Weak President Research Articles

The “shkrinking” role of the Head of State during the years of transition

This paper aims to present the evolution of the role of the Head of State in the institutional and cultural context of post-communist Albania, especially in relation to his responsibility regarding the reasons of the state and as a representative and defender of the permanent interest of society (Schmitt, 1931). Dialectics and tension produced with majorities and Governments; the gradual erosion of the position of the head of state in favor of the executive; the effects on the political system and the ethical totality of the State, as well as the public opinion’s perception of the role of the Head of State (Hegel, 1998). From a theoretical stance, the various doctrines of the Theory of the State always make a clear distinction between the concept of the Head of State and the President of the Republic. Within this concept, we can distinguish the form of the state, the form of government and, as a result, the political and institutional power of the Head of State. In this context, based on a structuralist approach, in addition to the presentation of doctrine, facts and historical reasons, the article also seeks to present a perspective on the suitability of a strong or weak president in relation to the political-institutional framework as well as the hierarchy of values in their entirety. Can the democratic election of the President by the people be (re)considered or should the figure of the President be ultimately reinvented?!

Presidential power and stock returns

AbstractRecent studies highlight the positive effect of political connections on firm performance and stock returns. This paper shows that the positive effect of political connections on stock returns becomes substantially weaker in the weak presidency period, defined as the last 2 years before presidential party change or period of low job approval ratings. We consider two hypotheses—political interconnectedness and political risk—and find that both hypotheses are important in explaining the weak presidency effect on stock returns, political benefits, and research and development and capital expenditure. There is a trade‐off between direct political investment and passive political alignment. Firms with direct political investment tend to hedge political risk so that they can run their real side investment on their own schedule. Consistent with this story, we find that the weak presidency effect is more pronounced for small firms that lack the resources for direct political investment.

‘Harder’ soft governance in the European Energy Union

ABSTRACT In 2016, the Commission proposed an ambitious governance strategy in order to further the transformation of the European energy system towards the Unions’ 2030 climate and energy targets. Therein the EU adopted the Regulation on the Governance of the Energy Union in 2018 to harden its otherwise soft governance. This contribution firstly aims at characterizing the ‘hardness’ of this soft governance. The analyses showed the introduction of harder elements to soft governance to at least a certain extend. Secondly, it explains the degree of hardness from actor-centred institutionalism perspective by analysing the trilogue of the co-legislators and the Commission. The analysis shows a successful entrepreneurial role of the Commission in those questions where it was backed by the European. The Parliament performed strongly due to powerful support of its joint committee, experienced negotiators and a wide majority voting in the plenum. In contrary, the Council showed a divided opinion in many points and was confronted with a weak presidency during the dialogue. As a result, harder elements were introduced in questions, where Commission and Parliament argued along the same lines and could even go beyond the Commissions’ proposal, where Parliament and Council found points of common interest.

System rządów parlamentarnych na obszarze poradzieckim: casus Mołdawii i Łotwy

The fundamental problem faced by the states that have emerged in the area of the former USSR involved the definition of the desired form of their own political regime. The choices made in this respect in the first stage of political transformation were frequently limited only to the formal stipulation of model legal and constitutional solutions. The post-communist elite wielding power in the new states was characterized by a desire to form a one-man organ of state in the form of a strong president. The absence of democratic traditions and the negative legacy of the USSR have profoundly influenced the processes of shaping the political regimes in the post-Soviet area, and have actually become the predominant reason to legitimize authoritarianism. Only a few states of the former USSR have decided to adopt a model of governance other than a strong presidential system. Latvia deserves attention in this respect, as it has decided to reinstate the tested political principles of the interwar period. In the process of political transformation, the Latvian political elite has opted for the parliamentary system of governance and chose a weak presidency and the primacy of parliament. The transformation process was quickly completed allowing Latvia to be classified today as a non-consolidated democracy. Moldova’s adopting the system of parliamentary governance in 2000 was, in turn, an unintentional result of a political conflict caused by the President’s endeavors to form a strong presidential system. Moldovan parliamentarianism is a product of a protracted shaping of the institutional foundations of the political system and a byproduct of political competition between the legislative and executive powers. The domination of Communists on the Moldovan political stage, however, resulted in the state’s appropriation by one group and President Vladimir Voronin, who enjoyed a great influence exerted both on the parliamentary majority (as the leader of the ruling party) and the government, despite the formal system providing for a parliamentary republic. There emerged a dangerous precedent of the President exceeding his rights and thus becoming the actual leader of a formally parliamentary republic. In the period from 2001–2009, Moldova was a system of controlled democracy where apparently democratic institutions were in fact a cover for undivided, informal power wielded by a small circle. This triggered a social revolution in 2009 and early parliamentary elections, which resulted in a transfer of power and the establishment of a coalition of liberal and democratic parties clearly expressing their intention to implement market reforms and European integration. Despite political obstruction in Moldova’s shaping of its political system, the country stands out among the former post-Soviet republics. It is the only state in the Commonwealth of Independent States where a continuous and uninterrupted cycle of the transfer of power by means of elections can be observed to conform to the law and constitution since the country declared independence in 1991.

