Presidential Powers and Consolidation of New Postcommunist Democracies

Abstract

The present study analyzes the institutional design of the presidency in 22 postcommunist countries from 1993 to 1998 and its effects in terms of democratization. The analysis indicates that two dimensions of presidential powers should be distinguished: (a) a president’s ability to act as a de facto head of government and (b) his or her authority to serve as an arbiter between the legislative and executive branches of government and to patronize the courts. Other factors hold that constant, political regimes with stronger executive powers of presidents exhibit worse contemporaneous democratic performance and are less able to consolidate as democracies. The results show that superpresidential regimes, in which presidents had been vested with authorities of both types, perform the worst. However, the marginal effect of presidential arbiter authorities is rather positive.