Talk:Presidential system

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[edit] Such an ultraamerican article

the us congressional system is not the epitome of a presidential system, get it straight. As for the some presidents being dictators ~ you could say that about any executive head of goverment that is commander and cheif of their armed forces and authorized to make acts of war, or arrest individuals for "national security reasons". I think that the american and american allies writing this article need to wake up from their dream world and write neutrally rather than as deluded patriots, even if they may be so brainwashed they don't even recongize their bias.

I recommend each countries president has a seperate article. and the system is reduced to it's basic concept ~president comes from "first" / premier etc.. that which is upheld. This article is suppose to be about the presidential system, not the us government system. Keep congressional-presidential systems and the us presidential system as seperate and link them if need be. words in different languages are different.

[edit] Error, at Least in re the United States

The article states [insets mine]: "[The president] is not a voting member [of the legislature], nor can he introduce bills..."

In regard to the President of the United States, the first half of that state is true and has been since 4 March 1789 (prior thereto, from 1781 to 1789, the United States had a unicameral congress of the President of the United States in Congress Assembled was the presiding officer).

The second half of the statement is false. The President of the United States has the power to introduce legislation to Congress pursuant to U.S. Const., Art. II, Sec. 3.

Also, the article wrongly states the so-called "Congressional System" originated in the United States. The system under which the executive is separate from the legislature was invented, so far as history can tell, by Imperial Rome -- when the Emperor Augustus assumed executive power to himself, creating a separation of powers between the executive (Emperor) and the legislative (Senate) branches of Roman government. Previously, the Roman Republic operated with a system akin to the modern Parliamentary System, in which the executive was subordinate to the legislature - or at least not superior to it.


[edit] Freedom House Image

I’ll briefly outline the reasons I have for deleting the image from the page, relating to both the image itself and its caption.

In relation to the image, although it is a useful image for showing which countries have been deemed electoral democracies by freedom house its presence on a page about the presidential system is potentially confusing, particularly given the fact that there is no reference to a key in the caption. I know I’m being slightly picky given that the full map of political systems makes reference to presidential systems (to which I added the colours for semi-presidential and linked to parliaments to the key) but being picky ensures articles of the highest quality. It would be a forgivable mistake for someone to scroll down, ignore the first image with its caption info, glance quickly at this picture and come away with the impression that a country had a presidential system when it did not.

A better image would be one which depicted electoral democracy presidential systems in one colour, autocratic presidential systems in another and then non presidential systems in a third colour. If someone wants to do an image like that please do, otherwise I’ll do it in a week a so, I’m going away for a bit and don’t have the time at the moment.

In relation to the caption my objection largely rests with the final sentence “The population is considerably smaller, and by excluding states with recent histories of authoritarianism, some lists might be reduced to just the United States.” There a number of problems with it, firstly the population of what is considerably smaller than what? Democratic presidential systems than presidential authoritarian systems? All democratic systems than authoritarian systems? That information needs to be made clear. In regards to the second part of the sentence I again have a number of problems, again like the first part of the sentence it isn’t made clear whether the sentence is talking about presidential systems alone or all electoral democracies. Given that it is preceded by a statement saying that the map is of all states considered electoral democracies it sounds like the statement is saying that the United States is the only state without a recent (or any for that mater) history of authoritarianism which isn’t even close to be true, even if you used the loosest criteria for authoritarianism and what you consider recent history. It could very well be that the US is the only presidential system without a recent history of authoritarianism (although I’d prefer to research that further before committing myself either way) and if that is the case then it needs to be spelt out more clearly.

Feel free to disagree with me, it has been up there for almost 2 months so I guess nobody else had a problem with it but please consider what I’ve said before anyone puts it back up there!

P.S. Sorry for accidentally deleting half the page before, no idea how I managed to do that, well done to Misza13 for picking it up so quickly.

