Coordination Mechanisms for Policy-Making in Semi-Presidential and Presidential Regimes

Abstract

Semi-presidential and presidential systems pose challenges of organizing the core executive for policy coordination. In semi-presidential systems, the respective roles of the president and the prime minister are meant to be complementary and clearly defined. In reality the distribution of authority is often ambiguous and fluid. As domestic and foreign affairs cannot be easily separated in relation to e.g. EU policy, this requires a complex set of institutional norms and operative mechanisms inside the executive apparatus. This panel includes papers that dig into “the real world” of coordination and intra-executive dynamics in semi-presidential (and presidential) regimes. It invites studies of informal and formal regulations and norms inside the executive. The papers could be of a theoretical or empirical nature, and include comparative or case oriented approaches.