The presidential system offers a strong case for new democracies to adopt it. New democratic regimes need stability and the fixed term in office for the president offers that providing continuity in the executive, and so avoiding collapse of governing coalitions experienced by parliamentary governments. No doubt the cabinet’s dependence on the legislature's confidence creates cabinet instability, an inherent feature of parliamentary systems. The presidential system can also be seen as more democratic due to its popular election of the chief executive compared to the indirect 'election' of the executive in parliamentary systems. However it can be argued that it does offer a functional equivalent of popular election in terms of the prime minister where voters choosing the governing party is also choosing the party leader to be the prime minister, this is especially true in a two party systems but less apparent in multi-party systems. A major advantage of presidential government is said to be that separation of powers means limited government "...an indispensable protection of individual liberty against government 'tyranny'." (Lijphart: 12) With the constitution and the fact after 1851 any president was limited to two terms in office, all providing vital checks and balances so dictatorship cannot arise. However most supporters and I would strongly disagree with the idea that parliamentary government involves any great danger to individual liberty. Independent courts, an alert and vocal parliamentary opposition, such as in the UK with 'Question Time' in the House of Commons, and the mutual suspicions within multi-party coalition cabinets all provide protection against government abuses of individual rights (Diamond & Plattner: 129)
There are also many argued disadvantages for presidentialism and a strong case for a parliamentary government. There is the problem of executive-legislative conflict which could result in 'deadlock', caused by the co-existence of two separate parts to the presidential government. If adopted by a new democracy then they may be unable to address pressing problems. A solution maybe to raise presidential power and so make him the spearhead of an active and effective government but in new democracies may give him too much power. However if I briefly criticise the parliamentary system on the point that this problem supposedly does not occur. In the Weimar Republic there was the problem of 'negative majorities' which is "...majorities of the right and left that combined forces against the political centre but that were ideologically too far apart to be able together to form an alternative coalition cabinet." (Satori: 86) Then the 'constructive vote of no confidence' means that a cabinet may remain in power but, because it is opposed by a majority in the legislature, be unable to get any of its proposed legislation adopted. Secondly there is temporal rigidity. The president’s fixed term in office "breaks the political process into discontinuous, rigidly demarcated periods, leaving no room for continuous readjustments that events may demand" (Lijphart: 134 ). Thirdly the 'winner-take-all rule' so only one candidate and one party can win presidency; everyone else loses. There is a concentration of power where there are little incentives for him or her to form coalitions and take part in give-and-take negotiations with the opposition which maybe needed to solve divisive problems. The United States is divisive and polarized already and winner-take-all creates more where politics becomes exclusive not inclusive. In terms of new democracies, winner-take-all politics would be unwise as there is no political trust developed.
If we leave the United States to new democracies in the recent past the bulk of presidential systems reside in Latin America where there is a record fragility and instability. To compare with the USA, Brazil is very useful as both are large populous former colonies however Brazil is far poorer and an unequal nation. While the American president is much restricted, the Brazilian president is allowed to deal with Congress in many ways. He can declare decrees which are provisional regulations with the force of law. He can also declare bills to be urgent therefore forcing Congress to make prompt decisions on his proposals. He, and in some areas he alone, can initiate bills in Congress and if Congress do not pass a budget the president proposes a budget which goes into effect, month by month. However they still experience the problem of deadlock with legislature which can be explained by Brazil's fragmented multiparty system. For example in 2002, 19 parties were represented in the Chamber of Deputies and 10 in the Senate and as usual the president's party was in the minority in each chamber. This difference is due to the electoral system adopted. The American Congress is elected using the plurality method, while the Brazilian legislature uses proportional representation with an open party list. The fact that party discipline within Brazil's Congress is weak adds to the problem.
However most studies focus on certain countries mainly in Latin America such as Brazil which I have used. Limited attention has been put on postcolonial Asia and Africa where the parliamentary system was responsible for much of the authoritarianism then emerging in English-speaking Africa. In Nigeria under parliamentary rule after independence there were a cluster of ethnic groups from the North secured a majority of the seats and therefore shut other groups out of power. In 1979 there was a very successful redemocratization due to the presidential style used to mitigate societal divisions. In 1978 Sri Lanka also moved to a presidential system because of the winner-take-all rules that governed their parliamentary systems and excluded minorities from power. So it can be said that both the presidential system and parliamentary systems have produced 'abuse of power'.
Even though it is said that Latin America was impressed by Spain in the 1970s when it made the very successful transition from authoritarism to democracy choosing a parliamentary system of government which contributed greatly to this transition. Most Latin American countries notably Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Chilie have reestablished their presidential democracy in the 1980s and earlier Columbia and Venezuela. It has been "consociational methods of compromise, negotiation, and power-sharing under presidential constitutions" (Diamond & Plattner: 125). That have played major roles in the return to democratic government for these countries. However the consociational methods of grand coalitions and the making of many pacts in a presidentialism system may make them rigidified and formalized as they are binding for a fixed period of time with no opportunity for revision which is vital to new democracies.
Before my conclusion I would like to mention the topic of political culture and other factors in relation to this issue. Political culture is the nature, attitudes and behaviour of people towards politics including aspects of participation, authoritisation, corruptness and so on. An argument that UK parliament has effective checks and balances is that of the political culture of the British people. The UK has always had a tradition of 'accountability' where if something went wrong; whoever was responsible would resign, although some say that is changing at the present. This could therefore contribute greatly to why Latin America has not functioned like the US political system, due to economic and cultural factors such as corruptness, and the correlation between democracy and Protestantism where catholic nations have found it harder to adopt stable democracy. Also it seems geography seems to play a major part where the Latin American nations have adopted America's presidential system from up north and countries such as Czech Republic and Hungary have adopted the parliamentary form which dominates Western Europe, probably with the thought of their decision to join the European Union in their minds.
In conclusion the USA is the only stable democracy using the presidential system for a continuous extended period of time and parliamentary democracies through history have performed better. So in terms of Latin America only time will tell if they made the right choice to embrace presidentialism. Many of the new democracies have deep political cleavages and numerous political parties for which a parliamentary system of government will probably provide a better hope for preserving democracy. However as seen from African history under ethnic conflicts parliamentarism can be unstable.
Bibliography
Arendt Lijphart (1992), Parliamentary versus Presidential Government, pp11-31, pp203-223
Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner (1996), The Global Resurgence of Democracy, pp 124-162
Rod Hague & Martin Harrop (2004), Comparative Government and Politics: An introduction, pp268-275
Satori (1997), Comparative Constitutional Engineering: An inquiry into Structures, Incentives and Outcomes, pp91-97