![]() | Borrowing Constitutional Designs: Constitutional Law in Weimar Germany and the French Fifth Republic After the collapse of communism, some thirty countries scrambled to craft democratic constitutions. Surprisingly, the constitutional model they most often chose was neither the pure parliamentary model found in most of Western Europe at the time, nor the presidential model of the Americas. Rather, it was semi-presidentialism--a rare model known more generally as the "French type." This constitutional model melded elements of pure presidentialism with those of pure parliamentarism. Specifically, semi-presidentialism combined a popularly elected head of state with a head of government responsible to a legislature. Cindy Skach is Associate Professor of Government at Harvard University, where she is also Faculty Associate of the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, the Davis Center for Russian Studies, and the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. |
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