APA Style Reference Citations Guide

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APA Style Reference Citations
Library Resource Guide
WHAT IS A REFERENCE CITATION?
A reference citation is the documentation needed to make your
paper acceptable for academic purposes. It
gives authoritative sources for your statements, helps the reader
gain access to those sources, and acknowledges
the fact that the information used in a paper did not originate
with the writer.
WHAT IS APA'S STYLE OF REFERENCE CITATION?
APA style uses the author/date method of citation in which the
author's last name and the year of the
publication are inserted in the actual text of the paper. It is the
style recommended by the American
Psychological Association and used in many of the social
sciences. The American Psychological Association
addresses new electronic formats in a separate guide, which UT
students can access in book format or online
through the library. Several of the examples in this guide come
from one of these sources. The American
Psychological Association offers some guidance and examples
at http://www.apastyle.org/. The Writing
Center, on the first floor of Carlson, also offers help to students

who are writing papers. This guide only
summarizes a few main points regarding APA style. For full
information, please consult the two APA guides
below.
BF 76.7 .P83 2001 REF (available in Reference and Reserves at
Carlson Library)
Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association
(5th ed.) by The American
Psychological Association.
BF 76.7 .P833 2007 REF (available in Reference or at
http://utmost.cl.utoledo.edu/record=b2574984)
APA Style Guide to Electronic References by The American
Psychological Association.
WHEN USING APA STYLE, DO I NEED TO USE
FOOTNOTES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE?
No, by inserting reference citations in the text, you eliminate
the need to use footnotes at the bottom of the page
or at the end of your paper. The citations in your end-of-paper
references list should give readers enough
information to locate each source.
NOTE: It is suggested that you consult with your instructor or
advisor for the style preferred by your
department. Be consistent and do not mix styles! Inquire at the
Information/Reference Desk for style
manuals available at Carlson Library.
EXAMPLES OF REFERENCE CITATIONS IN TEXT--APA
STYLE

1. If author's name occurs in the text, follow it with year of
publication in parentheses.
Example: Piaget (1970) compared reaction times...
2. If author's name is not in the text, insert last name, comma,
year in parenthesis.
Example: In a recent study of reaction times (Piaget, 1978)…
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3. If author's name and the date of publication have been
mentioned in the text of your paper, they
should not be repeated within parentheses.
Example: In 1978, Piaget compared reaction times...
4. Because material within a book or on a web page is often
difficult to locate, authors should,
whenever possible, give page numbers for books or paragraph
numbers for web pages in body to
assist readers. Page numbers (preceded by p. or pp.) or
paragraph numbers (preceded by ¶ or

para.) follow the year of publication, and are separated from it
by a comma. For websites with
neither page numbers nor paragraph numbers, cite the heading
and the number of the paragraph
following it.
Examples: Hunt (1974, pp. 25-69) confirms the hypothesis...
(Myers, 2000 ¶ 5)
(Beutler, 2000, Conclusion section, para. 1)
5. If a work has two authors, always cite both names every time
the reference occurs in the text.
Connect both names by using the word "and."
Examples: Piaget and Smith (1972) recognize...
Finberg and Skipp (1973, pp. 37-52) discuss...
6. If a work has two authors and they are not included in the
text, insert within parentheses, the last
names of the authors joined by an ampersand (&), and the year
separated from the authors by a
comma.
Examples: ...to organize accumulated knowledge and order
sequences of operations (Piaget &
Smith, 1973)
...to organize accumulated knowledge and order sequences of
operations (Piaget &
Smith,1973, p. 410)
7. If a work has more than two authors (but fewer than six), cite

all authors the first time the
reference occurs; include the last name followed by "et al." and
the year in subsequent citations
of the same reference.
Example: First occurrence:
Williams, French and Joseph (1962) found...
Subsequent citations:
Williams et al. (1962) recommended...
8. Quotations: Cite the source of direct quotations by enclosing
it in parentheses. Include author,
year, and page number. Punctuation differs according to where
the quotation falls.
1) If the quoted passage is in the middle of a sentence, end the
passage with quotation marks, cite
the source in parentheses immediately, and continue the
sentence.
Example: Many inexperienced writers are unsure about "the
actual boundaries of the grammatical
abstraction called a sentence" (Shaughnessy, 1977, p. 24) or
about which form of
punctuation they should use.

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2) If the quotation falls at the end of a sentence, close the
quotation with quotation marks, and cite
the source in parentheses after the quotation marks. End with
the period outside the parentheses.
Example: Fifty percent "of spontaneous speech is estimated to
be non-speech"
(Shaughnessy, 1977, p. 24).
3) If the quotation is longer than forty words, it is set off
without quotations marks in an indented
block (double spaced). The source is cited in parentheses after
the final period.
Example: This is further explained by Shaughnessy's (1977)
following statements:
In speech, pauses mark rates of respiration, set off certain
words
for rhetorical emphasis, facilitate phonological maneuvers,
regulate the rhythms of thought and articulation and suggest
grammatical structure. Modern punctuation, however, does not
provide a score for such a complex orchestration. (p. 24)
4) If citing a work discussed in a secondary source, name the
original work and give a citation for
the secondary source. The reference list should contain the

secondary source, not the unread
primary source.
Example: Seidenberg and McClelland’s study (as cited in
Coltheart, Curtis, Atkins, &
Haller, 1993)
THE REFERENCE LIST
APA style suggests using a reference list for references cited in
the text of a paper rather than a bibliography. A
reference list includes only those references which were
actually cited in the text of one's paper. There must be
total agreement between the two. (See an example of a
reference list on the last page). A bibliography includes
all literature consulted which was "immediately relevant" to the
research process, even though the material was
not cited in the text of one's paper.
When compiling a reference list one needs to pay particular
attention to the following: 1) sequence; 2)
punctuation and spacing; 3) capitalization; and 4) underlining.
ORDER OF REFERENCES IN THE REFERENCE LIST
1) Arrange entries in alphabetical order by surname of the first
author.
2) Single-author entries precede multiple-author entries
beginning with the same surname:
Kaufman, J. R. (1981).
Kaufman, J. R., & Cochran, D. C. (1978).

3) References with the same first author and different second or
third authors are arranged
alphabetically by the surname of the second author, and so on:
Kaufman, J. R., Jones, K., & Cochran, D. F. (1982).
Kaufman, J. R., & Wong, D. F. (1978)
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4) References with the same authors in the same order are
arranged by year of publication, the
earliest first:
Kaufman, J. R., Jones, K. (1977).
Kaufman, J. R., Jones, K. (1980).
5) The order of several works by different authors with the same
surname is arranged alphabetically
by the first initial:
Eliot, A. L. (1983).
Eliot, G. E. (1980).
EXAMPLES OF ITEMS IN A REFERENCE LIST
Although the format for books, journal articles, magazine
articles and other media is similar, there are some
slight differences. Items in a reference list should be double -
spaced. Also, use hanging indents: entries should
begin flush left with subsequent lines indented.
BOOKS:

One author:
Castle, E. B. (1970). The teacher. London: Oxford University
Press.
Two authors:
McCandless, B. R., & Evans, E. D. (1973). Children and youth:
Psychosocial development.
Hinsdale, IL: Dryden Press.
Three or more authors: (list each author)
Smith, V., Barr, R., & Burke, D. (1976). Alternatives in
education: Freedom to choose.
Bloomington, IN: Phi Delta Kappa, Educational Foundation.
Society, association, or institution as author and publisher:
American Psychiatric Association. (1980). Diagnostic and
statistical manual of mental disorders
(3rd ed.). Washington, D.C.: Author.
Editor or compiler as author:
Rich, J. M. (Ed.). (1972). Readings in the philosophy of
education (2nd ed.). Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth.
Chapter, essay, or article by one author in a book or
encyclopedia edited by another:

Medley, D. M. (1983). Teacher effectiveness. In H. E. Mitzel
(Ed.), Encyclopedia of educational
research (Vol. 4, pp. 1894-1903). New York: The Free Press.
JOURNAL ARTICLES:
One author:
Herrington, A. J. (1985). Classrooms as forums for reasoning
and writing. College Composition
and Communication, 36(4), 404-413.
Two authors:
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Horowitz, L. M., & Post, D. L. (1981). The prototype as a
construct in abnormal psychology.
Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 90(6), 575-585.
Society, association, or institution as author:
Institute on Rehabilitation Issues. (1975). Critical issues in
rehabilitating the severely
handicapped. Rehabilitation Counseling Bulletin, 18(4), 205-
213.

NEWSPAPER ARTICLES:
No author:
More jobs waiting for college grads. (1986, June 17). Detroit
Free Press, pp. 1A, 3A.
MAGAZINES:
One author:
Powledge, T. M. (1983, July). The importance of being twins.
Psychology Today, 19, 20-27.
No author:
CBS invades Cuba, returns with Irakere: Havana jam. (1979,
May 3). Down Beat, 10.
MICROFORMS:
ERIC report:
Plantes, Mary Kay. (1979). The effect of work experience on
young men's earnings. (Report No.
IRP-DP-567-79). Madison: Wisconsin University. Madison
Institute for Research on
Poverty. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED183687)
ERIC paper presented at a meeting:
Whipple, W. S. (1977, January). Changing attitude through
behavior modification. Paper

presented at the annual meeting of the National Association of
Secondary School
Principals, New Orleans, LA. (ERIC Document Reproduction
Service No. ED146500)
AUDIOVISUAL MEDIA AND SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONAL
MATERIALS:
This category includes the following types of non-book
materials:
Audiorecord Flashcard Motion picture Videorecording Slide
Kit
Chart Game Picture Transparency Realia Filmstrip
A bibliographic/reference format for these non-print materials is
as follows:
Author's name (inverted.----Author's function, i.e., Producer,
Director, Speaker, etc. in parentheses.----Date of
publication in parentheses----Title.----Medium in brackets after
title, [Filmstrip]. HOWEVER, if it is necessary
to use a number after a medium for identification or retrieval
purposes, use parentheses instead of brackets, e.g.,
(Audiorecord No. 4321).----Place of publication: Publisher.
Maas, J. B. (Producer), & Gluck, D. H. (Director). (1979).
Deeper in hypnosis [Motion Picture]. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

