Head of state

A head of state or chief of state is an individual who serves as the chief public representative of a nation-state, federation or commonwealth. His or her role generally includes personifying the continuity and legitimacy of the state and exercising the political powers, functions and duties granted to the head of state in the country's constitution.

Semi-presidential systems

Semi-presidential systems combine features of Presidential and Parliamentary systems, notably a requirement that the government be answerable to both the President and the legislature. The Constitution of the current French Fifth Republic provides for a prime minister who is chosen by the President but who nevertheless must be able to gain support in the Chamber of Deputies. Where in France a president is of one side of the political spectrum and the opposition is in control of the legislature, s/he often is forced to select someone from the opposition to become prime minister, a process known as Cohabitation. President François Mitterrand, a socialist, for example was forced to co-habit with the neo-gaullist (right wing) Jacques Chirac, who became his prime minister for a time in the 1980s.

Related Topics:
French Fifth Republic - Cohabitation - François Mitterrand - Jacques Chirac

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In the French system, in the event of co-habitation, the President is often allowed to set the policy agenda in foreign affairs and the Prime Minister run the domestic agenda.

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Other countries evolve into something akin to a semi-presidential system or indeed a full presidential system. Weimar Germany, for example, in its constitution provided for a popularly elected president with theoretically dominant emergency powers that were only intended to be exercised in emergencies and a cabinet appointed by him from the Reichstag which was expected in normal circumstances to be answerable to the Reichstag. Initially the President was merely a symbolic figure with the Reichstag dominant.

Related Topics:
Weimar Germany - Reichstag

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However longterm political instability (where governments were collapsing every couple of months) led to a change in the power structure of the Republic, with the President's emergency powers called increasingly into use to prop up governments challenged by critical or even hostile Reichstag votes. By 1932, power had shifted to such an extent that the German President, Paul von Hindenburg was able to dismiss a chancellor and select his own person for the job even though the outgoing chancellor possessed the confidence in the Reichstag while the new chancellor did not. Subsequently President von Hindenburg used his power to appoint Adolf Hitler as Reich chancellor without consulting the Reichstag.

Related Topics:
Paul von Hindenburg - Chancellor - Adolf Hitler

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