Intra-executive competition between president and prime minister: patterns of institutional conflict and cooperation under semi-presidentialism

The article examines the dynamics of political competition over the control of the executive that shapes the coexistence of popularly elected presidents and prime ministers in semi-presidential regimes. It explores how variation in the political status of cabinet and the character of the party system, as well as differences in presidential and parliamentary powers over the cabinet, affects both the type and intensity of intra-executive conflict in democratic and semi-democratic environments. It demonstrates that presidents ’ and prime ministers ’ strategies in intra-executive relations in both types of political environment are systematically affected by the nature and extent of cabinet’s political support in par-liament, as well as by the degree of presidential control over cabinet. The post-communist transition led to the proliferation of semi-presidential regimes in East Central Europe and the Former Soviet Union.The coexistence of popularly elected presidents and prime ministers, which is a distinct feature of a semi-presidential constitutional framework, and which is often labeled as ‘intra-executive ’ coexistence, has proven to be prone to conflict in most of these regimes. Among the factors leading to conflict, scholars often cite personality, ideological differences magnified by certain party system configurations