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ELECTRONIC MEDIA:
Materials available via the Internet include journals,
newspapers, research papers, government reports, web
pages, etc. When citing an Internet source, one should:
1. Provide as much information as possible that will help
readers relocate the information. Also try to
reference specific documents rather than web pages when
possible.
2. Give accurate, working addresses (URLs) or Digital Object
Identifiers.
References to Internet sources should include at least the
following four items:
1. A title or description
2. A date (either date of publication or date of retrieval)
3. An address (URL) or Digital Object Identifier
4. An author's name, if available
In an effort to solve the problem of changed addresses and
broken links, publishers have begun to assign Digital
Object Identifiers (DOI) to documents, particularly to scholarly
journal articles. DOIs should be used in

reference lists when they are available. A DOI may be pasted
into the DOI Resolver at http://www.crossref.org/
to confirm a citation. For journal articles, if no DOI is
available, a database name or URL may be added for
particularly difficult to find publications. Since journal
articles, unlike many web pages, are unlikely to change,
a retrieval date is not necessary. Electronic book citations only
need source information when the book is
difficult to find or only available electronically.
Internet article based on a print source (exact duplicate) with
DOI assigned:
Stultz, J. (2006). Integrating exposure therapy and analytic
therapy in trauma treatment.
American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 76(4), 482-488.
doi:10.1037/0002-9432.76.4.482
Article in an Internet only journal with no DOI assigned:
Sillick, T. J., & Schutte, N. S. (2006). Emotional intelligence
and self-esteem mediate between
perceived early parental love and adult happiness. E-Journal of
Applied Psychology, 2(2),
38-48. Retrieved from
http://ojs.lib.swin.edu.au/index.php/ejap/article/view/71/100
Daily newspaper article, electronic version available by search:
Botha, T. (1999, February 21). The Statue of Liberty, Central
Park and me. The New York Times.

Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com
Webpage:
Raymon H. Mulford Library, The University of Toledo Health
Science Campus. (2008).
Instructions to authors in the health sciences. Retrieved June
17, 2008, from
http://mulford.mco.edu/instr/
Annual report:
Pearson PLC. (2005). Reading allowed: Annual review and
summary financial statements 2004.
Retrieved from
http://www.pearson.com/investor/ar2004/pdfs/summary_report_
2004.pdf
7
References
American Psychological Association. (2008). Electronic
resources. Retrieved June 17, 2008 from
http://www.apastyle.org/elecref.html.
American Psychological Association. (2008). Frequently asked

questions. Retrieved June 17, 2008 from
http://www.apastyle.org/faqs.html.
Bloom, B. S. (Ed.). (1956). Taxonomy of educational
objectives: The classification of educational goals, by a
committee of college and university examiners. New York: D.
McKay.
Botha, T. (1999, February 21). The Statue of Liberty, Central
Park and me. The New York Times. Retrieved
from http://www.nytimes.com
CBS invades Cuba, returns with Irakere: Havana jam. (1979,
May 3). Down Beat, 10.
Herrington, A. J. (1985). Classrooms as forums for reasoning
and writing. College Composition and
Communication, 36(4), 404-413.
Maas, J. B. (Producer), & Gluck, D. H. (Director). (1979).
Deeper in hypnosis [Motion Picture]. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Mandel, B. J. (1978). Losing one's mind: Learning to write and
edit. College Composition and Communication,
29, 263-268.
Medley, D. M. (1982). Teacher effectiveness. In H. E. Mitzel
(Ed.), Encyclopedia of educational research (Vol.

4, pp. 1894-1903). New York: The Free Press.
Raymon H. Mulford Library, The University of Toledo Health
Science Campus. (2008). Instructions to authors
in the health sciences. Retrieved June 17, 2008, from
http://mulford.mco.edu/instr/
Sillick, T. J., & Schutte, N. S. (2006). Emotional intelligence
and self-esteem mediate between perceived early
parental love and adult happiness. E-Journal of Applied
Psychology, 2(2), 38-48. Retrieved from
http://ojs.lib.swin.edu.au/index.php/ejap/article/view/71/100
Stultz, J. (2006). Integrating exposure therapy and analytic
therapy in trauma treatment. American Journal of
Orthopsychiatry, 76(4), 482-488. doi:10.1037/0002-
9432.76.4.482 revised 06/23/08 jam
FACING THE PERILS OF
PRESIDENTIALISM?
Francis Fukuyama, Björn Dressel, and Boo-Seung Chang
While several East Asian countries have been part of the “third
wave”
of democratization over the past generation, it is no secret that
many of
them have also been experiencing significant growing pains. In
just the

last five years, Indonesia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and most
recently
South Korea have all suffered serious—albeit not regime-
threatening—
political crises that featured at least the beginning of
impeachment
proceedings against an elected chief executive. Presidents
Joseph Estrada
of the Philippines and Abdurrahman Wahid of Indonesia (the
one indi-
rectly elected member of the group) actually lost their offices —
in
Estrada’s case through means that many deemed illegal.
Presidents Chen
Shui-bian of Taiwan and Roh Moo Hyun of South Korea
survived the
campaigns against them, the former because impeachment never
went
much beyond a preliminary motion in the legislature, and the
latter
because his country’s Constitutional Court decided that he
should keep
his job despite what the Court found were legal and
constitutional der-
elictions.
In each of these cases a president found himself facing a crisis
of
legitimacy, bereft of a legislative majority, and often without
power to
enact his agenda into law. The turmoil created by these crises
has led to
calls for constitutional reform in all four countries. In the
Philippines,
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Estrada’s successor, has
even agreed

to open formal deliberations on whether the country should
amend its
constitution and adopt a parliamentary form of government.
Is there a crisis in East Asian presidentialism comparable to the
prob-
Francis Fukuyama is Bernard Schwartz Professor of
International
Political Economy at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced
Interna-
tional Studies. His most recent book is State-Building:
Governance and
World Order in the 21st Century (2004). Björn Dressel and Boo-
Seung
Chang are doctoral students at the Johns Hopkins School of
Advanced
International Studies.
Journal of Democracy Volume 16, Number 2 April 2005
Challenge and Change in East Asia
Francis Fukuyama, Björn Dressel, and Boo-Seung Chang 103
lems that presidential polities have experienced in Latin
America and
other parts of the world? Does what happened in Indonesia, the
Philip-
pines, South Korea, and Taiwan reveal defects inherent in
presidentialism,
or are the causes more particular, relating to poorly designed
institu-
tions in one country or another? If the latter, are such

institutions readily
fixable, or do they reflect deep-seated dynamics in each society
that are
likely to resist change?
It is true that presidential systems have created crisis and
instability
in all four of these East Asian lands, though none of the four
crises was
regime-threatening or led to democratic breakdown. In each
country,
presidentialism allowed a relative outsider to rise to power far
more
rapidly than would have been possible under parliamentarism.
In Tai-
wan and South Korea, these outsiders succeeded in dramatically
shifting
the policy agenda. Estrada might have as well, had the
Philippine estab-
lishment not ousted him. In many developing countries, the
tendency
toward consensus praised by proponents of parliamentarism is
often a
formula for political stasis. What one thinks of the ultimate
merits of
presidentialism thus depends on what one thinks about the
urgency of
political change in a given country.
Juan Linz, in his classic article in the Journal of Democracy,
laid out
four major “perils of presidentialism.”1 First, the inherently
winner-take-
all nature of presidential elections can too readily produce a
president
who enjoys the support of only a minority of the electorate and

hence
suffers from a legitimacy gap. Second, the rigidity of
presidential terms
and the difficulties in removing a sitting president make change
in the
executive excessively difficult, and term limits may turn even
popular
and effective incumbents into lame ducks. Third, the “dual
legitimacy”
of elected executives and legislatures often leads to policy
gridlock
when the two branches are captured by different parties or when
presi-
dents fail to muster solid legislative majorities to support their
agendas.
Finally, presidentialism can foster “personality politics” and
make it
possible for inexperienced outsiders to rise to the top.
L i n z ’ s o r i g i n a l a r t i c l e u n l e a s h e d a f l o o d
o f s c h o l a r s h i p o n
presidentialism, much of it published originally in the pages of
this jour-
nal.2 Very little of that literature, however, has taken account
of recent
developments in East Asia, where the majority of new
democracies have
presidential systems. In reviewing developments in the
Philippines, In-
donesia, South Korea, and Taiwan, we will explore to what
extent Linz’s
critique and predictions have been borne out in East Asia.
The Philippines: A President on Trial
Joseph Estrada won the presidency of the Philippines in May

1998
with the largest landslide in the country’s history. A former
movie star
with strong populist appeal, he drew the support of poorer
voters and
Journal of Democracy104
the skepticism or even dismay of political and economic elites.
By
January 2001 he was being hustled out the back door of
Malacanang
Palace under a cloud of impeachment charges and with a new
version of
the nonviolent 1986 “people power” uprising brewing in
Manila.
At first glance, it all seemed a stunning reversal of fortune.
When
Estrada had taken office in mid-1998, he had enjoyed not only
wide
voter support but also majorities in both houses of the
legislature. His
cabinet was well-balanced, and he wisely boosted his legitimacy
and
allayed establishment fears by asking his well-respected
predecessor
Fidel Ramos to sign on as a senior advisor.
Within a year, however, Estrada’s approval ratings were
dropping
and his political capital was running low. A sluggish economy
and
mounting fiscal constraints had made clear the limits to his bold

agenda
of balancing the demands of economic liberalization with his
goal of
enacting policies to help the poor. New agencies and projects
such as
the National Anti-Poverty Commission and the mass-housing
program
seemed sluggish or even corruption-riddled.
The president’s day-to-day operating style, meanwhile, was
causing
concern. Estrada met with his cabinet ministers irregularly and
spent
much time drinking and gambling with a “midnight cabinet” of
cronies
who even drafted orders for the president to sign during after -
hours ca-
rousing sessions. Scandals and evidence of special presidential
treatment
involving friends of Estrada in the air travel,
telecommunications, and
banking industries as well as the stock market gravely worried
the Fili-
pino business community. The president tried to address these
worries in
early 2000 with a cabinet reshuffle and some outreach efforts,
but to no
avail. On 9 October 2000, a state governor named Luis Chavit
Singson
alleged that he had funneled about US$3.5 million in illegal
gambling
money to Estrada and his family as protection payments. This
accusation
led to the first concrete evidence that the president had been
taking bribes
and condoning illicit activities.