SOUTH AFRICA: Weak President

Africa Research Bulletin: Political, Social and Cultural SeriesVolume 54, Issue 6 p. 21464B-21465A Internal Developments SOUTH AFRICA: Weak President First published: 18 July 2017 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-825X.2017.07721.xRead the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume54, Issue6July 2017Pages 21464B-21465A RelatedInformation

Jokowi's First Year: A Weak President Caught between Reform and Oligarchic Politics

When President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) took office in October 2014, he promised to usher in a new style of politics, generating optimism among many Indonesians that his government would enthusiastically promote reform. Yet Jokowi has since placed greater value on realpolitik than on reform, as evidenced by his choice of cabinet members, his response to the controversy surrounding senior police officer Budi Gunawan, and his handling of attempts by the police and others to weaken Indonesia's respected Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK). This article shows that Jokowi failed to deliver on his promises of reform largely owing to a combination of personal and external factors. He failed to show leadership on anticorruption and human-rights issues, for example—in part because he prefers economic development over democratic reform, but also because he is not immune to the oligarchic politics that dominate Indonesia's political life and promote the interests of Indonesia's elite.

The President of Ireland in Comparative Perspective

There is long-standing belief that the Irish presidency is a unique or at least a very unusual institution. To what extent is this interpretation correct? This article compares the Irish presidency with other presidencies. It examines the spread of direct presidential elections and the gradual diffusion of constitutions with a mix of presidential and parliamentary features. It then compares the Irish President with 42 other presidencies, including countries with a directly elected president and those with an indirectly elected president. The article compares the powers of these presidents, the process of election, and the prospects for constitutional reform. The comparison shows that Ireland is now one of a small group of countries that have a directly elected but weak presidency, and that while the Irish presidency may be unusual in almost all aspects of the electoral process, the Irish case has equivalents elsewhere. The main conclusion is that the Irish presidency is not unique. In all significant respects, the presidency exhibits and has always exhibited commonalities with equivalent institutions. That said, in a number of regards the presidency has always been and/or remains relatively unusual.

Political Institutions, Policymaking Processes, and Policy Outcomes in Mexico

This paper uses a transaction-costs framework to link the policymaking process (PMP) and the outer features of public policies in Mexico. It shows how a highly secretive PMP, centralized around the presidency, fashioned nationalist policies that were stable, adaptable, coordinated and private-regarding for the urban-based corporatist pillars of the regime. When growth faltered in the late 1970s, however, this PMP was unable to adapt to economic volatility, although it remained dominant in an increasingly turbulent polity. The paper explains how unified government and corporatist control of the economy made a constitutionally weak president the envy of executives around the world, even at the cost of being unable to enact reforms with short-term costs for the corporatist pillars of the regime. The article also explains why democratization in the 1990s is giving rise to a less centralized and more open PMP that benefits larger shares of the population.

Set up to fail: consociational political structures in post-war Iraq, 2003–2010

Since Arend Lijphart’s development of the theory of consociationalism in 1969, dominant schools of thought have accepted that ‘power sharing’ and ‘group autonomy’ are the basic preconditions of democratic governance in divided societies. The constitution and electoral framework adopted by post-invasion Iraq instituted many of Lijphart’s recommendations, including proportional representation, federalism and a parliamentary system with a weak presidency. But this democratic framework has failed Iraq. Eight months on from its 2010 parliamentary election and still struggling to establish an effective government, Iraq is facing constitutional crisis. This article uses the case study of Iraq to uncover fundamental flaws in orthodox arguments about democracy in divided societies and it goes on to recommend changes that would better enable stable and effective governance.

