Presidentialism is a fly in the ointment of 21st century democracy

This short paper argues that Parliamentarianism is a more democratic and effective form of government than Presidentialism. Not only has Presidentialism failed to deliver against developmental, social and income equality measures; but the inevitable personalisation of an over-powerful presidency is also the first step down a slippery path into autocracy.
Let Australia consider itself warned, that with the eventual arrival of republican government, a decision to elect the president by popular mandate would absolutely be the wrong outcome.
The V-Dem Institute’s report for 2024 shows that the shift to autocracy continues to be a dominant trend across the 200 countries covered by their researchers. The level of democracy enjoyed in 2023 has fallen to 1985-levels as an increasing number of autocratising countries impose limits on freedom of expression, manipulate elections and restrict the freedom of association.
Parliamentarianism vs Presidentialism
This paper limits its review to 44 survey nations that are either members (38) or prospective members (6) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). My research asserts that slippage into autocracy, as opposed to the maintenance of democratic freedoms, is more closely associated with Presidentialism than with Parliamentarianism.
For comparative purposes, I have assigned the 44 survey nations into one of three governmental categories:
Parliamentary Democracy (21 countries) such as Australia, Sweden, Germany and Japan, where the head of government and the cabinet (operating collectively or collegially) are dependent on the confidence of the legislature and can be dismissed from office by a legislative vote of no confidence or censure.
Qausi/Mixed/Hybrid Government (13 countries) such as Austria, Ireland, Italy, Israel and Hungary, where the form of government is a mix of both Presidentialism and Parliamentarianism. Their constitutions anoint a president who is elected by universal suffrage; possesses quite considerable powers; power that will/may be tempered by a prime minister and cabinet with both executive and governmental powers; and can stay in office only if parliament shows no opposition.
Presidential Democracy (10 countries) such as the United States, South Korea and Brazil, where the president is popularly elected for a fixed term, can be ejected only by impeachment, and is essentially a one-person executive working with an advisory cabinet which the president can appoint and dismiss at will.
Parliamentary systems are characterised by mutual dependence between executive and legislature. They show greater flexibility when conditions change, are more conducive to power sharing and conflict management, take the peaceful transfer of power as a given, and have demonstrated a lower proclivity to policy and legislative gridlock.
Presidential systems may be more stable with fixed terms and can reflect popular will by the direct election of a president and be circumscribed by limited government. Presidentialism does, however, run the risk of facilitating executive/legislative gridlock and favouring the excess concentration of power.
In particular, the slippage from presidential (and semi-presidential) democracy into autocracy invariably entails co-option of the judiciary, control of media, emergence of a kleptocratic oligarchy, de-legitimisation of elections, and the manipulation of constitutions.
Relative Performance
The 44 survey nations are scored in the table below against seven independent variables, each variable a measure of government competence and service delivery: equality of income (Gini coefficient); annual GDP growth; human development (HDI); voter turnout (%); democracy (GDI); tax revenue (% of GDP); and perceptions of corruption in the public sector.
The Gini Coefficient is a measure of ‘statistical dispersion’ quantifying the degree of income inequality in a country in which ‘0’ implies perfect income equality and ‘1’ implies maximal inequality. The rate of GDP growth is taken from International Monetary Fund (IMF) figures for annual average GDP growth from 2013-23.
The Human Development Index (HDI) is a statistical metric that measures a country’s average achievements in three key areas of human development: life expectancy; education; and standard of living while the Global Democracy Index (GDI) is an annual measure of democracy against five indicator categories: electoral process / pluralism; functioning of government; political participation, political culture; and civil liberties.
Turnout relates to electoral turnout at General Elections while the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) scores and ranks countries by their perceived levels of public sector corruption, scoring on a scale from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean).
Table 1: Performance by government category (averages for each variable)
The best score in each variable is shaded grey. Note that higher relative levels of tax revenue against GDP are deemed characteristic of nations better at delivering services to their citizens. Four Scandinavian nations, all parliamentary democracies with average tax revenues at close to 40 per cent of GDP, are thought to deliver better social outcomes than presidential democracies such as the United States with tax revenue at 25 per cent of GDP, Turkey 23 percent and Mexico at 17 percent according to figures released by the OECD in 2023.
