Presidential Succession

4 Key excerpts on "Presidential Succession"

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  How Power Changes Hands

  Transition and Succession in Government

  • Paul ''t Hart, J. Uhr, Paul ''t Hart, J. Uhr(Authors)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  Likewise, leadership successions in political parties and government agen- cies are high-stakes processes that may affect the politics and policies of incumbent governments. Each transition entails a number of successions, but not every succession necessarily comes about as part of a transition. Individual office-holders can die, fall ill, be fired, be promoted, retire, lose an election, or otherwise be induced to change roles. Successions can be planned, as in case of fixed-term CEO contracts or political term limits. They can be predictable and protracted, as in the case of a minister, head of government or party leader whose political capital is in exorable decline as a result of repeated political defeats or policy failures, or highly controversial personal foibles (such as extramarital affairs or lavish use of public funds for not-so-public pur- poses). Successions can also become necessary in a totally surprising and even shocking fashion, for example when heads of government die in office, such as Australian prime minister Harold Holt, who drowned during recreational swimming in 1966, and Polish president Kaczynski, who perished in a 2010 plane crash along with numerous other senior members of the Polish govern- ment establishment. In the case of planned and predictable successions, the anticipation process creates a whole dynamic of growing ‘lame duckness’ for the incumbent, strug- gles to counter the trend and possibly neutralize competitors, possible attempts by the incumbent or other senior figures to groom a particular suc- cessor, and intensive lobbying in the lead-up to formal replacement decisions. When vacancies arise unexpectedly, improvisation is the name of the game, and a sense of shock and time pressure may render the successor selection process that follows both emotionally intense and politically risky. Political successions of whatever kind will inevitably elicit considerable public speculation.

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  China's Post-jiang Leadership Succession: Problems And Perspectives

  Problems and Perspectives

  • John Wong, Yong-nian Zheng(Authors)
  • 2002(Publication Date)
  • WSPC

    (Publisher)

  And in case of emergency when something unexpected and devastating happens to the occupant of the highest political office (and often the commander-in-chief as well), it is in the best interest of the nation in general and the regime in particular to have someone who can legitimately take over the reins from the incapacitated leader. 2 Nevertheless, there are some fundamental differences between China and other countries on the issue of political succession. First of all, in Western democracies, leadership changes are generally completed through popular elections. When the leader of either of the two major political parties alternatively takes over the highest political office, it is hard to say that one party’s leader “succeeds” the other. It is true that in parliamentary democracies based on the Westminster model, leadership changes sometimes also happen to the ruling party without a new general election. The outgoing prime minister, therefore, may play a role in picking his or her successor to be the new leader of the party and concurrently the new prime minister. But even here the successor-designate has to win a majority of votes from the party members and ultimately win the next general election in order to hold on to the office of prime minister. In the US presidential system, succession has also somewhat different meanings. Presidential Succession may mean that the Vice President shall become the President “in the case of the removal of the President from office, or of his death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties of the office of the Presidency.” For Presidential Succession beyond the Vice President, the Presidential Succession Act passed by the US Congress in 1947 has established a clear line of succession. 3 Dilemmas: China’s Politics and Society (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 2000), pp. 23

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  Reliable Partners

  How Democracies Have Made a Separate Peace

  • Charles Lipson(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Princeton University Press

    (Publisher)

  Free, fair elections are rightly considered the fundament of democratic life. To insure peaceful, orderly succession, the rules may be broadened to cover contingencies of death, illness, and incapacity. In parliamentary systems, when leaders die in office, a new leader is chosen the same way as the old one, by vote of the parliament’s elected members. That typically prompts a new elec- tion in the near future, although it need not. In presidential systems, the line of succession is a hierarchical list of government positions, usually beginning with the vice president. 2 The United States also has laws to choose interim leaders when the president is seriously ill, and independent ways to determine if he is. 3 C HA PT ER 5 114 Non-democratic states, on the other hand, have many more problems with leadership transitions—problems that often lead to war. It is easy enough to understand why. Succession crises produce a fluid, confusing political environ- ment. Aggressive neighbors may pounce, sensing that an old adversary is tem- porarily vulnerable. Or neighbors may fear that they themselves will soon be innocent victims of attack, that new foreign leaders will be more hostile and belligerent, ready to launch a war of aggression against them. They may choose to preempt instead. Stephen Walt makes similar arguments about the conse- quences of revolutionary transitions. 4 Revolutions are especially disruptive and disorderly, but some of the same issues arise, in paler colors, whenever there is a turnover of monarchs, autocrats, or dictators. The flux and confusion of leadership struggles increase the likelihood of misperception on all sides. Even prudent neighbors may have exaggerated fears and lack enough solid evidence to reject them. They may fear—under- standably enough—that others want to capture valuable real estate, establish more secure, defensible borders, or reclaim lost territory (depending on whether they are greedy, defensive, or revanchist).

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  Accidental Presidents

  Death, Assassination, Resignation, and Democratic Succession

  • P. Abbott(Author)
  • 2008(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  In parliamentary systems, a cabinet member assumes power. In the United States this position is held by the vice president. 12 It is sometimes argued that the issue of political succession in this irregular sense was largely ignored at the constitutional convention of 1787. 13 This position is in important ways overstated, since the found- ers, as in other matters, considered one constitutional arrangement in tandem with others. Thus while it is true that Presidential Succession was not addressed until late in the session, neither were fundamental aspects of the office. It is also probably correct to state that the vice presidency itself was invented in part serendipitously. Once the mode of election was agreed upon, members began to focus on the question of recruitment. Concerned that electors would vote only for favorite sons, they required two choices for the office, one from a state other than that of the elector. With two individuals thus designated, it was a short step to the creation of another office. 14 Had the founders selected the option of presidential selection by the legislature, the succession issue would surely have been resolved differently. The Pinckney plan provided for irregular succession by designating the president of the Senate as successor. Had the founders selected direct election, they might have moved in any number of directions perhaps by creating a vice presidency too, designating some Succession and Democratic Theory 7 legislative or judicial official, or simply leaving the succession issue to congressional enactment (as they did in the case of succession past the vice presidency). Had the founders too retained an Executive Council, which persistently reappeared as a proposal before the convention, a successor could have been chosen from this body. 15 The difficulty the delegates faced on this question can be traced to issues other than their decision-making procedure.

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