This study examines the relationship between citizens' satisfaction with government COVID-19 communication and management (SWCCM) and institutional trust. By employing a longitudinal approach, using three-wave panel data from Sweden from 2020 to 2022, the study addresses the current lack of research on the interplay between SWCCM and institutional trust across different stages of a societal crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic. The results show that SWCCM increased slightly over the pandemic period, while trust in institutions slightly decreased. The study also finds that changes in SWCCM predict changes in trust in institutions, suggesting that increased satisfaction with communication and management is associated with increased trust in institutions. Additionally, we find that higher initial levels of SWCCM contribute to a faster decline in trust over time. However, no evidence supports the idea that initial trust in institutions predicts changes in SWCCM. This suggests a unidirectional relationship where SWCCM is a key driver of institutional trust during a crisis. Overall, the study uncovers intriguing dynamics in the relationship between SWCCM and trust over time, and it emphasizes the significance of effective and consistent communication and management in maintaining and boosting public trust during crisis.
The French term ‘cohabitation’ is commonly used to describe situations in semi-presidential systems where the prime minister and the president represent different political parties. The present contribution sets out to test to what extent cohabitation affects the powers of the president both in dual executives with popularly elected presidents and in systems with indirectly elected presidents. The purpose is also to assess to what extent the relationship between cohabitation and presidential powers is affected by whether cohabitation is broadly or narrowly defined. Empirically, the study is extensive in time and space. The research population consists of all democratic republics with a separate president and prime minister during the time period 1850–2022. The results show that presidential powers are reduced in times of cohabitation, but this relationship is detected primarily in semi-presidential systems with popularly elected presidents and when cohabitation is broadly defined.
The French term ‘cohabitation’ is commonly used to describe situations in semi-presidential systems where the prime minister and the president represent different political parties. The present contribution sets out to test to what extent cohabitation affects the powers of the president. Theoretically, the link between the phenomena in question is complex; there are arguments both for an assumption that cohabitation enhances the powers of the president and for a presumption that cohabitation is linked to decreasing powers of the head of state. It is far from self-evident how cohabitation should be operationalized, however. For instance, a president and a prime minister can represent different parties, but the parties can have a long tradition of working together in government coalitions. In some cases, the president and prime minister represent different parties, but the president’s party is included in the coalition government. Another variant is that either the president or the prime minister (or even both) are unaffiliated with political parties. In the framework of the present study, we make use of several operationalizations of cohabitation to assess to what extent the relationship between cohabitation and presidential powers is affected by whether cohabitation is broadly or narrowly defined. Empirically, the study is extensive in time and space. The research population consists of all democratic republics with a separate president and prime minister during the time period 1850-2021. In the literature, cohabitation is a term generally associated with semi-presidential forms of governments in which the president is popularly elected. The present paper takes a broader view and accordingly sets out to test if cohabitation is linked to presidential powers both in dual executives with popularly elected presidents and in systems with indirectly elected presidents. Since constitutional powers tend to remain unaltered irrespective of whether periods of cohabitation occur or not, the present study measures presidential powers with reference to actual, or ‘real’ powers. The powers of the president are measured with reference to seven questions in the V-dem dataset. Three of the questions refer explicitly to powers in the executive sphere, two to legislative powers, and two to powers that do not fall explicitly in either of the categories.
This report assesses the ways in which the semi-presidential form of government can be best structured to promote stable, democratic and inclusive governance in Ukraine.
Constitutional stability in Ukraine has faced four main challenges: (a) recurring institutional conflict among the president, legislature and government; (b) a presidency that has fallen prey to autocratic tendencies; (c) a fragmented and weak party system that has undermined the capacity of the legislature to act coherently; and (d) a weak constitutional culture and a weak Constitutional Court.
The report presents comparative knowledge from other semi-presidential systems, and reflections on the Ukrainian context, which could benefit a wide range of stakeholders, such as legislators, policy advisors, think tanks and civil society. It is based on an earlier report, Semi-Presidentialism as Power Sharing: Constitutional Reform after the Arab Spring, co-published by International IDEA and the Center for Constitutional Transitions in 2014.