Civil society groups rallied to protest Estrada’s misdeeds,
business
groups distanced themselves from him, and legislators
defected.3 In
December 2000, the Senate began impeachment proceedings on
charges
of bribery, corruption, betrayal of public trust, and culpable
violation
of the constitution. The impeachment trial produced additional
evi-
dence against the president, but came to a sudden end in
January 2001
when the prosecutors walked out, claiming that pro-Estrada
senators
were manipulating the trial.
At that point, the focus of anti-Estrada activity moved to the
streets.
Church, business, and political leaders demanded Estrada’s
resigna-
tion, and thousands of mostly middle-class protesters in the
Manila area
backed these calls. When the armed forces publicly withdrew
their sup-
port, Estrada was finished. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo stepped up
from
the vice-presidency to the presidency in a process not covered
by the
constitution. A Supreme Court ruling later deemed it a case of
presiden-

tial resignation, but doubts as to the legality of the process
remain.4
Estrada himself, detained in April 2001 and still under house
arrest,
awaits trial on charges of corruption, bribery, and economic
plunder.
Estrada’s dubious habits and erratic leadership convinced many
that
he was unfit, yet he was no political neophyte. He had become
mayor of
San Juan Municipality in metropolitan Manila in the late 1960s,
a posi-
tion that he held until he won a Senate seat (a nationwide office,
since
all Philippine senators are “at-large”) in 1987 and the vice-
presidency
five years after that. He had even served on Ramos’s
Presidential Anti-
Crime Commission. While Estrada had experience, however, he
was
unlike his predecessors in being unable to reach out to critical
business,
religious, and civic groups to build consensus. Under the
influence of
friends and family, his policy style became increasingly
exclusionary,
skewed toward populist policies aimed at the poor and relatively
un-
mindful of the urban middle class.
Institutional dynamics mattered a great deal as well. The
Philippine
president is directly elected and limited to a single six-year
term. A

serious presidential campaign costs more than US$50 million—
a huge
sum in a country where GDP per capita is about US$1,080 a
year.5 Busi-
ness interests typically provide most of this money, and expect
rewards
for doing so. Meanwhile, the term limit might reinforce
tendencies to
push through with a political agenda without pausing to build
broad-
based support.
Besides cash, it is popular appeal—and not the backing of the
Phil-
ippines’ traditionally weak and fragmented political parties—
that is
the key to winning the presidency. Estrada ran and won as the
head of a
party that was formed barely a year before the election. Given
the feeble-
ness of parties and the strength of the president in matters such
as the
budget process, floor-crossing is common, especially in the
250-mem-
ber House of Representatives. This eases the problem of “dual
legitimacy” but also means that defections can swiftly cascade
should
the president’s popularity slip or a crisis loom. The 24 members
of the
Senate, with their limit of two six-year terms and their
nationwide voter
bases, often regard themselves as potential presidents-in-
waiting, which
only tends to increase the system’s brittleness once a president
runs
into trouble.

The foregoing explains why the real push for Estrada’s removal
came
from outside the formal political institutions. At least one
scholar has
praised the “People Power II” movement, which united political
and
economic elites with activists from the urban middle classes, as
a vic-
tory for popular will and a “middle-class consensus.”6 Yet is
not the
resolution of a constitutional crisis by an extra-institutional
popular
movement a worrisome sign of brittleness and vulnerability in
the Phil-
ippine polity?
The institutional dimension of the crisis becomes fully
comprehen-
sible only in light of the strong regional, political, and above all
social
cleavages that made a populist such as Estrada a likely choice
for the
Philippine poor. The massive and someti mes violent protests of
his
supporters after his resignation as well as his continuing high
popular-
ity among lower-income voters betoken the aspirations of
millions who
are disillusioned with elites and institutions that have delivered
neither
equity nor sustained growth. As long as the Philippine Republic

is run
by elites that are unable or unwilling seriously to accommodate
the
policy preferences of the poor within a formal institutional
framework
centered on a strong presidency, political crisis is almost
inevitable.7
After the 2004 presidential election, in which populist outsider
(and
famous Philippine actor) Fernando Poe unsuccessfully
challenged Presi-
dent Macapagal-Arroyo, the latter proposed to resume a
constitutional-
reform process that had stalled during Estrada’s truncated term.
The goals
of this reform, it would appear, are to redefine elite-mass
relations,
recalibrate low-quality institutions, and change a political
culture widely
perceived as dysfunctional. It remains to be seen whether these
delibera-
tions will provide the Philippine Republic with the answers it
badly
needs.
Indonesia: A President Befuddled
Abdurrahman Wahid came to power in October 1999 as, in
effect, the
first democratically chosen president after the fall of the long-
ruling dic-
tator Suharto. A charismatic Muslim cleric known for his open-
minded
and inclusive leadership style as head of the moderate, Islamic -
oriented

National Awakening Party (PKB), Wahid was the widely
respected com-
promise choice of the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR),
Indonesia’s
highest deliberative body. On 23 July 2001, barely two years
after elect-
ing him, the MPR dismissed him from office in a process
tantamount to
impeachment.
The first signs of tension surrounding Wahid’s presidency
appeared
early. Wahid headed a government of national unity comprising
all
major parties represented in Indonesia’s parliament, the
People’s Rep-
resentative Assembly (DPR). After only a few months in office,
he
shocked and outraged his coalition partners by firing several
major
cabinet ministers—one from each of three major parties that
were far
larger than Wahid’s own PKB—on unspecified corruption
charges that
were never followed up through the legal process. To make
matters
worse, Wahid installed his own close allies as replacements,
thereby
threatening to upset the delicate party balance in his 36-member
cabi-
net. Tensions spiraled upward, and Wahid’s subsequent
behavior would
only make them worse.
News soon leaked that Wahid had possibly misused state funds
and

taken a large cash gift from the sultan of Brunei. The MPR
debated the
charges in August 2000, but party leaders, recognizing the
politically
charged climate in the country, decided to shelve the matter in
return
for Wahid’s agreement to enlarge the policy-making role of
Vice-Presi-
dent Megawati Sukarnoputri, who also headed the largest of the
parties
represented in parliament. Wahid made the promised power
transfer, but
kept it on a mostly procedural rather than substantive level.
Then, mis-
takenly thinking that he held the upper hand, he reshuffled his
cabinet
again. Wahid completely shut out Megawati’s party and another
major
party, while limiting the still-formidable old ruling party
(Golkar) plus
another major party to one ministerial post apiece.
The legislature’s response was swift. By January 2001, a special
com-
mittee had dismissed Wahid’s explanations and had officially
found it
“reasonable to believe” that Wahid had been involved in an
improper
state-funds transfer and had made contradictory statements
about the
Brunei money. In April 2001, parliament passed a motion of

censure.
Having now alienated all major parties, including the Muslim-
ori-
ented ones, and facing a series of cabinet resignations, Wahid
grew ever
more erratic. He offered more power-sharing proposals to
Megawati even
while lobbing corruption charges at senior figures in Golkar and
Megawati’s own party (including her husband)—all while
backing her
sister in an attempt to split the nationalist base. With Wahid’s
precari-
ous health failing further (he was nearly blind after a series of
strokes),
his last desperate flailings featured numerous additional cabinet
changes
and a shake-up of top military and police ranks as part of a plan
to
engineer a state of emergency that would allow him to dissolve
parlia-
ment. With the armed forces signaling no enthusiasm for this
scheme,
Wahid’s bid to declare a national emergency on 23 July 2001
was cut
short by an adverse Supreme Court decision, the refusal of the
army and
police to take part, and the MPR’s vote to oust Wahid and
replace him
with Megawati, who took the presidential oath of office the
same day.
Wahid, holed up in the presidential palace with supporters
gathering
outside, calmed his partisans and, to his credit, quietly left to
seek medi-
cal help in the United States. The way to a peaceful leadership

transition
was clear.
Clearly, President Wahid’s own rash behavior had fueled the
crisis.
Originally praised for his inclusive and tolerant leadership
style, he
became increasingly volatile as his term wore on. His
consultations
with his coalition partners and even his own advisors were often
impul-
sive and incoherent, while his relations with parliamentary
leaders grew
tense. He alienated the vast bulk of Indonesia’s political elite
even as
his frail health was driving him out of touch with day-to-day
political
affairs.
Blaming the crisis solely on Wahid, however, ignores the
context in
which his presidency operated. The 1945 constitution
establishes a presi-
dential system with twin legislatures, the DPR and the MPR.
The latter,
nominally the supreme sovereign body, was at the time in
charge of
electing the president. This practice has since been scrapped in
favor of
direct popular election with a provision for a runoff between the
top two

finishers if no candidate exceeds 50 percent in the first round.
The
constitution, a short document hastily drafted at independence
and lack-
ing any clear separation of powers, was reenacted by President
Sukarno
(Megawati’s father) in 1959 after a brief, volatile period of
parliamen-
tary democracy. Unamended for nearly four decades, it was the
cloudy
basis of an unclear constitutional framework that allowed rulers
like
Sukarno and Suharto to establish centralized authoritarian
structures
which they could then claim were somehow “constitutional.”
Coming to power amid the opening that followed Suharto’s
1998
resignation, Wahid was operating within an institutional
framework
that underlying political events had overtaken. Indonesia held
its first
truly democratic DPR elections in 1999. With more than 48
parties
competing in multimember districts on a closed-list system, the
predict-
able result was a “hung parliament” with no clear majority.
With most
parties both centralized and separated from each other by robust
ideo-
logical differences, stable coalitions were not in the cards.
Moreover,
the Muslim-minded parties, once virtually shut out of the
system, were
now competing under fairer conditions than ever before, and
doing

well.8 Under such circumstances, any president would have
found it
fairly hard to keep up broad support in the DPR and to a lesser
extent
the MPR, with its regional delegates and representatives named
directly
by the army (another practice since abandoned).
With no clear constitutional separation of powers, the
legislative
and the executive each tried to gain power at the other’s
expense. More-
over, Indonesia—unlike the other three countries—lacked an
exclusive
arbiter in constitutional matters such as a constitutional court to
help
settle conflicts between institutions. On top of this, the decision
to
switch to direct popular election of the president dated from
before
Wahid’s 1999 accession, meaning that party leaders had an
incentive to
jockey for position early, perhaps by facing down the
incumbent. In-
deed, Wahid’s cabinet firings and hirings may have been aimed
at
weeding out potential rivals while gaining access to
contributions for
his 2004 campaign chest.9
Perhaps a calmer if not more skillful politician than Wahid
would
have managed to stay in power despite these systemic flaws—
the more
placid Megawati did so for three years until the voters unseated
her in a

regular election. Indonesia is riven by ethnic, religious, and
regional
cleavages that press constantly on its political institutions and it
is
surprising how stable these institutions remained under Wahid’s
troubled
rule. While Wahid’s own blunders bear no small share of the
blame for
his fall, it is also true that the complicated and shifting
institutional
landscape which he inherited left him with little room for error.
Once
his poor decisions cut him off from the kind of major-party
support that
that he needed in Indonesia’s quasi-parliamentary system, the
drop was
very steep and he was effectively finished.
Triggered by Wahid’s impeachment, several substantial
constitu-
tional amendments have brought Indonesia a directly elected
president,
changes to the electoral process, more regional autonomy, and a
consti-
tutional court. The number of parties competing for
parliamentary seats
has decreased, and the electorate has—surprisingly for many
observ-
ers—tended to vote for centrist candidates. Though all this may
enhance
political stability and prevent major crisis in the future, given

the now
more pronounced dual-legitimacy problem in the modified
presidential
system, it remains to be seen whether presidential crises are
completely
an issue of the past.
South Korea: A Court Ascendant
Roh Moo Hyun’s December 2002 victory marked the second
time
since 1997 that a left-wing opposition leader had been elected
presi-
dent of South Korea (the first had been Kim Dae Jung). Roh at
first
lacked a legislative majority to carry out his program, and as
conflict
escalated with his main rivals in the Grand National Party
(GNP), his
approval ratings plummeted. Fifteen months after Roh’s
election, his
own Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) joined forces with the
GNP
and made him the first president that South Korea’s National
Assembly
had ever voted to impeach.
A little less than three months later, in mid-May 2004, South
Korea’s
Constitutional Court ruled that Roh could keep his office. In the
mean-
time, his foes had learned the hard way that they had overplayed
their
hand: The voters, having formed an unfavorable view of the
impeach-
ment push, had gone to the polls for prescheduled elections in

mid-April
and had given Roh’s new Uri Party (UP) a narrow legislative
majority.
The Korean system survived this turmoil and in the end
produced a
result that was both constitutionally and democratically
legitimate. But
there was substantial instability in the meantime, and it
amplified Korea’s
existing social cleavages in way that may encourage future
political
conflict.
Roh’s election had been unforeseen by pollsters and came as a
great
shock. Perhaps among those most surprised was the winner
himself, who
seemed unready for the burdens of national leadership. Roh was
a self-
made lawyer who had never gone to college because his parents
were too
poor. His opponent, Lee Hoi Chang of the GNP, was a former
high-court
justice and prime minister who had graduated from the best
university in
South Korea. Signs of tension surfaced immediately after the
election,
with GNP leader Choi Byong Ryol publicly rejecting Roh’s
legitimacy
and talking of ousting him. The GNP held a solid legislative
majority and

in September 2003 successfully pressed Roh to fire a cabinet
minister.
Roh’s popularity fell and the smell of a failed presidency was in
the air.
Under the Republic of Korea’s constitution, impeachment
requires
the vote of a two-thirds majority of the National Assembly. The
GNP
lacked that many votes, so the move became a live possibility
only in
early September 2003, when the MDP split into factions for and
against
Roh. The group loyal to Roh became the UP, but it had only 44
seats—
not enough to block an impeachment. In response, Roh
suggested
holding a referendum on his presidency, in effect trying to
engineer a
presidential version of the parliamentary practice of a
confidence vote.
The constitution carefully spells out the conditions under which
a refer-
endum may go forward, however, and as no such conditions
applied in
this case, Roh’s proposal went nowhere.
Two months later, more than two-thirds of the National
Assembly voted
to establish an independent-counsel’s office to probe corruption
charges
involving President Roh’s entourage. Roh vetoed this move, but
in De-
cember an even larger majority overrode him (after a nearly
ninety-day
investigation, little would come of these charges). On 24

February 2004,
Roh made a televised remark that opposition leaders said was in
violation
of the election law and the constitution. Roh refused to retract
or apolo-
gize, and said that he would let the people decide the matter via
the
legislative balloting already set for mid-April. Impeachment
came on
March 12 by a vote of 193 to 2, with nearly all Roh supporters
abstaining.
In presidential systems, impeachment is meant to be used
infrequently
to correct grave abuses by the executive, and not as a routine
means of
unseating presidents. There is evidence that Roh’s opponents
were using
it in the latter fashion. He had deeply upset conservatives by
saying that
he might adopt a policy of anti-Americanism, as if seeking to
ride the
wave of anti-Americanism and Korean nationalism among
younger vot-
ers.10 In the eyes of business interests and the old guard within
the existing
political parties, Roh’s remark about the United States in
conjunction
with his past as a labor-rights lawyer and dissident represented
a grave
danger to Korea’s international security and domestic political
order.
Enveloping these ideological splits was a climate of personal
antago-
nism between President Roh and opposition leaders. The anti -

Roh faction
in the MDP consisted of the former party mainstream, now
resentful of
the president’s recent rise. The GNP epitomized the
establishment that
had ruled for decades before Kim Dae Jung. Roh, in other
words, was the
consummate outsider. He had run and lost repeatedly in races
for the
National Assembly seat representing his far-southeastern
hometown of
Pusan, knowing that as long as he refused to pay court to
regional pa-
trons, his chances of winning were near zero. He thus
symbolized the
“underdog” mentality within the strongly regional politics of
South
Korea.
In many respects, the impeachment of Roh resembled the
impeachment
of U.S. president Andrew Johnson in 1868: The grounds for
impeachment
cited in the resolution seemed strained at best, if not simply
false.11 Ac-
cording to the resolution, Roh had neglected his obligation to be
neutral
on political matters when he publicly supported the Uri Party,12
and had
disregarded his obligation to protect law and order when he
publicly
rejected as unfair the National Election Commission’s

reprimand.13 The
Constitutional Court would later rule these charges “not
sufficient”—
even if true—to warrant the removal of a duly elected president.
In impeaching Roh, the opposition had miscalculated badly.
Citi-
zens weighed the charges and found them wanting. As voters in
April,
these same citizens stripped the GNP of its majority, reduced
the MDP
to fewer than a dozen seats, and tripled the size of the UP’s
National
Assembly delegation.
South Korea’s political system, instead of bridging political
con-
flicts arising from the country’s pronounced regional and class
divisions,
tends to widen them. For example, the first-past-the-post
electoral sys-
tem for the National Assembly overrepresents certain populous
provinces
in the central government, while underrepresenting social
interests such
as the labor and environmentalist movements. Strong party
discipline
exacerbates conflicts by making it hard for presidents to reach
across
party lines to individual lawmakers for the sake of gathering
“issue
coalitions” behind specific policies.14
As in some other countries, the single, five-year term of a
Korean presi-
dent removes the prospect of reelection as an accountability

mechanism
and puts a huge premium on constantly maintaining a
stratospheric level
of popular support. To hold the president accountable, voters
can only
punish his party in the next election, which of course increases
the likeli-
hood of divided government. More importantly, the one-term
limit tempts
presidents to excessive haste in their efforts to deliver on
election pledges.
In the end, the real winner may have been neither Roh nor his
Uri
Party, but rather the Constitutional Court. By resolving the
standoff
between the president and the legislature, the Court effectively
raised
its own stature above that of either the presidency or the
National As-
sembly. The Court’s nine justices took center stage and bestrode
the
political world as millions of their fellow citizens looked to
them to
decide a grave national issue. If nothing else, South Korea’s
voters
learned that institutions matter. This lesson from the school of
crisis
suggests that future debates on constitutional reform in South
Korea
will draw close and careful attention from her people.
Taiwan: A President Wounded
President Chen Shui-bian came to power in March 2000, ending
the

55-year rule of the Nationalist Party (Kuomintang or KMT) in
Taiwan.
Like Roh, Chen was a lawyer and former regime opponent. He
began his
political career in 1980 when he defended eight anti -KMT
demonstra-
tors in court. The son of poor tenant farmers, he worked his way
up
through Taiwanese society by entering prestigious National
Taiwan
University and succeeding at the law. He became a national
figure with
his 1994 election as mayor of Taipei.
Chen and his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) have long
advo-
cated Taiwanese independence. This puts them at odds with
both Beijing
(which insists that Taiwan is a province of China) and the KMT
(which
maintains that the island is the seat of the legitimate national
govern-
ment of all China). Chen’s election therefore marked a great
change on
the island—the rise of a new Taiwanese national identity and
assertiveness. Yet Chen’s presidency has been afflicted by many
of the
weaknesses that Linz describes. These include legislative
deadlock,
weak legitimacy due to a minority mandate, and the attempted
use of

impeachment to oust a weak and unpopular president. Chen’s
legiti-
macy remains contested, as some opposition leaders have been
refusing
to concede defeat in the March 2004 presidential election.
Like Chile’s Salvador Allende (1970–73), Chen Shui-bian was
origi-
nally a minority president. He won in 2000 only because the
KMT vote
split between Lien Chan and James Soong as the result of a feud
be-
tween Lien and former president Lee Teng-hui. Chen lacked a
parliamentary majority, and found both the KMT and Soong’s
People
First Party (PFP) blocking his program in the Legislative Yuan
(LY). An
early dispute over the building of a fourth nuclear power plant
on the
island led the opposition to attempt Chen’s impeachment, but
that reso-
lution never passed. Chen’s standing as a leader suffered,
however, and
an ailing economy dragged down his popularity. Chen’s refusal
to reaf-
firm a “one China” policy and his increasingly confrontational
attitude
toward Beijing energized his base but polarized the island’s
politics.
The legitimacy of Chen’s presidency faced a more serious
challenge,
however, at the beginning of his second term. On 19 March
2004, the
day before the presidential election, Chen and his vice-
president, Annette

