Party Organization and Presidential Activism: System- and Party-Level Determinants of Party “Presidentialization”

Political parties offer gateways to power for democratic leaders, but they also condition leaders’ activities. A “presidentialized” party organization enhances the operative capacity of leaders, including presidents that have been overlooked in European political science literature. Theoretically, two factors are expected to increase the “presidentiality” of parties: a president-centered regime type and party’s leader-centric “genetic” heritage. This study presents the first systematic effort to analyze causes of party presidentialization quantitatively in various national contexts and party types. Alongside full presidential systems, the study pays attention to semi-presidential systems that are most popular in European countries today and which present mixed incentives for parties by forcing them to facilitate several leader positions at the executive level simultaneously. To assess these relationships empirically, the study utilizes Political Party Database Project’s (PPDB) global dataset. We develop a conceptually robust and comparable measure for party presidentialization and apply it to 96 parties in 25 semi-presidential and presidential democracies. We explore the impacts of regime and party types and find considerable support for the former and more limited support for the latter. Our results suggest that parties’ organizational makeup can condition presidential activism.