Presentation
In this book outreach, Javier Hurtado is inserted into the current debate on the various systems of government, essentially wondering if any of them are more or less favorable, in terms of constitutional design, democratic development. After characterizing the various democratic regimes, the author distinguishes the outline and the various forms of government systems, taking into account factors such as their balance of power, their institutional frameworks, electoral mechanisms and obviously the theoretical difficulties own classification.
Centra, then his attention on the presidential system from the perspective of its relevance to a democratic system. Enter various details of some recent conceptual contributions in the defining elements of this system and a brief account of the changes that have been introduced in the laws of some Latin American countries. In a comparative framework of the region, forms of election returns Executive and some specifics on the issue of separation of powers.
Concludes, in this sense, that the variations in the performance of presidential systems are more dependent on constitutional design in question than on the characteristics of the presidential system itself.
Later returns the criticisms have led some contemporary authors presidentialism so it's up to the democratic functioning. For this, an empirical analysis of the subject in various Latin American countries on factors such as legitimacy, stability, internal crises of government, elections "zero sum" and fragmentation in the party system, among others. Stresses in this section the problem of runoff in presidential systems and discusses what he describes as a series of myths about it: in his opinion, the second round does not help to overcome situations of "technical tie" not necessarily reinforces the legitimacy of the election of the Executive, generates no true majority for the exercise of government, does not strengthen the party system and gives greater popular support for the ruling, among other things. This reflection leads him to state that, from their perspective, the second round of voting is more relevant for semi-presidential systems, while, on the other hand, the analysis deals with the concretions of each particular political system.
The author enters fully into the study of the presidential system, always in the context of comparison, and review its various forms, taking into account variables such as the legal powers of the executive, real powers, the possibility of re-election and constitutional design in that is inserted. Attributes the effectiveness of these systems to the particular situation in each country has political, electoral and cultural.
It also analyzes the issue of divided government, meeting their positive and negative effects, so he says, rather than a priori qualify its performance, it is important to review the criteria of efficiency and effectiveness of government, as well as their specific context , in combination with the possibility to provide for greater democratic game.
Finally, Javier Hurtado argues that there is a system of government that itself is more or less democratic, but it is a system to the extent that works to meet the needs of its population without distinction and allows participation (directly or through representatives) of their citizens in shaping public decisions.
Systems of governance and democracy enriches the series Notebooks Disclosure of Democratic Culture, whose intention is to disseminate contemporary reflection on policy to contribute to the development of democratic life of the country.
Federal Electoral Institute
I. The government
1. DEFINITION
It is the institutional expression of the state's authority. Its role is the design, implementation and sanctioning of legal rules through legally constituted bodies that, in a broad sense, meet all those government systems that organize and structure the political power under democratic principles. In another sense, the term also denotes the method by which a society is governed, or refers to a group of individuals who share a particular responsibility in government institutions.
Two. CLASSIFICATION
In a first approximation, as the justification to have access to public power, and how concentrated, can be distinguished from monarchies and republics. The first would attend divine reason or tyrannical blood and structuring criteria, while in the second origin is the popular will and, therefore, have an organizing principle of democratic character. However, as soon will try to explain, note that in empirical terms and individuals, if it is true that all systems are democratic presidential republics, parliamentary systems may be either monarchical nature (Great Britain) and Republican ( Italy), without affecting legitimate and popular origin.
Therefore, a simple contemporary governments distinction is "between liberal constitutional governments and various forms of authoritarian" liberal constitutional governments are characterized by: a) political parties are competing with each other for access to political representation in government bodies, b) are made free and periodic elections, c) the majority party in the elections leads the government (Rockman, 1991: 337); d) establishes regulatory limitations on the exercise of power can only authority law which expressly empowers him to conduct e) the authorities and citizens alike are subject to the rule of law, and f) the government must pay, directly or indirectly accountable to the citizens and take responsibility for their actions and their decisions. 1 The first three characteristics endow its democratic governments, while the last three produce what is known as the rule of law. From their conjunction does the concept of democratic rule of law.
