President, Parliament, and Political Parties During Crisis: Linkages and Outcomes

Abstract

This year’s section, endorsed by the Standing Group on Presidential Politics, sets its focus on presidential politics in terms of institutions, powers, and policies related to crisis and security threats. During the 2020s, the extent of geopolitical crisis and tension has affected the European continent in ways not seen since the end of WWII. While the ongoing war in Ukraine is one evident example, there are several others, such as the heated Israeli Palestinian conflict and heightened geopolitical tension across several African countries. At the same time, democracy is facing a crisis with global repercussions, including all types of regimes from established democracies and hybrid regimes. In the midst of both crises, countries with elected presidents and their different types of executive-legislative relations face particular challenges in their handling of crises and the sustainability of their functioning. In fact, as leaders of both presidential and semi-presidential regimes, presidents are repeatedly mentioned as part of the manifesting crises, often through measures in which they utilize the crisis to extend their sphere of influence beyond their constitutional boundaries. Against this background, the papers of this panel focus on presidents, parliaments, and political parties during crises and in the context of geopolitical stress and democracy. Until recently, scholars have rarely studied the interrelated functioning of particular presidential and semi-presidential models as part of or as affected by ongoing crises. Therefore, the panel welcomes a variety of approaches investigating the interrelated roles of presidents, parliaments, and parties within a crisis, answering questions on how crises are handled as well as how crises affect intra-executive dynamics. That is, we especially welcome papers that treat the role of intra-executive formal setups or informal patterns for handling a crisis or as transformed through a crisis, as well as papers that study any of the executive or legislative actors as part of a crisis. For example, we are interested in how the interrelated roles of presidents and parties change in response to a geopolitical crisis (see Sedelius, Mashtaler and Raunio, 2024) as well as the ability of different formal or informal setups of executive-legislative relations to handle rising tension of different kinds (See Bergman, Ilonszki, & Hellström, 2024). On the other hand, studies of the roles and relations of presidents and parties within the context of a democratic crisis are equally welcome. For example, in what circumstances can the party system function as a democratic safeguard against presidents’ attempts to surpass established boundaries? Within a general comparative framework, contributions may be of a theoretical, empirical or methodological kind, based on qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods approaches. We welcome all types of comparative research, from large-N to single-case approaches.

Title	Details
President Vs Ruling Party: Causes of Policy Preference Divergence in Presidential Democracies	View Paper Details
Play Your Cards Right: Demystifying No-Confidence Motions in Semi-Presidential Democracies	View Paper Details
Book Proposal: Rethinking the Role of Parties in Hybrid Regimes – Lessons from Constitutional Shifts Weakening the Presidency in Eastern Europe	View Paper Details
Presidential Powers as the Result of Crises- Comparing Post-Communist and Post-Colonial Presidencies Between Old and New Networks	View Paper Details