Electoral Laws and the Survival of Presidential Democracies

Abstract

This research addresses the conditions necessary for the survival of democratic presidential systems. It argues that it is presidential systems which consistently fail to provide the president with adequate legislative support that are inherently unstable and ineffective. It further argues that the electoral laws employed by democratic presidential systems are intricately linked to the longevity of democratic government in these systems. The dissertation has two interdependent parts. It first uses a review of the relevant literature, several case studies, and the results of a set of personal interviews to demonstrate the importance of an absolute legislative majority for the successful functioning of democratic presidential government. It then examines the relationship between four key electoral rules and the relative propensity of a system to provide the president with a legislative majority. Presidential systems which regularly provide the executive with adequate legislative support are likely to be far more effective and long lived than systems which generally deprive the president of a legislative majority. Presidential systems which over time provide the president with a majority or near-majority represent a viable form of democratic government; a realistic alternative to the parliamentary regime type. Conversely, presidential systems which generally deprive the president of a legislative majority represent a decidedly inferior and unstable form of democratic government.…