Variation in the Durability of Semi-Presidential Democracies

Abstract

This chapter examines why some semi-presidential democracies survive while others fail. The scale of suffering and loss of opportunity that followed the failure of some of these democracies remains staggering even at a historical distance: the death and destruction caused by the Nazi dictatorship in the aftermath of the Weimar Republic’s collapse, the squandering of resources that followed the collapse of democracy in Armenia in 1996, which allowed a small elite to benefit from economic growth while leaving an estimated 54 percent of Armenians struggling below the poverty level, and the havoc of civil war in Guinea-Bissau after the overthrow of democracy in 1998. While the consequences of the failure of semi-presidential democracies have often been devastating, the factors that enhance or reduce the durability of these democracies remain, as yet, poorly understood.