Alternative Delegation Chains: Intra-Executive Competition, Democratic Accountability, and Populism in Semi-Presidential Democracies

This study addresses why democratic accountability and populism vary across semi-presidential countries. We develop a new theoretical framework based on the role of the president in semi-presidential countries. Intra-executive conflicts signal that a popularly elected president can respond to the needs and values of their citizens by reminding their governments, when exercising policies, to reflect the interests of the public at large. In other word, it helps to reconcile various social interests and serves as an alternative delegation chain from the people to the government, thereby strengthening accountability and giving citizens more direct ways to influence politics. As a consequence of this rationale, intra-executive competition may reduce the proliferation of populist parties that employ anti-elitist rhetoric and speak on behalf of the ‘ordinary people’ for political cues. This study confirmed hypotheses using a novel dataset for intra-executive conflicts, covering semi-presidential democracies in Central and Eastern Europe and East Asia. This finding offers a number of implications for the study of intra-executive relationship, democratic accountability, participatory democracy, and populism.