In several political systems, presidents may benefit from the image of being disassociated from a single party and, in a slightly Gaullist manner, project themselves as above-party politics and remain somewhat elevated from the usual political mud-slinging (Sedelius 2004). In the Baltic states, there have been – 25 years after national independence –relatively few presidents and, hence, the institution represents greater continuity than parliamentary politics. For many years, the Baltic presidents enjoyed greater levels of trust than other political actors, such as parties, MPs and PMs (Duvold 2006). Still, the greater popularity of the presidents, as compared with prime ministers and parliamentarians, undoubtedly owes something to the very limits on their governmental powers: the presidents are not closely associated with unpopular economic decisions or with the day-to-day partisan squabbling in parliament (Duvold and Sedelius 2004). Some of them have, on the contrary, acted as mediators during potentially damaging conflicts. In fact, their position may allow them to act as spokesmen for popular discontent (Baylis, 1996, 304).
Drawing on a collection of public opinion surveys conducted in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in 2001–2014, this paper deals with two main questions: 1) Has trust in the Baltic presidents increased or decreased over time and and to what extent does trust in the president follow trust in other institutions? 2) What are the determinants of trust in the presidents? To what extent can it be explained in terms of background variables, such as age, socio-economic position or ethnic belonging; by political performance and satisfaction; by attitudes towards the current political regimes; or by a sense of belonging to the country and its society?
The Baltic presidents have in common that they are supposed to embody the ‘nation’ and to provide an image of their countries abroad. But can the president embody the people if “the people” itself is divided? In this paper, we will focus on public trust in the presidency between the majority and minority population in the Baltic states. Drawing on public opinion surveys, the aim is to examine the determinants of public trust in the presidential institution and support for the performance and principles of the political system as well identification with the political community itself. Among our findings, we conclude that ethnic or linguistic identity explains trust to a considerable degree, which suggests that trust is not only an expression of specific political support but also part of a more deep-seated, diffuse support.
The Baltic presidents have in common that they are supposed to embody the ‘nation’ and provide an image of their countries abroad. But can the president embody the people if ‘the people’ itself is divided? In this article, we will focus on public trust in the presidency between the majority and minority population in the Baltic states. Drawing on public opinion surveys, the aim is to examine the determinants of public trust in the presidential institution and support for the performance and principles of the political system as well identification with the political community itself. Among our findings, we conclude that ethnic or linguistic identity explains trust to a considerable degree, which suggests that trust is not only an expression of specific political support, but also part of a more deep-seated, diffuse support.
Varför utvecklas vissa länder men inte andra till väl fungerande demokratier? Är det ekonomisk utveckling, en viss uppsättning institutioner, en gynnsam medborgarkultur, civilsamhället, stödjande internationella förutsättningar eller samarbetande politiska eliter som avgör? Kan alla länder i världen bli demokratier, eller är vissa stater dömda att för alltid styras av auktoritära regimer?I denna uppdaterade tredje upplaga av Demokratiseringsprocesserpresenteras och granskas de viktigaste teoretiska och empiriska bidragen inom forskningen om demokratiseringsprocesser. Författarna introducerar centrala begrepp som demokrati, modernisering, transition, konsolidering och diffusion, samt visar hur forskningen har utvecklats från den tidiga efterkrigstiden fram till idag. Även demokratins tillbakagång och olika varianter av samtida auktoritära styrelseskick diskuteras. Boken inleds med ett förord av professor Li Bennich-Björkman.Demokratiseringsprocesser är särskilt lämplig för kurser i statsvetenskap, sociologi, internationella relationer, utvecklingsstudier, Europastudier samt freds- och konfliktforskning.
Varför utvecklas vissa länder men inte andra till väl fungerande demokratier? Är det ekonomisk utveckling, en viss uppsättning institutioner, en gynnsam medborgarkultur, civilsamhället, stödjande internationella förutsättningar eller samarbetande politiska eliter som avgör? Kan alla länder i världen bli demokratier, eller är vissa stater dömda att för alltid styras av auktoritära regimer?
I denna uppdaterade tredje upplaga av Demokratiseringsprocesser presenteras och granskas de viktigaste teoretiska och empiriska bidragen inom forskningen om demokratiseringsprocesser. Författarna introducerar centrala begrepp som demokrati, modernisering, transition, konsolidering och diffusion, samt visar hur forskningen har utvecklats från den tidiga efterkrigstiden fram till idag. Även demokratins tillbakagång och olika varianter av samtida auktoritära styrelseskick diskuteras. Boken inleds med ett förord av professor Li Bennich-Björkman.
