James d. Gwartney

independent units
Governments typically have three areas of activity:
i. A legislative branch that makes the laws.
ii. An executive branch that administers the laws.
iii. A judicial (court) branch that interprets the laws.
There are, however, a very large number of institutional arrangements of
these three basic functions. Ignoring monarchies, dictatorships, and military juntas
(which may have the trappings of more democratic regimes but are, in fact,
dominated by a single individual or small clique), the basic types of systems can be
classified as:
i. Parliamentary, in which executive power is held by a leader (typically
called a “Prime Minister”) selected by the parliament, and parliament through
the Prime Minister selects the cabinet of ministers. In such systems the Prime
Minister serves at the will of the parliament and can be removed at any time.
Such countries may have a figurative head of state (a monarch such as the
Queen of England) or a President with limited powers (as in Germany).
ii. Presidential, in which the executive is selected directly by the voters and
appoints his or her cabinet, typically subject only to approval by the
legislative body. The United States is a good example of such a system.
iii. Semi-Presidential or Mixed, in which the voters select the President, who
has limited but meaningful powers, but the Cabinet (ministers) is accountable
to the parliament. Such a system can be found in France.
In examining parliamentary systems, specific institutional factors are
important. Are elections run in small districts that elect a single member or in larger
districts that elect multiple members? In the latter case, are seats allocated on the
basis of share of the votes and what is the minimum share necessary to enter the
legislature?

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The majority of post-communist transition countries (about 60 percent) have
adopted a mixed system. Thirty percent have a parliamentary system and the
remainder a Presidential system. Over time, some countries—including Georgia in
2004, the Czech Republic in 2012, and Armenia in 2015—have switched from
parliamentary to mixed systems. The powers of the President in these mixed systems
vary a great deal across countries. Ukraine has been especially unstable, with
revisions in the relative power of the President and Parliament in 1994, 1996, 2004,
2010, and 2014. Such instability of basic institutions clearly makes planning on the