Juan Linz, Presidentialism, and Democracy: A Critical Appraisal

Abstract

This paper briefly reviews and critically assesses Juan Linz’s arguments about the perils of presidentialism. We largely agree with Linz that presidentialism as it is normally practiced is less likely than parliamentarism to sustain democratic government. Nevertheless, we introduce a number of caveats into the argument. Although we agree with most aspects of Linz’s four major criticisms of presidentialism, we disagree with one of them: we argue that presidentialism is less oriented towards winner-takes-all results than Westminster parliamentary systems. We also claim that presidentialism has some advantages that partially offset its drawbacks. These advantages can be maximized by paying careful attention to differences among presidential systems; we build a case for presidencies with weak legislative powers. Presidentialism also appears to be more viable with parties that are at least moderately disciplined, and it is especially problematic with highly fragmented multiparty systems and with congressional elections that occur more frequently than presidential elections. Finally, we argue that switching from presidentialism to parliamentarism could exacerbate problems of governability in countries with very undisciplined parties. All of these points suggest that even if Linz is largely correct in his argument that parliamentary government is more conducive to stable democracy, a great deal rests on what kind of parliamentarism and what kind of presidentialism are implemented.