Lu, were shot and slightly wounded while leading a motorcade
in Tainan.
Chen won the election by a small margin of 29,518 votes, or
0.22 per-
cent of the total votes cast. Polls had predicted a sli ght
advantage for
the KMT’s Lien Chan. Lien immediately charged that the
shooting had
been an election-eve stunt, staged to gain sympathy votes from
unde-
cided voters who otherwise would have stayed home. The
presence of
337,297 invalidated ballots—representing 2.5 percent of all
ballots cast,
or more than enough to change the outcome —further
exacerbated op-
position suspicions.
On March 21, thousands gathered in Taipei and elsewhere on
the
island to protest the election result. The Central Electoral
Commission
nonetheless declared Chen the winner. The KMT-PFP “Pan-
Blue” alli-
ance then filed two lawsuits, one asking for the invalidation of
the
election, and the other asking for a recount of the votes. The
Taiwan
High Court dismissed the first suit in November as “lacking
evidence.”
In response to the second lawsuit, the judiciary began

recounting bal-
lots on May 10. Chen’s margin fell to 22,000 votes, but he
remained the
winner.
The opposition continued to contest the legitimacy of Chen’s
elec-
tion, however, and to use their LY majority in an effort to
reverse the
verdict. In August 2004, the LY adopted a bill to set up an
independent
body, the March 19 Shooting Truth Investigation Special
Committee,
to look into the election-eve shooting. The Truth Committee
was sup-
posed to be equipped with its own investigative and
prosecutorial
services loaned from the Executive Yuan and controlled by
KMT and
PFP lawmakers. President Chen signed the bill authorizing the
Truth
Committee in September, but refused to execute the legislation.
DPP
lawmakers asked the Court to judge the constitutionality of the
Truth
Committee. In December 2004, the Court ruled certain core
provisions
of the Truth Committee statute unconstitutional.
Each of Chen’s terms has borne the mark of a legitimacy crisis.
The
first stemmed from his minority-winner status, a problem
highlighted
by Linz. The second and odder crisis, stemming from the
shooting con-
troversy, could of course also have occurred in a parliamentary

system.
What could not have happened in a parliamentary system,
however, was
the attempt by the opposition parties to keep the legitimacy
challenge
alive through their control of a majority in the legislature. In
the LY
election of 11 December 2004, the Pan-Blue alliance retained
its major-
ity and therewith its ability to prolong the deadlock. The lack of
synchronization between the presidential and legislative
electoral cycles
makes matters worse.
Does Linz’s Critique Apply to the Asian Cases?
How do the four defects of presidentialism that Linz outlines
apply
to these East Asian cases?
Minority presidents. Korea, Taiwan, and Indonesia all elected
presi-
dents who received a minority of the popular vote and whose
legitimacy
the opposition thus questioned. The alleged legitimacy deficit
was the
direct motivation for impeachment efforts. This was not the
case in the
Philippines, where Joseph Estrada received a large popular
mandate.
Rigid terms and difficulty of removal. In each of the four cases,
po-
litical opponents tried to remove a president who had become
unpopular
before his term was over. The weapon in each case was

impeachment (or,
in the case of Indonesia, its equivalent). Impeachment barely
got off the
ground in Taiwan; was stopped in Korea by a court ruling;
failed in the
Philippines, yet not in a way that ultimately saved the president
(whose
removal may have been illegal); and succeeded only in
Indonesia, where
it arguably also fulfilled the function of removing a genuinely
incom-
petent (that is, severely ailing) president.
Policy gridlock. Dual legitimacy pro-
duced situations in which presidents failed
to achieve supportive legislative coalitions
in Indonesia, South Korea, and Taiwan. As
many of Linz’s critics have noted, this out-
c o m e i s o f t e n t h e r e s u l t n o t o f
presidentialism per se but of poorly de-
s i g n e d e l e c t o r a l s y s t e m s . T h i s w a s a
problem in all three cases, and particularly
in Indonesia, where a constitution left over
from authoritarian days left executive-leg-
islative relations severely clouded.
Election of inexperienced outsiders.
This was true in all four cases: It is highly
unlikely that figures such as Estrada, Wahid, Roh, and Chen
could have

risen to power in parliamentary systems. The personalization of
politics
is most evident in the Philippines, which has seen popular
actors run in
the last two elections.
The question remains as to whether the problems experienced in
these Asian cases constitute a “crisis” of presidentialism, and if
so,
whether they bolster the general indictment of presidentialism
made by
Linz. It is our view that they do not.
To begin with, all four systems endured and remained
democratic
even in the face of crisis. In these four stories, the military coup
or other
authoritarian backsliding is conspicuous by its absence. Not
only was
there no Pinochet-style military takeover, but democratic
institutions
worked as they were supposed to in Korea, Taiwan, and
Indonesia. In
the first two cases, constitutional courts played a particularly
important
role in diffusing conflict between the executive and legislative
branches.
Even in the Philippines, the Supreme Court defused conflict by
supply-
ing a degree of after-the-fact legitimation to Estrada’s removal.
Indeed, one can argue that the problems experienced by each
coun-
try reflect the immaturity of its democratic system rather than
some
defect of presidentialism as such. This was particularl y true in

Indone-
sia, where constitutional rules were in flux as the crisis
unfolded. In
South Korea, Roh’s ultimate vindication makes it unlikely that
the po-
litical opposition will try to use impeachment as a political
weapon any
time in the foreseeable future. A learning process has taken
place.
Finally, the conflicts between Roh, Chen, and Estrada and their
re-
spective opponents reflected real social conflicts in each
country. Each
president represented constituencies that were more left-leaning
or at
least populist than those of the existing establishment. The
winner-
Whether one regards
presidentialism as
good or bad depends
in part on what one
thinks about the need
of democratic politi-
cal systems to
accommodate rapid
political change.
take-all nature of presidential systems often amplifies rather
than mutes
structural dissonances, thereby making faster political change

possible.
The politics of South Korea and Taiwan are utterly differ ent
today than
they were a decade ago, and it is doubtful that this would have
hap-
pened had they possessed Japanese-style parliamentary systems,
where
delay and accommodation, rather than dispatch and tension, are
the
order of the day. The Philippines was ripe for a similar shift,
but estab-
lished elites blocked change by going outside the institutional
framework. Whether one regards presidentialism as good or bad
thus
depends in part on what one thinks about the need of democratic
politi-
cal systems to accommodate rapid political change.
Juan Linz wrote his critique of presidentialism at the end of a
period in
which militaries in many developing countries had come to
regard them-
selves as guardians of stability, and had intervened to prevent
the sort of
rapid political change that presidentialism facilitates. Today,
there are
much stronger norms against overt military intervention—
though it is
interesting to note that the refusal of the military to help the
sitting
president get his way was a major factor in both the Philippines
and
Indonesia. In these four Asian cases, one can make the argument
that
constitutional courts are doing in a gentler way something like
what

militaries used to do in a much rougher fashion when presidents
and
legislatures simply could not get along. Presidential systems
have not
two but three branches; whether judiciaries come to play critical
mediat-
ing roles on a consistent basis will bear careful watching.
NOTES
1. Juan J. Linz, “The Perils of Presidentialism,” Journal of
Democracy 1 (Win-
ter 1990): 51–69.
2. Donald L. Horowitz, “Comparing Democratic Systems,” Guy
Lardeyret,
“The Problem with PR,” and Arend Lijphart, “Constitutional
Choices for New
Democracies,” in Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner, eds.,
The Global Resur-
gence of Democracy 2 nd ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1996);
Matthew S. Shugart and John M. Carey, Presidents and
Assemblies: Constitutional
Design and Electoral Dynamics (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1992);
Scott Mainwaring and Matthew S. Shugart, Presidentialism and
Democracy in
Latin America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
3. Carl H. Landé, “The Return of ‘People Power’ in the
Philippines,” Journal of
Democracy 12 (April 2001): 88–102.
4. The decision, while unanimous, reveals some of the legal
problems sur-

rounding Estrada’s fall from power. Three justices held it to be
a case of resignation,
three accepted Macapagal-Arroyo’s presidency as an
irreversible fact, two ruled
Estrada permanently disabled, and the largest group—five—
simply signed the
ruling without expressing any opinion.
5. Yvonne T. Chua and Sheila S. Coronel, eds., The PCIJ Guide
to Government
(Manila: Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, 2003).
6. Alexander R. Magno, “Philippines: Trauma of a Failed
Presidency,” South-
east Asian Affairs (May 2001): 251–63.
7. Steven Rogers, “Philippine Politics and the Rule of Law,”
Journal of Democ-
racy 15 (October 2004): 111–25.
8. See Robert W. Hefner, Civil Islam: Muslims and
Democratization in Indone-
sia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000); Greg Fealy,
“Islamic Politics: A
Rising or Declining Force?” revised version of a paper
presented at a conference
on “Rethinking Indonesia,” Melbourne, Australia, 4–5 March
2000; R. William
Liddle, “The Islamic Turn in Indonesia: A Political
Explanation,” Journal of Asian
Studies 55 (August 1996): 613–34; and Martin van Bruinessen,
“Genealogies of

