How are the powers of the president decided? Vote trading in the making of Taiwan’s semi-presidential constitution
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6299404 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jih-Wen Lin (Academia Sinica, Taiwan, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 38 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 659-672 |
| Publication date | 2017-11-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Political Science Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0192-5121 • E-ISSN: 1460-373X |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0192512116631340 |
| OpenAlex | W2410901723 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 29 |
To establish an unambiguous source of accountability, a semi-presidential constitution can either allow the president to dominate government formation and dissolve the parliament without a prior vote of no confidence being passed or it can reverse the arrangement of these powers. Accordingly, Taiwan is an unusual case of semi-presidentialism because the president can unilaterally appoint the premier but cannot actively dissolve the parliament, so the electorate is seldom called upon to evaluate the responsibility of the constitutional agents in a snap election. Vote-trading theory offers a reasonable explanation for this puzzling situation by showing how seemingly unconnected issues can be voted on as a package. In Taiwan, the choice of presidential powers was complicated by the sovereignty issue, leading the reformers of the constitution to deny the legislature the power to confirm the president’s appointment of the premier in exchange for downsizing the Taiwan Provincial Government. This is exactly what vote-trading theory foresees: votes on different issues may be traded if no “pivot” finds the status quo to be his/her favorite option. By demonstrating how the linking of unconnected issues can obstruct institutional design, vote-trading theory expands our understanding of constitutional choice
Constitution · Contingent vote · Economics · Enumerated powers · Government (linguistics · Group voting ticket · Impeachment · Law and economics · Legislature · Parliament · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Presidential system · Separation of powers · Status quo · Veto · Voting · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Hong Kong and Taiwan Politics · Law
Semi-Presidentialism Outside Europe
Presidents and Assemblies
Comparative Constitutional Engineering
Self-Interest, Ideology, and Logrolling in Congressional Voting
Veto Players
The Calculus of Consent
Perspectives on Public Choice
The Theory of Institutional Design
Patterns of democracy
Institutional Design, Uncertainty, and Path Dependency during Transitions
Opportunity Lost
Vers un système semi-présidentiel à la française ? [La réforme constitutionnelle ]
Comparative Constitutional Engineering
Problems of Majority Voting
Promoting Effective Democracy, Chinese Style
The Path to European Integration
Historical Institutionalism and the Varieties of Federalism in Germany and Canada
Estimating the Effect of Nonseparable Preferences in Eu Treaty Negotiations
Constitutional choices
Elections in Double-Member Districts with Nonseparable Voter Preferences
Elite Settlements in Taiwan
Comparative presidencies
Are All Semipresidential Regimes the Same? A Comparison of Premier-Presidential Regimes
Federalism and Political Change
Asymmetric bilateral bargaining in the new Russian Federation
The Paradox of Vote Trading
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |