Semi-Presidentialism in Western Europe

Abstract

Western Europe is the birthplace of semi-presidentialism and the study of semi-presidentialism. The first two countries to adopt semi-presidential constitutions were Finland and Weimar Germany in 1919 and for decades, semi-presidentialism was confined almost exclusively to this region. From an academic perspective, Western Europe was the first region in which semi-presidentialism was studied (Duverger 1978; Nogueira Alcalá 1986; Ceccanti et al. 1996; Duverger 1996; Elgie ed. 1999; Pasquino 2007) and there has been considerable work on individual West European semi-presidential countries. In this chapter, we do not provide another description of the origins and basic functioning of West European semipresidential systems. Instead, we explore the extent to which we can draw general lessons about semi-presidentialism from a study of semipresidentialism in this region.