The Design, Operation, and Exit of the Semi-Presidential Constitution of the German Weimar Republic

• Main Authors: Yu-chung Shen, 沈有忠
• Other Authors: 吳玉山
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/17677532580453901333

博士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 政治學研究所 === 97 === In the research on semi-presidentialism, the Weimar Republic is always deemed an important historical case. However, when we compare the essence narrowly, we can find some differences between the Weimar Constitution and many other semi-presidential constitutions, especially those Eastern and Central Europe as well as the French Fifth Republic (the typical semi-presidential regime). Therefore, Weimar’s experience is worth to be discussed for the many newer semi-presidential democracies. In this desseration I will discuss the Weimar Republic in three parts. First, why and how the Weimar Republic has designed a semi-presidential constitution? What was the different about the constitutional essence betweenWeimar Republic and other semi-presidential regimes? Second, what were the conditions which, provided by the semi-presidential constitution, have made the Weimar Republic so unstable? And thirdly, in which way the semi-presidential constitution of the Weimar Republic has caused or contributed to its collapse? By this I hope to enrich the constitutional studies and to examine how institutional features can, in combination with other factors, stabilize or destabilize a new democracy, or what caused a transformation of the semi-presidential constitution.