Presidential system: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

A presidential system, or a congressional system, is a system of government of a republic that features a president as the country's head of state aswell as head of government. The term presidential system is often used in contrast to cabinet government, which is usually a feature of parliamentarism.

Countries with congressional and presidential systems include the United States, Mexico, and most countries in South America.

Types of Presidents

It is worth noting that most countries with a president as head of state do not operate under what is described as the the presidential system. The presidential system is limited mostly to countries in the Americas, and to countries under dictatorships.

The most defining element of a presidential system is the degree in which the head of state participates in day-to-day governance.

Presidential governments make no distinction between the positions of Head of state and Head of government, both of which are held by the president. Most parliamentary governments have a symbolic Head of State in the form of a president or monarch. That person is responsible for the formalities of state functions as the figurehead while the constitutional prerogatives as Head of Government are generally exercised by the Prime Minister. Such figurehead presidents tend to be elected in a much less direct manner than active, presidential system presidents, for example by a vote of the legislature.

Presidents in presidential systems are always active participants in the political process, though the extent of their relative power may be influenced by the political makeup of the legislature and whether their supporters or opponents have the dominant position therein. In some presidential systems such as South Korea or the Republic of China (on Taiwan), there is an office of the prime minister or premier, but unlike semi-presidential or parliamentary systems, the premier is responsible to the president rather than to the legislature.

Though presidential systems can theoretically operate with either a congress or a parliament the former is far more common. For this reason, the term congressional system is often used interchangeably with presidential system.

A number of key theoretical differences exist between a presidential and a cabinet system:

• In a presidential system, the central principle is that the legislative and executive branches of government should be separate. This leads to the separate election of president, who is elected to office for a fixed term, and only removable for gross misdemeanor by impeachment and dismissal. In addition he or she does not need to choose cabinet members commanding the support of the legislation. By contrast, in parliamentarism, the executive branch is led by a council of ministers, headed by a Prime Minister, who are directly accountable to the legislature and often have their background in the legislature (regardless of whether it is called a "parliament", a "diet", a "chamber").

• As with the President's set term of office, the legislature also exists for a set term of office and cannot be dissolved ahead of schedule. By contrast, in parliamentary systems, the legislature can typically be dissolved at any stage during its term of office by the head of state, usually on the advice of either Prime Minister alone, by the Prime Minister and cabinet, or by the cabinet.

• In a presidential system, the president usually has special privileges in the enactment of legislation, namely the possession of a power of veto over legislation of bills, in some cases subject to the power of the legislature by weighed majority to override the veto. However, it is extremely rare for the president to have the power to directly propose laws, or cast a vote on legislation. The legislature and the president are thus expected to serve as a checks and balances on each other's powers.

• Presidential system presidents may also be given a great deal of constitutional authority in the exercise of the office of Commander in Chief, a constitutional title given to most presidents. In addition, the presidential power to receive ambassadors as head of state is usually interpreted as giving the president broad powers to conduct foreign policy.

In reality, elements of both systems overlap. Though a president in a presidential system does not have to choose a government answerable to the legislature, the legislature may have the right to scrutinise his or her appointments to high governmental office, with the right, on some occasions, to block an appointment. In the United States, many appointments must be confirmed by the Senate. By contrast, though answerable to parliament, a parliamentary system's cabinet may be able to make use of the parliamentary 'whip' (an obligation on party members in parliament to vote with their party) to control and dominate parliament, reducing its ability to control the government.

In the late nineteenth century, it was speculated that the United States Speaker of the House of Representatives would evolve into a quasi-prime minister, with the US system evolving into a form of parliamentarianism. However this did not happen. More recently, it has been suggested that the office of White House Chief of Staff, the President's chief aide, has become a de facto United States prime minister of sorts, with his dominance or weakness in the US governmental system depending on whether there is a "hands off" or "hands on" president. (Ronald Reagan was the former, Bill Clinton the latter). Reagan's Chiefs of Staff in many ways ran the day to day affairs of government, with the President standing back from intervention.

Some countries, such as France have similarly evolved to such a degree that they can no longer be accurately described as either presidential or parliamentary-style governments, and are instead grouped under the category of semi-presidential system.