Why Does the Parliamentary Regime Perform Better: Bureaucratic Power Versus Veto Players
Abstract: The political economy literature underlines that in presidential regimes politicians are more accountable to citizens because of the greater executive constraints and "checks and balances" system. However, the empirical studies testify the contrary effect that parliamentary regimes perform better; in particular, in terms of the quality of governance and political stability. This paper contributes to finding an explanation of such a puzzle by studying a scope of bureaucratic power in political decision-making process in view of information defficiency of politicians. By bureaucratic power we mean rubber-stamping or conscious approval by politicians of their bureaucrats' policy propositions without effective control. We demonstrate that the parliamentary regime has institutional constraints to limit the power of bureaucrats while the institutional structure of presidential regimes tends to promote informal agreements between politicians and bureaucrats.
