Executive Prerogatives in the Legislative Process and Democratic Stability: Evidence from Non-Presidential Systems
| Date | 01 February 2020 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1478929919862235 |
| Published date | 01 February 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Special Issue Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1478929919862235
Political Studies Review
2020, Vol. 18(1) 71 –86
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/1478929919862235
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Executive Prerogatives in
the Legislative Process and
Democratic Stability: Evidence
from Non-Presidential Systems
Michael Koß
Abstract
In their seminal Presidents and Assemblies, Shugart and Carey regard executive prerogatives over
legislation as a potential threat to democratic stability. This article asks whether this claim is also
valid beyond presidential systems. A long-term analysis of four cases (Britain, France, Sweden and
Germany) over the 1866–2015 period leads to three preliminarily conclusions. First, executive
prerogatives – the veto, privileges in the introduction of certain pieces of legislation and decree
powers – can also be found in (emerging) parliamentary and semi-presidential systems. Second,
even legislatures in non-presidential systems are able to balance the representativeness and
efficiency of legislation. Third, there is evidence that the origins of this ability lie in the occurrence
of and successful defences against vital threats to legislative democracy. Taken together, these
findings suggest that executive prerogatives over legislation are not a problem (as envisaged by
Shugart and Carey) but a potential solution with respect to democratic stability.
Keywords
semi-presidential systems, parliamentary systems, legislative initiative, legislative veto, decree
powers, democratization
Accepted: 26 April 2019
Introduction
In their seminal book Presidents and Assemblies, Shugart and Carey (1992) asserted that
the legislative powers of presidents varied considerably among presidential systems. The
authors focused on three particular legislative powers of presidents (Shugart and Carey,
1992: 131–147): a legislative veto, prerogatives in the introduction of certain pieces of
legislation and decree powers. They explicitly asserted that these three legislative powers
Chair of Political Systems and Comparative Politics, Institute of Political Science, Technical University
Dresden, Dresden, Germany
Corresponding author:
Michael Koß, Chair of Political Systems and Comparative Politics, Institute of Political Science, Technical
University Dresden, Bergstr. 53, 01069 Dresden, Germany.
Email: michael.koss@tu-dresden.de
862235PSW0010.1177/1478929919862235Political Studies ReviewKoß
research-article2019
Special Issue Article
72 Political Studies Review 18(1)
were typical executive prerogatives in presidential systems. Furthermore, Shugart and
Carey (1992: 132) argued that executive legislative powers were only constitutionalized
in presidential regimes. According to these authors, prime ministers as heads of govern-
ments in parliamentary systems only possessed legislative powers delegated to them by
the parliament. What was more, Shugart and Carey (1992: 165) asserted that ‘regimes
with great presidential legislative power are problematic’ for government survival since
‘relatively strong assemblies should be associated with more stable and effective govern-
ment relative to strong presidencies because assemblies serve as arenas for the perpetual
fine-tuning of conflicts’. Powerful executives in presidential systems, so their argument
went, jeopardized democratic stability.
Shugart and Carey’s pioneering work has given rise to an ongoing debate regarding
whether or not legislative politics differed between presidential and parliamentary
regimes and what implications this had for democratic stability. In their original contribu-
tion, Shugart and Carey aimed to differentiate Linz’ (1990) warnings of the ‘perils of
presidentialism’. They argued that only one variant of semi-presidentialism which they
referred to as president-parliamentary regimes (in which both the president and the parlia-
ment have the power of government dismissal) was less conducive to democracy. In con-
trast, they held that the other variant of semi-presidential regimes, premier-presidentialism
(in which the government can only be dismissed by parliament), caused no such prob-
lems. Shugart and Carey (1992: 7–10) went even further than differentiating the alleged
perils of presidentialism and argued that presidential regimes, rather than jeopardizing
democratic stability, even had advantages over parliamentary ones since they were better
able to balance efficiency and representativeness with respect to legislation.
Shugart and Carey’s claims about the legislative powers of executives in presidential
regimes give rise to two questions regarding the link between executive legislative pre-
rogatives and democratic performance. First, are legislative privileges of executives also
to be found beyond presidential systems? Second, why (or why not) do such privileges
undermine democratic stability, notably the ability to balance efficiency and representa-
tiveness of legislation, in non-presidential systems?
In order to assess whether and in what capacity the legislative prerogatives identified
by Shugart and Carey travel beyond presidential systems and to account for their impact
on democratic stability, the focus of this article is on the legislative prerogatives identified
by Shugart and Carey (or functional equivalents thereof) in four most different (emerg-
ing) semi-presidential and parliamentary systems: Britain, France, Germany and Sweden.
In order to assess the causal origins of executive privileges in the legislative process in
non-presidential systems and to take seriously the crucial role of the timing of institu-
tional reforms distributing powers between the executive and the legislature (Cheibub
et al., 2014), the article adopts a historical perspective and embarks on a long-term analy-
sis of executive privileges regarding the passage of legislation since the late 19th century.
With respect to the two questions underlying this article, the findings of the analysis pre-
sented here suggest, first, that the relationship between governing regimes and executive
legislative powers is not as simple as first posited by Shugart and Carey. Even where
legislative vetoes, prerogatives in the introduction of certain pieces of legislation, or
decree powers are absent in semi-presidential and (emerging) parliamentary regimes,
functional equivalents emerged.
Second, there is evidence that even non-presidential political systems are able to insti-
tutionally balance representativeness and efficiency in the legislative arena using two
different methods: either cohesive opposition voting (if executive prerogatives exist) or
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