threat of countries (indeed, even of non-national revolutionary forces) outside
the ‘nuclear club’ getting nuclear weapons is likely to increase. Originally these
weapons would have taken a position in theescalationladder before a full
nuclear strategic strike—a warning shot. However, with the end of thecold
warthis idea of nuclear escalation has now become quite outmoded.
President
A president is ahead of statein arepublic, who can represent, legally and
symbolically, the entire state. Usually the presidency carries only the symbolic
and emotional powers of a modern constitutional monarchy, with the added
limitation that they must in some sense be elected and do not achieve their
position by family inheritance. Some, and the US president is the leading
example, are also powerful political figures as heads of theexecutive. Still
more complex is a situation like that in the FrenchFifth Republicwhere the
president has somewhat usurped directhead of governmentpowers from the
prime minister, while the constitutional position might be argued to restrict
the president to the role of head of state.
Like monarchial heads of state, the ultimate power that nearly all presidents
still have is to be influential, and possibly determining, in the selection of who
should be the head of government after any election where the results are
unclear. They usually have, in addition, emergency powers, though these are
very seldom used. Presidents are by no means confined to electoral democ-
racies; the need to identify an individual as at least the symbolic leader of the
people has meant that most dictatorships and one-party systems also have a
presidential role. Modern democracies have to choose directly between having
a parliamentary or a powerful presidential constitution. There is clearly no one
correct solution. At the same time that the newly democratized Eastern
European countries all chose not to have powerful presidencies because they
thought parliaments better at building consensus, Italy considered adopting
one because the divided nature of its society makes parliamentary government
so unstable (seeItalian Second Republic).
Presidential Government
Ahead of state, whether bearing the title president, king or queen, or some
other, may carry a wide variety of powers. Presidential government is a system
which gives a strong role to the head of theexecutivewho participates fully in
its actual decision-making processes. It is therefore to be contrasted with
systems where the head of state has purely ceremonial duties, or merely has
President