Demokratiseringsprocesser är särskilt lämplig för kurser i statsvetenskap, sociologi, internationella relationer, utvecklingsstudier, Europastudier samt freds- och konfliktforskning.
Inspection has increasingly been regarded as a safeguard for promoting quality of social services. Little attention has, however, been given to the impact of standards used in inspections, i.e. the written norms, rules and principles used for identification and judgment. The aim of this study is to empirically contribute to an improved understanding of how standards in inspection of social service are designed, and to what extent the design is adjusted in relation to different kind of social services. We employ a systematic and comparative analysis of the content (in terms of input, process, output and outcome aspects) and precision (low, medium and high) of 186 paragraphs derived from legislation and referred to as standards in inspection decisions concerning two types of social work: Investigation, Assessment and Decision-Making (IAD); and Treatment Intervention (TI) in Sweden 2012. Contrary to expectations based on an inspection ideal, our findings show that paragraphs covering outcome aspects are not more commonly referred to as standards in TI than in IAD inspection. The analysis of the precision also indicates that the standards used in inspection of TI are not more adjusted to complex and subjectively experienced aspects than are the standards used in IAD. Our overall results indicate that the policy instrument is primarily adapted to IAD inspection rather than to TI inspection.
From presidential regimes, in particular the US, scholars have shown that in times of crisis or war, the president’s power rises by a rally-round-the-flag effect and by centralization of power as extraordinary procedures, and emergency powers come into effect. Very few studies, however, have examined how the condition of war impacts on executive dynamics in semi-presidential regimes. This study addresses this gap by examining how executive coordination in Ukraine has been (re-)organized during the war and how this has influenced the balance of executive power between the president, prime minister, and parliament. Our analysis is based on a systematic collection of analytical materials and media reports, updates, expert comments, and official data covering the period Feb 2022 to March 2023. Among the study’s main findings and consistent with our hypotheses, we conclude that the war has accelerated centralization of executive powers around the president, thereby further strengthening the president’s dominance over the cabinet, but also that the overwhelming demands on the presidency during the war have necessitated the delegation of significant levels of executive governance from the president to the cabinet, particularly evident in areas of domestic policy.
This article seeks to explain variations in presidential activism in semi-presidential countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Africa is one of the continents where semi-presidentialism is most prevalent, but the dynamics of intra-executive relations are severely understudied. The four case studies discussed here—the Democratic Republic of Congo, Niger, Cabo Verde, and São Tomé e Príncipe—belong to the premier-presidential subtype. In this exploratory study, we aim to examine how institutional dimensions of premier-presidentialism interact with contextual factors to explain variations in presidential activism among Sub-Saharan African countries. In addition to fundamental contextual differences among the two pairs of countries, francophone and lusophone, there are specific institutional factors associated with the design and operation of premier-presidentialism that contribute to greater presidential activism in the two francophone cases. Taken together, these contextual and institutional factors skew effective executive power heavily toward the president in our francophone countries. We also find that the degree of political institutionalization matters for the impact of presidential activism on intra-executive conflict and government policymaking capacity. The article increases our understanding of the operation of semi-presidentialism in this understudied region, underscoring the importance of both contextual and constitutional factors for explaining variations in presidential activism in Africa.
Very few studies have systematically examined going-public tactics in semi-presidential systems. Previous research from presidential systems in the US and Latin America shows that such public strategies often work in favour of the presidents. This paper focuses on the link between presidents’ going-public tactics and intra-executive conflicts in three European semi-presidential regimes. Drawing on both primary and secondary data on president-cabinet relations and intra-executive conflicts, including expert interviews, we examine how presidents in Finland, Lithuania, and Romania vested with relatively weak constitutional powers use informal strategies of going public to increase their influence on government and policy. Our study confirms that during intra-executive conflict, the deliberate strategy of public grandstanding often benefits the presidents but is moderated particularly by shared norms about the role of the presidency among the political elites.
This chapter investigates leadership in foreign and security policy and European Union (EU) affairs, examining decision-making and division of labor between the president and the prime minister. In order to grasp the complexity of intra-executive policy coordination in these areas, it highlights the interdependence between foreign and EU policies. The chapter shows that intra-executive coordination is most developed in foreign and security policy and that Finland, Lithuania, and Romania normally manage to speak with one voice in external relations. It also provides evidence of constitutional rules about jurisdictions bending in favor of presidents. This applies particularly to representation in the European Council.