Caprosser 14:31, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I've put up the new map as promised, any comments? Please double check that I've got all the info right if you have a minute. Plus I figured out why I deleted half the page last week, for some reason if I hit show preview when editing half the text in the edit box vanishes, nearly did it again but noticed it this time! Anyone know what's going on there? Caprosser 06:06, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] term "presidential system"

It seems like a very poor term, since by far the majority of countries with a president also have a prime minister. I've never heard it before, does it have academic currency? I can imagine it might be use in the US to contrast with Westminster systems, but it seems very misleading as a general term. Is there a better term? "Congressional system" seems to be just as US-centric, and implies something about the relationship between the two houses, but any term would seem better than "presidential system".

(the term "Presidential System" comes from Walter Bagehot. It has been widely used among political scientists for decades)

Many political scientists use the term. The term refers to the executive (or president) possessing executive power and being independently elected from the legislature.

[edit] Removals

I removed the following, which I think had little to do with the topic:

[edit] World presidentialism

A frequent demand is that the UN become "more democratic." This raises fundamental questions about the nature and role of the UN. The UN is not yet a world government, rather a forum for the world's sovereign states to debate issues and determine collective courses of action. Since the large majority of the world's states are now democracies, the UN is in a sense an "indirect democracy" already - the majority of countries cast votes at the UN in accordance (at least in theory) with the wishes of the electorates that elected them.

A direct and participative democracy would request the election of the United Nations Secretary-General by vote of the citizens of the democratic countries (World presidentialism).

See: United Nations#Reforming the UN, totalitarian democracy, world democracy.

David.Monniaux 09:03, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

Didn't this used to be its own page? - Nat Krause 09:43, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Impeachment of a President

Someone doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground; some previous contributor thinks it's impossible to remove a President from office early.

You can't remove a president early unless it's for misconduct. Contrast this to a prime minister, who can be removed for incompetence or unpopularity. Usually impeachent requires a super majority too. In contrast, a vote of no confidence simply requires a 51% vote.
A fixed term of office is one of Giovanni Sartori's three definitions of a pres system.

Actually, a PM in a parliamentary system can be removed by impeachment. In the UK, some MP's wanted to impeach Tony Blair because they felt he lied about the Iraq war. However, the process of impeaching a sitting British PM is an obscure convention and has only been operated once in the history of the United Kingdom.

[edit] Parliamentary systems can also slip into authoritarianism, but have done so less commonly.

"Parliamentary systems can also slip into authoritarianism, but have done so less commonly. Where parliamentary systems slip into authoritarianism, such as in Ghana, the dictator will often change the constitution to a presidential one. Apparently, dictatorships are more easily sustained in a presidential system than a parliamentary."

I have some problems with this paragraph. The author's claim that parliamentary systems less commonly slip into authoritarianism versus presidential systems might not be accurate. The British installed the parliamentary system in places like Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Zambia, Iraq, and Burma, all of which slipped into authoritarianism.

Germany and Italy both fell into dictatorship under the parliamentary system.

I don't think the corruption of democracy has much to do with whether the system is parliamentary or presidential (as defined here) but more to do with the development of political culture. Africa has had a mix of parliamentary and presidential systems which fell into authoritarianism.

I am curious if the statement, "Parliamentary systems can also slip into authoritarianism, but have done so less commonly," is correct. And if correct, I am not sure whether being parliamentary or presidential has any correlation with falling into authoritarianism.

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, but I think the author's intent wasn't to say that dictatorships don't arise in parliamentary systems, but to say that that authoritarianism, once it arises, doesn't usually persist in a parliamentary system — either the authoritarianism fades again, or the parliamentary system is changed (formally or informally) to a presidential system. The statement reads "parliamentary systems ... have done so less commonly", and I'd suggest that this is different to saying "countries with parliamentary systems...".
I agree that the nature of a country's system doesn't necessarily make it more or less likely to become a dictatorship — I think the point being made is that when a country does fall to dictatorship, that country is unlikely to persist with a parliamentary system (if it had one). I'm not sure if that was the intent, but if it was, the phrasing should probably be changed, I agree. (Personally, I'd rather not make comments about the frequency of authoritarianism at all, in either system, because who decides what counts as authoritarianism?) -- Vardion 21:12, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Unfortunately the statistic was deleted, but other than the United States, every country that has experimented with a presidential system has had at least one authoritarian interruption. Of 40 third world countries to use parliamentarism since 1945, 27 stayed democracies.


