Constitutional Courts and Legislative‐Executive Relations: The Case of Ukraine
There is a primary debate, as yet unresolved, regarding the superi ority of presidential or parliamentary regime types for the stability of demo cratic government. Because qualitative and quantitative analyses have yet to demonstrate definitively whether one regime type is inherently more stable than the other, researchers have branched out in a number of directions. One prominent stream of research examines the role that key intervening factors have in determining regime stability, including the electoral system, federalism, and the role of the prime minister in mixed presidential-parliamentary systems. This stream of research contends that regime stability is a function of the inter play of the specific distribution of powers between the legislative and executive branches and these other intervening factors. In this paper, we identify a fourth important intervening factor?constitutional courts. Specifically, we examine the constitutional court in the transitioning nation of Ukraine to demonstrate the role that judicial institutions can play in mediating legislative-executive conflict and thereby contributing to regime stability.