This chapter examines formal intra-executive coordination mechanisms such as joint meetings between the president and the prime minister, joint councils or ministerial committees, and administrative coordination between the offices of the president and the prime minister. It uncovers the status and legal basis of such instruments and explores how they have evolved in Finland, Lithuania, and Romania since the 1990s. It shows strong and systematic variation between the three countries, with Finland displaying a high level of formal coordination. In Lithuania and Romania, on the other hand, such coordination mechanisms are considerably weaker and more dependent on individual office-holders.
This chapter focuses on the actual coordination and decision-making between the president and the prime minister. The analysis covers agenda-setting initiatives, public opinion and party system dynamics, and the way formal prerogatives are interpreted into praxis, as well as how the key actors approach coordination where there is no explicit constitutional or judicial guidance. The findings confirm that lack of written rules or otherwise strong norms guiding intra-executive coordination opens the door for presidential activism (Lithuania and particularly Romania), whereas under stronger coordination mechanisms, presidents are in turn more constrained and constructively involved in decision-making (Finland).
This chapter contains the theoretical framework the study in this book is based on. Embedded in institutional theory and building on four strands of literature—semi-presidentialism, public administration, political leadership, and foreign policy analysis—it highlights the role of institutions in facilitating successful policy-making. It outlines key concepts and findings from institutional theory before moving more specifically to the incentives that presidents and prime ministers have for engaging in intra-executive cooperation. The specific challenges related to leadership in foreign and security policy, including European Union affairs, are emphasized. The chapter identifies various intra-executive coordination mechanisms and puts forward a theoretical framework for the subsequent empirical chapters.
A key factor of semi-presidential regimes is power-sharing mechanisms between president and government. Influenced by Shugart and Carey’s seminal work on premier-presidential regimes, this article addresses intra-executive dynamics in light of recent scholarship on the risks and consequences associated with conflict and cooperation between the president and the cabinet. Through an in-depth comparison of three premier-presidential systems with broadly similar constitutional designs, Finland, Lithuania, and Romania, it forces us to reconsider how coordination mechanisms and political context shape presidential influence. Absent of a working constitutional division of labour and established modes of intra-executive coordination, presidents are more likely to use alternative channels of influence – such as the strategy of ‘going public’ or direct contacts with political parties, the legislature, or civil society stakeholders – and to intervene in questions falling under the competence of the government. Lack of institutionalized coordination also benefits the presidents as they hold the initiative regarding cooperation between the two executives.
This book explores how power-sharing between the president and the prime minister works in semi-presidential regimes. In contrast to much of the existing comparative work on semi-presidentialism, the book emphasizes the role of institutional coordination at the most concrete level of executive policy-making, and asks how institutional coordination between the president and prime minister influences presidential activism and the balance of power within the executive. The authors develop a tentative framework embedded in institutionalism and based on four strands of research – semi-presidentialism, public administration, political leadership, and foreign policy analysis – which is subsequently applied to the cases of Lithuania, Romania and Finland. Given the political challenges facing many semi-presidential countries, the study ultimately seeks to identify institutional solutions that facilitate power-sharing and successful policy-making.
Despite more than two decades of research on semi-presidential regimes, we still know very little about the actual coordination between the president and the prime minister. Through an in-depth analysis of Lithuanian semi-presidentialism, this article underscores the importance of institutional design on intra-executive balance of power. Drawing primarily on interviews with top-level civil servants and office-holders, it argues that in the absence of written rules or other strong norms guiding intra-executive coordination, presidents enjoy more discretion in designing their own modes of operation. Coordination depends on the initiative of the president, with ad hoc practices further weakening the position of the prime minister. While Lithuanian semi-presidentialism has functioned smoothly, the personality-centred politics commonly found in Central and East European countries create favourable conditions for presidential activism.
This chapter sets Finland, Lithuania, and Romania in a comparative context of semi-presidentialism in Europe. It justifies the selection of cases by including them in a broader set of semi-presidential regimes and uses this comparison to provide a range of basic and institutional data for setting the stage for the subsequent chapters on executive coordination. It provides key indicators on semi-presidential subtypes (premier-presidentialism and president-parliamentarism): level of democracy, presidential power, intra-executive conflict, and cohabitation. Drawing on public opinion surveys, it also assesses general levels of institutional trust with an emphasis on public support for the presidency.
