Mixed Presidential-Parliamentary Government System

Democracy is a political system where elections are held, citizens have the right to vote and have certain civil liberties (Kesselman 691). There are many democratic states around the world with many similarities, one difference between them is usually the way the government is set up. Two large government templates are the presidential system and the parliamentary system. The United States is considered a to have a presidential system, while Britain on the other hand runs on a parliamentary system. In more recent times, these two systems have become fused to create a hybrid style called a mixed presidential-parliamentary system which can be seen in France and Russia. Each of these systems give a large amount of power to the executive. With powers such as being able to declare referendums, dissolve the legislature, executive decrees, the French President and Russian President far more powerful than executive leaders in other countries.

The newer French hybrid system melds together the key facets of presidential and parliamentary systems. This semi-presidential system, the Premier is considered to be head of government, while the President has the fused role as both head of state and head of government. The French government is considered to be unified when the President and Premier are from the same political party, and there is cohabitation when these positions are held by people of two different parties. The French legislature and executive are elected separately and have no bearings on one another. Unlike a parliamentary system, members of the legislature that are asked to be in the cabinet, cannot hold seats in the legislature. (Kesselman, 111-112).

The Russian semi-presidential system was set up to model the French system,...

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...tem with a 7% threshold, making it even harder for opposition parties to gain power. The current and former regimes have targeted the economic elite. These oligarchs were targeted when they disagreed with government policy. The current regime also has a tight control over the media where journalists have been targeted (Kesselman 364-374).

Russia and France are both considered to be democracies and semi-presidential systems. Despite their similarities is structure, there are major differences in how their executives utilize their large amount of power. In France the president is less likely to use some of his or her more controlling powers, while as seen throughout history, the Russian president is more likely to use these powers. Since there is very limited opposition in Russia, the Russian president is able to exercise his or her powers to their fullest ability.