Читать книгу Political Science For Dummies - Marcus A. Stadelmann - Страница 89

Presidential democracies are common on the American continents and are also found in a few European countries such as France. In a presidential democracy, the concept of separation of powers exists. The two institutions, the legislature and the executive, are elected separately and constantly check each other. So citizens vote twice, once for the president (executive) and once for the legislature. In the U.S., the voters select the president and members of Congress separately. The following diagram shows the presidential system in the U.S.

As the diagram shows, the two structures are independently elected by the people and share powers when it comes to policy making. This in turn results in a system of checks and balances between the two. Presidential systems take longer to bring about political change, because two institutions have to implement them. Overall, this brings about moderate change.