Determinants of constitutional change: Why do countries change their form of government?

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Abstract

A country’s form of government has important economic and political consequences, but the determinants that lead countries to choose either parliamentary or presidential systems are largely unexplored. This paper studies this choice by analyzing the factors that make countries switch from parliamentary to presidential systems (or vice versa). The analysis proceeds in two steps. First, we identify the survival probability of the existing form of government (drawing on a proportional hazard model). In our model, which is based on 169 countries, we find that geographical factors and former colonial status are important determinants of survival probability. Also, presidential systems are, ceteris paribus, more likely to survive than parliamentary ones. Second, given that a change has taken place, we identify the underlying reasons based on panel data logit models. We find that domestic political factors are more important than economic ones. The most important factors relate to intermediate internal armed conflict, sectarian political participation, degree of democratization, and party competition, as well as the extent to which knowledge resources are distributed among the members of society.

Research highlights

► Geography and former colonial status affect the timing of constitutional changes. ► Presidential systems are more likely to survive than parliamentary ones. ► The Form of government is changed due to domestic political factors. ► Constitutional reforms are affected by social conflicts and form of political system.

Introduction

Recently, research into the economic effects of constitutions has increased notably, with form of government being particularly thoroughly analyzed. A number of authors attribute wide-ranging effects to form of government. Persson and Tabellini (2003), for example, derive the following results (see also Blume et al., 2009): (1) government spending is some 6% of GDP lower in presidential compared with parliamentary systems; (2) the size of the welfare state is about 2–3% lower in presidential systems; (3) presidential systems seem to have lower levels of corruption; and (4) presidential systems appear to be a hindrance to increased productivity, but this result is not highly significant.

If constitutions have such far-reaching effects, it is important to better understand how they evolve over time and what factors influence these changes. Although this process is one of the core issues in constitutional economics, few papers have actually studied constitutional change. This paper undertakes to identify the determinants of change in the form of government. We choose form of government as our explanandum because, in terms of economic effects, the distinction between parliamentary and presidential systems is one of the most analyzed and—apparently—one of the most significant in constitutional political economy.

It is often assumed that constitutions in general and form of government in particular are changed only very infrequently. Not true. Elkins et al. (2009) show that the expected survival length of constitutions is only some 17 years. In fact, changes in form of government are fairly frequent, as Fig. 1 shows. For our sample period, which runs from 1950 to 2003, we observe 123 such changes.

The upper panel of Fig. 1 suggests that changes in form of government take place throughout the sample period. The highest peak is seen during the early 1990s and the lowest peak in the mid 1970s. In the lower panel, the changes are differentiated with regard to direction of change. There are 68 changes from presidential to parliamentary forms of government and 55 changes in the opposite direction. The peak in constitutional activity identified in the early 1990s is mainly due to countries switching from presidential to parliamentary forms of government.

To emphasize the dynamics of institutional choice, we do not analyze first-time constitutional choices, but instead focus on changes in form of government that occur later in a country’s history. Robinson and Torvik (2008) note that most African countries established a parliamentary form of government in their early post-colonial period but that many of them have now switched to the presidential form of government. We therefore ask: Given that a country “originally” chose a parliamentary system, under what conditions is it likely that form still prevails today? In addition, which factors will affect the probability of switching to a presidential form of government?

We study two questions empirically, namely: (1) When is a switch likely to occur? and, given that a switch has occurred, (2) Why did it occur? The first question is answered by analyzing time-invariant factors in the framework of a proportional hazard model; the second question is investigated by considering time-variant factors in the context of panel data logit models.

