Presidents, Parliaments, and Democracy: Insights from the Post‐Communist World
Examines how institutional features combine with other factors to exacerbate one particular threat to democracy—the expansion of presidential power. It identifies three key conditions under which presidents in societies undergoing regime change expand their formal powers: first, that economic reforms producing concentrated benefits may lead the winners from those reforms to seek institutional change in the powers of the presidency; second, that countries with fragmented parliaments tend to experience an increase in presidential powers; third, that presidents in countries with newly crafted constitutions are just as likely to seek expansion of their powers as those in countries with revised versions of communist‐era constitutions. It then reviews the generally negative consequences of increases in presidential power for democracy, with examples from various formerly communist countries in Eastern and Central Europe.
Keywords: democratization, presidential powers
Oxford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .