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Presidents in Semi-Presidential Regimes

Moderating Power in Portugal and Timor-Leste

  • Book
  • © 2021

Overview

Authors:
  1. Rui Graça Feijó

    1. CES—Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

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  • Establishes an analytical model for independent presidencies
  • Discusses their relevance for the literature on the relationships between institutional forms and democracy
  • Offers two in-depth analyses of actual instances of independent presidencies

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Presidential Politics (PASTPRPO)

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Table of contents (6 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xix
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction: Presidential Republics with “Moderating Power”

    • Rui Graça Feijó
    Pages 1-23

  3. The Emergence of Presidential Republics in Portugal and Timor-Leste

    • Rui Graça Feijó
    Pages 25-50

  4. Electing Presidents with “Moderating Power”

    • Rui Graça Feijó
    Pages 51-85

  5. What Do Presidents Do with “Moderating Power”?

    • Rui Graça Feijó
    Pages 87-127

  6. “Moderating Power” and Partisan Presidents: Two Empirical Cases

    • Rui Graça Feijó
    Pages 129-149

  7. The “Moderating Power” of Presidents: Rex regnat sed non gubernat

    • Rui Graça Feijó
    Pages 151-168

  8. Back Matter

    Pages 169-180
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Keywords

About this book

This book offers a comparative perspective on the semi-presidential regimes of Portugal and Timor-Leste, suggesting that they both reserve a “moderating power” for presidents in line with what was theorized by Benjamin Constant. Historical legacies, political culture and short-term political considerations combined create an institutional design that has endured and produced incentives to power-sharing and inclusiveness. A critical element of this model finds roots in the electoral system facilitating the emergence of “independent” presidents with political platforms that tend to supersede those of political parties. Elected presidents dispose of an array of competences that do not overlap with those of prime ministers, but represent a category of its own. The vast array of presidential competences contributes to reinforcing a system of checks and balances, and to foster horizontal accountability. The book argues that this specific form of government with “moderating powers” and presidents who are largely “independent” from the party system contributed to the successful democratic transitions of Portugal and Timor-Leste.

Reviews

“The diffusion of semi-presidential regimes with the so-called ‘third wave of democratization’ made them an important type of democratic (and competitive authoritarian) political system in the contemporary world. This excellent comparative study of Portugal and East Timor offers a major contribution to the complex role of semi-presidentialism in the quality of modern democracies.” (António Costa Pinto, Institute of Social Science, University of Lisbon, Portugal)

“This valuable contribution to the literature on semi-presidentialism advances the interpretation that elected presidents in semi-presidential regimes can also constitute a ‘moderating power’. With a carefully thought-out theoretical framework that not only builds on the literature on semi-presidentialism but also draws on classical political philosophy, and empirically sustained on a thorough and often first-hand account of the operation of semi-presidentialism in Portugal and Timor Leste, Rui Graça Feijó expands our understanding of the forms that semi-presidentialism can take in practice. This book will be of great interest to students of semi-presidentialism – not only those interested in the specific cases of Portugal and Timor-Leste, but anyone who seeks to better understand the operation of semi-presidential regimes.” (Carlos Jalali, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Aveiro, Portugal)

“Presidents in Semi-Presidential Regimes is an outstanding work of great analytical clarity. Written in an engaging and economical style, Rui Graça Feijó’s comparative exploration of presidential power shines new light on the historical evolution of these two political systems, and is essential to understanding recent political developments in both countries. Deserving of a wider audience beyond the scholarly communities of Portugal and Timor-Leste, it offers compelling insight into the semi-presidential system of government, and the distinctive and evolving role of directly-elected presidents within them.” (Michael Leach, Professor of Politics and International Relations, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia)


Authors and Affiliations

  • CES—Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

    Rui Graça Feijó

About the author

Rui Graça Feijó is Research Fellow at the Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, and Associate Researcher at the Institute for Contemporary History, NOVA University Lisbon, Portugal. Previously he was a UN advisor to the presidency of Timor-Leste (2005-2006). He is the author of Dynamics of Democracy in Timor-Leste: The Birth of a Democratic Nation (2016) and Democracia: Linhagens e Configurações de um Conceito Impuro (2017).

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