Advantages of Presidential Systems
Supporters generally claim four basic advantages for presidential systems:
- Direct elections — in a presidential system, the president is often elected directly by the people. To some, this makes the president's power more legitimate than that of a leader appointed indirectly. However, this is not a necessary property of a presidential system. Some presidential states have an unelected or indirectly elected head of state.
- Separation of powers — a presidential system establishes the presidency and the legislature as two parallel structures. Supporters say that this arrangement allows each structure to monitor and check the other, preventing abuses.
- Speed and decisiveness — some argue that a president with strong powers can usually enact changes quickly. However, others argue that the separation of powers slows the system down.
- Stability — a president, by virtue of a fixed term, may provide more stability than a prime minister who can be dismissed at any time.
Read more about this topic: Presidential System
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“The respect for human rights is one of the most significant advantages of a free and democratic nation in the peaceful struggle for influence, and we should use this good weapon as effectively as possible.”
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“... is it not clear that to give to such women as desire it and can devote themselves to literary and scientific pursuits all the advantages enjoyed by men of the same class will lessen essentially the number of thoughtless, idle, vain and frivolous women and thus secure the [sic] society the services of those who now hang as dead weight?”
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“Because of these convictions, I made a personal decision in the 1964 Presidential campaign to make education a fundamental issue and to put it high on the nation’s agenda. I proposed to act on my belief that regardless of a family’s financial condition, education should be available to every child in the United States—as much education as he could absorb.”
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“People stress the violence. That’s the smallest part of it. Football is brutal only from a distance. In the middle of it there’s a calm, a tranquility. The players accept pain. There’s a sense of order even at the end of a running play with bodies stewn everywhere. When the systems interlock, there’s a satisfaction to the game that can’t be duplicated. There’s a harmony.”
—Don Delillo (b. 1926)