Explaining the Onset of Cohabitation under Semi-presidentialism

Semi-presidentialism – where the constitution provides for both a directly elected fixed-term president and a prime minister and cabinet collectively responsible to the legislature – is an increasingly common form of government. For many observers cohabitation is the Achilles heel of semi-presidentialism. This article aims to identify the conditions that are associated with the onset of cohabitation. We specify a number of hypotheses that predict the conditions under which cohabitation should occur. We then test our hypotheses on the basis of a new data set that records every case of cohabitation in all semi-presidential electoral democracies from 1989 to 2008 inclusive. We confirm that cohabitation is more likely to occur in countries with a premier-presidential form of semi-presidentialism and show that it is more likely to follow an election that occurs midway through a parliamentary or presidential term, and that when cohabitation follows a presidential election, it is likely to do so in a country where there is only a very weak president. Overall, we find that the conditions under which cohabitation is most likely to occur are also the ones where it is most easily managed. Thus, our findings imply that cohabitation is not likely to be as problematic as the existing literature would suggest.

The Policy-Driven Leadership of James K. Polk: Making the Most of a Weak Presidency

James K. Polk, the eleventh president of the United States, provides an object lesson in political effectiveness. The day he entered the White House, Polk remarked that he had four major policy goals for his administration, all of which he accomplished in the course of his one-term presidency. His leadership was enhanced by the clarity of his aims, the tenacity with which he advanced them, and his capacity to identify and employ hitherto unrecognized sources of power. Polk was more effective at bringing his policies into existence than at anticipating their consequences, however. He presided over a 1.2 million-square-mile increase in the nation, but he did not foresee the likelihood that there would be contention between the free and slave states over the status of slavery in the new territory. Not only did such contention occur, it spiraled in the years after Polk left office and came to head with the Civil War.

Are semi-presidential constitutions bad for democratic performance?

Many countries since 1990 have adopted semi-presidential constitutions, which are often considered to be problematic, primarily because of the potential for conflict between the assembly-supported government and the popularly elected president. Such conflicts are said to lead to unstable governments, policy paralysis and the eventual undermining of the democratic regime. Using data for all parliamentary and semi-presidential democracies between 1946 and 2006, we examine the effect of semi-presidential constitutions on the duration of prime ministers’ tenure in office, government accountability with respect to economic outcomes, and democratic survival. We also examine (for a smaller sample of post-communist countries) the impact of these constitutions on the progress of structural reforms. We find that the observed higher instability of prime ministers in semi-presidential democracies is more due to the electoral system than to the presence of a popularly elected president. We also find that semi-presidential constitutions have little impact on the government’s accountability to economic outcomes and on the survival of democratic regimes. Finally, we find that neither a weak president nor a weak government is optimal for the progress of economic reforms in post-communist countries. Regarding economic reforms, the optimal allocation of constitutional powers between the president and the government grants both significant powers.