While authoritarian presidents prevail under heavily president-oriented constitutions throughout the post-Soviet region, democracy along parliamentary lines triumphs in Central Europe. This article discusses the constitutional pattern among the post-communist countries on the basis of two general questions: First, how can we explain why strong presidential constitutions dominate throughout the post-Soviet region whereas constrained presidencies and governments anchored in parliament have become the prevailing option in Central Europe? Second, and interlinked with the first question, why have so many post-communist countries (in the post-Soviet region as well as in Central Europe) chosen neither parliamentarism nor presidentialism, but instead semi-presidential arrangements whereby a directly elected president is provided with considerable powers and coexists with a prime minister? The analysis indicates that both historical-institutional and actor-oriented factors are relevant here. Key factors have been regime transition, pre-communist era constitutions and leaders, as well as short-term economic and political considerations. With differing strengths and in partly different ways, these factors seem to have affected the actors’ preferences and final constitutional compromises.
This book considers why the level of party presidentialization varies from one country to another, and how constitutional structures and party genetics affect both the level and the degree it is present. Presenting an international collection of case studies from the US, Latin America, Australia, Japan and Europe, including France, Italy, Germany, Poland and the Ukraine, it examines how the presence of presidential features in political parties varies in terms of the constitutional framework. Highlights the importance of institutions in political life, the case studies provide empirical evidence that no stable presidentialization is possible outside regimes where a presidential dynamic is introduced by the institutions.
Based on a comparative case study design including Lithuania, Romania, and Finland as a long–lasting case of European semi–presidentialism, this chapter addresses the interaction between executive power and the citizens in the context of accountability. By examining the conditions and implications of ‘going–public’ tactics used by ten presidents in these three countries, the author is especially interested in to what extent the president’s (perceived) popular legitimacy impedes and even outplays formal constitutional power in intra–executive relations between the president and prime minister. A guiding assumption is that the impact of the president’s ‘going–public’ strategies are conditioned by formal constitutional powers, unified or divided government (cohabitation), the president’s influence over his or her party, and by the prevailing norms among the political elites about the president’s role in the political system. The author uses both primary and secondary data on president–cabinet relations and intra–executive conflict, including expert interviews, to examine a number of intra–executive confrontations over the period from the early 1990s until 2019.
Propremiar or pro-president? On the distinction between parliamentarism, presitentialism and semi-presidentialism. From comparative research on the constitutional development in Central and Eastern Europe and also from the longstanding debate on whether parliamentarism or presidentialism best facilitates democracy, it is apparent that there has been and continues to be, a certain degree of confusion concerning the concepts of semi-presidentialism and presidentialism. Different scholars mean different things by the terms and therefore classify countries differently. In this article I argue that the conceptual dichotomy between pro-premiär (premier-presidentialism) and pro-president systems (presidentparliamentary systems) provide the best solution to several of the problems related to categorising constitutional types, most importantly perhaps to the presidential power dilemma. I, furthermore, employ these concepts on the post-communist constitutional systems and try to reveal patterns with regard to presidential power, geographical region and democratisation.
This report summarises general findings and lists the bulk of publications of a three year project "Semi-Presidentialism and Governability in Transitional Regimes" financed by the Swedish Research Council and Dalarna University 2015-2018. The report also includes an abstract in Swedish. A final and signed version of this report was submitted to the Swedish Research Council by early March 2019.
Ukraine has repeatedly shifted between the two sub-types of semi-presidentialism, i.e. between premier-presidentialism and president-parliamentarism. The aim of this article is to discuss to what extent theoretical arguments against premier-presidential and president-parliamentary systems are relevant for understanding the shifting directions of the Ukrainian regime. As a point of departure, I formulate three main claims from the literature: 1) “President-parliamentarism is less conducive to democratization than premier-presidentialism.”; 2) “Semi-presidentialism in both its variants have built-in incitements for intra-executive conflict between the president and the prime minister.”; 3) “Semi-presidentialism in general, and president-parliamentarism in particular, encourages presidentialization of political parties.” I conclude from the study’s empirical overview that the president-parliamentary system– the constitutional arrangement with the most dismal record of democratization – has been instrumental in strengthening presidential dominance and authoritarian tendencies. The premier-presidential period 2006–2010 was by no means smooth and stable, but the presidential dominance weakened and the survival of the government was firmly anchored in the parliament. During this period, there were also indications of a gradual strengthening of institutional capacity among the main political parties and the parliament began to emerge as a significant political arena.