Within the liberal constitutional governments there are two ways to classify the relationship between the governing institutions: 1) at the same level as attend a principle of separation, merger or division of power, distinguishing between presidential administrations, parliamentary or semi-presidential, and 2) between levels or orders of government-organized as a function of concentration or diffusion of power-may be unitary or federal. 2
From the above it follows that can be shapes or presidential systems of government, parliamentary or semi-presidential systems in unitary or federal polity. On the other hand, it is worth pointing out that there may also be cases of unitary countries that have a higher degree of decentralization of power to other federal type.
II. The system of government
A how each integrates republic or constitutional monarchy and political representation establishes relationships between government institutions is called system of government. Make government systems, along with electoral systems, party and cultural 3 what is known as a political system.
A government systems, depending on the lens through which they look, they can be classified as dependent or independent variable in the political process, in at least two dimensions: 1) if it considers that determine or are determined by electoral system or games (Nohlen, 1996), and 2) if they are understood as a cause or effect of changes in the social system (Apter: 173-186). According to this classification, if governments are considered as independent variable, they assume authoritarian or totalitarian character, whereas if they are seen as dependent variable will be pluralistic and democratic governments.
However, beyond these findings to government systems they can be considered as the nerve center of any political system at the crossroads mutually determining interactions between party systems, electoral and cultural and government system itself, making that both the operation and reform in one of these components affects others. That is, a democratic type of government is, and should be sensitive to changes and demands of the social fabric and, at the same time, to mold or impact it in the public interest.
Being three systems of government (parliamentary, presidential and semi-presidential), propagation requires us to be extremely cautious, both in identifying the elements "hard" that distinguish each of them, as in the various nuances that make the belonging to the same general pattern. 4 try to capture, therefore, recent theoretical subclassifications and new atypical elements in some of them are showing up. Let's start with the oldest:
1. PARLIAMENTARY SYSTEM
Originally, the parliamentary system-or rather, parliamentarism 5 - emerged in England as the assembly government that brought the birth of modern constitutionalism. With great success, Karl Loewensrein (1983: 97-98) states:
The Long Parliament in England (16401649) dominated and ruled as the sole holder of power until he was subdued by Cromwell and the army. Since its factual monopoly power was not substantiated by convincing political theory, the domain of Parliament caused the most scathing criticism unparliamentary by the emerging stars of absolute democracy embodied in the figures of the independents and the Levellers. In English constitutional history, the assembly government was like an episode for which there is scarcely a memory, and was succeeded immediately by the restoration of the monarchy and later by the Glorious Revolution with incipient parliamentary and cabinet government.
In this type of government characterized him the following scheme: 1) the Legislative Assembly elected by the people was gifted stranglehold on all other state organs, 2) the executive was strictly subjected to the Assembly may be appointed or dismissed at the discretion of this, 3) any state agency was legally authorized to interfere with the autonomy or the monopoly of power exercised by the Assembly, 4) there was no right of the government to dissolve the Parliament, while it may be a solution by the electorate ruler (Loewenstein , 1983: 97 ff).
In our days, the assembly government has been a model exceeded virtually all parliamentary systems. However, as will be discussed soon, in the recent classification system of government that some countries still have some of those features.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, a first difference between presidential and parliamentary systems contemporaries is that in the latter the only sovereign body-of-government emerges is its Legislature, while citizens in presidential define your vote integration two governing bodies: the Executive and the Legislative.
In the case of the presidential system, as the theory of separation of powers its cornerstone, originally raised incompatibility that an individual might belong to two powers at the same time. However, while in the parliamentary system of double membership cabinet members to the Legislative Assembly is not a necessary condition, it does facilitate its political responsibility, as it is easier that the Assembly exercises control over its own members than on foreign elements her.
