Presidential Activism and Power-Sharing in Foreign Policy: The Moldovan Case

This article wants to explore to what extent presidents share their powers in the field of foreign policy in the scientific literature on presidential activism and power-sharing in foreign policy. The analysis will be divided into three parts. In the first one, a description of the constitutional development and the process of party presidentialization in Moldova will be provided in order to better understand the main and updating characteristics of the semi-presidential countrie in the last years (Parmentier, Valli and Shapochkina 2021; Terzyan 2020; Sedelius and Åberg 2017; Sedelius 2015; Fruhstorfer 2016). Secondly, some foreign issues will be selected such as the will of the Maia Sandu’s president to be part of both the EU and NATO with negative effects in their relationship with the Russian Federation (Malchushkin 2021). Doing so, it will be evaluated the level of intra-conflicts among Constitutional bodies and the relevance of the presidency in their institutional setting. Thirdly, the main informal and formal means used by the Moldovan president will be identified to measure the level of success of presidential activism in these issues. This approach will underline the main similarities and differences with other Presidents in the post-Soviet space. As Raunio and Sedelius (2019) pointed out studies on presidential power lack of empirical evidence in the foreign policy. So, in the last section some insights and further analytical considerations will be provided for further comparisons in Eastern European countries.