Bücher der Reihe Palgrave Studies in Presidential Politics

The book explores how weak presidents directly or indirectly elected can still play a crucial role in the political arena. Weak presidents have been distinguished from strong ones by relying on the evaluation of the powers they display according to the constitution. Six Western European countries are analysed: Germany and Italy which present a consistent constitutional design (as weak presidents are elected indirectly), and Austria, Ireland, Finland and Portugal that present inconsistent constitutional design (as weak presidents are elected directly). In contrast to much of the existing comparative works on presidential powers and activism, the book emphasises the role and the use of informal powers beyond that of formal ones. In particular, a definition and a typology of informal powers are provided as well as an empirical investigation on informal presidential activism. The positive outcome of presidential informal interventions are studied by relying on an interactionist approachwhich combines presidency-centred as well as president centred-explanations. The book argues that when dealing with informal presidential activism the opportunity structure matters but presidential public support matters even more.

This research monograph examines presidential constitutional conventions and the role they play in the political systems of four Central European countries ¿ the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Poland. As primarily unwritten rules of constitutional practice, constitutional conventions represent political arrangements and as such are political in origin. Not only this, constitutional conventions, in general, and presidential constitutional conventions, in particular, have signi¿cant political implications. They shape both the everyday operation and character of regimes. Central Europe represents a particularly useful example on which this role of constitutional conventions can be studied and assessed.

This book analyses the presidentialization of parties in three countries of the post-Soviet space - Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan - and the role of this phenomenon in their recent political history. The concept of presidentialization of politics means that parties tend to adjust by becoming ¿presidentialised¿ in the sense that parties delegate their leaders-as- Presidents to shape both their electoral and governing strategies. The presidentialization of parties refers to institutional resources, constraints and opportunities. It can be also described both as centralization of leadership and a style of government, overlapping with that of personalization of politics that it consists of personal characteristics, attitudes, personal capital and charisma in making politics, instead. Since their introduction, the concept of presidentialization have been mostly analysed within the Western or other democratic countries. Very little attention, however, has been paid to the phenomenon presidentialization of political parties in non-democratic countries or in countries with a transitional form of government . This volume enhances our theoretical understanding of the political role of the Presidents of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus in controlling the legislative space and elected officials.

This book elaborates on explaining how institutional factors such as confidence vote, electoral system, candidate nomination and presidential unilateral power influence the ability of presidents to pass their legislative agendas through comparisons across presidential and semi-presidential systems.

This book offers a comparative perspective on the semi-presidential regimes of Portugal and Timor-Leste, suggesting that they both reserve a "moderating power" for presidents in line with what was theorized by Benjamin Constant.

As one of the first comprehensive comparative studies of presidential activism and veto power in Europe, this book will be a key resource not only for area specialists but also for scholars of presidential studies, comparative government, and executives.