60 1.2.1 Rationality, goals and the relative importance of explanatory factors 62 1.2.2 Hypotheses on presidential activism 67 1.3 Discussion: Scope and limitations 77 1.3 Conclusion 80 2 An empirical analysis of presidential activism in legislation 82 2.1 A new data set of presidential activism 83 2.2 Patterns of presidential activism 86 2.3 Event count models of presidential activism 94 2.3.1 An event count model of presidential vetoes 98 2.3.2 An event count model of requests for judicial review 101 2.3.3 An event count model of legislative initiatives 106 2.3.4 Preliminary conclusion – Event count models of presidential activism 108 2.4 Event history models of presidential activism 108 2.4.1 EHA of presidential vetoes 112 2.4.2 EHA of judicial review requests 115 4 2.4.3 EHA of legislative initiatives 117 2.4.4 Preliminary Conclusion – EHA of presidential activism 119 2.5 Discussion and case selection for in-depth analysis 120 2.5.1 Principles of case selection 120 2.5.2 Selection of countries 122 2.5.3 Selection of episodes 126 2.6 Conclusion 144 Part II: Presidential Activism in Practice 3 Presidential activism in Estonia and Poland 148 3.1 Presidents, their powers and political developments in Estonia, Hungary, Po- 151 land and Slovakia 3.1.1 Creating the presidential office 151 3.1.2 Presidential elections and term limits 153 3.1.3 Presidential powers 156 3.1.4 Conflict, consolidation and constitutional changes 162 Presidential activism in Estonia and Poland 168 3.2 Presidential activism in Estonia 169 3.2.1 Meri II – Laar II: The president exploits intra-governmental divisions 169 3.2.2 Rüütel – Parts: Activism to defend the presidential party’s interests 176 3.2.3 Ilves I – Ansip II: Limited activism due to limited legitimacy 184 3.2.4 The activism of Estonian presidents in government formation, censure and 191 dismissal 3.2.5 Estonia – Indirect elections and the diminishing role of the presidency 194 3.3 Presidential activism in Poland 195 3.3.1 Wałęsa – Pawlak II: Presidency-centred factors trump personality 196 3.3.2 Kwaśniewski I – Buzek I: The government submits to presidential leverage 204 3.3.3 Kaczyński – Tusk: Electoral promises as the reason for activism 211 3.3.4 The activism of Polish presidents in government formation, censure and 218 dismissal 3.3.5 Poland - New insights from a well-studied case 222 3.5 Conclusion: Presidential activism in Estonia and Poland compared 224 4 Presidential activism in Hungary and Slovakia 226 4.1 Presidential activism Hungary 227 4.1.1 Göncz II – Horn: Activism to help the government 228 4.1.2 Mádl – Medgyessy: President resists party pressure 237 5 4.1.3 Sólyom – Gyurcsány II: Mutual isolation of president and government 245 4.1.4 The activism of Hungarian presidents in government formation, censure 252 and dismissal 4.1.5 Hungary – Confirmatory and contradictory evidence 255 4.2 Presidential activism in Slovakia 256 4.2.1 Kováč – Mečiar I: Few vetoes despite cohabitation 257 4.2.2 Schuster – Dzurinda II: Activism boosted by popular elections 266 4.2.3 Gašparovič – Fico: Re-election as the reason for (less) activism 273 4.2.4 The activism of Slovak presidents in government formation, censure and 280 dismissal 4.2.5 Slovakia – A crucial case for analysis 284 4.3 Conclusion: Presidential activism on Hungary and Slovakia compared 288 Part III: Understanding presidential activism – synthesis of results 5 Patterns and specifics: Integrating findings on presidential activism in CEE 292 5.1 The mode of elections: Direct elections matter 294 5.2 The president and other institutions 300 5.3 Additional explanations 311 5.4 Vetoes as an indicator of presidential activism 318 5.5 Summary 321 Conclusion 324 Summary of results 324 Contributions and implications of this study 327 An agenda for future research on presidential activism 331 Bibliography 335 List of interviews 363 Appendix A1 Data set & variable description 368 A1.1: coding of independent variables 368 A1.2: Variable description – Event count model of presidential vetoes 369 A1.3: Variable description – Event count model of judicial review requests 369 A1.4: Variable description – Event count model of legislative initiatives 370 A1.5: Variable description – EHA of presidential vetoes 370 A1.6: Variable description – EHA of judicial review requests 371 6 A1.7: Variable description – EHA of legislative initiatives 371 A2 Additional models and statistical tests 372 A2.1: Negative binomial regression model of judicial review requests (no zero- 372 inflation) A2.2: EHA of presidential vetoes – Test of the proportional hazards assumption 373 A2.3: EHA of presidential vetoes – Model estimation with and without interaction 373 with time A2.4: EHA of judicial review requests – Test of the proportional hazards assump- 374 tion A2.5: EHA of legislative initiatives – Test of the proportional hazards assumption 374 A2.6: EHA of legislative initiatives – Model estimation with and without interac- 375 tion with time A3 Detailed description of interviews 376 A4 Presidential activism in the case study countries 380 A4.1: President-government relations and the use of presidential powers in 380 Estonia, 1992-2010 A4.2: President-government relations and the use of presidential powers in 382 Hungary, 1990-2010 A4.3: President-government relations and the use of presidential powers in 384 Slovakia, 1993-2010 A4.4: President-government relations and the use of presidential powers in 386 Poland, 1991-2010 7 List of Tables Table 1: Presidents in Central and Eastern Europe, 1990-2010 21 Table 2: Basic presidential powers in Shugart and Carey (1992) and Metcalf (2000) 24 Table 3: Presidential powers under consideration in this study 25 Table 4: Summary of hypotheses 77 Table 5: Geographical and temporal coverage of the data set 86 Table 6: The use of vetoes by Central and East European presidents 90 Table 7: The use of judicial review requests by Central and East European presidents 91 Table 8: The use of legislative initiatives by Central and East European presidents 93 Table 9: Descriptive statistics of president-cabinet episodes 98 Table 10: Negative binomial model of presidential vetoes 99 Table 11: Zero-inflated negative binomial model of judicial review requests 103 Table 12: Negative binomial model of legislative initiatives 107 Table 13: EHA of presidential vetoes 113 Table 14: EHA of judicial review requests 115 Table 15: EHA of legislative initiatives 119 Table 16: President-cabinet episodes in Estonia 130 Table 17: President-cabinet