Measuring presidentialism of Central and East European countries
Author(s)
Krouwel, Andre
Abstract
Political elites in newly democratising countries create political institutions, whose nature and functioning determine the level of legitimacy of everyday political decisions. With this legitimacy perceived by both the mass public as well as the competing elites, democratisers aim to create a stable democratic institutional regime. One of the most crucial choices democratisers face is the design of the relation between the executive and the legislative. In political science literature the simple trichotomy of parliamentarism, presidentialism and semipresidentialism is dominant, although more extensive classifications have been suggested. This paper seeks to move away from classification into the next step of scientific sophistication by measuring the relative level of presidentialism and parliamentarism of political regimes. Thus, it is possible to analyse subtle and minor institutional innovations over time within the same political system. This is particularly important when studying political regimes in transition. In this paper I will show that a relative measure of presidentialism and parliamentarism can be used to closer examine the assumed relationship between different regime types and their stability.
