The "newest" separation of powers: Semipresidentialism

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In a recent issue of the Harvard Law Review , Bruce Ackerman argues against the export of an American – style separation of powers to the rest of the world, preferring the model of “ constrained parliamentarism ” that operates in countries such as Germany and South Africa. 1 Ackerman comments that, “ since 1989, American jurists have become big boosters of the American Way at constitutional conventions everywhere. ” 2 Steven Calabresi agrees, claiming that “ Bruce Ackerman is absolutely right to say that presidentialism is now the toast of the world. ” 3 But reviewing the new democracies around the world today, the constitutional model rapidly being imported by these newly democratic states is neither the American – style presidentialism, so vigorously defended by Calabresi, nor the constrained parliamentary model advocated by Ackerman. Rather, semipresidentialism — an undertheorized constitutional type that is most often associated with the French Fifth Republic — has rapidly gained ground. This constitutional type combines a popularly elected head of state with a head of government who is responsible to a popularly elected legislature, thus making the model conceptually and analytically distinct from the other two principal constitutional types existing in the world today. Consider, in this context, that after the collapse of communism, when some thirty countries crafted democratic constitutions, the most common constitution chosen was semipresidentialism. Belarus, Croatia, Poland, Romania, Russia, and Ukraine, among many other countries in the postSoviet space, adopted semipresidentialism, contradicting the predictions of