Review: A Failed Empire

A FAILED EMPIRE The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev Vladislav M. Zubok Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2007. 467Pp1 US$39.95 cl°th (ISBN 978-0-8078-3098-7)During the Cold War, analyses of the period were necessarily one-sided. There was an abundance of material from the American side but little from the Soviet Union. Censorship was tight and the Soviet archives were closed. All this has now changed, allowing historians to investigate the Soviet perspective on the east- we st conflict in a far more informed way. Vladislav Zubok has been prominent amongst those reassessing Soviet foreign policy through the newly available primary sources. He co-wrote a highly influential book on the Stalin and Khrushchev periods that was published in 1996, and this latest monograph extends the story to the end of the Cold War and provides an excellent overview of the whole period.Zubok places himself somewhere within the post-revisionist spectrum regarding Cold War historiography. Within this framework, he argues - as in his previous book - that the Soviet leadership acted according to a so-called paradigm. In practice, this does not seem very far distant from the idea that the USSR acted in line with realist theory and sought to maximize its power, but a crucial difference is that its actions were underpinned by a commitment to Marxist-Leninist ideology. Indeed, one of the themes of this book is the importance of Marxism- Leninism to all Soviet leaders. Ideology was not used simply to legitimize Soviet behaviour - as many in the west believed at the time - since Soviet leaders actually believed it and sought to act according to those beliefs. Even Gorbachev, who was the first Soviet leader to break from the revolutionary imperialist paradigm, kept Lenin's works on his desk and reportedly reread them for clues and inspiration (296). A second theme running through this book is Zubok' s unMarxist - but nonetheless accurate - claim that every leader in the Kremlin, through the power of his own personality, made a real difference to policy.Zubok argues that there was little hope of avoiding the Cold War with Josef Stalin in the Kremlin. He was determined to control central and eastern Europe and, despite certain hints after the war, was never willing to give up the Soviet zone of East Germany. Stalin's reading of Marxism- Leninism meant that he always expected communism to triumph over capitalism, but not before a major between the two social systems. In his later years, became an obsession with Stalin, and Khrushchev later said that there were real fears at the time that the US would invade the USSR (86). After Stalin's death in 1953, however, the party quickly abandoned the idea of the inevitability of war and sought some kind of modus vivendi with the west.Stalin's successor, Niki ta Khrushchev, became associated with the subsequent thaw, but he does not come across terribly well in this book. He was a highly unpredictable personality and too often willing to take terrible risks with international peace and security. At the Vienna summit in 19 61, Zubok describes how Khrushchev acted with shocking boorishness towards John Kennedy, believing him to be a weak president who could be bullied (140). Such misperceptions led not only to increased east- west tensions but also to the humiliation of being forced to build the Berlin Wall in 1961 to prevent mass migration from East Germany, and of withdrawing Soviet nuclear weapons from Cuba under threat from Washington a year later. It was to Khrushchev's credit that he was not prepared to go to to defend these positions, but his behaviour alienated all sections of the party and he was ousted in October 1964 (190). …

The Partisan Foundations of Legislative Particularism in Latin America

In this paper we argue that organizational practices within parties, more than national electoral rules, shape legislators' incentives to initiate particularistic (narrow in scope and distributive in nature) legislation. We test this argument using a new dataset which comprises 1,906 bills initiated by the lower chamber in Paraguay (1992-2003) and 5,175 bills initiated by congress in Ecuador (1979-2002). We estimate the propensity of legislators to initiate particularistic bills as a function of district magnitude, the existence of closed lists, seniority, the size of the party, reelection rules, and the internal procedures employed by the party to nominate candidates. Our hypothesis is supported by the analysis. Ecuador, a highly fragmented party system with amateur legislators, is usually cited as a case where we should expect most bills to be distributive. However, once we control for strong party leaders, we see that their presence offsets the impact of candidate-centered electoral rules. Paraguay, on the other hand, has a relatively weak president and a closed-list PR system. Thus, it is usually seen as a case where strong parties and few particularistic bills should prevail. However, in practice, the fragmentation of parties into competitive factions has encouraged the proliferation of particularistic bills.

The Role of Presidential Advisory Systems in US Foreign Policy-Making: The Case of the National Security Council and Vietnam, 1953-1961

The historiography of Dwight D. Eisenhower's presidency has undergone substantial shifts over the past two decades. While historians still debate Eisenhower's overall effectiveness, few accept the traditional assessment that he was a weak president. In The Role of Presidential Advisory Systems in US Foreign Policy-Making, Pasi Tuunainen definitely accepts the revisionist contention that Eisenhower was an effective president who utilized a carefully orchestrated advisory system to facilitate decision making. He arrives at this conclusion after using the development of Eisenhower's policies toward Vietnam as a case study for evaluating the effectiveness of the National Security Council (NSC) in presidential decision making. His study fills a definite void in the Eisenhower historiography and should be consulted by anyone studying either the NSC or American involvement in Vietnam in the 1950s. Tuunainen uses the multiple advocacy model as formulated by Alexander L. George to test the effectiveness of the NSC in providing advice to the Eisenhower administration concerning Vietnam. He traces the development and evolution of Eisenhower's Vietnam policies by carefully examining the discussions and debates in the NSC and its subordinate structures such as the Planning Board and the Operations Coordinating Board. He reveals that the situation in Vietnam was discussed in 20 percent of the NSC meetings from 1953 to 1961 and at times, especially in 1954 and 1955, was consistently one of the most important issues on the council's agenda. He argues that Eisenhower viewed those meetings as important, encouraged free-flowing ideas, debate, and discussion, and received careful, if sometimes flawed, advice.