True, there is no litmus test to use on a country to tell if it is democratic or authoritarian, but people can recognize an authoritarian country when they see it. Of the countries that have used presidentialism - the Philippines, South Korea, Indonesia, every non-Commonwealth country in Latin America - no one would claim that they have had consistent democratic governance.
1. Between 1946 and 1984 Bolivia had experienced 12 coups, Argentina 8, Ecuador 7, Brazil, Venezuela and South Vietnam 6, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Peru 5, Panama 4, Dominican Republic 3, Colombia and South Korea 2, Chile, Cuba, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Uruguay 1. The Philippines fell under presidential authoritarianism in 1972. Although Costa Rica and Mexico did not experience coups during this period, Mexico, after a stormy political history, came under the domination of a hegemonic party, the PRI; and Costa Rica experienced uprisings in 1917 and 1948, but since promulgation of the Constitution of 1949 has had the most stable presidentialist regime, after the United States. All but forgotten are the abortive Chinese (1913) and Philippine (1898, Malolos) republics and the unfortunate Liberian case. Most of the surviving parliamentary regimes are mini-states, but they also include gargantuan India, plus Jamaica, Mauritius, Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, Trinidad and Tobago. Fiji had not experienced a coup before 1984, but succumbed to one in 1987. These data are unavoidably rough because complex historical events defy simple coding.
Culture is a more important determinant in a country's success as a democracy than its consitution, but if you compare countries with similar cultures, parliamentarism seems to do better. Look at Eastern Europe, countries that chose parliamentary systems have evolved into democracies since 1989-1991, countries that chose presidential systems have faired more poorly (Russia).
I never found out the details, but I know Ukraine's parliament just reduced the powers of the president. Apparently, they thought that presidentialism was an issue in their democratic breakdown.
http://www2.hawaii.edu/~fredr/pres.htm
I think this whole discussion hinges too much on circumstances respective to the countries and thus is of questionable use. Other than the United States, most nations adopting presidential systems were impoverished nations with little, if any, experience in self-rule before independence. Is the history of democracy in Latin America that much different from that of Africa, where parliamentary systems have been used in a number of countries, with differing degrees of success? I think we can agree that it often takes time for nations to become accustomed to self-rule, and that the ones that gradually ease into it (like the U.S., Canada and Australia during their colonial periods and Western Europe during the 19th century) tend to become more successful than the ones that suddenly receive it after authoritarian rule (e.g. Latin America, Africa). (Incidentally, it should be noted that the United States originally used a parliamentary system -- under the Articles of Confederation -- and replaced it with a presidential system 11 years later.)
As for the Eastern European example cited above, note that the more successful countries were independent of Communism from 1918-1939, while the less successful countries were under Soviet rule during that period. Again, it stands to reason that the more experience a nation has with self-rule, the more successful it becomes. -- Funnyhat
I think it's a perfectly reasonable assumption to make. Whether it is sufficiently sourced to be included is another matter. If we accept that parliament holds close to all power in parliamentary systems and the power is divided in presidential systems it's quite clear why presidential systems are more attractive to authoritarians; once you have converted to a presidential system you can gradually transfer more and more power from parliament to the president - until KABLOOIE - dictatorship. In my country the PM can't even invoke a state of emergency - and the military/police couldn't care less about him since it answers only to parliament. I'm not saying it's better, I'm sure there are plenty of downsides to parliamentary systems - but the easiest way to change a democracy into a dictatorship is by going through the presidential system first and gradually changing it to your own needs. It’s what I would do. Gardar Rurak 15:50, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] POV vs NPOV

I think some of the "some says" are unnecessary. No one would disagree that a directly elected president is inherently more democratic than having a indirectly elected PM. People would disagree about whether or not having a directly head of government is important, or whether or not having a directly elected head of govt leads to the most talented person becoming head of govt.

