Semi-presidentialism in lusophone countries: diffusion and operation

Abstract

This article analyses the degree to which diffusion of Portugal's semi-presidential constitution occurred within lusophone countries following their move to multipartism in the 1990s. To do so, we first identify the main characteristics of the 1976 Portuguese constitution. Next, the constitutional choices made in Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe, and East Timor are mapped. Using existing typologies, we classify these regimes and contrast them with their European and francophone African counterparts. Finally, we investigate the effective dynamics of lusophone semi-presidential systems by focusing on how heads of state deal with heads of government and parliamentary majorities. We claim there is a “family resemblance” among lusophone semi-presidential regimes. This finding is important because it accounts for constitutional choices in a group of recent democratizing countries, and shows how external influences interact with local factors to produce major political outcomes.

Keywords:

• semi-presidentialism
• presidential powers
• constitutional diffusion
• Portuguese-speaking countries

Acknowledgements

This manuscript is a modified version of a paper presented at the American Political Science Association's Annual Meeting 2010, Washington, DC. The authors thank Robert Elgie, Pedro Magalhães, and David Samuels for their comments on earlier versions of this work, and Edalina Rodrigues Sanches and Saulo Said for research assistance. Amorim Neto acknowledges support from Brazil's CNPq (National Scientific Research Council).

Notes on contributors

Octavio Amorim Neto is associate professor of political science at the Brazilian School of Public and Business Administration (EBAPE) at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. His work has appeared in several international journals. He is the author of De Dutra a Lula: A Condução e os Determinantes da Política Externa Brasileira (Campus, 2011). His research interests are comparative political institutions and Brazilian politics and foreign policy.

Marina Costa Lobo (DPhil Politics 2001), is political science researcher at the Social Sciences Institute of the University of Lisbon and guest lecturer at the Lisbon University Institute. Her research has focused on comparative political institutions and behaviour in Portugal from a comparative perspective. She has published on leader effects, voting behaviour and semi-presidentialism in Political Research Quarterly, European Journal of Political Research, Electoral Studies and Party Politics.

Notes

1. Amorim Neto, “A Reforma do Sistema de Governo”; Coelho, “A Influência do Semipresidencialismo Português no Debate Constitucional Brasileiro”; Lamounier, “Brazil: Toward Parliamentarism?”

2. Rhodes, Wannna, and Weller, Comparing Westminster, 9.

3. Duverger, “A New Political System Model.”

4. Elgie, “The Politics of Semi-Presidentialism.”

5. Lobo, Governar em Democracia.

6. Amorim Neto and Lobo, “Portugal's Semi-Presidentialism (Re)considered.”

7. Elkins and Simmons, “On Waves, Clusters and Diffusion.”

8. Ibid., 38.

9. Ibid., 39.

10. Ibid., 41.

11. Ibid., 43–5.

12. Miranda, “Anteprojecto de Lei dos Partidos políticos da República de São Tomé e Príncipe”; Miranda, “Uma Constituição para Timor”; Araújo, Os Sistemas de Governo de Transição Democrática nos P.A.L.O.P.; Araújo, “Anteprojectos de Lei dos Partidos Politicos e da Lei de Imprensa Politicos da República de Timor Lorosae.”

13. Medeiros, Constitucionalismo de Matriz Lusófona, 53–5.

14. Morais, “Tópicos sobre a Formação de uma Comunidade Constitucional Lusófona,” 59.

15. Gouveia, “Sistemas Constitucionais Africanos de Língua Portuguesa.”

16. Medeiros, Constitucionalismo de Matriz Lusófona, 32–52.

17. Ibid., 33.

18. Gouveia, “Sistemas Constitucionais Africanos de Língua Portuguesa”; Morais, “Tópicos sobre a formação de uma comunidade constitucional lusófona.”

19. Metcalf, “Measuring Presidential Power”; Shugart and Carey, Presidents and Assemblies.

20. Shugart and Carey, Presidents and Assemblies.

21. Macuane, “O Semipresidencialismo(?) em Moçambique (1986 a 2008)”; Manning, “Semi-Presidentialism and the Preservation of Ambiguity in Post-War Mozambique”; Oliveira, “Illiberal Peacebuilding in Angola”; Santos, “Entre o Futungo e a Assembleia.”

22. Conac, “Semi-Presidentialism in a Francophone Context”; Elgie, “Exogenous Political Institutions?”

23. The exact form of these cells reflects the assumptions of Shugart and Carey on the clustering of countries with elected presidents making up their sample, as well as their empirical knowledge of the cases. For more details on the cells' parameters, see Shugart and Carey, Presidents and Assemblies, 156.

24. Shugart and Carey, Presidents and Assemblies.

25. Costa, “O Papel do Chefe de Estado no Semipresidencialismo Cabo-verdiano, 1991–2007.”

26. Silva, “As Constituições da Guiné-Bissau.”

27. Macuane, “O Semipresidencialismo(?) em Moçambique (1986 a 2008),” 137.

28. São Tomé and Principe Constitution, 1993, article 117.

29. Seibert, “Instabilidade Política e Revisão Constitucional. Semi-presidencialismo em São Tomé e Príncipe,” 214.

30. Rhodes, Wannna, and Weller, Comparing Westminster, 2.

31. Elgie, “Exogenous Political Institutions?”

32. Ibid.

33. Duverger, “A New Political System Model”; Elgie, “The Politics of Semi-Presidentialism”; Elgie, “Semi-Presidentialism”; Sartori, Comparative Constitutional Engineering; Shugart and Carey, Presidents and Assemblies; Pasquino, “Duetti e Duelli”; Skach, Borrowing Constitutional Designs.

34. Elgie, “A Fresh Look at Semi-Presidentialism.”

35. Oliveira, “Illiberal Peacebuilding in Angola.”

36. Santos, “Entre o Futungo e a Assembleia.”

37. Baker, “Cape Verde”; Meyns, “Cape Verde.”

38. Costa, “O Papel do Chefe de Estado no Semipresidencialismo Cabo-verdiano, 1991–2007.”

39. Azevedo, “O Semi-presidencialismo na Guiné-Bissau.”

40. Azevedo and Nijzink, “Semi-Presidentialism in Guinea Bissau.”

41. Macuane, “O Semipresidencialismo(?) em Moçambique (1986 a 2008).”

42. Manning, “Semi-Presidentialism and the Preservation of Ambiguity in Post-War Mozambique.”

43. Carbone, “Continuidade na Renovação?”

44. Manning, “Conflict Management and Elite Habituation in Post-War Democracy.”

45. Seibert, “Instabilidade Política e Revisão Constitucional.”

46. Shoesmith, “Timor-Leste: Divided Leadership in a Semi-Presidential System”; Shoesmith, “Timor-Leste: Semi-Presidentialism and the Democratic Transition in a New Small State”; Vasconcelos and Cunha, “Semi-Presidencialismo em Timor.”

47. Elgie, “Duverger, Semi-Presidentialism and the Supposed French Archetype,” 258.

48. Ibid.

49. Rhodes, Wannna, and Weller, Comparing Westminster, 233.

50. Costa, “O Papel do Chefe de Estado no Semipresidencialismo Cabo-verdiano, 1991–2007”; Seibert, “Instabilidade Política e Revisão Constitucional”; Vasconcelos and Cunha, “Semi-Presidencialismo em Timor.”

51. Kuenzi and Lambright, “Party System Institutionalization in 30 African Countries.”

52. Walle, “Presidentialism and Clientelism in Africa's Emerging Party Systems.”

53. Coelho, “A Influência do Semipresidencialismo Português no Debate Constitucional Brasileiro.”