Parliamentary, Presidential, and Semi-Presidential Democracies
Classifying Democracies
Democracies are classified according to their form of government:
Parliamentary
Presidential
Semi-Presidential
Classifying Parliamentary, Presidential, and Semi-Presidential Democracies
A decision tree is used to classify democracies:
Is the government responsible to the elected legislature?
No: Presidential Democracy
Yes: Continue to the next question.
Is the head of state popularly elected for a fixed term in office?
No: Parliamentary Democracy
Yes: Semi-Presidential Democracy
Legislative Responsibility
Legislative responsibility exists when a legislative majority has the constitutional power to remove a government from office without cause.
Vote of No Confidence:
Initiated by the legislature.
The government must resign if it fails to obtain a legislative majority.
Constructive Vote of No Confidence:
Must indicate who will replace the government if the incumbent loses a vote of no confidence.
Vote of Confidence:
Initiated by the government.
The government must resign if it fails to obtain a legislative majority.
Key Features of Democracy Types
Presidential Democracies:
Do not have legislative responsibility.
Parliamentary and Semi-Presidential Democracies:
Both have legislative responsibility.
Semi-Presidential Democracies:
In addition to legislative responsibility, they have a head of state who is popularly elected for a fixed term.
Head of State
Popularly Elected:
Elected through a process where voters either:
Cast a ballot directly for a candidate.
Cast ballots to elect an electoral college whose sole purpose is to elect the head of state.
Fixed Term:
The head of state serves for a fixed period of time before they need to be reappointed and cannot be removed in the meantime.
Types of Heads of State
In a democracy, the head of state is either a monarch or a president.
Presidents:
Can exist in presidential, semi-presidential, and parliamentary democracies.
Monarchs:
Only exist in parliamentary democracies.
Do not serve fixed terms and are not directly elected.
Summary of Democracy Types
Presidential:
The government does not depend on a legislative majority to exist.
Parliamentary:
The government depends on a legislative majority to exist.
The head of state is not popularly elected for a fixed term.
Semi-Presidential:
The government depends on a legislative majority to exist.
The head of state is popularly elected for a fixed term.
Country Classifications (2021)
Countries are classified as democracies and dictatorships based on the criteria employed in the DD measure of regime type.
Democracy types are coded based on Robert Elgie’s work and various constitutions.
Parliamentary, Presidential, and Semi-Presidential Democracies Examples
Parliamentary: Albania, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, United Kingdom.
Presidential: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Ghana, Honduras, Indonesia, South Korea, Turkey, United States, Uruguay.
Semi-Presidential: Armenia, Austria, Bulgaria, Czechia, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Lithuania, Madagascar, Mongolia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Taiwan, Ukraine.
Governments in Parliamentary Democracies
The government comprises a prime minister and the cabinet.
Prime Minister: The political chief executive and head of the government.
Cabinet: Composed of ministers who head various government departments.
In a parliamentary democracy, the executive branch and the government are the same thing.
Ministerial Responsibility
Ministerial Responsibility: Cabinet ministers bear ultimate responsibility for what happens in their ministry.
Collective Cabinet Responsibility: Ministers must publicly support collective cabinet decisions or resign.
Government Formation
Voters do NOT elect governments directly in parliamentary democracies.
Voters elect representatives, who then bargain over who should go into government.
Any proposed government must enjoy the "confidence" of the legislature to come to power and stay in power.
Governments must always enjoy the support of a legislative majority.
In some countries, a potential government may have to demonstrate that it has such support before it can take office.
Process of Government Formation
The head of state presides over the government formation process and invests a government with the constitutional authority to take office.
The extent of the head of state's involvement varies from country to country.
Free-Style Bargaining: The head of state is limited to simply swearing in the government proposed by party elites.
Formateur: The head of state chooses a particular politician to initiate the government formation process. A formateur is the person designated to form the government in a parliamentary democracy and is often the PM designate. Very few countries explicitly state how the formateur is to be chosen.
Informateur: The head of state is restricted to appointing an informateur, who examines politically feasible coalitions and nominates a formateur. Common in constitutional monarchies.
Despite the discretion of some heads of state, the first formateur is usually the leader of the largest legislative party.
The formateur must put a cabinet together that’s acceptable to a legislative majority.
Since it’s rare for a single party to control a legislative majority, the formateur must begin bargaining with other parties.
Once a cabinet has been formed, the support of a legislative majority may or may not have to be demonstrated by a formal investiture vote.
Investiture Vote
A formal vote in the legislature to determine whether a proposed government can take office.
If the investiture vote fails, the government formation process starts again.
