國立臺灣大學政治科學論叢

Abstract / Chinese PDF Download

A dual-executive is the central characteristic of semi-presidential systems. Both the president and the prime minister are political leaders of the government. The current literature defines the relationship between the president and the prime minister as either cooperative or competitive. There are also many semi-presidential regimes such as the Fifth French Republic, in which the prime minister is regarded as the president’s challenger. However, there are also some semi-presidential regimes in which the president is regarded only as a political leader “in reserve”. In normal times, the government is led by the prime minister. The constitutional operation of these countries, such as Austria, Iceland, Finland after 2000, Slovenia, and Weimar Germany is similar to parliamentary systems, but with a semi-presidential constitution. Therefore, dual-executive systems should be differentiated between horizontal and and vertical dual systems. Under a horizontal dual-executive system, the president and the prime minister are both political leaders at the same time. They might either share or fight for power at the head of government. However, under a vertical dual-executive system, the president is regarded as a leader only under exceptional circumstances. These two different dual-executive systems both conform to standard definitions of semi-presidentialism, but their constitutional operations are entirely different.