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A presidential system, or a congressional system, is a system of government of a republic where the executive branch is elected separately from the legislative. The defining characteristic of a presidential government is how the executive is elected, but nearly all presidential systems share the following features.
The term presidential system is often used in contrast to cabinet government, which is usually a feature of parliamentarism. Countries with congressional and presidential systems include the United States, Indonesia, the Philippines, Mexico, South Korea, and most countries in South America. The widespread use of presidentialism in the Americas has caused political scientists to dub the Americas as "the continent of presidentialism."
Types of presidentsMany countries with a president as head of state do not operate under what is described as the presidential system. The most defining element of a presidential system being the degree in which the head of state participates in day-to-day governance. Presidential governments make no distinction between the positions of Head of state and Head of government, both of which are held by the president. Most parliamentary governments have a symbolic Head of State in the form of a president or monarch. That person is responsible for the formalities of state functions as the figurehead while the constitutional prerogatives as Head of Government are generally exercised by the Prime Minister. Such figurehead presidents tend to be elected in a much less direct manner than active, presidential system presidents, for example by a vote of the legislature. There are also a few countries - the Czech Republic and South Africa being examples - which have powerful presidents who are elected by the legislature. These presidents are chosen in the same way as a prime minister, yet are still heads of state and heads of government, and cannot be deposed early. This method of electing a president was a plank in Madison's Virginia Plan and was seriously considered by the Framers of the American Constitution. Some political scientists consider the conflation of head of state and head of government duties to be a problem of presidentialism because criticism of the president cum head of state is criticism of the state itself. Presidents in presidential systems are always active participants in the political process, though the extent of their relative power may be influenced by the political makeup of the legislature and whether their supporters or opponents have the dominant position therein. In some presidential systems such as South Korea or the Republic of China (on Taiwan), there is an office of the prime minister or premier, but unlike semi-presidential or parliamentary systems, the premier is responsible to the president rather than to the legislature. Perceived advantages of presidential systemsSupporters generally claim four basic advantages for presidential systems:
Direct mandateA prime minister is usually chosen by a few individuals of the legislature, while a president is usually chosen by the people. According to supporters of the presidential system, a popularly elected leadership is inherently more democratic than a leadership chosen by a legislative body, even if the legislative body was itself elected. It is also claimed that the direct mandate of a president makes them more accountable. The reasoning behind this argument is that a prime minister is "shielded" from public opinion by the apparatus of state, being several steps removed. Despite the existence of the no confidence vote, in practice, it is extremely difficult to stop a prime minister or cabinet that has made its decision. To vote down the cabinet's legislation is to bring down a government and have new elections, a step few backbenchers are willing to take. Hence, a no confidence vote in some parliamentary countries, like Britain, only occurs a few times in a century. In 1931, David Lloyd George told a select committee "Parliament has really no control over the executive; it is a pure fiction." (Leave the Constitution Alone, Arthur M. Schlesinger, 1982) Separation of powersThe fact that a presidential system separates the executive from the legislature is sometimes held up as an advantage, in that each branch may scrutinise the actions of the other. In a parliamentary system, the executive is drawn from the legislature, making criticism of one by the other considerably less likely. According to supporters of the presidential system, the lack of checks and balances means that misconduct by a prime minister may never be discovered. Writing about Watergate, Woodrow Wyatt, a former MP, said "don't think a Watergate couldn't happen here, you just wouldn't hear about it." (ibid). (Critics respond that if a presidential system's legislature is controlled by the president's party, the same situation exists.) Not all people agree that separation of powers is an advantage — see the equivalent section under the Perceived disadvantages of presidential systems heading. Speed and decisivenessSome supporters of presidential systems claim that presidential systems can respond more rapidly to emerging situations than parliamentary ones. A prime minister, when taking action, needs to retain the support of the legislature, but a president is often less constrained, even when checks on their power are in existence — checks and balances did not interfere significantly with the legislative programs of Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, the Roosevelts, or Lyndon Johnson. Other supporters of presidential systems sometimes argue in the exact opposite direction, however, saying that presidential systems can slow decision-making to beneficial ends. Divided government, where the presidency and the legislature are controlled by different parties, is said to restrain the excesses of both parties, and guarantee bipartisan input into legislation. In the United States, Republican Congressman Bill Frenzel wrote in 1995:
StabilityAlthough votes of no confidence tend to be rare in some parliamentary systems, they are common in a few others. Italy, Israel, Weimar Germany, and the French Fourth Republic all have or had problems with governmental stability. When parliamentary systems have multiple parties and governments depend on coalitions, as they do with nations that vote by proportional representation, extremist parties can theoretically use the threat of leaving the coalition to blackmail the centrist parties who are leading. Many people consider presidential systems to be superior in surviving emergencies. A country under enormous stress may, supporters argue, be better off being led by a president with a fixed term than rotating premierships. France during the Algerian controversy switched to a semi-presidential system, Sri Lanka did likewise during its civil war, and Israel experimented with a directly elected prime minister in the 1990's. In at least the first two cases, the results are widely considered to have been positive. In the latter case, however, the system was met with disapproval, and the previous arrangement was restored. Perceived disadvantages of presidential systemsCritics generally claim three basic disadvantages for presidential systems:
Tendency Towards AuthoritarianismWinning the presidency is a winner-take-all, zero-sum prize -- unlike a prime minister, who may have to form a coalition, a president's party can rule without any allies for four to six years, a worrisome situation for many interest groups.