Our main results, for a sample of 169 countries, show that a switch is more likely to occur if the “initial constitution” is parliamentary rather than presidential, if the country was never a British or French colony, and if the country is located in either the Middle East, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia, Southeast Asia, or South Asia. In a much smaller sample, we test the influence of additional variables and find that those countries that have reformed their constitution once are less likely to alter it again. Countries characterized by a high degree of ethnic and religious fractionalization are more likely, and countries with a high degree of ethnic polarization are less likely to change their form of government; countries are considered as highly fractionalized if many diverse groups are present, whereas they are considered as highly polarized if two different groups of similar size exist. Countries with a high proportion of Muslims are more likely to amend their constitutions. Former colonial powers are less likely to change their constitutions. Finally, we find evidence that resource endowment appears to be a relevant factor; countries characterized by a high share of primary exports in GNP are less likely to adjust the form of government.

The main factors influencing the likelihood of a change in form of government are political. Systems of sectarian political participation, where incompatible interests lead to intense factionalism and government favoritism, show a greater probability of constitutional reform. Internal government crises and limited armed conflict make changes more likely. A high degree of democratization in societies will foster change, whereas strong democratic competition and participation tends to prevent alterations in the form of government. If the relative number of students and literates in a country rises, it becomes less likely that the society will initiate constitutional reform.

The rest of the paper is structured as follows. Section 2 discusses two competing viewpoints regarding the form of government and provides an overview of the very scant literature on endogenous constitutional choice. Section 3 develops a number of hypotheses as to the factors that determine a switch from parliamentary to presidential systems, or vice versa. Section 4 sets out our empirical approach and a description of the data. Section 5 addresses the question of when the form of government is likely to change and Section 6 the question of which factors help explain the occurrence of constitutional reform. Section 7 concludes.

Section snippets

Form of government—competing views

We now provide a survey of the relevant literature. If we confined ourselves to studies analyzing the determinants of change in form of government, the section would be extremely short, possibly nonexistent, as we could find virtually nothing on the topic. There is a little work on the endogenization of constitutional choice in general. However, in this section we also discuss two competing viewpoints as to the relevance of different forms of government (parliamentarian and presidential). As

Explaining change in the form of government—an exploratory exposition

Our brief survey of the literature shows that theoretical arguments purporting to explain switches in form of government are, to say the least, underdeveloped. In this section, we therefore explore a rather large number of potential drivers of such a switch.

Explaining switches in form of government implies identifying reasons why the former status quo was changed. Our assumption is that change will take place only if the extant form of government does not adequately match the circumstances of

Empirical approach

Our empirical analysis considers the period 1950–2003, which means that we concentrate on modern history. The choice of this time period is partly dictated by data availability and partly because many countries only came into being after World War II. First, we study when constitutions are likely to be amended. Employing a large sample of countries (169 countries), we estimate survival rates of forms of government using the Kaplan–Meier nonparametric method and then investigate the influence of

When do countries change their form of government?

In this section, we analyze the expected length of time before a switch in form of government is observed, as well as some factors influencing its survival time. Fig. 3 shows the nonparametric Kaplan–Meier estimates of the survival probabilities of form of government over time.

Why do countries change their form of government?

We study the question of why constitutions change in the framework of fixed-effects panel data logit models using a change in the form of government as the dependent variable. The unbalanced sample comprises 153 countries and the estimation period is 1950–2003. To reduce endogeneity problems, all variables except the time trend are lagged by 1 year. Lagging the variables by two periods yields similar results. Higher lags result in nonconverging estimations. Employing more than one lag creates

Conclusions and outlook

Using data for as many as 169 countries, we analyze two main research questions: (1) When is a constitutional switch from one form of government to another likely to occur, and—given that a switch has indeed been observed—(2) Why did it occur? The first question is answered by analyzing time-invariant factors in the framework of a proportional hazard model; the second question is investigated by considering time-variant factors in the context of a fixed-effects panel data logit model. A switch

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Eric Brousseau, José Antonio Cheibub, Matthias Dauner, Aleksandra Gaus, Avner Greif, Shima’a Hanafy, Mohammed Sabry, Katharina Stepping, Daniel Waldenström, and two anonymous referees for helpful comments, as well as Eva Anderson-Park for excellent research assistance.

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