The Perils Of Presidentialism Summary

Professor Juan J. Linz’s main argument in his work, The Perils of Presidentialism, is that parliamentary systems are better at sustaining democracy than presidential systems. The article was written in 1990, but today the questioning of presidential versus parliamentary has stayed relevant as more people are publicly questioning American presidentialism as well as presidentialism as a whole. The author supports his claim by explaining the core weaknesses of presidential systems as compared to parliamentary and compliments this with examples of presidential failures of Latin American countries and the success of the 1977 Spanish parliamentary election. While the article cites the history of failure of presidential systems it fails to also include

This demonstrates rigidity because the public most likely did not vote for the president and the vice president together, believing the vice president could also be a fit leader, then the vice president takes office and would then fail to maintain popular support by the people, and still the country would be stuck with a leader that would, again, be immensely hard to get rid of. The author then further explains the downfalls of this practice in presidentialism by explaining that this will definitely not work well in countries besides the United States then explains how at risk countries are that allow the president and the vice president to come from different political parties, like the United States before 1804 (Linz, 65). Soon after this claim, Linz includes that very little countries actually have this split ticket as an option, making it confusing to the reader why the author would have spent time developing this part of his argument if it is not really that relevant. It is also strange that Linz would claim that all countries besides the United States may not work well with this practice, but then does not explain why and only references the change the United States had to make because it was not working for that state at that

One side of this argument is that while the fixed terms may make it seem like there is more stability it actually creates less stability and leaves room for rash decisions and attempts to make significant changes since the president will feel anxious about leaving office and not accomplishing his goals and agenda (Linz, 66). In this section the author implies that prime ministers are not in the environment or have to power to make changes like these, and then cites large changes made by presidents facing ineligibility for reelection. What is missing here is the inclusion of significant changes made by prime ministers, such as former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Margaret Thatcher, who made significant changes to the state without the pressures as described by