The Next Separation of Powers

Richard Albert, Oxford University

Abstract

Constitutional scholarship regards democracy and the separation of powers as virtually synonymous, the latter deemed indispensable to the former. Presidential systems are therefore thought to achieve certain democratic values that parliamentary systems cannot achieve. In this Article, I demonstrate that the conventional wisdom is mistaken. Although they fuse their governmental powers, parliamentary systems may nonetheless achieve the very same democratic values as presidential systems.

This conclusion carries with it profound implications for the future of separated powers because if parliamentary systems are capable of fulfilling the promise of separation of powers theory, then it can no longer be true that the values of separated powers are the exclusive province of presidential systems. If, in turn, it is true that parliamentary and presidential systems are equally or comparably receptive to the practical and philosophical strictures of separated powers, this finding unlocks several possibilities for the future of separation of powers theory.