What Regime? Differences in Classifying Central European Democratic Regimes in Contemporary Political Science

When reading scholarship on political regimes in Central Europe, one can notice an interesting and indeed remarkable fact: these regimes (or forms of government) are classified rather differently. Whereas some scholars tend to approach them as parliamentary regimes, others classify them as semi-presidential ones. The major dividing line between these two perspectives runs between a large group of English-writing scholars based outside Central Europe and those from Central Europe itself. Having reviewed a large number of relevant studies in this field, the authors of this paper argue that the key reason for the different assessments of Central European regimes resides mainly in a different theoretical approach which has important implications when considering how these regimes are treated in various studies. Whereas the group of English-writing scholars tends to adopt a “post-duvergerian” approach, most Central European scholars prefer a “duvergerian” and “sartorian” approach that emphasizes presidential powers which are irrelevant for “post-duvergerians”.