However, the original question said “largely separated from legislative”, not “exactly the same as the US”.
Come to think of it, ISTMT until the post-WW2 mass decolonization of Africa and southern Asia, the presidentialist system was essentially an artifact of the Americas.
This question presents three definitional problems: (1) what makes a form of government presidential, as opposed to parliamentary; (2) what are the requirements for a government to be a democracy; and (3) how does one determine the age of a presidential democracy, particularly in cases where a new constitution may have been adopted which replaces one presidential regime with another.
The trick is to answer these questions in such a way that four countries meet the criteria. Here’s my take:
(1) The mere fact of having a president doesn’t make a government presidential in form. Almost every country with parliamentary government has either a ceremonial president or a monarch. The key is whether the cabinet ministers are answerable to the president or to parliament. If they answer to the president, and can’t be dismissed by a vote of confidence, then the form of government is presidential. This eliminates France, Israel, Germany, Italy, and so on.
(2) The best way to deal with this problem is to ignore it. If a country says it’s a democracy, it’s a democracy. Otherwise, you’re left with only two countries standing–Costa Rica and the United States, We need four.
(3) Finally, we need an objective way to determine when presidential regimes begin and end. If we allow regimes under multiple constitutions (or no constitution) to count, we have too many candidates–the Philippines, South Korea, and almost every country in Latin America. (Many of the Latin American regimes were open dictatorships, but again, if we exclude based on that criterion, we’ll have too few countries left standing.) The only objective way to solve this is to say that a completely rewritten constitution constitutes a new regime. Based on the CIA Factbook on Constitutions–and I’ll have to take their word for these dates, since I’m obviously not an expert on hundreds of countries–we exclude Colombia (1991), Nicaragua (1987), Guatemala (1986), the Philippines (1987), and other countries too numerous to list as having adopted new constitutions within the last 40 years.
And we’re left, by my count, with four countries: the United States (1789), Mexico (1917), South Korea (1948), and Costa Rica (1949). And that’s my answer and I’m sticking with it!
Despite being the one given by the CIA Factbook, that date would seem to be incorrect, since there was a new constitution adopted in 1987, and several others prior to that. Perhaps these technically were amendments to the 1948 constitution, but they differed so significantly that they could hardly be considered to be the same. And given that South Korea in the 1970s was a quite brutal authoritarian dictatorship (despite nominally being a democracy) it doesn’t seem to really fill the bill.
Fuel for the Fire: http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/govt2000.htm
This is a great factual resource for the democracies/tyranies that have existed over the last 100 years around the world. There are indeed very few countries that have existed under any kind of democracy for more than 50 years.
In the larger scheme of things, I wonder if democracy will be a political “fling” that we once toyed with or ever perverted to set up and support despots, tyrants. Maybe a comparrison of how democracy and capitalism have evolved together over the last 1000 years will shed some light on this. Something tells me despite the political mechnasims that come and go over the years, they are largely economic exploitations of the time period.
Interesting. Note, however, the figures given on the map are for the total period as a democracy 1945-1995, not necessarily as a continuous democracy. Chile is shown as having been a democracy for more than 30 years. Although it was a dictatorship 1973-1989, it had a total of 34 years of democracy 1945-1995.
I wonder about that, because it doesn’t list Mexico as being a democracy. I have no idea about Mexican politics but I was under the impression it was a democracy at least on paper.
Well, this moves into IMHO territory, but I feel like most styles of government up to and including what we call “democracy” have just been ways to get the populations to support the pyramidal class system, willingly if possible, unwillingly if necessary. I think the ruling classes conspired to give the common people just enough freedom to keep them satisfied with the arrangement, but not enough that they could actually upset the class structure. However, the commoners may have been given just a bit too much freedom, so much that they couldn’t be completely controlled anymore. So I think the reason democracy is historically exceptional is not because it’s so much superior to other systems. It’s because the ruling class wagered some of its power against the hope of security, resulting in an unprecedented shift of power to the common people.
Technically, yes, but since 1929 until recently it was effectively a one-party state under the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). All presidents have been PRI up until the election of Vicente Fox (PAN) in 2000. Presidents were limited to a single term but effectively chose their own successor. Almost all state governors, and a majority of Congress, were PRI as well. PRI dominance was accomplished through a combination of patronage, fraud, repression, and corruption.
The first I heard it was on a West Wing episode. It was a line by Toby. But it was 30 years, not 40, and at that time, they were the United States, Costa Rica, Colombia and Venezuela.
Maybe this is the source… were these 4 countries stated as an “answer” on the show? Roughly when would this episode have aired? (I was out of the country for a while and don’t watch much TV anyway, so I have no idea when West Wing aired).
I don’t know the original airdate of the episode, but it was rerun within the past week on BRAVO. As soon as I saw your question, I remembered that I had been wondering about this recently myself, and realized that it was because I had heard the “four democracies…” line on The West Wing. I didn’t hear the answer on the show, but that might have been because I didn’t watch the whole thing.
The US Constitution only came into force on March 4, 1789. Prior to that point, under the Articles of Confederation the U.S. was not a presidential democracy, since the Articles did not provide for a national executive. (there was a president of the Congress under the Articles of Confederation, but Washington is normally considered the first President of the U.S. - see CKDex’s article: Was George Washington not the first U.S. President?)
Since the only thing that would disqualify Venezuela would be the 2-day coup against Chávez, and since the government effectively “survived” the coup, I would take this as being the correct answer. Venezuela has been much more of a democracy though this period than Mexico has. (Time will tell if Venezuelan democracy will survive Chávez himself.)
I think it was CJ. Not sure my memory is right on that, though.
I have no idea - but I thought I’d just throw this out there…Sinpapore?
If you have no idea, why would you guess about a question that has already been rather thoroughly answered? Singapore basically has a parliamentary system, although there is also a president with limited powers (as a second’s googling would show).