Since the 1960s Juan J. Linz has been one of the world's foremost contributors to our understanding of democracy, authoritarianism, and totalitarianism. Although many of his contributions have had a significant impact, few have been as far reaching as his essay "Presidential or Parliamentary Democracy: Does It Make a Difference?," originally written in 1985. The essay argued that presidentialism is less likely than parliamentarism to sustain stable democratic regimes. It became a classic even in unpublished form. Among both policymakers and scholars it spawned a broad debate about the merits and especially the liabilities of presidential government. Now that the definitive version of the essay has appeared, we believe that a critical appraisal is timely. This task is especially important because Linz's arguments against presidentialism have gained widespread currency.
This article critically assesses Linz's arguments about the perils of presidential
ism. Although we agree with several of Linz's criticisms of presidentialism, we dis
agree that presidentialism is particularly oriented towards winnertakesall results. 1
We argue that the superior record of parliamentary systems has rested partly on where parliamentary government has been implemented, and we claim that presi dentialism has some advantages that partially offset its drawbacks. These advantages can be maximized by paying careful attention to differences among presidential sys tems. Other things being equal, presidentialism tends to function better where pres idencies have weak legislative powers, parties are at least moderately disciplined, and party systems are not highly fragmented. Finally, we argue that switching from presidentialism to parliamentarism could exacerbate problems of governability in countries with undisciplined parties. Even if parliamentary government is more con ducive to stable democracy, much rests on what kind of parliamentarism and presi dentialism is implemented.2
By presidentialism we mean a regime in which, first, the president is always the chief executive and is elected by popular vote or, as in the U.S., by an electoral col lege with essentially no autonomy with respect to popular preferences and, second, the terms of office for the president and the assembly are fixed. Under pure presi