Semipresidencialismo e a longevidade dos governos de coabitação : um estudo de casos diversos sobre Bulgária, Romênia, França e Portugal

Abstract

What does characterize cohabitation periods in semi-presidential systems? This is the main purpose of this research. Current political science literature has considered cohabitation a threat to government stability, but we can find cohabitation governments that lasted for almost a decade. This research seeks to find elements that are present and/or absent in cohabitation governments with different durations. For this, a diverse descriptive case study was carried out, in which the population of cases of cohabitation governments was distributed into four sets (or subtypes) according to their standardized values (z-score). They are: Romania (Dec / 2014 to Nov / 2015); Bulgaria (Jan / 2002 to Aug / 2005); France (Jun / 1997 to May / 2002) and Portugal (Mar / 1986 to Oct / 1995). A qualitative description of the factors present in each case was made. In the end, the four cases were compared to see if the cases shared similar characteristics. I found countries where the adoption of semi-presidentialism took place in a violent manner, as is the case in Romania; countries where corruption scandals shook the popularity of the actors but did not lead to the end of cohabitation, as is the case in France. This work is relevant for contributing to the literature on semi presidentialism and cohabitation in Portuguese, as the largest studies on the subject are still in English or French. Political science students and the general public for whom this topic is still almost, if not totally, unknown, may benefit from this research