TY - JOUR A1 - Tsebelis, George A1 - Thies, Michael A1 - Cheibub, José Antonio A1 - Dixon, Rosalind A1 - Bogéa, Daniel A1 - Ganghof, Steffen T1 - Review symposium BT - beyond presidentialism and parliamentarism JF - European political science N2 - Steffen Ganghof’s Beyond Presidentialism and Parliamentarism: Democratic Design and the Separation of Powers (Oxford University Press, 2021) posits that “in a democracy, a constitutional separation of powers between the executive and the assembly may be desirable, but the constitutional concentration of executive power in a single human being is not” (Ganghof, 2021). To consider, examine and theorise about this, Ganghof urges engagement with semi-parliamentarism. As explained by Ganghof, legislative power is shared between two democratically legitimate sections of parliament in a semi-parliamentary system, but only one of those sections selects the government and can remove it in a no-confidence vote. Consequently, power is dispersed and not concentrated in the hands of any one person, which, Ganghof argues, can lead to an enhanced form of parliamentary democracy. In this book review symposium, George Tsebelis, Michael Thies, José Antonio Cheibub, Rosalind Dixon and Daniel Bogéa review Steffen Ganghof’s book and engage with the author about aspects of research design, case selection and theoretical argument. This symposium arose from an engaging and constructive discussion of the book at a seminar hosted by Texas A&M University in 2022. We thank Prof José Cheibub (Texas A&M) for organising that seminar and Dr Anna Fruhstorfer (University of Potsdam) for initiating this book review symposium. KW - semi-parliamentary government KW - presidentialism KW - parliamentary government KW - separation of powers KW - legislatures KW - executives KW - parliamentary democracy Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1057/s41304-023-00426-9 SN - 1680-4333 SN - 1682-0983 PB - Palgrave Macmillan CY - Basingstoke ER - TY - THES A1 - Ganghof, Steffen A1 - Stecker, Christian T1 - Das institutionelle Design parlamentarischer Demokratien : zum Zusammenspiel von Wahl- und Gesetzessystemen Y1 - 2009 SN - 978- 3-531-15297-4 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Ganghof, Steffen A1 - Schulze, Kai ED - Wenzelburger, Georg ED - Zohlnhöfer, Reimut T1 - Vetospieler und Institutionen T2 - Handbuch Policy-Forschung N2 - Der Beitrag widmet sich zwei überaus fruchtbaren theoretischen Ansätzen in der Policy-Forschung und darüber hinaus: der Vetospielertheorie und Vetopunkt-Ansätzen. Neben den Grundzügen beider Ansätze stellen wir grundlegende Entwicklungslinien und Probleme dieser Literaturen anhand beispielhafter Studien dar. Es zeigt sich, dass beide Ansätze teils kontroverse Annahmen treffen, zu denen es plausible Alternativen gibt. Zum Beispiel kann das Verhalten von Koalitionsparteien im Policy-Prozess anders als von der Vetospielertheorie angenommen modelliert werden. Die kausalen Effekte bestimmter Institutionen oder Vetopunkte können zudem je nach Kontext variieren. Diesem Kontext sollte größere Beachtung geschenkt werden. KW - Vetospieler KW - Vetopunkte KW - formale Modelle KW - Präferenzen KW - Kontext Y1 - 2023 SN - 978-3-658-34559-4 SN - 978-3-658-34560-0 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-34560-0_4 SP - 101 EP - 125 PB - Springer CY - Wiesbaden ET - 2., aktualisierte und erweiterte ER - TY - THES A1 - Ganghof, Steffen A1 - Hönnig, Christoph A1 - Stecker, Christian T1 - Einleitung : Parlamente, Vetospieler und Agendakontrolle Y1 - 2009 SN - 978- 3-531-15297-4 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Ganghof, Steffen A1 - Eppner, Sebastian A1 - Stecker, Christian A1 - Heeß, Katja A1 - Schukraft, Stefan T1 - Do minority cabinets govern more flexibly and inclusively? BT - evidence from Germany T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - A widespread view in political science is that minority cabinets govern more flexibly and inclusively, more in line with a median-oriented and 'consensual' vision of democracy. Yet there is only little empirical evidence for it. We study legislative coalition-building in the German state of North-Rhine-Westphalia, which was ruled by a minority government between 2010 and 2012. We compare the inclusiveness of legislative coalitions under minority and majority cabinets, based on 1028 laws passed in the 1985–2017 period, and analyze in detail the flexibility of legislative coalition formation under the minority government. Both quantitative analyses are complemented with brief case studies of specific legislation. We find, first, that the minority cabinet did not rule more inclusively. Second, the minority cabinet’s legislative flexibility was fairly limited; to the extent that it existed, it follows a pattern that cannot be explained on the basis of the standard spatial model with policy-seeking parties. