Does the constitution matter? Semi-presidentialism and the origin of hegemonic personalist regimes
| Author | Huang-Ting Yan |
| Published date | 01 June 2020 |
| Date | 01 June 2020 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0192512119829160 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0192512119829160
International Political Science Review
2020, Vol. 41(3) 365 –384
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/0192512119829160
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Does the constitution matter?
Semi-presidentialism and the origin
of hegemonic personalist regimes
Huang-Ting Yan
University of Essex, UK
Abstract
This study examines hegemonic personalist regimes (HPRs) and argues that semi-presidential dictatorships
are more likely to evolve into HPRs than parliamentary systems or presidential autocracies. In presidential
autocracies, elites delegate power to dictators who control the military to eliminate threats from the
opposition. In parliamentary systems, elites are more likely to build power-sharing parties through which
parliamentary opposition can be defeated, often evolving into single-party regimes. In semi-presidential
autocracies, elites delegate power to dictators in exchange for investments, support of their agendas, or
defeat of the opposition, which can lead to personalist rule supported by a dominant party or HPR. This
study verified this phenomenon using logistic regression. In addition, this study examined three possible
challenges: unstable equilibrium, reverse causality and institutional variation within semi-presidentialism. In
sum, the incentive structure inherent in semi-presidential systems paves the way for the rise of HPRs.
Keywords
Dictators, hegemonic personalist regimes, semi-presidentialism, the opposition, ruling elites
Introduction
Hegemonic personalist regimes (HPRs) are defined as an autocracy in which power is concentrated
in the dictator and a few elites, and a party serves to maintain the hegemonic status and interests of
the ruling elites. After 1991, this form of autocracy became very common, and the number of these
regimes is still rising. This begs the question: what explains the rise of HPRs after the end of the
Cold War and what factors account for their origins?
This paper proposes a comparative analytic framework of autocratic constitutional systems to
explain why HPRs emerge.1 Scholars argue that in a dictatorship the constitution may be a ‘façade’.
Recent studies, however, indicate different types of executive-selection systems influence how
Corresponding author:
Huang-Ting Yan, Department of Government, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, CO4 3SQ, UK.
Email: hy16127@essex.ac.uk
829160IPS0010.1177/0192512119829160International Political Science ReviewYan
research-article2019
Article
366 International Political Science Review 41(3)
much constitutional power resides in the elites versus the dictator and, thus, whether power sharing
within the ruling camp occurs (Roberts, 2015). Based on this seminal work, this paper argues that
an autocratic constitutional system may influence whether the power balance tilts towards the rul-
ing elites or the dictator, and the extent to which the parliamentary opposition is empowered.2
Both the strength of the opposition and the power distribution between the dictator and elites are
closely related to the emergence of HPRs – personalist rule supported by a dominant party.
Personalist rule refers to a system under which the ruling elites delegate power to a dictator, while
the dictator exploits the rest of the population for his own benefit (Hyden, 2013).3 This system, in
all probability, forms when elites hold less power than the dictator, and thus prefer to exchange
insignificant power for money and personal interests. However, the ruling elites need not only
personal rents but also a dominant party to maintain their hegemonic status when the parliamentary
opposition is empowered to some extent. To put it differently, the threat from the parliamentary
opposition causes elites to delegate more power to the autocrat in exchange for this type of party to
erode the opposition.
This study proposes that semi-presidential dictatorships are more likely to develop into HPRs
than parliamentary and presidential autocracies. In semi-presidential systems, parliamentary oppo-
sition is somewhat empowered because the legislature, despite not posing a threat to the president’s
survival, has the power to appoint and dismiss cabinet members. As a president, the autocrat can
still veto legislative bills or threaten to dissolve the parliament in which the elites serve, causing
the power balance to shift slightly towards the dictator. As a result, the elites delegate more power
to the dictator in exchange for investments in the party to co-opt parliamentary opposition, con-
structing a personalist rule supported by a dominant party. Using data covering all autocracies
between 1945 and 2010, and employing logistic regression with a robust standard error cluster on
countries and instrumental variables (IV) analysis, this study verifies the hypothesis.
This research faces three challenges. First, HPRs derived from semi-presidential systems are
transitional regimes and, thus, unstable. To confirm their stability, this study examined whether
semi-presidential HPRs are more stable than non-HPRs using survival analysis. Second, there is
the problem of reverse causality. In addition to ruling out cases with endogenous constitutional
change, this paper developed an instrumental variable (IV). Third, confronting institutional varia-
tion within semi-presidentialism that biases outcomes, the paper identified subtypes and tested
whether we need nuanced classification of semi-presidentialism to separate their theoretical effects
or treat it just as a whole category.
This paper adds to the richness of existing scholarship on authoritarian regimes (Acemoglu
et al., 2010; Geddes, 2008; Hyden, 2013; Magaloni and Kricheli, 2010; Smith, 2005) and auto-
cratic constitutions (Albertus and Menaldo, 2014; Hale, 2015; Roberts, 2015) by using the analytic
framework of comparative constitutional systems to explain why different forms of autocracies
emerge. Further, this study adds to scholarship on democracy, implying semi-presidential systems
create more limits for a ‘dictator’ than in winner takes all’s presidentialism. Third, this study argues
that regimes developing without complying with the incentive structure embodied in different
institutional settings are highly susceptible to collapse, contributing to comparative research on
autocratic endurance (Gandhi and Przeworski, 2007; Levitsky and Way, 2012; Magaloni, 2008;
Magaloni and Kricheli, 2010; Wright and Escribà-Folch, 2012). Fourth, this paper emphasises how
constitutional design influences the origins and functions of a non-democratic legislature or party,
contributing to existing literature on authoritarian power sharing tools (Boix and Svolik, 2013;
Slater, 2010; Smith, 2005; Wright, 2008). Finally, this research explains why over-presidentialisa-
tion of some semi-presidential countries (Beliaev, 2006; Elgie, 2011; Kim, 2015) happens through
power redistribution between dictators and elites.
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