The Wide Spread of Presidential Republics and Their Key Role in the Political Development of ‘New Countries’

Abstract

In 2013, out of 181 countries with more than 100,000 inhabitants in existence across the world, 95 (52 per cent) were presidential republics: in contrast, in 1789, only one country, the United States, had adopted that form of government; what is more, there had never been any such regime previously in the history of humankind. The major states were then monarchies, typically strong monarchies; there were or had been a few republics, admittedly, the main one being of course the illustrious Roman republic, but these states were not run by a single president elected – or selected – for a number of years: political power was in the hands, not of one, but of two or more individuals and those who exercised power were appointed for short periods, often of less than a year. Such restrictions were no doubt due in part to the feeling that there was great danger if power was held by a single individual for a substantial period: if power was shared, that danger seemed likely to be minimised. There was thus considerable boldness as well as optimism in the American decision to create a ‘presidential republic’ in which there was to be a single chief executive, elected for a number of years, and, originally at least, indefinitely ‘re-eligible’. Such an arrangement was thus totally and absolutely new; it was indeed to be a major institutional ‘invention’ and, without any reservation, an ‘invention’ of the founders of the United States.