Powered by OpenAIRE graph
Found an issue? Give us feedback
addClaim

Can Presidential Systems Be Just?

Authors: T. J. Donahue;

Can Presidential Systems Be Just?

Abstract

Can presidential systems be just? Suppose you were in a position of constitutional choice akin to John Rawls's original position; you have full mastery of social-scientific knowledge, but know nothing about your society or the place you occupy in it, save that it is an industrial society. Would it then be permissible to choose a presidential system of government over a semi-presidential system or a parliamentary system? Answering this question is a precondition for understanding which political institutions are the most desirable, and which best satisfy the requirements of justice. This paper argues that were you in such a position, you morally ought not to choose presidentialism over its semi-presidential or parliamentary rivals. I call this the Anti-Presidentialism Thesis. My argument for the Thesis is that the workings of presidential systems guarantee that some government officer - the President - will be unaccountable to other officers for her public acts, and we ought not to choose such a system, because such unaccountability threatens each citizen's capacity for self-government. In arguing for the Thesis, I analyze the nature of presidential, semi-presidential, and parliamentary systems. I then mount the argument from unaccountability to other officers. I then consider and refute the seven most popular arguments for presidential systems: the arguments from direct election, from direct accountability to the voters, from identifying alternative governments, from arbitrating conflict, from separation of powers, from executive stability, and from dispatch.

  • BIP!
    Impact byBIP!
    selected citations
    These citations are derived from selected sources.
    This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
    0
    popularity
    This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.
    Average
    influence
    This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
    Average
    impulse
    This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
    Average
Powered by OpenAIRE graph
Found an issue? Give us feedback
selected citations
These citations are derived from selected sources.
This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Citations provided by BIP!
popularity
This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Popularity provided by BIP!
influence
This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Influence provided by BIP!
impulse
This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Impulse provided by BIP!
0
Average
Average
Average
Related to Research communities
Upload OA version
Are you the author of this publication? Upload your Open Access version to Zenodo!
It’s fast and easy, just two clicks!