SEMI-PRESIDENTIALISM COMPARATIVE POLITICS Comparative Politics is a series for students, teachers, and researchers of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are characterized by a stress on comparative analysis and strong methodological rigour. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research. For more information visit www.ecprnet.eu The Comparative Politics series is edited by Professor David M. Farrell, School of Politics and International Relations, University College Dublin, Kenneth Carty, Professor of Political Science, University of British Columbia, and Professor Dirk Berg-Schlosser, Institute of Political Science, Philipps University, Marburg. OTHER TITLES IN THIS SERIES Parliaments and Coalitions The Role of Legislative Institutions in Multiparty Governance Lanny W. Martin and Georg Vanberg When Citizens Decide Lesson from Citizens’ Assemblies on Electoral Reform Patrick Fournier, Henk van der Kolk, R. Kenneth Carty, André Blais, and Jonathan Rose Platform or Personality? The Role Of Party Leaders in Elections Amanda Bittner Political Leaders and Democratic Elections Edited by Kees Aarts, André Blais, and Hermann Schmitt The Politics of Party Funding State Funding to Political Parties and Party Competition in Western Europe Michael Koß Designing Democracy in a Dangerous World Andrew Reynolds Democracy within Parties Candidate Selection Methods and Their Political Consequences Reuven Y. Hazan and Gideon Rahat Party Politics in New Democracies Edited by Paul Webb and Stephen White Intergovernmental Cooperation Rational Choices in Federal Systems and Beyond Nicole Bolleyer The Dynamics of Two-Party Politics Party Structures and the Management of Competition Alan Ware Cabinets and Coalition Bargaining The Democratic Life Cycle in Western Europe Edited by Kaare Strøm, Wolfgang C. Müller, and Torbjörn Bergman Semi-Presidentialism Sub-Types and Democratic Performance ROBERT ELGIE 1 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX26DP Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York # Robert Elgie 2011 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2011 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available Typeset by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by MPG Books Group, Bodmin and King's Lynn ISBN 978–0–19–958598–4 13579108642 Table of Contents Acknowledgements vi List of Tables vii 1 The Perils of Semi-Presidentialism? 1 2 Variation Within Semi-Presidentialism 19 3 Varieties of Semi-Presidentialism and Democratic Survival 43 4 Varieties of Semi-Presidentialism and the Performance of Democracy 69 5 Semi-Presidentialism and Democratic Survival and Collapse – Country Narratives 95 6 The Performance of Democracy under Semi-Presidentialism – Country Narratives 121 7 Premier-Presidentialism, President-Parliamentarism, and Democratic Performance: Indicative Case Studies 146 8 Conclusion 175 Bibliography 190 Index 203 Acknowledgements Many different people and institutions have helped in the preparation and delivery of this book and I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge their support. First and foremost, I would like to thank the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS) for the award of a Senior Research Fellowship in 2009–10. The book would not have been delivered without the support of this award. I would also like to single out two people for their particular support. I would like to thank Shane Martin, who advised me some years ago to stick with the study of semi-presidentialism. This was, as ever, very sound professional advice and has also meant that I have pursued a really enjoyable research agenda in recent times. I would also like to thank David Farrell who supported the idea of this book right from the start and who has always shown interest in it. There are many other people whose support I would also like to acknowledge. I would like to thank Shane Martin and Iain McMenamin for reading drafts of the original book proposal. I would also like to thank the anonymous referees of the proposal for their comments. In addition, I would like to thank David Doyle, Marek Hanusch, Carlos Jalali, Iain McMenamin, and Petra Schleiter for reading drafts of various chapters and for providing invaluable comments. I would also like to thank Petra Schleiter for arranging a period as a visiting researcher at Oxford University. Thanks to the financial support of the IRCHSS, I was able to receive a total of twelve months of research assistance for this project. I would like to thank all of the research assistants who helped me in the preparation of material for this book: Lydia Beuman, Songul Cengiz, Marek Hanusch, and Michael Seifu. Chapters 3 and 4 are derived from work that was originally conducted with Petra Schleiter and Iain McMenamin respectively. In particular, Petra Schleiter designed the first version of the event-history model that is presented in Chapter 3. It should be stressed, though, that they were not involved in the writing of these chapters or in the preparation of the models that are finally presented here. If there are any mistakes, or flaws, then they are solely and completely my responsibility. I would like to thank Fernando Marques Pereira of the Directorate of Docu- mentation, Information and Communication Services, Assembly of the Republic, Portugal, for supplying information about the Portuguese system. I would like to thank the team at Oxford University Press, notably Dominic Byatt. Finally, I would like to thank my family, Etain, Matthew, and Michael, for their support and forbearance. List of Tables 2.1 Countries with a semi-presidential constitution (as of December 2010) 24 2.2 Historic cases of countries with a semi-presidential constitution 25 2.3 President-parliamentary and premier-presidential countries 29 3.1 Periods of democracy in countries with semi-presidential constitutions (various indicators and data set coverage in years inclusive) 47 3.2 Collapses of democracy (year) in countries with semi- presidential constitutions (various indicators and data set coverage in years) 49 3.3 Correlation between the coverage of the five indicators of democracy (countries and discrete democratic episodes in those countries as the units of observation) 50 3.4 Correlation between the collapses of democracy on the basis of the five indicators of democracy (countries and discrete episodes of democratic collapse as the units of observation) 50 3.5 Cross-tabulations of semi-presidential subtype and democratic collapses/survivals 52 3.6 Results of logistic regressions of democratic survival by form of semi-presidentialism controlling for endogenous institutions 54 3.7 Periods of divided executive and cohabitation lasting more than two months in semi-presidential democracies (various indicators of democracy and various time periods to end 2009) 59 3.8 Baseline model: type of semi-presidentialism and the survival of democracy (various indicators of democracy) 63 3.9 Reduced model: premier-presidentialism, president- parliamentarism, and the survival of democracy (various indicators of democracy) 66 4.1 Summary statistics for the performance of semi-presidential democracies – Polity2 scores for 2008, Freedom House scores for 2009 73 viii List of Tables 4.2 Results of bivariate OLS regressions of democracy score by form of semi-presidentialism – Polity2 scores for 2008, Freedom House scores for 2009 73 4.3 Summary statistics for the performance of semi-presidential democracies – mean Polity2 and Freedom House scores for each period of democracy and subtype of semi-presidentialism 74 4.4 Results of bivariate regressions of democracy score by form of semi-presidentialism – mean Polity2 and Freedom House scores for each period of democracy and subtype of semi-presidentialism 75 4.5 Summary statistics for the performance of semi-presidential democracies – all mean Polity2 and Freedom House scores for all periods of democracy 76 4.6 Results of bivariate regressions of democracy score by form of semi-presidentialism – various measures of democracy, panel-corrected standard errors,