Formally constrained but highly influential: Presidents’ going-public tactics in semi-presidential democracies

Very few studies have systematically examined to what extent going-public tactics really matter to intra-executive relations in semi-presidential systems. Previous research on presidential strategies are primarily based on presidential systems in the US and Latin America. In this paper, we examine the link between the presidents’ use of going-public tactics and intra-executive conflicts in European semi-presidential regimes. Our intention is to investigate when and how perceived popular legitimacy by the president impedes and even outperforms formal constitutional power in intra-executive relations. Using both primary and secondary data on president-cabinet relations and intra-executive conflicts, including expert interview materials from three countries – Finland, Lithuania and Romania – we examine how presidents with relatively weak constitutional powers use informal strategies of going public to increase their influence on government and policy. The empirical analysis covers the period from the early 1990s to 2020 and highlights a number of intra-executive confrontations where the presidents’ perceived popular legitimacy have implicated the direction and outcome of conflicts.