Virtually all republican constitutions foresee mechanisms to ensure the continuous functioning of the presidency as the highest-ranking institution. While such rules have been most prominently discussed in the context of ...

The political executive has been an established subject of study in political science for decades. Early research was often dominated by single-country studies or approaches that built their assumptions on the institutional ...

The Corona-pandemic has executives around the world facing new and in fact unprecedented challenges. While international media attention on Europe has largely focussed on Western European nations– notably on the Italy, ...

This article assesses the effects of common features in the indirect election of presidents in parliamentary republics. In particular, it examines the influence of majority requirements, selectorate composition and uncertainty ...

In the first blog post of 2015, I explored the origins of and various customs and conventions surrounding the Christmas and New Year’s addresses by European heads of state. This year, I will look more closely at the content ...

Dr Philipp Koeker explains how elite interviews differ from other interviews, and he offers suggestions for success. He identifies elite characteristics, access difficulties, power challenges, and reliability.

On Thursday last week, Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaitė vetoed amendments to the ‘Law on Fisheries’ enumerating several legal problems with the regulations on how to assign and transfer fishing quotas. A strong ...

Dr Philipp Koeker describes the benefits and challenges of using mixed-methods research. His study investigated how and why Eastern European presidents use their veto powers, mixing statistical analysis and elite interviews.

The Presidency plays a central role in the functioning of the Czech political system. Among others, the President convenes the first sitting of the Chamber of Deputies after elections and must appoint the Government before ...

Why do authoritarian presidents still use their legislative power? Although recent studies have argued that authoritarian legislatures are more than “rubberstamps” and can serve as arenas for elite bargaining over policy, ...