Currently, other features of this steering system are as follows:
a) The headquarters of state and government are separated: the first is by succession, designation or indirect election of a given body. while the second has a primerministro the six elected Parliament.
b) The government or cabinet consists of the heads of the party with the largest electoral support, or of the parties, joining in coalition, form a majority government where power is concentrated in the figure of the Prime Minister, usually the leader of the political formation most votes.
c) There is no duality of grassroots and democratic legitimacy between government and Parliament, as if it's in presidential systems.
d) The government period is not fixed, but depends on the vote of confidence or of censure on the government to parliament to confirm or dismiss the prime minister and his cabinet.
e) The government is cabinet: its functioning and decision-making is collective and with the support and accountability of all ministers. The resignation of the government can lead to the dissolution of Parliament and new elections, or just a cabinet reshuffle.
f) While Parliament can dismiss the prime minister, who in turn may recommend to the Head of State to dissolve parliament (see Table 1, p. 24).
Note that the balance between parliament and government (checks and balances on executive-legislative relations within the presidential system) is given by the vote of no confidence in the second over the first, and the petition for dissolution of the Assembly made by the Prime Minister the head of state. As Loewenstein says: "The right to dissolve Parliament and the vote of no confidence are together as the piston and cylinder in a machine," between the two reciprocal powers exercised and control possibilities.
The parliamentary system, or "cabinet government" presents some forms today. Giovanni Sartori (1996: 117) mentions "three main varieties": 1) the system of English prime minister type, 2) the system of government by assembly of the French Third and Fourth Republics, and 3) "to halfway between they find the formula of parliamentarism controlled by the parties. " Moreover, given that parliamentary systems are systems "in which power is shared", the mayor can relate to others as a first ministers over their unequal (United Kingdom) a first among unequals (Germany), and first among equals (Italy). According to this author. today would be a pure parliamentary or Assembly (the post-war Italy), a "functional semiparlamentarismo" (Germany and the UK), and a parliamentary party (Spain).
Another way of analyzing these systems of government is based on their stability and durability. In some countries, the number and discipline of parties in the party system and its constitutional designs depends on the ability to avoid unstable or ephemeral governments. Well covered at one end would be the post-war Italian parliamentarism, and the other the traditional English model, along with German emerged in the mid-century. In the British case, the stability of his government depends - in the opinion of Sartori (1996: 120-122) - at least three factors: 1) a majoritarian electoral system, 2) a bipartisan party system, and 3) strong party discipline. The German case has to do with: 1) the prohibition of parties opposed to the system, 2) the rate of 5% (Sperrklause /) minimum to qualify for representatives in the Bundestag, and 3) the so-called constructive vote of censorship 7 If in the case of Germany referred to this factor as an element that contributes to having lived and stable governments should be noted that in the English case, for the confidence vote takes effect must be issued by the Chamber of Commons in three successive ballots approving the same direction.
Therefore, the supposed virtues of parliamentarism in relation presidentialism can not argue in the abstract: outside the parliamentary model reference is taken and leaving aside the presidential type that is being criticized. Finally, do not forget, as Loewenstein asserts that "the existence of representative institutions or 'parliamentary' in a State does not mean, in turn, that in that State there is a parliamentary form of government" (1983: 104 ).
Two. PRESIDENTIAL SYSTEM
The presidential system of government was created by the English immigrants who came to the East Coast of the United States to escape the excesses of the Crown. When declared independence and its constitution was drafted in order to avoid both the despotism of the legislature and executive absolutism. This produced a new model of government it had an integrated Congress by popular vote and at the same time, a ruler who, being one-man (chairman), nor were king. From here the doctrine of separation of powers, and checks and balances among them. In the case of the presidential system, as Loewenstein says: "The concept of 'power' has a figurative sense structural and should be replaced by that of 'functions', which would be designated the different areas of state activity" ( 1983: 131). In turn, the separation of powers should be understood more in terms of the coordination of the three branches of government in pursuit of common objectives, and in the sense of being so divided and balanced that none may go beyond their legal limits without being controlled and restrained by the others. This model government was immediately adopted, but not adapted for Latin American nations then won their independence from Spain.