Also, no political scientist would dispute that the USA is the only presidential nation to get a democracy right on teh first try. It isn't POV to say that presidentialism has failed everywhere else it has been tried, at least once.

If you can think of a country to use a fully presidential constitution other than the US that has _not_ had a coup then the wording should be changed.

What you or I (or any political scientist) thinks isn't really important. If anyone disputes it, it's POV, and so shouldn't be in there. I'll address the biggest issues in your latest edit individually.
  • Some people don't think that a directly elected president is "inherrently more democratic". Some people think it makes no difference, as the people's choices are the basis of both direct and indirect election. Not necessarily true, but some argue it.
  • A claim about whether a country is authoritarian or not is always a POV claim. The people running these authoritarian systems are obvious examples of people who might dispute it.
  • The idea that "failures can be generally attributed to political cultures unconducive to democracy" is not only blatantly POV, but is also likely to be offensive to many people.
  • "Constitutions that only require plurality support are especially undesirable" cannot help but POV — obviously, some people desire them, or there wouldn't be any.
--Vardion 23:36, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

You are being too strict about what is and what is not POV. There are certain claims which cannot be proven, but are so widely recognized that they are objectively true.

For instance, the notion that we cannot say in wikipedia that a country is authoritarian is ridiculous. If you cannot call an authoritarian nation "authoritarian," then the term has no meaning. The word "authoritarian" may be an adjective, but there are certain countries which are factually authoritarian. It does not matter if the person running the country claims that his nation is a democracy, such speak is called propaganda. To use extreme examples, no one would dispute that Libya, China, Cuba, and North Korea are authoritarian, despite what the leaders of those countries claim.

How can you say that political culture has no bearing on a country's success as a democracy? The point of wikipedia isn't to be PC. If want a political scientist who has said that, use Seymour Martin Lipset, he has written an essay called "the Centrality of Political Culture."

I respectfully disagree that by view on POV is too strict. It is not for Wikipedia to act as an arbiter of truth, nor to decide which sources are reliable and which are not. The fact that a regime is authoritarian is subject to debate, and Wikipedia should not take sides in that debate. (I have my own views on what counts as authoritarianism, and I actually suspect they're quite similar to your own. But why am I qualified to say? Who decides what views get to count?) This does not mean, however, that we can't point out the regime's authoritarian status — we just have to attribute that claim to someone who readers are likely to trust the judgement of. But it isn't our place to make that judgement for people. As such, I quite accept that we can quote Lipset on the relationship of culture to democracy, and I've just added that into the article. But we shouldn't merely present Lipset's view (or anyone's view) as legitimate just because we think it is. The nature of Wikipedia requires that we don't take sides, and let the readers decide which claims they believe.
I've added some attributions (Linz, Lipset) to the article, and would be happy to see more. But adding their claims as simple facts isn't possible without making the article non-neutral. I am not arguing the facts of this case — I have an opinion on the matter of presidential systems and authoritarianism, but it isn't at all relevant — what matters is that it is an opinion, however right or wrong it might be. If you wish to explain in detail the arguments made for your case, feel free, but it isn't this article's job to argue a line, however correct it might be. The truth should be judged by readers — it's our job to present the arguments.
-- Vardion 02:03, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
(Addendum: Regarding the point about "failures can be generally attributed to political cultures unconducive to democracy". I realise that you are correct about this — when reading it, I skipped over the word "political", which makes a substantial difference to the meaning. I apologise for that mistake, and have reworked that sentence a bit. Feel free to alter it more. -- Vardion 02:09, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)).
"Failed" is a loaded term. If a nation has a successful 50-year run of democracy interrupted by one military coup, does that really mean that the political system failed? Could it simply be a case of the military acting out of line? I made an edit to write that "many of the nations using a presidential system have slipped into authoritarianism." I like the word "many;" it can be interpreted however you wish. I think it is a good, NPOV word to use. Funnyhat

[edit] Congressional System

Can it please be made clear what exactly is the difference between a Congress and a Parliament? The "Congress" link leads to a disambiguation with a "congressional system" link which redirects back to this page. Is the difference that a congress is seperate from the executive, or is there something more complex?