Constitutions that only require plurality support are said to be especially undesirable, as significant power can be vested in a person who does not enjoy support from a majority of the population. Some political scientists, notably Juan Linz, go further, and say that presidential systems have difficulty sustaining democratic practices. According to these theorists, presidentialism has slipped into authoritarianism at least once in every nation where it has been attempted except the United States. Most political scientists, particularly people such as Seymour Martin Lipset, attribute this primarily to political cultures unconducive to democracy, and the prominent role of the military in most of these countries, but the design flaws of presidentialism itself may have played a role in some situations. In a presidential system, the legislature and the president have equally valid mandates from the public. There is often no way to reconcile conflict between the branches of government. When president and legislature are at loggerheads and government is not working effectively, there is a powerful incentive to employ extra-constitutional maneuvres to break the deadlock. For example, Ecuador has presented what some describe as a series of democratic failures just since 1979. Presidents have ignored the legislature or bypassed it altogether. One president even had the National Assembly teargassed, another president was kidnapped by paratroopers until he agreed to certain congressional demands. In 1984, President Febres Cordero tried to physically bar new Congressionally-appointed supreme court appointees from taking their seats. "From 1979 through 1988, Ecuador staggered through a succession of executive-legislative confrontations that created a near permanent crisis atmosphere in the polity." Colombia has similarly presented the problems said to be inherent in presidentialism in the last twenty years. Presidents have also gone around Congress to legislate and simply to govern. In Brazil, presidents accomplish their objectives by creating executive agencies over which Congress had no say (Checks and Balances, pp 34-35). Separation of powersPresidential systems are said by critics not to offer voters the kind of accountability seen in parliamentary systems. It is easy for either the president or Congress to escape blame by blaming the other. Describing the United States, former Treasury Secretary C. Douglas Dillon said "the president blames Congress, the Congress blames the president, and the public remains confused and disgusted with government in Washington." (Checks and Balances , 10). In Congressional Government, Woodrow Wilson asked,
Consider the example of the increase in the federal debt that occurred during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Arguably, the deficits were the product of a bargain between President Reagan and Speaker of the House of Representatives Tip O'Neill: O'Neill agreed not to oppose Reagan's tax cuts if Reagan would sign the Democrats' budget. Each side could claim to be displeased with the debt, plausibly blame the other side for the deficit, and still tout their own success. Impediments to leadership changeAnother alleged problem of presidentialism is that it is often difficult to remove a president from office early. Even if a president is "proved to be inefficient, even if he becomes unpopular, even if his policy is unacceptable to the majority of his countrymen, he and his methods must be endured till the moment comes for a new election." (Balfour, intro to the English Constitution). Consider John Tyler, who only became president because William Henry Harrison had died after thirty days. Tyler refused to sign Whig legislation, was loathed by his nominal party, but remained firmly in control of the executive branch. Since there is no legal way to remove an unpopular president, many presidential countries have experienced military coups to remove a leader who is said to have lost his mandate, as in Salvador Allende. Presumably, in a parliamentary system, the unpopular leader could have been removed by a vote of no confidence, a device which is a "pressure release valve" for political tension. In The English Constitution, Walter Bagehot criticized presidentialism because it does not allow a transfer in power in the event of an emergency.
Years later, Bagehot's observation came to life during World War II, when Neville Chamberlain was replaced with Winston Churchill. Finally, many have criticized presidential systems for their alleged slowness in responding to their citizens' needs. Often, the checks and balances make action extremely difficult. Walter Bagehot said of the American system "the executive is crippled by not getting the law it needs, and the legislature is spoiled by having to act without responsibility: the executive becomes unfit for its name, since it cannot execute what it decides on; the legislature is demoralized by liberty, by taking decisions of others [and not itself] will suffer the effects." (ibid.) Differences from a cabinet systemA number of key theoretical differences exist between a presidential and a cabinet system:
The realityIn reality, elements of both systems overlap. Though a president in a presidential system does not have to choose a government answerable to the legislature, the legislature may have the right to scrutinise his or her appointments to high governmental office, with the right, on some occasions, to block an appointment. In the United States, many appointments must be confirmed by the Senate. By contrast, though answerable to parliament, a parliamentary system's cabinet may be able to make use of the parliamentary 'whip' (an obligation on party members in parliament to vote with their party) to control and dominate parliament, reducing its ability to control the government. In the late nineteenth century, it was speculated that the United States Speaker of the House of Representatives would evolve into a quasi-prime minister, with the US system evolving into a form of parliamentarianism. However this did not happen. More recently, it has been suggested that the office of White House Chief of Staff, the President's chief aide, has become a de facto United States prime minister of sorts, with his dominance or weakness in the US governmental system depending on whether there is a "hands off" or "hands on" president. (Ronald Reagan was the former, Bill Clinton the latter). Reagan's Chiefs of Staff in many ways ran the day to day affairs of government, with the President standing back from intervention. Some countries, such as France have similarly evolved to such a degree that they can no longer be accurately described as either presidential or parliamentary-style governments, and are instead grouped under the category of semi-presidential system. See alsoExternal links
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