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Reihe - 114 KW - Australian bicameralism KW - pledge fulfillment KW - majority formation KW - veto players KW - patterns KW - coalitions KW - consensus KW - democracy KW - parties KW - policy Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-434175 SN - 1867-5808 IS - 114 SP - 541 EP - 561 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ganghof, Steffen A1 - Eppner, Sebastian A1 - Pörschke, Alexander T1 - Australian bicameralism as semi-parliamentarism BT - patterns of majority formation in 29 democracies JF - Australian Journal of Political Science N2 - The article analyses the type of bicameralism we find in Australia as a distinct executive-legislative system – a hybrid between parliamentary and presidential government – which we call ‘semi-parliamentary government’. We argue that this hybrid presents an important and underappreciated alternative to pure parliamentary government as well as presidential forms of the power-separation, and that it can achieve a certain balance between competing models or visions of democracy. We specify theoretically how the semi-parliamentary separation of powers contributes to the balancing of democratic visions and propose a conceptual framework for comparing democratic visions. We use this framework to locate the Australian Commonwealth, all Australian states and 22 advanced democratic nation-states on a two-dimensional empirical map of democratic patterns for the period from 1995 to 2015. KW - Executive-legislative relations KW - bicameralism KW - parliamentary government KW - presidential government KW - visions of democracy Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/10361146.2018.1451487 SN - 1036-1146 SN - 1363-030X VL - 53 IS - 2 SP - 211 EP - 233 PB - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group CY - Abingdon ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ganghof, Steffen A1 - Eppner, Sebastian A1 - Pörschke, Alexander T1 - Semi-parliamentary government in perspective BT - concepts, values, and designs JF - Australian Journal of Political Science N2 - The article responds to four commentaries on the concept of semi-parliamentary government and its application to Australian bicameralism. It highlights four main points: (1) Our preferred typology is not more ‘normative’ than existing approaches, but applies the criterion of ‘direct election’ equally to executive and legislature; (2) While the evolution of semi-parliamentary government had contingent elements, it plausibly also reflects the ‘equilibrium’ nature of certain institutional configurations; (3) The idea that a pure parliamentary system with pure proportional representation has absolute normative priority over ‘instrumentalist’ concerns about cabinet stability, identifiability and responsibility is questionable; and (4) The reforms we discuss may be unlikely to occur in Australia, but deserve consideration by scholars and institutional reformers in other democratic systems. KW - Executive-legislative relations KW - bicameralism KW - visions of democracy KW - parliamentary government KW - presidential government Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/10361146.2018.1451488 SN - 1036-1146 SN - 1363-030X VL - 53 IS - 2 SP - 264 EP - 269 PB - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group CY - Abingdon ER - TY - GEN A1 - Ganghof, Steffen A1 - Eppner, Sebastian A1 - Pörschke, Alexander T1 - Australian bicameralism as semi-parliamentarism BT - patterns of majority formation in 29 democracies T2 - Australian Journal of Political Science N2 - The article analyses the type of bicameralism we find in Australia as a distinct executive-legislative system – a hybrid between parliamentary and presidential government – which we call ‘semi- parliamentary government’. We argue that this hybrid presents an important and underappreciated alternative to pure parliamentary government as well as presidential forms of the power-separation, and that it can achieve a certain balance between competing models or visions of democracy. We specify theoretically how the semi-parliamentary separation of powers contributes to the balancing of democratic visions and propose a conceptual framework for comparing democratic visions. We use this framework to locate the Australian Commonwealth, all Australian states and 22 advanced democratic nation-states on a two- dimensional empirical map of democratic patterns for the period from 1995 to 2015. