SERGIU MIȘCOIU, PIERRE EMMANUEL GUIGO (EDS.), “PRESIDENTS, PRIME MINISTERS AND MAJORITIES IN THE FRENCH FIFTH REPUBLIC”, CHAM: PALGRAVE MACMILLAN, 2024, 219 P.

Abstract

One of the first Western officials and scholars to offer advice to the new leaders in Bucharest in 1990 was Robert Badinter, President of the French Constitutional Council and former Minister of Justice. According to Ion Iliescu and others, his advice was decisive in shaping the institutional arrangements of the “Little Constitution” and, later, of the 1991 Constitution. We can assume that things would have been similar even without the direct intervention of the well-known jurist, given that France was traditionally perceived as a model for Romania. Shortly after Badinter, the more famous Maurice Duverger also visited Romania. We do not know what influence he had – we can assume it was limited – but we pay him a tribute for spreading the attractive but ambiguous concept of “semi-presidentialism”, associating it mainly with the French political system after 1958/1962 (The Fifth Republic). As in other cases (e.g., his “law” on the relation between electoral systems and party systems), Duverger threw out a brilliant but imprecise idea, irritating many academics around the world and generating a large amount of political science literature.