The choice of executive-legislative relations in Spain and the ROC: Democratization, institutionalization and leadership

Abstract

This study is about the process of constitutional choice in both Spain and the Republic of China in the twentieth century. The analysis addresses one central question: what conditions lead transitional polities to choose different constitutional frameworks? The study employs a sequence of theoretical and empirical methods to answer the principal question: a theoretical review of democratization and a methodological examination of using rational choice theory to improve this field of study, a formal analysis of the relationship between partisan interests and constitutional choice, and finally, an empirical two-nation-four-case case study at the end. These analyses shows the following three major results: first, the critical piece of the puzzle in improving our understanding of democratization is studying the process of institutional choice. By integrating the new institutionalism with traditional case study skills, we can understand the root of democratic order from the perspective of institutional origin, which has been ignored in the past. Second, the process of constitutional choice can be separated into two components: preference formation and selection. The former is mainly a "calculating" factor with respect to each party`s electoral goal. The latter is a process including actors with different preferences coordinating on the final outcome. The process is influenced more by "cultural" factors (mainly the inherited institutions) than by calculating factors. Leadership position is the critical factor in the selection process. Lastly, formal and empirical analyses reveal the following: (1) a model from a "power-sharing" perspective shows that a parliamentary system would be likely to be chosen most of the time, even with a relaxing of critical assumptions; (2) factors "outside" of the "power-sharing" model, such as the old-established-and-newly-emerged setting of a party system, the conflict between executive and legislative branches and the leadership positions, also show their influences in selecting the outcome of constitutional choice in the empirical case study; (3) from the empirical case study, the change of party discipline emerges as a critical factor influencing party leader`s preference formation toward different executive-legislative relations. The last point deserves further research in future project.