Constitutional Choices: Determinants of Institutional Design in Democratizing Nations.

Why do democratic nations make the constitutional choices they do? More specifically, why do some nations choose presidential systems while others choose parliamentary (or mixed) systems? System performance is widely studied (Lijphart; Linz ). There is a modest literature on electoral systems (Horowitz; Shugart and Carey). But this question is little studied (Rokkan, Lijphart, and Shugart are exceptions) and only as case studies or small-n comparisons. Colonial legacy seems to predominate both for emulation and for rejection of the "parent" type of constitutions. But choosing constitutional arrangements appears more complicated than the legacy explanation posits. Previous experiences with democracy also matter, again both positively and negatively. More importantly, it is commonly suggested in the scant literature that a strategic bargaining between old parties and new parties, based on rational calculation about their future electoral performance, heavily influences the constitutional design of newly democratizing countries. In this paper we seek to “model” constitutional choices during the democratization events of the post World War II period with presidentialism, mixed-systems, and parliamentarism as the dependent variable. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]