At first, the distinction between European government systems and those emerging from the new American nations was that they were considered those monarchies and republics seconds. A mid-nineteenth century, Walter Bagehot used in The Inglés Constitution, the term "presidential system" to refer to the system of government of the United States, as opposed to what he called "cabinet government", typical of the British system. At the end of that century, Woodrow Wilson, in his Congressional Government (1885), Bagehot argued with referring to the United States as a "congressional government", given the considerable powers at that time had the U.S. Congress, in its opinion over the president. Today, certain facts give reason to the conceptualization of Bagehot 8 and others to Wilson. 9 Thus, one must ask, what is the specificity of this system of government?
The distinctive features of the presidential system are:
a) The headquarters of state and government are concentrated in one person: the president.
b) The presidents are elected by universal suffrage for all citizens in a position to vote and, with few exceptions, by an Electoral College. 10
c) The chief executive and his cabinet are independent of the legislature, which are under different powers, elected separately.
d) The President and the Congress play a fixed period of time in office, so Congress has no power to remove the president 11 and Executive has no power to dissolve the legislature. 12
e) The Executive is individual 13 (unlike parliamentary systems where the Prime Minister and the cabinet are a collective executive body).
f) The President, in free, direct, appoint or replace their ministers or secretaries, who are just colleagues.
In short, the best way to summarize the differences between presidential and parliamentary system consisting of point-as does Juan Linz-that the distinctiveness of the former is the rigidity, while the second is typical of flexibility.
Three. 14 semi-presidential system
This system, rather than being a compromise between the other two, a distortion of any of them, or an evolutionary process which invariably push to stop being "semi" to become fully parliamentary or presidential, has acquired today , by the force of events, increasingly own status.
Notes Maurice Duverger (1992: 901904) that most of the Constitutionalists have "still a cult fetish this dualistic view [which means that there are only two systems of government] and deemed sacrilegious to propose a completely new model, appeared in a over seventy years in Finland and Weimar Germany (1919-1920) and later extended in Austria (1929), Ireland (1937), Iceland (1944), France (1962), Portugal (1976) " and recently incorporated in Russia as well as in most of the countries of Central Europe.
The increasing spread and functionality of their features have made this a system of government as or more important than parliamentary or presidential, from the point of view of population 15 and governs the appellant adoption of which makes countries that decide modify its governance structure. This, to reconcile the advantages of the parliamentary system with the presidential, diminishing as much as possible the disadvantages presented separately each of these systems. To distinguish this system the following elements: 16
a) A President elected directly by universal suffrage for a predetermined period in office, which shares the executive with a prime minister (to which Duverger calls two-headed power) that names with the approval of the Assembly.
b) The government is accountable to the National Assembly: its permanence depends on the vote of confidence or no-confidence motion approving it issues.
c) The Chairman is independent and can dissolve Parliament, taking the advice of the Prime Minister and leaders of the Legislature.
d) The Prime Minister and the other members of his government depends on the confidence of the President and Parliament. The president appoints the prime minister and other members of his government, a proposal from the latter.
e) The government does not emanate from Parliament, it is only responsible to him. That is, the Parliament can bring down governments, but not invest them (the president appoints, and in doing so gives the endowment-and Parliament ratifies only).
f) The Executive (or rather, executive function) "Rocks" 17 between the president and prime minister, going from first to second, and vice versa, adapting to changing parliamentary majorities (one might say: seconding the parliamentary majority at the time).
g) There is a major power, which "is the force resulting from the head of the party or coalition form a stable parliamentary majority (for an entire legislature) and disciplined (block voting in all elections important, following the instructions they receive). This majority rule is a de facto authority, and no authority of law, which defines a true power "(Duverger, 1992: 19-30).
In parliamentary regimes majority power rests with the prime minister. In contrast, in the semipresidential the situation is complicated because, as described by Duverger, "may fall into the hands of the president or a prime minister," depending on the situation of his party in the Assembly. So, then, what gives political stability to this system of government is the majority power that is in the hands of the president or the prime minister.
