Summary Of The Perils Of Presidentialism

In his article, “The Perils of Presidentialism” Juan Linz observe that there are few stable democracies that have presidential systems of government. On the contrary, there are many parliamentary democracies and historically, they have performed better. Three major problems of presidential systems can be deduced from his essay; 1) Dual legitimacy, 2) fixed term, and 3) winner-takes-all logic. After explaining all three problems, this paper argues that winner-takes-all logic is as much applicable to parliamentary systems as it is to presidential systems.
First, in presidential systems, the president and elected assembly have competing claims to legitimacy. Both powers are popularly elected and claims to legitimately represent the aspirations of the people. If a majority of lawmakers favor policies that are in sharp …show more content…
Impeachment is very difficult and president’s supporters might start crisis that could create instability and encourage non-democratic actors to take over. On the other hand, executive in the parliamentary system could easily remove through a vote of no confidence. Furthermore, succession can also be a problem in presidential systems because vice presidents are often less known persons.
Lastly, Linz argues that presidentialism has a winner-takes-all logic that is unfavorable to democratic stability. In parliamentary systems, power-sharing and coalition building is fairly common, which usually takes in to account the interests of smaller parties. However, in presidential systems, direct popular elections leave the president with a feeling that he/she need not undertake the tedious process of coalition building. Winners and losers are clearly defined in the presidential systems and must wait for until the completion of the term “without any access to executive power and