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영어

A central normative question regarding government systems is: Which arrangement of executive-legislative relations is preferable? Theoretical debates about government systems started from Juan Linz’s criticism on presidentialism. Since then, debates on government systems have been actively progressed by counter-arguments of scholars preferring presidential systems. The aim of this paper is to contribute to this debate by exploring different government systems of twenty-six post-communist countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. By using quantitative analyses of political and economic performance in the countries from 1991 to 2013, this study tests whether or not government systems matter for democratic and economic development. The results show that parliamentary and mixed systems have performed better for political and economic development than presidential systems in the post-communist countries. Yes, the results also suggest that the significance of government systems for political and economic development is less obvious than many scholars have argued. Thus, it is not fair to insist that constitutional choices of some postcommunist countries are not rational. As a political institution, government systems seem to be the result of negotiation among political leaders during democratic transition period rather than a determinant of political and economic performance.