I have the same question, what is the difference between a Congress and a parliament? If there is no difference that makes sense in the context of the article (and that most political scientists accept) I suggest that the line "a presidential system can function with a parliament or Congress" be removed. dinopup

Reading the section on differences from a cabinet system, I notice the mention of fixed terms for the legislature. Perhaps we can thus define a "Congress" (a legislature in a congressional system) as having fixed terms while "Parliaments" can be dissolved early or have no fixed schedule at all? Ddye 18:18, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

There is no way the US Congress can be dissolved? In any event, I think we should look at the actual definitions if they exist - if there is in fact no difference between congress and parliament it would be wrong to introduce such a distinction. Gardar Rurak 15:23, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
At least in the U.S., the Congress is an integral part of the Constitution. The only thing that can change that is a constitutional amendment, and those can only be created by the Congress itself. The President can veto a move of the Congress to dissolve themselves, but enough of them can override that. But s/he cannot make an amendment happen on his/her own (or any legislation for that matter). In short, only the U.S. Congress can dissolve the U.S. Congress, but to do so is essentially re-writing a core element of the constitution. At that level, you could say anything is possible.--Daniel 20:01, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] South Korea

South Korea is on the presidential and semi-presidential pages. Which one is it? --Woohookitty 19:21, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] This article is propaganda

I keep coming back to this article about the so called "presidential system" because I find it so bad. The term "presidential system" is a misnomer when describing the United States government. And because dictators like to call themselves presidents and not prime ministers does not mean the Cuban government or the government of Zimbabwe are using a system similar to the United States.

And if you notice the depth of criticism of the "presidential system" and then check out the pages for the Westminster system or parliamentary system where there is no criticism at all, it is obvious that someone out there does not like the concept of a government having a president.

Is there nothing to criticize about the Westminster System? Is everyone in the UK, Canada, and Australia happy with having an unelected head of state? Is there no criticism of the House of Lords in the UK or of Canada's unelected Senate? And why is there a strong movement for the establishment of a republic in Australia?

This article also criticizes the "presidential system" for concentrating power in one person, but then turns around and talks about the separation of powers and subsequent gridlock.

There are some who criticize the Westminster system for concentrating too much power in the hands of the prime minister. In Jonathan Freedland's "Bring Home The Revolution", he complains about the dictator-like powers of a prime minister as opposed to the American president who is constrained by checks and balances from two branches of government and who also is subject to national elections, unlike a prime minister. In Canada, there is a constant strain between the premiers of the provinces and the prime minister because some premiers feel too much power is concentrated in the prime minster's office in Ottawa. Premiers in Canada's provinces have a habit of threatening secession in the face of the prime minister's concentrated powers.

The concentration of power criticism regarding the American president does not hold water with me. It was Blair who went to war in Iraq without popular support, not Bush. And during the FDR administration, the US was late to enter WWII because FDR knew the American public was firmly against entering the war. It wasn't until the attack on Pearl Harbor that FDR had the popular support to enter the war in Europe. FDR was one of America's most popular and powerful presidents but did not go to war without popular support. And with Blair being highly unpopular with the British public, he is still able to hold onto the prime minister's office because he is not subject to national elections and his party has a lock on power in the House of Commons.

As a political science major, I never once heard the US government described as a "presidential system." The executive branch is only one aspect of the American system and not its defining characteristic. If we're going to define the American system by its executive branch and call it a "presidential system" then we should call the UK a "monarchical system."