Islamic Radicalism in Post-Suharto Indonesia,” Southeast Asia
Research 10 (July
2 0 0 2 ) : 1 1 7 – 5 4 .
9. R. William Liddle, “Indonesia in 2000: A Shaky Start for
Democracy,” Asian
Survey 41 (January–February 2001): 208–20.
10. Various survey results show that anti-Americanism is one of
the most im-
portant sources of the recent political polarization in South
Korea. See Sook Jong
Lee, The Transformation of South Korean Politics: Implications
for U.S.-Korea
Relations (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2004).
11. For a brief review of Andrew Johnson’s impeachment, see
John Bowman,
History of the American Presidency (North Dighton, Mass.:
World Publications,
2002), 78.
12. Roh’s controversial 24 February 2004 remark, made during
a televised
discussion program, was as follows: “I expect that people will
overwhelmingly
support [the Uri Party] in the general election in April.”
13. On 3 March 2004, the NEC found that Roh’s 24 February
2004 remark
violated a provision of Korean electoral law which requires that
all public employ-
ees except national and local assemblymen remain neutral in
election campaigns.
The Commission sent Roh a letter urging him to abide by his
legal duty of neutral-

ity. Officials in the president’s office (not Roh himself)
objected, citing the open
and active electioneering typical of U.S. presidents.
14. Strong party discipline is of course not always a liability; in
many develop-
ing countries its absence makes it difficult for presidents to pass
unpopular agendas.
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Juan Linz, Presidentialism, and Democracy: A Critical
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Juan Linz, Presidentialism, and Democracy
A Critical Appraisal
Scott Mainwaring and Matthew S. Shugart
Since the 1960s Juan J. Linz has been one of the world's
foremost contributors to
our understanding of democracy, authoritarianism, and
totalitarianism. Although
many of his contributions have had a significant impact, few
have been as far-
reaching as his essay "Presidential or Parliamentary Democracy:
Does It Make a
Difference?," originally written in 1985. The essay argued that
presidentialism is
less likely than parliamentarism to sustain stable democratic
regimes. It became a
classic even in unpublished form. Among both policymakers
and scholars it

spawned a broad debate about the merits and especially the
liabilities of presidential
government. Now that the definitive version of the essay has
appeared, we believe
that a critical appraisal is timely. This task is especially
important because Linz's
arguments against presidentialism have gained widespread
currency.
This article critically assesses Linz's arguments about the perils
of presidential-
ism. Although we agree with several of Linz's criticisms of
presidentialism, we dis-
agree that presidentialism is particularly oriented towards
winner-takes-all results.'
We argue that the superior record of parliamentary systems has
rested partly on
where parliamentary government has been implemented, and we
claim that presi-
dentialism has some advantages that partially offset its
drawbacks. These advantages
can be maximized by paying careful attention to differences
among presidential sys-
tems. Other things being equal, presidentialism tends to
function better where pres-
idencies have weak legislative powers, parties are at least
moderately disciplined,
and party systems are not highly fragmented. Finally, we argue
that switching from
presidentialism to parliamentarism could exacerbate problems
of governability in
countries with undisciplined parties. Even if parliamentary
government is more con-

ducive to stable democracy, much rests on what kind of
parliamentarism and presi-
dentialism is implemented.2
By presidentialism we mean a regime in which, first, the
president is always the
chief executive and is elected by popular vote or, as in the U.S.,
by an electoral col-
lege with essentially no autonomy with respect to popular
preferences and, second,
the terms of office for the president and the assembly are fixed.
Under pure presi-
dentialism the president has the right to retain ministers of his
or her choosing
regardless of the composition of the congress.
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Comparative Politics July 1997
The Perils of Presidentialism: Linz's Argument
Linz bases his argument about the superiority of parliamentary
systems partially on
the observation that few long established democracies have
presidential systems. He
maintains that the superior historical performance of
parliamentary democracies
stems from intrinsic defects of presidentialism. He analyzes

several problems of
presidential systems. We briefly summarize the five most
important issues.
First, in presidential systems the president and assembly have
competing claims
to legitimacy. Both are popularly elected, and the origin and
survival of each are
independent from the other.3 Since both the president and
legislature "derive their
power from the vote of the people in a free competition among
well-defined alter-
natives, a conflict is always latent and sometimes likely to erupt
dramatically; there
is no democratic principle to resolve it."4 Linz argues that
parliamentarism obviates
this problem because the executive is not independent of the
assembly. If the major-
ity of the assembly favors a change in policy direction, it can
replace the government
by exercising its no confidence vote.
Second, the fixed term of the president's office introduces a
rigidity that is less
favorable to democracy than the flexibility offered by
parliamentary systems, where
governments depend on the ongoing confidence of the assembly.
Presidentialism
"entails a rigidity . .. that makes adjustment to changing
situations extremely diffi-
cult; a leader who has lost the confidence of his own party or
the parties that ac-
quiesced [in] his election cannot be replaced."' By virtue of
their greater ability to
promote changes in the cabinet and government, parliamentary
systems afford

greater opportunities to resolve disputes. Such a safety valve
may enhance regime
stability.
Third, presidentialism "introduces a strong element of zero-sum
game into demo-
cratic politics with rules that tend toward a 'winner-take-all'
outcome." In contrast,
in parliamentary systems "power-sharing and coalition-forming
are fairly common,
and incumbents are accordingly attentive to the demands and
interests of even the
smaller parties." In presidential systems direct popular election
is likely to imbue
presidents with a feeling that they need not undertake the
tedious process of con-
structing coalitions and making concessions to the opposition.6
Fourth, the style of presidential politics is less propitious for
democracy than the
style of parliamentary politics. The sense of being the
representative of the entire
nation may lead the president to be intolerant of the opposition.
"The feeling of hav-
ing independent power, a mandate from the people ... is likely
to give a president
a sense of power and mission that might be out of proportion to
the limited plurality
that elected him. This in turn might make resistances he
encounters ... more frus-
trating, demoralizing, or irritating than resistances usually are
for a prime minister.7
The absence in presidential systems of a monarch or a
"president of the republic"
deprives them of an authority who can exercise restraining
power.

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Scott Mainwaring and Matthew J. Shugart
Finally, political outsiders are more likely to win the chief
executive office in
presidential systems, with potentially destabilizing effects.
Individuals elected by
direct popular vote are less dependent on and less beholden to
political parties. Such
individuals are more likely to govern in a populist,
antiinstitutionalist fashion.
A Critique of Linz's Argument
We agree with the main thrust of four of Linz's five basic
criticisms of presidential-
ism. We concur that the issue of dual legitimacy is nettlesome
in presidential sys-
tems, but we believe that his contrast between presidential and
parliamentary sys-
tems is too stark. To a lesser degree than in presidential
systems, conflicting claims
to legitimacy also exist in parliamentary systems. Conflicts
sometimes arise between
the lower and upper houses of a bicameral legislature, each
claiming to exercise
legitimate power. If both houses have the power of confidence

over the cabinet, the
most likely outcome when the houses are controlled by different
majorities is a com-
promise coalition cabinet. In this case dual legitimacy exists,
not between executive
and assembly, but between the two chambers of the assembly.
This arrangement
could be troublesome if the two chambers were controlled by
opposed parties or
blocs. In a few parliamentary systems, including Canada,
Germany, and Japan,
upper houses have significant powers over legislation but can
not exercise a vote of
no confidence against the government. In some the upper house
can not be dissolved
by the government. Then, there is a genuine dual legitimacy
between the executive
and part of the legislature. Thus, dual democratic legitimacy is
not exclusively a
problem of presidentialism, though it is more pronounced with
it. A unicameral par-
liament would avoid the potential of dual legitimacy under
parliamentarism, but it
sacrifices the advantages of bicameralism, especially for large,
federal, and plural
countries.8
Another overlooked potential source of conflicting legitimacy in
parliamentary
republics is the role of the head of state, who is usually called
"president" but tends
to be elected by parliament. The constitutions of parliamentary
republics usually
give the president several powers that are - or may be, subject
to constitutional
interpretation - more than ceremonial. Examples include the

president's exclusive
discretion to dissolve parliament (Italy), the requirement of
countersignatures of
cabinet decrees (Italy), suspensory veto over legislation (Czech
Republic, Slovakia),
the power to decree new laws (Greece for some time after
1975), and appointments
to high offices, sometimes (as in the Czech Republic and
Slovakia) including min-
istries. Linz argues that the president in such systems "can play
the role of adviser
or arbiter by bringing party leaders together and facilitating the
flow of information
among them." He also notes that "no one in a presidential
system is institutionally
entitled to such a role." He is quite right that political systems
often face moments
451
2015 17:27:51 UTC
when they need a "neutral" arbiter. However, for the position of
head of state to be
more than feckless it is necessary to make it "institutionally
entitled" to other tasks
as well. Linz correctly notes that, "if presidents in pure
parliamentary republics were
irrelevant, it would not make sense for politicians to put so

much effort into electing
their preferred candidate to the office."'
Paradoxically, the more authority the head of state is given, the
greater is the
potential for conflict, especially in newer democracies where
roles have not yet been
clearly defined by precedent. Hungary and especially Slovakia
have had several con-
stitutional crises involving the head of state, and in some Third
World parliamentary
republics such crises have at times been regime-threatening, as
in Somalia
(1961-68) and Pakistan. Politicians indeed care who holds the
office, precisely
because it has potential for applying brakes to the parliamentary
majority. The office
of the presidency may not be democratically legitimated via
popular election, but it
typically has a fixed term of office and a longer term than the
parliament's By prais-
ing the potential of the office in serving as arbiter, Linz
implicitly acknowledges the
Madisonian point that placing unchecked power in the hands of
the assembly major-
ity is not necessarily good. Again, the key is careful attention to
the distribution of
powers among the different political players who are involved
in initiating or block-
ing policy.
We also agree that the rigidity of presidentialism, created by the
fixed term of
office, can be a liability, sometimes a serious one. With the
fixed term it is difficult
to get rid of unpopular or inept presidents without the system's

