國立臺灣大學政治科學論叢

Abstract / Chinese PDF Download

Abstract
Constitutional changes involving semi-presidentialism are more common than those having nothing to do with this hybrid system. The primary reason is that the institutional distance between parliamentarism and semi-presidentialism, and that between presidentialism and semi-presidentialism are shorter than the one between parliamentarism and presidentialism. This fact makes it easier for dominant political actors under semi-presidentialism to tinker with constitutional restructuring to enhance their political careers, or to sabotage those of their rivals. Empirical cases abound. Constitutional changes involving semi-presidentialism are of two types in terms of their direction: president-enhancing and parliament- enhancing. They can also be classified in terms of their motivation into two types: acquisitive and preventive, depending on whether the constitutional restructuring is for the benefits of the incumbents or for curbing the powers of their opponents. This article offers the assumptions that prominent incumbents are likely to launch acquisitive constitutional reform in the same direction as their expected career shifts, and that they tend to launch preventive constitutional reform to curb the powers of the constitutional positions that their rivals are likely to take. The cases of Turkey, Ukraine, Georgia, Taiwan, and Russia are explored and compared to test the assumptions. It is found that the success of strategic restructuring of the constitution hinges on the elite’s ability to shift constitutional power balance towards their electoral expectations and the accuracy of those expectations.