Presidential Activism and Success in Foreign and Defense Policy: A Study of Portugal’s Premier-Presidential Regime

This paper aims to answer two questions about presidential activism in semi-presidential systems: (1) under which conditions do presidents intervene in foreign and defense policy? (2) under which conditions are they successful? Empirically, we will investigate the case of Portugal’s premier-presidential system after 1982. Portuguese presidents wield considerable formal powers in foreign and defense policy. Moreover, conventional wisdom suggests the policymaking process in these areas to be highly institutionalized and marked by a cross-party consensus. However, the prime minister is the first mover, whereas the president may react to his/her moves. In addition, most Portuguese presidents have had significant attitudes toward such policies. So there are strong incentives for presidents to intervene in the latter. High institutionalization and consensus make Portugal a suitable case to study presidential activism because these attributes reduce the number of confounders. To analyze presidential activism and success, the paper will firstly develop measures of presidents’ and prime ministers’ ex ante preferences over a range of foreign policy and defense issues. Secondly, it will verify to which preference the ex post content of the policy actually implemented is closest after a presidential intervention. If the president’s position is the one to which the implemented policy is pushed, then it will be considered a presidential win. Thirdly, we will move on to identify the formal and informal means to which presidents resorted in each intervention. Informal means are mostly going public tactics. Finally, we will proceed to inductively pin down the conditions under which presidents intervene and succeed. The paper will try to systematize data on all relevant presidential interventions over approximately four decades. Our data will come from interviews with experts and public officials, newspapers, history books and memoirs, the secondary literature, and legal documents.