The Type of Government and the Party System

Abstract

The recent presidentialism versus parliamentarism debate generated a large body of literature on the role of institutional factors in advancing stable democracy. In a relatively short period of time since the 1990 publication of Juan Linz’s article The Perils of Presidentialism, which raised the issue of what type of government is more conducive to a successful democratic transition, many political scientists across the globe have devoted their attention to the exploration of the nature of executive-legislative relations in postauthoritarian systems. Some of the arguments made at the dawn of the debate have been later supported with new evidence and advanced to a higher level of sophistication. Other propositions proved to have a short life and have been rebuffed by consequent research on the subject. Still new arguments are being offered in order to be scrutinized, supported, or questioned by other authors. In other words, a normal process of accumulation of knowledge, gathering of facts, crystallization of theories and methods takes place.