This whole article to me seems to be a veiled attempt at slagging the American system in favor of parliamentary systems. A lot of people like me would rather not live under a system with a Queen and a House of Lords and a prime minister who has all the powers of an executive but who is not subject to national elections.

the term presidential system has a long history, Walter Bagehot used it in The English Constitution, you can find the term used in books like Parliamentary versus Presidential Government edited by Arend Lijphart.
I agree with you on your criticism of the concentrated power terminology. Vardion is the one who insists on using that term because he refuses to let any country be called authoritarian. Scholars like Juan Linz assert that presidentialism is a problematic regime type and has a tendency to authoritarianism. They say that a president's limited powers are actually what give him an incentive to make extra-constitutional seizures of power.
Since tendency to authoritarianism a widespread and valid criticism, I think it should be there. Other than the United States, every country that has tried a presidential government has had at least one authoritarian period.
You're 100 % right that parliamentary govts have their own problems (you can argue that a PM is an elected, temporary dictator), why don't you write a criticism section for parliamentarism?
You know, few people in the UK care if the British sovereign is unelected. Why should they, when ultimately she is a figurehead and only possesses theoretical reserve powers? Even republics have unelected heads of state. Look at Germany or Italy. A parliamentary system does not have to possess an elected head of state. The principal characteristic of a parliamentary system is that the there are no seperation of powers between the executive branch and the legislative branch.
This is besides the point, since an unelected upper house is not a characteristic of "parliamentary government" (it is only a specific characteristic of the govts of a few countries that happen to be parliamentary, like the UK and Canada) but yes, there is a big movement in Australia to become a republic, but people there want to keep their parliamentary government. An Australian president would be a ceremonial figure, not unlike a constitutional monarch. Most die hard Republicans don't want to copy the American separation of powers doctrine.Dinopup 15:14, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I disagree with the statement that the "tendency to authoritarianism is a widespread and valid criticism" of "presidential systems." Widespread perhaps in certain academic circles in Europe, but certainly not valid. It seems the argument here is that because democracy failed in Latin America in the 20th century we are supposed to take this as proof that so-called "presidential systems" are more prone to authoritarianism. I suspect that experts on Latin America would not blame the region's instability in the 20th century on the attempted establishment of republics rather than parliamentary governments. So if Latin America went with parliamentary systems we would have had fewer coup d'etats there? I'd like to see someone prove that one. Democracy failed across Europe, Asia, and Africa under both republics and parliamentary governments. And today all of Latin America is made up of democratic republics, save Cuba, yet former parliamentary systems like in Zimbabwe, Pakistan, and Iraq until recently, are all examples of parliamentary systems that fell into authoritarianism.
Maybe the political stablity of a country is related to the political culture of the country. This article states that Italy has possessed unstable governments for decades and this is true, but so have presidential systems. So really it is not correct to state that presidential or parliamentary system in itself will lead to greater stability.
The article describes a "presidential system" as "...a system of government of a republic where the executive branch is elected separately from the legislative." But the article also states, "Where parliamentary systems slip into authoritarianism, such as in Ghana, the dictator will often change the constitution to a presidential one. Apparently, dictatorships are more easily sustained in a presidential system than a parliamentary." If we are defining a "presidential system" as one where the executive branch is elected, then how can the president of Ghana more easily sustain authoritarianism under a "presidential system" if he is an unelected dictator? If a dictator chooses to call himself a president rather than a king or an emperor or a prime minister, does his system of government now qualify as a "presidential system," even if he seized power from a parliamentary government?
I suspect the term "presidential system" is mainly used by British academics attempting to defend the status quo in the UK and who perhaps have a prejudice against the concept of an elected head of state. The fact that the American government has a president is only one aspect of the American system of government and not its defining characteristic. Calling the US system a "presidential system" is a misnomer. This is probably why you don't hear the term "presidential system" often in the US.
I am going to delete the section on dictators preferring to call themselves presidents. There are no quotations or statistics to back it up, so I think it is invalid."
In a few instances of Latin American democratic failure, you can make a clear case that presidentialism was at fault, and not the nation's political culture. Take Chile, prior to the 1960s, Chile had been democratic for almost a century, it had a large middle class and a free press. In 1967, Salvador Allende won the presidency with ~36 % of the vote, while rightist and centrist candidates won 64 %. Because of Chile's constitution and traditions, Allende won 100 % of the power of the executive branch for what was supposed to be a 6 yr term.
As you know, as president, Allende implemented an array of unpopular socialist programs. His popularity sank even below the 36 % of the electorate that he won in his election. Though he was unpopular and incompetent, the legislature could not remove him, thus the army did.
The term "presidential system" does not encompass the entirety of the American government, but we are still a presidential system in that our executive is elected separately from our legislature. Seymour Martin Lipset is American, he uses the term in all his writings, so does Juan Linz, whois at Yale. If Americans don't use the term "presidential system," well, that is like fish not using the word "wet." People who have experience w/ comparative government know what the word means.
"I suspect the term "presidential system" is mainly used by British academics attempting to defend the status quo in the UK and who perhaps have a prejudice against the concept of an elected head of state."
The UK could still have an elected head of state and still be parliamentary. A parliamentary system is defined by how the executive/head of govt is chosen, not by how the head of state is chosen.Dinopup 02:37, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)