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Reihe - 95 KW - executive-legislative relations KW - bicameralism KW - parliamentary government KW - presidential government KW - visions of democracy Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-412984 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ganghof, Steffen A1 - Eppner, Sebastian A1 - Heess, Katja T1 - Normative balance and electoral reform: a finnish puzzle and a comparative analysis JF - West European politics Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2014.929342 SN - 0140-2382 SN - 1743-9655 VL - 38 IS - 1 SP - 53 EP - 72 PB - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group CY - Abingdon ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ganghof, Steffen A1 - Eppner, Sebastian T1 - Faire Repräsentation versus klare Richtungsentscheide? Zur Reform des Wahl- und Regierungssystems Fair representation versus clear decisions On the reform of the electoral system and form of government T1 - Fair representation versus clear decisions On the reform of the electoral system and form of government JF - Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft N2 - The increased fragmentation of European party systems and the resulting difficulties of government formation have led to renewed debates about electoral systems. Some authors characterize certain electoral systems as optimal compromises between "proportional" and "majoritarian" conceptions of democracy. We argue that these optimality arguments are biased towards the majoritarian conception. Ambitious proportional conceptions embrace the goals of mechanical proportionality, multidimensional representation and flexible, issue-specific legislative coalitions. However, in parliamentary systems of government these goals cannot be reconciled with majoritarian goals. This is because in parliamentarism the same electoral threshold applies to parliamentary representation and to participation in the vote of non-confidence procedure. The first threshold is crucial for the proportional, the latter for the majoritarian conception of democracy. If we are willing to decouple the two thresholds - and hence change the form of government - new avenues for reform open up. We illustrate our arguments using data for 29 democratic systems between 1995 and 2015. N2 - Die Fragmentierung europäischer Parteiensysteme und damit verbundene Schwierigkeiten bei der Koalitionsbildung haben zu einer Neuauflage altbekannter Debatten über unterschiedliche Wahlsysteme geführt. Einige Autoren sehen dabei bestimmte Wahlsysteme als optimalen Kompromiss zwischen den Prinzipien der Mehrheits- und der Verhältniswahl an. Wir argumentieren, dass diese Optimalitätsargumente eine konzeptionelle Schlagseite zugunsten „majoritärer“ Demokratiekonzeptionen haben. Eine anspruchsvolle „proportionale“ Demokratiekonzeption umfasst die Ziele mechanischer Proportionalität, multidimensionaler Repräsentation und wechselnder Gesetzgebungsmehrheiten. Diese Ziele lassen sich allerdings im parlamentarischen Regierungssystem nicht mit den Zielen der Mehrheitswahl vereinbaren. Der Grund ist, dass die relevanten Hürden des Wahlsystems gleichzeitig für die parlamentarische Repräsentation und die Teilnahme am Misstrauensvotum gelten. Erstere ist entscheidend für die proportionale, letztere für die majoritäre Konzeption der Demokratie. Sind wir bereit diese beiden Hürden zu entkoppeln – und somit das Regierungssystem zu verändern – ergibt sich eine Vielfalt neuer Reformoptionen. Wir illustrieren diese Punkte mit Daten für 29 demokratische Systeme im Zeitraum von 1995 bis 2015. KW - Forms of government KW - Types of democracy KW - Electoral systems Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s12286-019-00431-7 SN - 1865-2646 SN - 1865-2654 VL - 13 IS - 3 SP - 375 EP - 397 PB - Springer CY - Wiesbaden ER -