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Governmental structures: Governmental structures are the systems and processes by which governments are organized and operate. They include the distribution of power between different branches of government, the roles and responsibilities of different government officials, and the ways in which citizens participate in government. See also State, Society, Community.
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Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments.

 
Author Concept Summary/Quotes Sources

Constitutional Economics on Governmental Structures - Dictionary of Arguments

Parisi I 208
Governmental structures/Constitutional economics/Voigt: Many scholars argue that the degree of separation of powers is greater in presidential than in parliamentary systems, as the head of the executive (the president) does not depend on the confidence of the legislature (parliament) to survive. For example, Persson, Roland, and Tabellini (1997(1), 2000(2)) point out that it is easier for legislatures to collude with the executive in parliamentary systems, which is why they expect more corruption and higher taxes in those systems than in presidential systems. >Governmental structures/Persson/Tabellini
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Parisi I 209
Corruption: Gerring and Thacker (2004)(3) find that parliamentary systems suffer from significantly less corruption than do presidential ones. They argue (2004(3), p. 314) that "effective accountability arises from a highly structured relationship between voters and political parties and from the relatively clear lines of authority instituted by a centralized political apparatus." Lederman, Loayza, and Soares (2005)(4) also find that parliamentary systems suffer less from corruption than do presidential ones and also draw on the concept of accountability to explain why. Their argument is that parliamentary systems "allow for a stronger and more immediate monitoring of the executive by the legislature... " They conclude that after "political institutions are accounted for, variables usually found to be important determinants of corruption… lose virtually all their relevance." In his survey, Treisman (2007)(5) replicates these results but finds that presidentialism becomes insignificant as soon as one controls for Catholicism or when a dummy for South America is included.
Parisi I 210
Geography/history: In a recent study, Cheibub, Elkins, and Ginsburg (2013)(6) find a large degree
of heterogeneity across the characteristics usually attributed to the forms of government and conclude (2013, p. 3): "Indeed, knowing whether a constitution is parliamentary, presidential or semi-presidential is less helpful in predicting a constitution's executive-legislative structure ... than is knowing the geographic region in which the constitution was produced or when it was written." Cf. >Judiciary/Constitutional economics, >Federalism/Constitutional Economics, >Direct Democracy/Constitutional economics.


1. Persson, T., G. Roland, and G. Tabellini (1997). "Separation of Powers and Political Accountability." Quarterly Journal of Economics 1 12: 310-327.
2. Persson, T., G. Roland, and G. Tabellini (2000). "Comparative Politics and Public Finance."
Journal of Political Economy 108(6): 1121-1161.
3. Gerring, J. and S. Thacker (2004). "Political Institutions and Corruption: the Role of Unitarism and Parliamentarism." British Journal of Political Science 34:295—330.
4. Lederman, D., N. Loayza, and R. Soares (2005). "Accountability and Corruption." Economics and Politics 17(1): 1-35.
5. Treisman, D. (2007). "What have We Learned About the Causes of Corruption from Ten Years of Cross-National Empirical Research?" Annual Review of Political Science 10: 211-244.
6. Cheibub, J., Z. Elkins, and T. Ginsburg (2013). "Beyond Presidentialism and Parliamentarism." British Journal of Political Science 44(3):515-544.


Voigt, Stefan. “Constitutional Economics and the Law”. In: Parisi, Francesco (ed) (2017). The Oxford Handbook of Law and Economics. Vol 1: Methodology and Concepts. NY: Oxford University

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Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments
The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition.
Constitutional Economics
Parisi I
Francesco Parisi (Ed)
The Oxford Handbook of Law and Economics: Volume 1: Methodology and Concepts New York 2017


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