Presidents’ Relationships with Voters, Parliaments and Executives: Insights from Presidentialism, Semi-Presidentialism and Parliamentarism

Abstract

Presidents need to navigate and manage a myriad of relationships with other actors to enter and remain in office. First, they need to connect to and convince voters as part of their (re-) election campaigns. Second, presidents must engage with legislators, parties, and parliaments and – where they share executive power – with governments and prime ministers. Thereby, their interactions are not merely determined by constitutional structure; particularly in young democracies or in the wake of major institutional reforms, presidents possess considerable leeway in re-orientating the relationship of the presidency with other actors. This panel brings together different perspectives on the way in which (prospective) presidents’ manage their relationship with voters, parliaments, and governments. By including country studies of these phenomena under presidentialism (USA), semi-presidentialism (Lithuania, Timor-Leste) and parliamentarism (Albania) as well as in countries that have experienced all three political systems during the last century (Turkey), the papers highlight both common mechanisms and country-specific factors that determine presidents’ strategic choices and interactions with other actors.

Title	Details
Presidents and Legislative Parties: A Content Analysis of the Annual Presidential Addresses to the Grand National Assembly, 1923-2013	View Paper Details
The Relations Between the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister in Timor-Leste: a Comparative Analysis of Four Presidential Terms	View Paper Details
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