breaking down, and
it is constitutionally barred in many countries to reelect a good
president. However,
there is no reason why a presidential system must prohibit
reelection. Provisions
against reelection have been introduced primarily to reduce the
president's incen-
tives to abuse executive powers to secure reelection. Despite the
potential for abuse,
reelection can be permitted, and we believe it should be in
countries where reliable
institutions safeguard elections from egregious manipulation by
incumbents.
Even if reelection is permitted, we are still left with the rigidity
of fixed term
lengths. One way of mitigating this problem is to shorten the
presidential term so
that if presidents lose support dramatically, they will not be in
office for as long a
time. Therefore, we believe that a four year term is usually
preferable to the longer
mandates that are common in Latin America.
The argument about the flexibility of replacing cabinets in
parliamentary systems
is two-edged. In a parliamentary system the prime minister's
party can replace its
leader or a coalition partner can withdraw its support and usher
in a change of gov-
ernment short of the coup that might be the only way to remove
a president who
lacks support. We agree with Linz that cabinet instability need
not lead to regime
instability and can offer a safety valve. Yet crises in many
failed parliamentary sys-

tems, including Somalia and Thailand, have come about
precisely because of the dif-
ficulty of sustaining viable cabinets. Presidentialism raises the
threshold for remov-
452
2015 17:27:51 UTC
ing an executive; opponents must either wait out the term or
else countenance
undemocratic rule. There may be cases when this higher
threshold for government
change is desirable, as it could provide more predictability and
stability to the poli-
cymaking process than the frequent dismantling and
reconstructing of cabinets that
afflict some parliamentary systems.
Theoretically, the problem of fixed terms could be remedied
without adopting
parliamentarism by permitting under certain conditions the
calling of early elections.
One way is to allow either the head of government or the
assembly majority to
demand early elections for both branches, as is the case under
newly adopted Israeli
rules. Such provisions represent a deviation from
presidentialism, which is defined

by its fixed terms. Nevertheless, as long as one branch can not
dismiss the other
without standing for reelection itself, the principle of separation
of powers is still
retained to an extent not present in any variant of
parliamentarism.
We take issue with Linz's assertion that presidentialism induces
more of a winner-
takes-all approach to politics than does parliamentarism. As we
see it, parliamentary
systems do not afford an advantage on this point. The degree to
which democracies
promote winner-take-all rules depends mostly on the electoral
and party system and
on the federal or unitary nature of the system. Parliamentary
systems with disci-
plined parties and a majority party offer the fewest checks on
executive power, and
hence promote a winner-takes-all approach more than
presidential systems.'0 In
Great Britain, for example, in the last two decades a party has
often won a decisive
majority of parliamentary seats despite winning well under 50
percent of the votes.
Notwithstanding its lack of a decisive margin in popular votes,
the party can control
the entire executive and the legislature for a protracted period
of time. It can even
use its dissolution power strategically to renew its mandate for
another five years by
calling a new election before its current term ends.
Because of the combination of disciplined parties, single
member plurality elec-
toral districts, and the prime minister's ability to dissolve the

parliament,
Westminster systems provide a very weak legislative check on
the premier. In prin-
ciple, the MPs of the governing party control the cabinet, but in
practice they usual-
ly support their own party's legislative initiatives regardless of
the merits of partic-
ular proposals because their electoral fates are closely tied with
that of the party
leadership. As a norm, a disciplined majority party leaves the
executive virtually
unconstrained between elections." Here, more than in any
presidential system, the
winner takes all. Given the majority of a single party in
parliament, it is unlikely that
a no confidence vote would prevail, so there is little or no
opposition to check the
government. Early elections occur not as a flexible mechanism
to rid the country of
an ineffective government, but at the discretion of a ruling
majority using its disso-
lution power strategically to renew its mandate for another five
years by calling a
new election before its current term ends.12
Presidentialism is predicated upon a system of checks and
balances. Such checks
453
2015 17:27:51 UTC

and balances usually inhibit winner-takes-all tendencies;
indeed, they are designed
precisely to limit the possibility that the winner would take all.
If it loses the presi-
dency, a party or coalition may still control congress, allowing
it to block some pres-
idential initiatives. If the president's own legislative powers are
reactive only (a
veto, but no decree powers), an opposition-controlled congress
can be the prime
mover in legislating, as it is in the United States and Costa
Rica, the two longest
standing presidential democracies. Controlling congress is not
the biggest prize, and
it usually does not enable a party or coalition to dictate policy,
but it allows the party
or coalition to establish parameters within which policy is
made. It can be a big prize
in its own right if the presidency has relatively weak legislative
powers.
Moreover, compared to Westminster parliamentary systems,
most presidential
democracies offer greater prospects of dividing the cabinet
among several parties.
This practice, which is essentially unknown among the
Westminster parliamentary
democracies, is common in multiparty presidential systems. To
get elected, presi-
dents need to assemble a broad interparty coalition, either for
the first round (if a
plurality format obtains) or for the second (if a two round,
absolute majority format

obtains). Generally, presidents allocate cabinet seats to parties
other than their own
in order to attract the support of these parties or, after elections,
to reward them for
such support. Dividing the cabinet in this manner allows losers
in the presidential
contest a piece of the pie. The norm in multiparty presidenti al
systems is similar to
that in multiparty parliamentary systems: a coalition governs,
cabinet positions are
divided among several parties, and the president typically must
retain the support of
these parties to govern effectively.
Thus, most parliamentary systems with single member district
electoral systems
have stronger winner-takes-all mechanisms than presidential
systems. The combi-
nation of parliamentarism and a majority party specifically
produces winner-takes-
all results. This situation of extreme majoritarianism under
parliamentarism is not
uncommon; it is found throughout the Caribbean and some parts
of the Third World.
In fact, outside western Europe all parliamentary systems that
have been continu-
ously democratic from 1972 to 1994 have been based on the
Westminster model (see
Table 1). Thus, Linz is not right when he states that an absolute
majority of seats for
one party does not occur often in parliamentary systems.'3 In
presidential systems
with single member plurality districts, the party that does not
win the presidency can
control congress, thereby providing an important check on
executive power.

Linz's fourth argument, that the style of presidential politics is
less favorable to
democracy than the style of parliamentar y politics, rests in part
on his view that pres-
identialism induces a winner-takes-all logic. We have already
expressed our skepti-
cism about this claim. We agree that the predominant style of
politics differs some-
what between presidential and parliamentary systems, but we
would place greater
emphasis on differences of style that stem from constitutional
design and the nature
of the party system.
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Table 1 Independent Countries That Were Continuously
Democratic, 1972-1994
Inc. level Pop. size Parliamentary Presidential Other
Low/lower- Micro
middle
Small Jamaica Costa Rica
Mauritius

Medium/ Colombia
Large Dominican Republic
Upper- Micro Nauru
middle Barbados
Malta
Small Botswana
Trinidad and Tobago
Medium/ Venezuela
Large
Upper Micro Luxembourg Iceland
Small Ireland Cyprus
New Zealand
Norway
Medium/ Australia United States Austria
Large Belgium Finland
Canada France
Denmark Switzerland
Germany
Israel
Italy
Japan
Netherlands
Sweden
United Kingdom
All regimes in the "other" column are premier-presidential,
except for Switzerland.

Countries that have become independent from Britain or a
British Commonwealth state since
1945: Jamaica, Mauritius, Nauru, Barbados, Malta, Botswana,
Trinidad and Tobago, Cyprus,
Israel
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Finally, we agree with Linz that presidentialism is more
conducive than parlia-
mentarism to the election of a political outsider as head of
government and that this
process can entail serious problems. But in presidential
democracies that have more
institutionalized party systems the election of politi cal outsiders
is the exception.
Costa Rica, Uruguay, Colombia, and Venezuela have not elected
an outsider presi-
dent in recent decades, unless one counts Rafael Caldera of
Venezuela in his latest
incarnation (1993). Argentina last elected an outsider president
in 1945, when Per6n
had not yet built a party. In Chile political outsiders won the
presidential campaigns
of 1952 and 1958, but they were exceptions rather than the
norm. The most notable

recent cases of elections of political outsiders, Fernando Collor
de Mello in Brazil
(1989) and Alberto Fujimori in Peru (1990), owe much to the
unraveling of the party
systems in both countries and in Fujimori's case also to the
majority run-off system
that encouraged widespread party system fragmentation in the
first round.
Assessing the Record of Presidentialism
Linz correctly states that most long established democracies
have parliamentary sys-
tems. Presidentialism is poorly represented among long
established democracies.
This fact is apparent in Table 1, which lists countries that have
a long, continuous
democratic record according to the criteria of Freedom House.
Freedom House has been rating countries on a scale of 1 to 7
(with 1 being best)
on political rights and civil rights since 1972. Table 1 lists all
thirty-three countries
that were continuously democratic from 1972 to 1994. We
considered a country con-
tinuously democratic if it had an average score of 3 or better on
political rights
throughout this period.14 Additionally, the scores for both
political and civil rights
needed to be 4 or better in every annual Freedom House survey
for a country to be
considered continuously democratic.
Of the thirty-three long established democracies, only six are
presidential despite
the prevalence of presidentialism in many parts of the globe.