If the investiture vote succeeds (or there’s no investiture vote), the head of state appoints the cabinet to office.
The government is then free to rule until:
It’s defeated in a vote of no confidence.
A new election is necessary.
Caretaker Government
Occurs when an election is called or when an incumbent government either resigns or is defeated in a vote of no confidence.
Remains in office until the next government formation process is completed.
There’s a strong norm that caretaker governments won’t make important policy changes.
Potential Estonian Governments, 2011
Shows all potential government in Estonia.
Politicians: Office-Seeking vs. Policy-Seeking
Office-Seeking Politician:
Wants to secure as many ministerial portfolios as they can.
Interested in the intrinsic benefits of the office.
Policy-Seeking Politician:
Wants to shape policy.
Office-Seeking Behavior
A formateur can get other parties to join the government only by giving them office.
Strong empirical evidence suggests that a formateur has to give large parties more office than small parties.
Gamson’s Law
Cabinet portfolios will be distributed among government parties in strict proportion to the number of seats each party contributes to the government’s legislative seat total.
Example:
Party A (80 seats) and Party B (40 seats) form a government (120 seats).
Party A should receive \frac{80}{120} = \frac{2}{3} of the cabinet portfolios.
Party B should receive \frac{40}{120} = \frac{1}{3} of the cabinet portfolios.
Minimal Winning Coalition (MWC)
You won’t want more parties in government than is strictly necessary to obtain a legislative majority.
A minimal winning coalition (MWC) is one in which there are no parties that aren’t required to control a legislative majority.
Least Minimal Winning Coalition
You’ll choose the smallest minimal winning coalition.
A least minimal winning coalition is the MWC with the lowest number of surplus seats.
Three minimal winning coalitions:
RE + KE (8 surplus seats)
RE + IRL (5 surplus seats)
RE + SDE (1 surplus seat)
Policy-Seeking Behavior
A formateur can get other parties to join the government only by giving them policy concessions.
A formateur will likely have to give more policy concessions to large parties than small parties.
You’ll want to form coalitions with parties that are located close to you in the policy space.
A connected coalition is one in which the member parties are located directly next to each other in the policy space.
Government Types
Single-Party Majority Government:
Comprises a single party that controls a majority of the legislative seats.
Minimal Winning Coalition (MWC):
One in which there are no parties that aren’t required to control a legislative majority.
Single-Party Minority Government:
Comprises a single party that doesn’t command a majority of the legislative seats.
Minority Coalition Government:
Comprises multiple governmental parties that don’t together command a majority of the legislative seats.
Surplus Majority Government:
Comprises more parties than are strictly necessary to control a majority of the legislative seats.
Minority Governments
Must always have an implicit majority in the legislature.
In some countries, parties publicly state they’ll support the government in any no confidence vote, indicating who makes up the implicit majority.
In other countries, the government doesn’t rely on specific ‘support’ parties, but instead builds legislative majorities on an ad hoc basis.
Frequency of Minority Governments
Occur quite frequently and aren’t always short-lived.
Common in some countries: Denmark (89.7%), Sweden (73.3%), Norway (71.9%).
Factors Influencing Minority Governments
More likely in corporatist countries.
Corporatist Interest Group Relations: Key social and economic actors (labor, business, agriculture) are integrated into the formal policymaking process.
Pluralist Interest Group Relations: Interest groups compete in the political marketplace outside of the formal policymaking process.
More likely when opposition influence is strong.
Less likely when there’s a formal investiture vote.
More likely when there’s a ‘strong’ party.
Reasons for Surplus Majority Governments
May occur in times of crisis such as after a war.
May form because a surplus majority is required to change the constitution.
There are strategic reasons for forming surplus majority governments.
Governments in Presidential Democracies
The government comprises the president and the cabinet.
President: The political chief executive and head of state.
Cabinet: Composed of ministers who head the various government departments.
In a presidential democracy, the executive branch and the government are the same thing.
Government Formation in Presidential Systems
The government can’t be dismissed by a legislative majority.
The president is always the formateur, and their party is always in government.
The reversion point during negotiations is the president’s party in power on its own.
A portfolio coalition doesn’t imply a legislative coalition.
Minority Governments in Presidential Systems
More frequent in presidential democracies.
A minority government that enjoys the implicit support of a legislative majority can exist in both presidential and parliamentary democracies.
A minority government that doesn’t have the implicit support of a legislative majority can exist only in presidential democracies.
Coalition Governments in Presidential Systems
In a pure office-seeking world, you wouldn’t see coalition governments in presidential democracies.
