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The Legislative Effects of Presidential Partisan Powers in Post-Communist Russia
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2014
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CURRENT SCHOLARSHIP ON PRESIDENTIAL POLITICAL SYSTEMS FINDS that the distribution of power between presidents and assemblies can vary significantly from one presidential polity to the next, and can even change within the same presidential regime over a relatively short period of time. Presidents are shown to exercise different levels of control over the law-making process according to the de jure legislative powers at their disposal – initiation, veto, veto override, budgetary and decree powers– and their de facto partisan power – the level of disciplined party support that they command within assemblies. Different combinations of these powers can have strikingly different institutional, behavioural and policy effects. Indeed, such variation has led some analysts to question the usefulness of models of executive–legislative relations that are based solely on the traditional distinction between presidential and parliamentary political systems.
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References
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