The perils of semi-presidentialism. Are they exaggerated?

REGIME TYPE: DOES IT REALLY MATTER? On the Perils of Semi-Presidentialism for Party System Institutionalization in Post-communist Eastern Europe

Among political scientists the debate about the relative virtues/vices of the different regime types has constituted one of the most incandescent fields of inquiry. Yet few studies address the impact of semi-presidentialism on the prospects for party system institutionalization, otherwise a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for the consolidation of democracy (Mainwaring and Scully, 1995;...

The Perils of Presidentialism

Duverger, Semi-presidentialism and the supposed French archetype

Presidents, Prime Ministers, Parties, and Mandate-Representatio

How does presidentialism affect democratic representation, both in theory and in practice? In this paper, part of a larger book project, we build on our previous research (Samuels and Shugart 2003), which argued that all else equal, presidentialism impedes representation based on prospective government “mandates.” Inspired by and building on research on Latin America by Susan Stokes (2001), her...

Synthetic biology: enormous possibility, exaggerated perils

The following essay was written by a freshman undergraduate student majoring in Bioengineering at the University of Maryland, Mr. Zachary Russ. Mr. Russ was one of 94 students who submitted a 1000 to 1200 word essay to the 3rd Annual Bioethics Essay Contest sponsored by the Institute of Biological Engineering (IBE). A group of professionals in Biological Engineering assessed and ranked the essa...