If the overthrow of Allende's government can be blamed on "presidentialism" then the overthrow of governments in Ghana, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, Germany, Italy, etc. can be blamed on failures of "parliamentarism". I think the criticism that a country with a president is more prone to authoritarianism is invalid and based on a bias toward the parliamentary system.
Look up the Fred Riggs article. Of 41 Third World parliamentary governments, 27 have made it as democracies without interruptions. Of Third World presidential governments, zero have made it as democracies without interruptions. Yes, parliamentarism has failed in a few places, but it succeeds more often than presidentialism. BTW, sign your name if you're going to continue this discussion. Dinopup 13:06, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I live in a parliamentary system and observe differences compared to France and the US. The PM is basically just a caretaker of daily operations - administrative, diplomatic etc - and that's it. He dosn't hold any special rights; in essence there is no power except for parliament. In the US the president can veto the parliament - so you have technically split the power in two. That's a huge difference. Be it better or worse, is a matter of taste and IMHO beyond the scope of this debate. Gardar Rurak 15:16, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Defining characteristic: apparent contradiction

"The defining characteristic of a presidential government is how the executive is elected, but nearly all presidential systems share the following features."

....

"The most defining element of a presidential system being the degree in which the head of state participates in day-to-day governance."

This is a contradiction, but I don't know which of the above statements is correct, as I have not previous encountered the term "presidential system". (Also, the latter is a sentence fragment. But there's no sense in fixing it if it's going to be deleted.) --Jim Henry 20:08, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

(was fixed, thanks)

[edit] Frenzel, "Checks and Balances" - need ref details?

Republican Congressman Bill Frenzel wrote in 1995: "There are some of us who think gridlock is the best thing since indoor plumbing. ..... " (Checks and Balances, 8)

This is incomplete reference data. I tried to find the source using Google but could not. Could whoever put this in please add details to the References section? (And format the title correctly, with quotes if it's an article and italics if it's a book.) --Jim Henry 16:23, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Prime Minister of the United States

I wonder if the section on the Speaker of the House being a "Prime Minister of the United States" should be removed. It would seem that that section belongs in a political history of the USA, and not in this article. Only superficially can even a powerful Speaker be compared to a Prime Minister.Dinopup 04:09, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] introduction of bills

The article says that in the presidential system the president cannot introduce bills, but at least in my country (Brazil) the president do have this right (bills that target some subjects, the army organization for example, can only be introduced by the president).

[edit] Cyprus

iSn't Cyprus a presidential republic71.214.177.214 00:39, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A mishmash

This article is a mess. It mixes up a host of things

  • a presidential system (which BTW doesn't mean a "president". It means "someone who presides", and so applies to monarchs and dictators also)
  • A republican presidential system (which does mean president and is primarily associated with the US and countries who have modelled their constitutional systems on the US).

BTW the claim that presidential system is based on the US system is garbage. It is far older. The US system was for example based on the system of government in Great Britain in the 1770s, with the President stepping into the role of the Crown, and Congress a more clearly defined parliament.