Quantitative comparison strongly implies that the 21 survey nations with parliamentary governments perform better against the selected metrics. Figure 2 below illustrates this clearly: 23 nations governed by presidential or quasi-residential systems perform less well than 21 parliamentarian nations at delivering both income equality and the mix of social, judicial and cultural measures required to ensure that democracy is legitimate and fully effective.
Figure 2: Country Performance against GDI and Gini Coefficient. Blue = Parliamentary System (21 nations); Red = (Quasi) Presidential System (23 nations)
On the assumption that income equality, ongoing human development, effective delivery of democratic freedoms and social stability are all measures of a successful society, then Parliamentarianism clearly outscores Presidentialism.
Democratic Backsliding
Evidence of backsliding in democratic government over the past decade amplifies these implications of presidential shortcomings. As it can be shown conclusively that slippage is underway primarily in presidential and semi-presidential regimes.
Of the six OECD countries designated as autocratising, only one (Greece) is a parliamentary democracy. The remaining five – Brazil, the United States, Hungary, Chile, Poland and Turkey – are presidential or hybrid/mixed democracies. Of the eight OECD countries downgraded from liberal democracy to electoral democracy, six would be designated Presidential (Colombia) or Quasi (Austria, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal and Slovenia). None are Parliamentary.
Furthermore, of the 21 parliamentary democracies reviewed, 71 percent are considered full democracies (and 29 per cent flawed). Of the 13 classed as quasi/mixed/hybrid only 31 percent could be considered full democracies. While, of the ten presidential democracies, only two are characterised as full democracies – Costa Rica and South Korea, and you would have to wonder about the latter according to V-Dem 2024.
Presidencies (both OECD and non-OECD) have shown greater vulnerability than parliamentary governments to various shifts: into authoritarianism (Turkey/Erdogan); the use of extra-constitutional expedients to suppress opposition (Brazil/Bolsonaro and India/Modi); and the ever-present threat of constitutional revision in pursuit of a presidency for life (Russia, China, Venezuela and Nicaragua) (Layne 2021).
Of the 12 current state leaders named and identified as dangerously “personalist”, 11 are presidents and one is a head of state in a nation categorised as Quasi. None is a head of government in a parliamentary democracy.
As Erica Frantz and her co-authors noted in a paper in 2021 it seems clear that “personalist leaders are more than three times as likely as others to oversee a steep decline in democracy during their tenure, and the democratic regimes that they lead are nearly three times as likely to collapse”.
In Conclusion
At some point in the next 15 years Australia will, again, be required to address the possibility of becoming a republic and, therefore, the need to select an Australian president. Let this brief review flag the dangers (and expense) of appointing a president by popular mandate, as happens in the United States. The US presidential elections in 2020 cost an estimated US$7.7 billion in 2020 and US$5.5 billion in 2024.
A far better option would be to follow the German model in which a president of Australia would be elected for a fixed term by way of a secret ballot limited to federal parliamentarians and senators. And would be constitutionally limited to acting only within very strict political constraints.
For example, Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz is the head of government, analogous to Australia’s Prime Minister, while Germany’s president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, has a ceremonial role as figurehead, but also has the right and duty to act politically. The president can give direction to general political and societal debates, has some important “reserve powers” and wide discretion on the exercise of official duties.
These issues are discussed in greater depth in the following publications.
Democracy in Decline? Edited by Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner (2016 – Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore)
How Democracies Die: What history reveals about our future by Stephen Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt (2018 – Penguin Random House, London)
The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America by Timothy Snyder (2018 – Penguin Random House, London)
Democracy May Not Exist: But we’ll miss it when its gone by Astra Taylor (2019 – Verso, London)
How to Lose a Country: The seven steps from democracy to dictatorship by Ece Temelkuran (2019 – 4th Estate, London)
Twilight of Democracy: The failure of politics and the parting of friends by Anne Applebaum (2020 – Allen Lane, London)
Surviving Autocracy by Masha Gessen (2020 – Granta Publications, London)
Tyranny of the Minority: How to reverse an authoritarian turn and forge a democracy for all by Stephen Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt (2023 – Penguin Random House, London)
Autocracy, Inc: The dictators who want to rule the world by Anne Applebaum (2024 – Penguin Random House, London)

Fergus Neilson has a wide range of business and life skills gathered from a career in the armed forces, investment banking, the United Nations, McKinsey & Company and private equity investment.