ABSTRACT
In many countries, the most obvious signs of political life are the formal institutions of government: legislatures, prime ministers and presidents, national courts, ministerial or government officers, and senior administrators or civil servants. This chapter illustrates two recent reviews of the new institutional literature offered contrasting views of what the new body of literature included: in one review, the authors identified rational choice as one of three schools of new institutionalism; second review saw rational choice as the alternative to new institutionalism. It focuses on the debates over presidential versus parliamentary government, federal and unitary frameworks, consensual versus majoritarian styles, and constitutional engineering. France's experience with a parliamentary structure had fostered unstable and short-lived governments during the Third and Fourth Republics. Under the presidential system, the people's sovereign powers are shared by three branches of government: the presidency, legislature, and judiciary Each branch is independent and equal in principle to the others.