It has also nothing to do with method of selection of a head of state. It has to do with the fact that the executive is not answerable to parliament, so cannot be voted out by a Vote of Confidence. They exist in separate spheres of influence.

I hope no-one used this garbled article in an essay in college. If they did they would have failed. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 20:07, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

There are so many parenthetical statements in your comments that I'm not really sure I understand what you're saying. However to say that "presidential system" just means a government with a presiding officer is confuse etymology with definition.
I concede that to use "republican presidential system" is a little more precise than just "presidential system," but this article makes it clear that "presidential system" only pertains to republican democracies. The books I have read on this subject, like "Parliamentary Versus Presidential Government" by Arend Lijphart just use "presidential system" without the "republican."
This article discusses how the independence of the executive is an important criteria for presidential government too.Dinopup 00:00, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] First sentence: "president is not accountable to the legislature"

Obviously this is false. Each branch of American gov't is accountable to each other branch in at least one way. It's been a while since I had a civics or government class, but two checks/balances of the legislature on the executive immediately come to my mind: (1) impeachemnt and (2) the sole right of congress to declare war (which puts a check on the President in his role as Chief Commander of the A.F.).

The point is, this sounds like a borderline-vandalism comment by someone who doesn't like our current executive--but it is not good information.

No, it really doesn't. The article mentions impeachment, which really is the only way the President is directly accountable to Congress. Although Congress posesses powers the President does not and vice versa, Congress cannot hold the President accountable for his actions in any eay except to impeach him. Contrast this to other systems of government, when a legislative body can simply hold a vote to throw out the head of state. --joeOnSunset 00:20, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Congressional system" redirects here

I note that Congressional system is a redirect to Presidential system: should it be? There is a (rather unsatisfactory) "article" at Congress: it currently looks like a (very incomplete) disambiguation page. --Mais oui! 08:45, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Issues with introduction

The introduction to this article seems to have a discernable bias in favor of the British parilamentary form of government and against the American model of separation of powers. It seems historically ill-informed and misleading, possibly deliberately so, and would do well to be rewritten almost entirely to remove the unnecessary comparisons with Britain and focus on introducing the topic in an objective tone. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 141.161.124.235 (talk) 07:07, 13 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] "military coups to remove a leader who is said to have lost his mandate, as in Salvador Allende"

On the "weaknesses" part there was this phrase: "Since there is no legal way to remove an unpopular president, many presidential countries have experienced military coups to remove a leader who is said to have lost his mandate, as in Salvador Allende." I removed the last four words because I believe them to be biased and propagandistic. Salvador Allende was not removed because "he had lost his mandate". He was killed by foreign-financed blood- thirsty extreme-right coupists, and was replaced by Pinochet, a non-elected, illegitimate military leader who ruled with total disregard for political and human rights. The way this phrase was written made it look like Pinochet did a favour to Chilean people by removing an unpopular president. Quite the opposite is true. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.32.166.111 (talk) 19:59, August 25, 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Inconsistent use of policy to enforce bias

I noticed that on the assertion that presidential systems tend to have less ideological parties, someone put the tag "citation needed", and yet that tag shows up very rarely in the remainder of the page. I am thus compelled to concluded that this is an abuse of policy for the purposes of enforcing bias.

This is an excellent illustration of why I have historically experienced a very strong negative emotional reaction to Wikipedia's policies more or less in general, if I am honest. Hypocrisy and the enforcement of bias, in the name of supposedly maintaining neutrality, are made far too easy.

Petrus4 (talk) 15:28, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Presidential Monarchy

Why not have a system with both a president (as head of government and state), a queen just to be traditional, and a legislature (like congress) to make the laws. I think australia should have a system like that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.217.59.87 (talk) 10:13, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Where are the...

REFERENCES. I was hoping to get some help finding a site not wikipedia to cite for a paper. Found the info I want, but I need a citation that can withstand criticisms. I dont see a single reference in this article.205.250.62.216 (talk) 01:50, 24 May 2008 (UTC)