Dissertation

Working Paper

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CV

A Theory and Empirical Analysis of Government Formation with
Presidential Heads of State

[Abstract]

The paper develops a model of government formation with
presidential heads of state. The model represents a political
system where the government must have a majority parliamentary
support in order to form and the presidential head of state
chooses a party to make a government formation proposal -
\textit{formateur} - at each round of bargaining stage. Analyses focus on
the equilibrium selection strategies for the presidential head
of state in equilibria of the model. Accompanying empirical analysis on 146 governments of 7
Western European democracies with presidential heads of state
provides support for the theoretical implications drawn from the
model. (pdf)

The Influence of Presidential Heads of State on Government
Formation in European Democracies: Empirical Evidences

[Abstract]

Theories of coalition politics have paid little attention
to the role of presidential heads of state in the government
formationprocess. In this paper, we investigate intensively
the influence of presidents on the two most important features
of government formation outcomes: the identity of Prime Minister
and the party composition of the coalition. We find substantial
evidence that presidents in Europeandemocracies have effectively
induced their preferred governments from the potential alternatives.
Our results also suggest that popularly elected presidents and
presidents indirectly elected by parliament have different mechanisms
of influence on these outcomes. We believe that our investigation
sheds new light on our understanding of the government formation
process in semi-presidential as well as in pure parliamentary systems. (pdf)

The President in the Government Termination Process

[Abstract]

The paper investigates the role of presidential heads of
state in the government termination process in European
democracies. From the examination of the constitutional
powers of the president over the dissolution of parliament
in nine West European democracies, we have found that most
presidents in these countries have constitutionally-endowed
powers to call or not to call premature elections once the
incumbent governments lose the confidence of parliament.
Based on these findings, we derive several hypotheses relating
the configuration of preferences among the president, parliament,
and government to the duration of the government and electoral
performance. We find that a government is likely to terminate more
quickly, the more ideologically distant it is from the median
parliamentary party; that a government lasts longer, the more
ideologically distant the president is from the median parliamentary
party; and that president¡¯s parties perform better in early elections
than in regularly scheduled elections. (pdf)