As I had mentioned in an earlier installment of this series on “Checks and Balances,” the empirical literature has shown that Parliamentary systems appear to have an advantage over their presidential counterparts. Among the works cited were McManus and Ozkan (2017). The duo’s work reconfirmed the Parliamentary system’s superior performance on key economic indicators such as inflation, growth, and (reducing) inequality.

But McManus and Ozkan are not alone. Mainwaring and Shugart (1997)—while acknowledging the ostensibly inherent advantages of Parliamentary systems— underscored the roles played by institutional factors to mitigate the harmful tendencies of presidential systems. They wrote:

“Presidential systems can be designed to function more effectively than they usually have. We have argued that providing the president with limited legislative power, encouraging the formation of parties that are reasonably disciplined in the legislature, and preventing extreme fragmentation of the party system enhance the viability of presidentialism. [The literature] clearly recognizes that not any kind of parliamentarism will do. We make the same point about Presidentialism.”