Parliamentary Versus Presidential Government

by Arend Lijphart (Editor)

Parliamentary and presidential governments--exemplified by most European countries for the former and the United States and Latin America for the latter--are the two principal forms of democracy in the modern world. Their respective advantages and disadvantages have been long debated, at first mainly by British and American political observers but with increasing frequency in other parts of the world, especially in Latin America, but also in Western and Eastern Europe and Asia. The recent world-wide wave of democratization has intensified both the debate and its significance. This volume brings together the most important statement on the subject by advocates and analysts--from Montesquieu and Madison to Lipset and Linz. It also treats the merits of less frequently used democratic types, such as French-style semi-presidentialism, that may be regarded as intermediate forms between parliamentarism and presidentialism.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction

270 pages, Paperback

First published April 2, 1992

About the author

Arend d'Angremond Lijphart is a Dutch American political scientist specializing in comparative politics, elections and voting systems, democratic institutions, and ethnicity and politics. He is Research Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego. He is influential for his work on consociational democracy and his contribution to the new Institutionalism in political science.

Reviews

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Leave the Constitution Alone
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

page 90

otherwise it's a typical Lijphart book, lean heavy on parliaments

and lean away from Cabinets and Presidents