After Constitutional Amendments of the Republic of China, we have democratically elected four (six-term) presidents through direct election. From President Lee Teng-Hui, President Chen Shui-Bian, President Ma Ying-Jiu, to President Tsai Ing-Wen, they are not only head of state, but also head of government with real power. However, this is contradicted to the norm of the Constitution of the Republic of China, and has also been the focus point of academia.
In general, Presidentialism is based on operation of the political system of the United States as a model. Hereafter, we would like to refer to the definition by Giovanni Sartori, American political scientist: If the political system is Presidentialism, it must have three criteria: (1) the head of state results from popular election; (2) during his or her pre-established tenure cannot be discharged by a parliamentary vote; (3) the head of state heads or otherwise directs of the governments that he or she appoints. When all the above three conditions are jointly met, it is called Pure Presidentialism. When we look back on Taiwan government for the past 20 years, it has matched Mr. Sartori’s statement in some degree. In order to differentiate it from the Presidentialism of the United States, the author used the term “the Presidentialism with Taiwanese Characteristics” to give it a new definition.
The factors to influence our President to exercise his or her authority are plenty. The author observed from below three aspects: “Party-Government relationships”, “Presidential office – Executive Yuan relationships”, “Administrative and Legislative relationships” and two other dimensions in this article. For President Lee Teng-Hui, Chen Shui-Bian, Ma Ying-Jiu, & Tsai Ing-Wen, the author has given them different titles in the conclusion of the chapter exploring their presidency exercise. And they are as follows: the founder of Presidentialism with Taiwanese Characteristics; the promoter; the sustainer; and the accomplisher. The author, in some degree, believes that these four presidents all position themselves as with real power and exercise their authority. The only difference is that due to different environment they are situated, they had adopted different methods to perform. The Presidentialism with Taiwanese Characteristics therefore has its form through the accumulation of experiences. In other words, the five dimensions analyzed in this thesis, except the relationship between the executive, are the channels that these presidents utilized to expand the space to exercise their authority.