Political Science Seminar Series: Alper Ecevit (Bahçeşehir University)

Sabancı University
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

POLITICAL SCIENCE SEMINAR SERIES

The Perils of Semi-Presidentialism

Alper Ecevit
(Bahçeşehir University)

April 26, 2017, Wednesday

12:30  FASS 2023

Abstract: Inspired by the stability of the Fifth Republic in France, semi-presidentialism has become an alternative constitutional design in transitional democracies. This trend sparked off an intriguing discussion of a proper evaluation of its impact on political outcomes as well as on its distinctiveness from other forms of executive-legislative relations in contemporary democracies. In this seminar, I will briefly touch upon potential venues of research on the topic and present a comparative research on the impact of semi-presidential systems on political trust in two major political institutions: the government and parliament. Testing our arguments in 29 democracies through a multilevel analysis, we have found that, compared to presidential and parliamentary systems, semipresidentialism often generates dual-legitimacy problems, thereby reducing confidence in both government and parliament.