How forms of government shape models of democracy and their vulnerability to backsliding

Steffen Ganghof

Chapter 25 in Handbook of Comparative Political Institutions, 2024, pp 395-409 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: There are two big, but seemingly separate debates about democratic institutions: one about forms of government organized around the famous work of Juan Linz, another about models of democracy organized around the famous work of Arend Lijphart. This chapter integrates these debates with a special focus on how constitutional design can make democracies more resilient to democratic backsliding. Its key thesis is that a branch-based separation of powers can help to balance models of democracy and build democratic resilience, but if this power separation is combined with executive power concentration in a single person - a directly elected president - its risks are accentuated and its benefits attenuated. The chapter shows how forms of government are the foundation of models of democracy, and how the non-personalized forms of power separation in Switzerland and Australia promise greater democratic resilience.

Keywords: Politics; and; Public; Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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