The presidentialization of politics : a comparative study of modern democracies

Author(s)

Bibliographic Information

The presidentialization of politics : a comparative study of modern democracies

edited by Thomas Poguntke and Paul Webb

(Comparative politics)

Oxford University Press, 2005

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Note

Includes bibliographical references and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

"The Presidentialization of Politics" shows how democratic political systems are coming to operate according to an essentially presidential logic, irrespective of their formal constitutional make-up. The logic of presidentialization is revealed in the growing power and autonomy of political leaders within political executives and political parties, and in the emergence of increasingly leadership-centred electoral processes. While these developments to some extent reflect the fluctuating contingencies of particular personalities and short-term political contexts, they are more fundamentally explained by processes of long-term structural change affecting state and society. Such processes include the internationalization of political decision-making, the executive's search for enhanced steering capacity over the state, the changing structure of mass communications, and the erosion of traditional political cleavages. The book presents evidence confirming the existence of the presidentialization phenomenon across a heterogeneous mix of established democracies. While there are significant cross-national differences, the overall thesis holds: Modern democracies increasingly follow a presidential logic which renders leaders both more central and more vulnerable, their power and their susceptibility each rooted in the capacity to sustain a personal appeal to mass publics.

Table of Contents

  • 1. The Presidentialization of Politics in Democratic Societies: A Framework for Analysis
  • 2. The British Prime Minister: Much More Than 'First Among Equals'
  • 3. A Presidentializing Party State? The Federal Republic of Germany
  • 4. Presidentialization, Italian Style
  • 5. The Presidentialization of Spanish Democracy: Sources of Prime Ministerial Power in Post-Franco Spain
  • 6. The Low Countries: From Prime Minister to President-Minister
  • 7. Denmark: Presidentialization in a Consensual Democracy
  • 8. 'President Persson': How did Sweden get Him?
  • 9. Canada: Executive Dominance and Presidentialization
  • 10. Dyarchic Presidentialization in a Presidentialized Polity: The Fifth French Republic
  • 11. Finland: Let the Force Be with the Leader - But Who is the Leader?
  • 12. The Presidentialization of Portuguese Democracy?
  • 13. The Failure of Presidential Parliamentarism: Constitutional versus Structural Presidentialization in Israel's Parliamentary Democracy
  • 14. The Semi-Sovereign American Prince: The Dilemma of an Independent President in a Presidential Government
  • 15. The Presidentialization of Contemporary Democratic Politics: Evidence, Causes, and Consequences

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Details

  • NCID
    BA71515434
  • ISBN
    • 0199252017
  • Country Code
    uk
  • Title Language Code
    eng
  • Text Language Code
    eng
  • Place of Publication
    Oxford
  • Pages/Volumes
    xv, 361 p.
  • Size
    24cm
  • Classification
  • Subject Headings
  • Parent Bibliography ID
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