The Fusion of Presidentialism and Parliamentarism

Abstract

No question of constitutional design is more intensely debated than whether emerging democracies should adopt presidential or parliamentary systems. This is an important debate but it misses a critical point about constitutional design - namely that the structural differences between presidentialism and parliamentarism conceal much more than they reveal. In this Article, I demonstrate precisely how conventional accounts of the structural differences between presidentialism and parliamentarism actually obscure their functional similarities.

Keywords: comparative constitutional law, presidentialism, parliamentarism, constitutional design, efficiency, electoral systems, separation of powers, fusion of powers