The Mortal Presidency: Illness and Anguish in the White House

Gilbert, a professor of political science, examines the effects of physical and psychological illnesses on Calvin Coolidge, Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan. The sections on Coolidge, Eisenhower, and Reagan are the most interesting, since FDR and JFK have been much more thoroughly worked over in the literature. Coolidge, despite the general view that he was a lackadaisical and weak president, did well in his first year after Harding's death on August 2,1923. Gilbert shows that Coolidge put in full and active days in his office. He worked well with Congress and achieved much improved relations with Mexico. However, shortly after the Republicans nominated Coolidge for the presidency in June 1924, 16-year-old Calvin Junior acquired a blister on his foot that became infected and died a week later. President Coolidge never completely recovered. Beginning with the fact that Coolidge did not pay the undertaker's bill for three

The Progressive Presidents: Roosevelt, Wilson, roosevelt, Johnson

Advocates of a strong versus a weak presidency have struggled throughout American history, but never so fiercely as in the twentieth century, which saw the rise of progressivism. This is the story of four progressive presidents, from the first Roosevelt, who himself brought plenty of backbone to the office, to Woodrow Wilson , who articulated the theory of a progressive presidency, to FDR, who brought it unique power, and, finally, to Lyndon Johnson, who provided perhaps its last great surge in our century. In a time of progressive malaise, it is important to know the history, to see the benefits as well as the liabilities, in the progressive presidential tradition. That is the aim and achievement of this book.

Presidential Leadership in Foreign Affairs: William McKinley and the Turpie-Foraker Amendment

THE quality of William McKinley's leadership is a highly disputed historical question. His handling of the crisis with Spain in I898 has received especially extensive and critical attention from historians.' This is so pardy because Americans have varied and deeply emotional attitudes toward war and toward those men who were Presidents during wars and partly because the small, sometimes pathetic, sometimes comic Spanish-American War provides such delightful examples for special pleading from history. McKinley has persistently been stereotyped as a weak President who had the backbone of a chocolate eclair, and historians have helped to fix this negative image. Some contended that he did not lead the people as Presidents should, but that he bowed before the public's martial spirit and the yellow press. Others felt that he should have paid more attention to the last-minute concessions by Spain in April I898, that he should have accepted the Spanish offer of an armistice in Cuba, and that he should have re-

The President as Chief Educator on Foreign Affairs

HE TREATMENT of President Eisenhower's foreign-aid budget request during the first session of the Eighty-fifth Congress focused attention on the overriding importance of strong presidential leadership in foreign affairs. Congress was well along the path to emasculating the foreign-aid program before the President reached down for his ace-in-thehole and went to the with his arguments. In a day when the patronage is not as effective a weapon as in other eras, the President's ability to put indirect pressure on Capitol Hill through appeals for support from the people as a whole has become an indispensable weapon for effectuating a foreign policy program when congressmen and senators threaten to play politics with the national security. Much has been said and written about the institutions which allow the Senate to affect foreign policy in a negative fashion by altering and defeating treaties and the power of the purse by which Congress can cripple and destroy administrative programs in the foreign field. However, a greater danger may lie in the indirect control exercised by certain key congressmen and senators. This control consists of pressure, either expressed or implied by past actions, which causes the administration not to undertake specific measures or to water down its proposals because of fear of defeat or of alienating a group of senators who might then oppose the administration on other issues. Compromise is an essential aspect of politics, but there is a serious question as to its applicability to policies involving national security considerations. Of course, this type of indirect control occurs most frequently when a President occupies the White House. This is why the years from 1921 to 1933 produced the best examples of indirect control by Congress (in most cases, by the Senate). During that period, a group of men on Capitol Hill called the shots and their predominance to a great extent stemmed from the fact that senators such as Borah and Johnson were stronger characters and had a greater sense of mission than did those men who had charge of the Executive Branch. It was no surprise to anyone that Warren Harding turned out to be a weak President, for he had been chosen for the Republican nomination by his cronies in the Senate precisely because he was the type of individual who could be counted upon to defer to the leadership of the irreconcilable isolationists in the upper house. Perhaps the most succinct summation of Harding's attitude towards the presidency was given in his famous St. Louis speech on American membership in the World Court in June, 1923,