I poteri delle istituzioni di vertice in democrazia: problemi di misurazione e di metodo nell’analisi degli esecutivi duali

The paper focuses on a classic issue in political science: the analysis of semi-presidentialism. The ambiguity of the concept, due above all to the pronounced heterogeneity of the cases ascribed to this class, has so far precluded a scientific consensus, both from a conceptual and from a methodological point of view. In this connection, the author puts forward a critical overview of the most recent attempts to measure the powers of the presidency in the semi-presidential governments, in order to highlight the critical points in this kind of analysis, and at the same time to put forward a theoretical and methodological proposal that will allow for an analysis of these peculiar objects of study that will prove more effective and in accordance with empirical reality. The purpose is to investigate the relationship between the parliament, the government and the presidency in a sample made up of thirteen semi-presidential regimes, analysed through the application of three distinct measurement techniques of institutional power: Ieraci’s analysis, accomplished through a direct measurement of the distribution of procedural and constitutional resources; the checklist method, developed by Siaroff; and the well-known method adopted by Shugart and Carey.