Several characteristics related to the presidential institution benefit incumbent presidents in many ways. For example, presidents differ from other political actors because they get a personal mandate from direct elections. Their position is also rather secure when compared with prime ministers who can lose their office more easily, and their high public profile boosts their authority even if their constitutional powers are limited. Presidents also usually operate outside daily politics at least to some extent and often enjoy higher trust than other political institutions. This is also the case in semi-presidential regimes, which is the context of this study.
In semi-presidential regimes, a popularly elected fixed-term president shares executive power with a prime minister and the government, who, in turn, are accountable to the parliament. This is the most common regime type in Europe, covering various power arrangements – both constitutional and practical – from the relatively weak Finnish presidency to the politically strong and influential French model and to most countries in Central and Eastern Europe, where the coexistence of the president and the prime minister is often quite conflictual. Kujanen’s dissertation is the first comparative study about the determinants of presidential popularity in the context of semi-presidentialism.
The constitutional strength of the presidency emerges as the key factor shaping both the level and variation of presidential popularity. Stronger presidential powers increase the probability that the president’s popularity decreases over time and reacts to external events and factors, such as a weakening economy or party-political power shifts. As an illustrative example, Kujanen highlights differences between the Finnish and French presidencies.
“Whereas the popularity ratings of the politically powerful French presidents are often lower than those of governments, react more profoundly to changes in the political environment, and follow the common pattern from the ‘honeymoon period’ to a significant decrease over time, the trend is almost the opposite in Finland. Furthermore, the popularity ratings of the relatively weak Finnish presidents are often very high and stable, and instead of the so-called ‘cost of ruling’ phenomenon, presidential popularity seems even to increase over time in Finland,” Kujanen says.
However, the president’s party background matters as well because citizens in most semi-presidential countries do not necessarily place the presidents above parties or party politics. In fact, as in the case of prime ministers, presidents are evaluated through partisan lenses despite the symbolic features associated with the presidency.
At the same time, it is evident that other factors than the party-political dimension and the president’s powers also influence the public opinion on presidents.
“The institutional perspective is crucial given the direct link between the president’s constitutional powers and their authority as well as the general perceptions of the presidency. But in addition to the institution, presidential popularity also reflects public perceptions of the president’s performance and the president as a person. These dimensions are also explored in the study,” Kujanen says.
The study is generally connected to questions of political responsibility and accountability, i.e. on what basis people reward and sanction incumbent politicians. As regards the president’s favourable position relative to other political institutions, it is possible that the logic of political responsibility is somewhat blurred in the case of presidents. However, the research results show that this is not necessarily the case as presidents are evaluated and held accountable in accordance with their actual powers.
“We should still pay attention to the presidents’ popularity ratings even in the context of politically weaker presidents since strong public support has the potential to boost the president’s public profile and even increase the president’s political influence and authority,” Kujanen summarises.
Maarika Kujanen worked as a doctoral researcher in the Research Council of Finland-funded project ‘Taming the presidents? Exploring the links between presidential activism, policy-making capacity, and regime legitimacy’ from 2020 and 2024 and after that as a grant researcher.
Public defence on Saturday 26 April
M.Soc.Sc. Maarika Kujanen’s doctoral dissertation in the field of political science titled Performance, Person, or Institution? Explaining Presidential Popularity in Semi-Presidential Regimes will be publicly examined at 12 o’clock on Saturday 26 April at the Faculty of Management and Business of Tampere University. The venue is auditorium D10a in Päätalo (address: Kalevantie 4, Tampere). The Opponent will be Dr. Philipp Köker from Leibniz University Hannover, Germany, while Professor Tapio Raunio from Tampere University will act as the Custos.