Twenty-two are par-
liamentary, and five fall into the "other" category. However, the
superior record of
parliamentarism is in part an artifact of where it has been
implemented.
Table 1 provides information on three other issues that may
play a role in a so-
ciety's likelihood of sustaining democracy: income level,
population size, and
British colonial heritage. It is widely recognized that a
relatively high income level
is an important background condition for democracy.'" In
classifying countries by
income levels, we followed the guidelines of the World Bank's
World Development
Report 1993: low is under $635 per capita GNP; lower middle is
$636 to $2,555;
upper middle is $2,556 to $7,,910; and upper is above $7,911.
We collapsed the
bottom two categories. Table 2 summarizes the income
categories of countries in
Table 1.
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Table 2 Income Levels of Continuous Democracies, 1972-1994

(number of countries in each
category)
Per Capita GNP in US $ Parliamentary Presidential Other
0-2555 2 3 0
2556-7910 5 1 0
over 7911 15 2 5
total 22 6 5
Most of these long established democracies (twenty-eight of
thirty-three) are in
upper middle or upper income countries. But among the low to
lower middle income
countries there are actually more presidential (three) than
parliamentary (two) sys-
tems. Fifteen of the parliamentary democracies are found in
Europe or other high
income countries such as Canada, Israel, and Japan. It is likely
that these countries
would have been democratic between 1972 and 1994 had they
had presidential con-
stitutions. So some of the success of parliamentary democracy
is accidental: in part
because of the evolution of constitutional monarchies into
democracies, the region
of the world that democratized and industrialized first is
overwhelmingly populated
with parliamentary systems.
Very small countries may have an advantage in democratic
stability because they
typically have relatively homogeneous populations in ethnic,
religious, and linguis-
tic terms, thereby attenuating potential sources of political
conflict. We classified

countries as micro (population under 500,000), small (500,000
to 5,000,000), and
medium to large (over 5,000,000), using 1994 population data.
Table 3 groups our
thirty-three long established democracies by population size.
Here, too, parliamen-
tary systems enjoy an advantage. None of the five micronations
with long estab-
lished democracies has a presidential system.
The strong correlation between British colonial heritage and
democracy has been
widely recognized. Reasons for this association need not
concern us here, but possi-
bilities mentioned in the literature include the tendency to train
civil servants, the gov-
ernmental practices and institutions (which include but can not
be reduced to parlia-
mentarism) created by the British, and the lack of control of
local landed elites over
Table 3 Population Size of Continuous Democracies, 1972-1994
(number of countries in
each category)
Population Parliamentary Presidential Other
Under 500,000 4 0 1
500,000 to 5,000,000 7 2 0
Over 5,000,000 11 4 5
total 22 6 5
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the colonial state.16 Nine of the thirty-three long established
democracies had British
colonial experience. Among them, eight are parliamentary and
one is presidential.
Here, too, background conditions have been more favorable to
parliamentary systems.
It is not our purpose here to analyze the contributions of these
factors to democ-
racy; rather, we wanted to see if these factors correlated with
regime type. If a back-
Table 4 Independent Countries That Were Democratic for at
Least Ten Years (But Less Than
Twenty-three) as of 1994
Inc. level Pop. size Parliamentary Presidential Other
Low/lower- Micro Belize (1981)
middle Dominica (1978)
Kiribati (1979)
St. Lucia (1979)
St. Vincent (1979)
Solomons (1978)
Tuvalu (1978)
Vanuatu (1980)

Small Papua New Guinea
(1975)
Medium/ India (1979) Bolivia (1982)
Large Brazil (1985)
Ecuador (1979)
El Salvador (1985)
Honduras (1980)
Middle Micro Antigua and Barbuda
(1981)
Grenada (1985)
St. Kitts-Nevis
(1983)
Small
Medium/ Greece (1974) Argentina (1983) Portugal' (1976)
Large Uruguary (1985)
Upper Micro Bahamas (1973)
Small
Medium/ Spain (1977)
Large
Numbers in parentheses give the date when the transition to
democracy took place or the date
of independence for former colonies that were not independent
as of 1972.
Note: 1. Portugal has a premier-presidential system
Countries that have become independent from Britain or a
British Commonwealth state since

1945: Belize, Dominica, Kiribati, St. Lucia, St. Vincent,
Solomons, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Papua
New Guinea, India, Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, St. Kitts-
Nevis, Bahamas
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2015 17:27:51 UTC
ground condition that is conducive to democracy is correlated
with parliamentarism,
then the superior record of parliamentarism may be more a
product of the back-
ground condition than the regime type.
Table 4 shows twenty-four additional countries that had been
continuously demo-
cratic by the same criteria used in Table 1, only for a shorter
time period (at least ten
years). Together, Tables 1 and 4 give us a complete look at
contemporary democra-
cies that have lasted at least ten years.
There are three striking facts about the additional countries in
Table 4. First, they
include a large number of microstates that became independent
from Britain in the
1970s and 1980s, and all of them are parliamentary. All seven
presidential democ-

racies but only three of the sixteen parliamentary democracies
are in medium to
large countries (see Table 5). All sixteen of the democracies
listed in Tables 1 and 4
with populations under one-half million (mostly island nations)
are parliamentary,
as are eight of ten democracies with populations between one-
half and five million.
In contrast, no presidential systems are in microstates, and
many are in exception-
ally large countries, such as Argentina, Brazil, and the United
States.
Second, with Table 4 the number of presidential democracies
increases substan-
tially. Most are in the lower and lower middle income
categories, and all are in Latin
America. Table 6 summarizes the income status of the newer
democracies listed in
Table 4. Clearly, not all of parliamentarism's advantage stems
from the advanced
industrial states. Even in the lower to upper middle income
categories, there are
more parliamentary systems (twenty-one if we combine Tables 1
and 4, compared
to eleven presidential systems). However, every one of the
parliamentary democra-
cies outside of the high income category is a former British
colony. The only other
democracies in these income categories are presidential, and all
but Cyprus are in
Latin America.
Thus, if the obstacles of lower income (or other factors not
considered here) in
Latin America continue to cause problems for the consolidation

of democracy, the
number of presidential breakdowns could be large once again in
the future. More
optimistically, if Latin American democracies achieve greater
success in consoli-
dating themselves this time around, the number of long
established presidential
democracies will grow substantially in the future.
Table 5 Population Size of Continuous Democracies, 1985-1994
(number of countries in
each category)
Population Parliamentary Presidential Other
Under 500,000 12 0 0
500,000 to 5,000,000 1 0 0
Over 5,000,000 3 7 1
total 16 7 1
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Table 6 Income Levels of Continuous Democracies, 1985-1994
(number of countries in each
category)

Per Capita GNP in US$ Parliamentary Presidential Other
0-2555 10 0 0
2556-7910 4 5 1
Over 7911 2 2 0
total 16 7 1
Similarly, if British colonial heritage and small population size
are conducive to
democracy, parliamentarism has a built-in advantage simply
because Britain colon-
ized many small island territories. As a rule, British colonies
had local self-govern-
ment, always on the parliamentary model, before
independence." Further, if other
aspects of Latin American societies (such as extreme inequality
across classes or
regions) are inimical to stable democracy, then presidentialism
has a built-in disad-
vantage.
In sum, presidentialism is more likely to be adopted in Latin
America and in
Africa than in other parts of the world, and these parts of the
world have had more
formidable obstacles to democracy regardless of the form of
government. In con-
trast, parliamentarism has been the regime form of choice in
most of Europe and in
former British colonies (a large percentage of which are
microstates), where condi-
tions for democracy have generally been more favorable. Thus,
the correlation
between parliamentarism and democratic success is in part a
product of where it has

been implemented.
Advantages of Presidential Systems
Presidential systems afford some attractive features that can be
maximized through
careful attention to constitutional design. These advantages
partially offset the lia-
bilities of presidentialism.
Greater Choice for Voters Competing claims to legitimacy are
the flipside of one
advantage. The direct election of the chief executive gives the
voters two electoral
choices instead of one - assuming unicameralism, for the sake
of simplicity of
argument. Having both executive and legislative elections gives
voters a freer range
of choices. Voters can support one party or candidate at the
legislative level but
another for the head of government.
Electoral Accountability and Identification Presidentialism
affords some
advantages for accountability and identifiability. Electoral
accountability describes
460
2015 17:27:51 UTC

the degree and means by which elected policymakers are
electorally responsible to
citizens, while identifiability refers to voters' ability to make an
informed choice
prior to elections based on their ability to assess the likely
range of postelection
governments.
The more straightforward the connection between the choices
made by the elec-
torate at the ballot box and the expectations to which
policymakers are held can be
made, the greater electoral accountability is. For maximizing
direct accountability
between voters and elected officials, presidentialism is superior
to parliamentarism
in multiparty contexts because the chief executive is directly
chosen by popular vote.
Presidents (if eligible for reelection) or their parties can be
judged by voters in sub-
sequent elections. Having both an executive and an assembly
allows the presidential
election to be structured so as to maximize accountability and
the assembly election
so as to permit broad representation.
One objection to presidentialism's claim to superior electoral
accountability is
that in most presidential systems presidents may not be
reelected immediately, if at
all. The electoral incentive for the president to remain
responsive to voters is
weakened in these countries, and electoral accountability
suffers. Bans on reelection

are deficiencies of most presidential systems, but not of
presidentialism as a regime
type. Direct accountability to the electorate exists in some
presidential systems, and
it is always possible under presidential government. If, as is
often the case, the con-
stitution bans immediate reelection but allows subsequent
reelection, presidents who
aspire to regain their office have a strong incentive to be
responsive to voters and
thereby face a mechanism of electoral accountability. Only if
presidents can never
be reelected and will become secondary (or non) players in
national and party poli-
tics after their terms are incentives for accountability via
popular election dramati-
cally weakened. Even where immediate reelection is banned,
voters can still directly
hold the president's party accountable.
Under parliamentarism, with a deeply fragmented party system
the lack of direct
elections for the executive inevitably weakens electoral
accountability, for a citizen
can not be sure how to vote for or against a particular potential
head of government.
In multiparty parliamentary systems, even if a citizen has a
clear notion of which
parties should be held responsible for the shortcomings of a
government, it is often
not clear whether voting for a certain party will increase the
likelihood of excluding
a party from the governing coalition. Governments often change
between elections,
and even after an election parties that lose seats are frequently
invited to join gov-

erning coalitions.
Strom used the term "identifiability" to denote the degree to
which the possible
alternative executive-controlling coalitions were discernible to
voters before an elec-
tion.'8 Identifiability is high when voters can assess the
competitors for control of the
executive and can make a straightforward logical connection
between their preferred
candidate or party and their optimal vote. Identifiability is low
when voters can not
461
2015 17:27:51 UTC
predict easily what the effect of their vote will be in terms of
the composition of the
executive, either because postelection negotiations will
determine the nature of the
executive, as occurs in multiparty parliamentary systems, or
because a large field of
contenders for a single office makes it difficult to discern where
a vote may be
"wasted" and whether voting for a "lesser-of-evils" might be an
optimal strategy.

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