In a world in which the president cares about policy as well, you might see coalition governments.
The extent to which a president is willing to form a coalition depends on their legislative powers.
Government Composition in Presidential Systems
Governments in presidential democracies have more nonpartisan ministers.
Nonpartisan Minister: Someone who does not come from the legislature.
Presidents allocate cabinet portfolios in a less proportional way than prime ministers.
Factors Influencing Presidential Cabinets
Some presidential cabinets look more like parliamentary ones than others.
This has to do with the legislative powers of the president.
Presidents with relatively weak decree power, whose parties in the legislature are small, and whose parties exhibit low levels of party discipline, are more likely to appoint cabinets that look like those in parliamentary democracies.
Governments in Semi-Presidential Democracies
Two types of semi-presidential democracy:
Premier-Presidential System: The government is responsible to the legislature but not the president.
President-Parliamentary System: The government is responsible to the legislature and the president.
Executive Branch in Semi-Presidential Systems
The government comprises a prime minister and the cabinet.
The prime minister is the political chief executive, and the president is the head of state.
In a semi-presidential democracy, the executive branch comprises the president and the government.
Cohabitation
In a president-parliamentary democracy, there’s no guarantee the president and prime minister will come from the same party.
Cohabitation: A president from one political bloc and a prime minister from another.
Occurs when the party of the president doesn’t control a majority in the legislature and isn’t represented in the cabinet.
Cohabitation is not the same as divided government.
Characteristics of Cohabitation
Periods of cohabitation can be characterized as an effective system of checks and balances.
However, cohabitation can also be characterized by bitter and violent conflict when the political actors involved share starkly different ideologies and goals.
A Unifying Framework: Principal-Agent and Delegation Problems
Parliamentary, presidential, and semi-presidential democracies can be viewed as different systems of delegation.
Delegation: An act where one person or group, called the principal, relies on another person or group, called an agent, to act on their behalf.
Shift from Direct to Representative Democracy
Direct Democracy: People collectively make decisions for themselves.
Representative Democracy: Citizens delegate power to elected individuals to represent them and act on their behalf.
Delegation: Advantages and Disadvantages
Advantages:
Allows principals to accomplish desired ends with reduced personal cost and effort.
Allows principals to benefit from the expertise and abilities of others.
Disadvantages:
There’s always a danger the agent will shirk and not do what the principal wants.
Principal-Agent Problem
Refers to the difficulties that arise when a principal delegates authority to an agent who:
Potentially has different goals than the principal.
Can’t be perfectly monitored.
Delegation Outcomes
Can be thought of in terms of:
Agency Loss.
Whether delegation is successful.
Agency Loss
The difference between the actual consequence of delegation and what the consequence would have been had the agent been perfect.
Perfect Agent: One that does what a principal would have done had the principal been the agent.
Agency loss describes the delegation outcomes from the principal’s perspective.
Successful Delegation
Considered successful if the delegation outcome improves the principal’s welfare relative to what would have happened if the principal had chosen not to delegate.
The principal’s inaction is often called the status quo or reversion point.
Did delegation make the principal better off compared to the SQ?
Principal-Agent Game
Two actors: principal and agent.
Single-peaked preferences on a one-dimensional policy space that runs from 0-10.
The ideal points for the principal and agent are P and A.
The status quo is SQ.
The agent proposes a policy on the 0-10 scale.
If the principal accepts the policy, the new policy is implemented.
If the principal rejects the policy, the status quo policy remains in place.
Information Problems
Principal-agent problems often arise due to incomplete and asymmetric information.
Adverse Selection: Occurs when the agent has attributes that are hidden from the principal. Types are unobserved.
Moral Hazard: Occurs when the agent has the opportunity to take actions that are hidden from the principal. Actions are unobserved.
Mechanisms to Gain Information
Principals generally adopt ex ante or ex post mechanisms to gain information about their agents.
Ex Ante Mechanisms: Help principals to learn about their agents before these agents are chosen. Useful if a principal anticipates adverse selection problems.
Screening
Selection
Ex Post Mechanisms: Used to learn about the actions of agents after they’ve occurred. Useful if a principal anticipates moral hazard problems.
Fire Alarm System: The principal relies on information from others to learn about what the agent is doing.
Police Patrol System: The principal monitors the actions of their agents themselves.
Delegation Problems in Presidential vs. Parliamentary Systems
Delegation problems are greater in presidential democracies than in parliamentary ones.
Presidential democracies have a complex multiple chain delegation process and transactional executive-legislative relations.
Parliamentary democracies have a simple single chain delegation process and hierarchical executive-legislative relations.