The majority power Duverger referred to as a dependent variable, can manifest itself in two ways: 1) majority system while the president's party, with two possibilities: a) if the President is the leader of his party and this is the majority in the Assembly, and b) if the president does not have power, notwithstanding that his party is the majority in the Assembly, as the prime minister actual leader of the party, and 2) and without a majority system, with two varieties: a) with active president that mitigates the weakness of Parliament and government (for Finland), and b) when the president has exceptional measures, especially in cases of national crisis (Weimar Germany).
Thus, the power / force majority would have three options: 1) that the president is not only head of state but also leader of his party, and therefore powerful head of government acting over the prime minister and cabinet , and thus able to control the Legis1ativo (France 1962-1978), 2) the prime minister has all the advantages of majority power (being leader of the party antagonistic to the president), but at the same time the president is not completely Disassembly of his constitutional prerogatives (Duverger calls this "dual structure", which is the typical system of cohabitation), and 3) the president belongs to the majority party but not the boss of that majority.
As relates to who dominates who in the executive within a presidential system, Shugart and Carey see two possibilities: a) the presidential premiere, and b) the parliamentary president. The first would give the primacy of the prime minister about the president, and the second that of the president on the prime minister. Also understand this system of government as "a regime that is located in the middle of a continuum that goes from presidential to parliamentary" (1992: 23-27).
Whether or not the majority power in the French semi-presidential system, in accordance with its Constitution, the president heads the Council of Ministers and can dissolve the Assembly, retained as reserved fields of his foreign policy performance and national defense, and has powers to submit to referendum all laws or decrees passed by the legislature. However, it must be said that the key to political stability in France during periods of cohabitation lies precisely in the fact that the president has not exercised the powers the Constitution gives when they can not represent or support the correlation real political forces in your country.
Duverger explains that "semi-presidential system is the product of three subsystems that are around him: the cultural system, the party system and the electoral system. The four together form the political system". Accurate French author that the strength or weakness of the President, the Parliament or the Prime Minister relies heavily on c6mo are perceived by citizens, their tradici6n, its aspirations and its political culture:
In political practice. their respective weights can be thoroughly mixed, according to the image of the president and Parliament in the spirit of citizens.
In Ireland and Iceland investiture wanted the aureole popular head of state in the same prestige as the royal crowns of England and Denmark, without having the power to grant a constitutional monarch [...].
National culture may well have more control over legal institutions. President. today. is weaker in Iceland, even though the Constitution certain prerogatives ascribed considerable-that in Ireland, where they are reduced to a relatively brief. Conversely, the French president is the most powerful of the seven regimes [semipresidential], even if his constitutional powers are reduced to those who just had his Irish colleague. But Gaullist traditions are here reinforced by the evolution of the party system, which depends mainly on electoral mechanisms (1992: 901-904).
Somehow, the difficulty in understanding this system of government is reflected in the multiple and contradictory conceptualization of it has been done. Thus, Lijphart (1991: 97) sees it as a structure "mixed" or "alternative" (alternation) between presidential and parliamentary phases, to refute the concept that the same has been done as a "synthesis" of both. 18 For its part, Giovanni Sartori, citing the opinion that Vedel and Duverger had this system in 1980 (when they said "the sempresidencialismo not a synthesis of parliamentary and presidential systems, but an alternation between presidential and parliamentary phases") , says: "I do not agree with any of these interpretations" (1996: 139), and:
Conceiving the presidentialism as an alternation between two specimens, is tantamount to eliminating the mixed nature of the system, and in fact it is said that we have a real system. I think this is a total misunderstanding what it does not capture my concept of swing states. Because the alternation suggests that moving from one thing to another, while the swing is a movement within a system. When something range remains the same (p. 140).
According to this conception, presidentialism would be a mixed structure of mutant character is transformed to acquire the specific features of one of the two species that is due: presidentialism or parliamentarism. For his part, Pedro Aguirre argues that "should be considered to presidentialism as a unique political system under which its own characteristics that distinguish it from presidencia1ismo and parliamentarism" '(1996: 3).
Therefore, not surprisingly, the concepts that have been made known authors on governance systems in different countries.
