Most of the current Ukrainian discussions concerning a modification of the constitution are about whether Ukraine should have a presidential-parliamentary or parliamentary-presidential form of government.
The first refers to the original regulations of the 1996 Constitution of Ukraine. It implies a super-presidential system where the prime minister is reduced to the role of an assistant to, scapegoat for, and whipping boy of, the president. The second, parliamentary-presidential system, refers to the real division of government that was in force in 2006-2010. During that time, the Ukrainian state’s executive prerogatives were divided between president and prime minister.
The problem with the hotly discussed pros and cons of both systems is that this controversy is largely oblivious to what political regime specialists working in Eastern Europe and the post-Soviet space have been publishing during the last years.
For instance, in 2006, Steven Fish presented a seminal paper tellingly called “Strong Legislatures, Stronger Democracies” in the influential Journal of Democracy (vol. 17, no. 1).
In his statistical analysis of 25 post-communist countries, Fish measured the relative power of parliament, on the one hand, and the success of democratization, on the other.
Fish found a surprisingly clear causal relationship between them. The amount of prerogatives of a post-communist country’s legislature, as determined by its constitution, has a noticeable effect on the democratic quality of that country’s political regime. Initially, there had been no relevant correlation between the quality of democracy and division of power, at the moment at which the various countries adopted their constitutions, in the 1990s. However, a few years later, in the new century, those countries that had established relatively strong legislatures were significantly more democratic than those with relatively weak legislatures.
On that basis, Fish concludes: “The evidence shows that the presence of a powerful legislature is an unmixed blessing for democratization” (emphasis in the original). Concerning the depth of the relationship between the strength of legislatures and the extent of democratization, Fish writes: “The correlation is very high. The strength of the national legislature may be a — or even the — institutional key to democratization.” He advises: “The practical implications of these findings are obvious. Would-be democratizers should focus on creating a powerful legislature. In polities with weak legislatures, democrats should make constitutional reforms to strengthen the legislature a top priority.”
It should be reminded that Fish’s findings are based on empirical research, i.e. on real-world experiences. Much of what one hears in contemporary Ukrainian public debates, instead, is based on fuzzy political suppositions, odd cross-cultural comparison (for instance, with the US), or bold counter-factual conjectures. Worse, sometimes this or that constitutional arrangement is defended on the basis of historical speculation or metaphysical rumination.
Against the background of these findings, the key question in the next months will be: Do Ukraine’s rulers actually want democratization to succeed, and are they ready to seriously commit to this aim? Or will they try to promote an alternative agenda focusing on economic recovery, political stability and administrative reform? President Viktor Yanukovych’s behavior during the Orange Revolution in 2004, as well as recent actions by his government and Party of Regions, point to the latter rather than former outlook.
The problem with this approach would be that functioning democracy and open society is a prerequisite for sustainable political stability, deep economic reform and effective public administration.
Contrary to a widely held belief in the post-Soviet world, parliamentary political systems provide the head of the executive with more power than semi-presidential systems which divide and thus diffuse governmental prerogatives.
Andreas Umland teaches within the Master in German and European Studies program at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (www.des.uni-jena.de), and edits the scholarly book series “Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society” (www.ibidem-verlag.de/spps.html).
