Party Competition Patterns as a Determinant of Issues of Intra-executive Conflict

This study examines determinants of issues of intra-executive conflict in semi-presidential democracies. The literature verifies that intra-executive competition tends to be higher when the president holds less power to dismiss the cabinet, coexists with a minority government, or the president’s party is not represented in the cabinet. However, there is still a lack of a comprehensive and systematic framework to address issues of intra-executive conflict. We argue that cohabitation and the presidential influences over the cabinet’s survival jointly determine whether intra-executive conflict arises. Then party competition patterns impact issues of intra-executive conflict. Conflicts over constitutional issues and judicial policy occur when the president and the prime minister are from authoritarian successor parties (ASPs) and parties with anti-authoritarian origin or anti-authoritarian parties (AAPs), as division of power and transitional justice have a direct effect on the continued influence wielded by old regime elites in post-authoritarian politics. Conflicts involving foreign policy arise with the dual executives coming from the same camp (ASPs or AAPs), as the similar stance drives the president to stand in sharp contrast with the government’s foreign policy for making a policy difference, without running the risk of intervening the domestic affairs. This study confirms the arguments gathering data on ASPs and AAPs, creating a novel dataset for issues of intra-executive conflicts in European and Asian semi-presidential democracies between 1990 and 2020, and employing qualitative comparative analysis (QCA). Future research should examine the conditions that motivate the dual executives to open conflict regarding a wider range of policy issues.