Maurice Duverger
Maurice Duverger (born the June 5th 1917 with Angouleme -) is a Juriste, Politologue and law professor French, specialist in the constitutional Law.
Biography
Studying in right to Bordeaux, Maurice Duverger is close during a time to the French Popular party (PF, extreme right-hand side) then adopts for the first period of the Régime of Vichy a discussed attitude which will be worth to him during all its career of criticisms recurring for an article of legal technique relating to the statute of the Juif S.
Incorporated of a Faculty of Law in 1942, Maurice Duverger is successively professor with the Faculty of Law of Poitiers in 1942, then with that of Bordeaux in 1943 and finally with that of Paris (economic scene and Faculty of Law) between 1955 and 1985. It is one of the founders of the Département of political science of the Sorbonne, in 1969.
After being itself close to the Resistance, he had also become - after the Libération until the Années 1980 - a leader-writer listened with the newspaper Le Monde of which he was one of the political advisers. Its articles then are also published in El País , the Corriere beyond Will be and Nouvel Observateur .
Of 1989 with 1994, it sits at the the European Parliament like independent elected member of the list of the Italian Communist party.
Maurice Duverger is to finish the founder of the Association of political sciences and the French Review of political science, thus taking part in the catch of autonomy of political science itself, in the years 1970. He was the first director of Sciences Po Bordeaux
Its doctrines of public law
He is the author of very many works of constitutional Law and Political science.
Political parties
In a book become traditional, “ the Political parties ”, it showed that a way of voting proportional (of Italian type or Fourth Republic) tended to the multiplication of the parties while a majority way of voting with a turn (of type British or American) tended to the Bipartisme.
The new separation of the capacities
See also: Separation of the capacities
According to the author, “ the separation of the capacities revêt two principal forms in the Western democracies, according to the modes of relations between the Parliament and the government: the parliamentary mode and the presidential regime. But these denominations are based too exclusively on the legal relationship between Parlement and government: they are unaware of too political realities and in particular the role of the parties. ”
Thus, the majority of the Parlement will be the same one as that of the Gouvernement, this last will be then a simple instrument of the policy of the Parliament; to speak about separation about the capacities between Parliament and government in this context becomes absurd.
According to him, true separation, or articulation, is done between the majority and the minority (which they result from coalitions or not).
Thus, inside each institution (main roads like the government or the Parliament, or local, like a municipal council), the political party (or the coalition of parties) which in the majority makes pass its decisions, while the minority tries to block them. The political parties have a transcendent or vertical action, i.e. they apply the same policy to all the levels.
The theory of the semi-presidential mode
See also: semi-presidential Mode
Maurice Duverger is also at the origin of the concept of semi-presidential mode gathering the mixed modes borrowing certain characteristics from the modes Parlementaire S and the presidential regimes. (The semi-presidential modes would be then that of the Germany of Weimar of 1919 to 1933, of the Finland, France (Ve République), of Iceland, of the Ireland, the Austria, the Portugal and the majority of the European countries left the Communisme in the years 1990). The relevance of this notion gathering of the countries to the sometimes contradictory practical policies was then criticized by other constitutionnalists like Jean Gicquel, Jean-Louis Quermonne or Olivier Duhamel.
It is surprising to see that Maurice Duverger, instead of proposing a new classification taking account of the separation of the capacities between majority and minority, rather preferred to preserve traditional separation between parliamentary presidential regimes and modes, by adding a third category to it.
Distinctions
- Member of the American Academy off Arts and Sciences
- Member of the Academy of Science of Finland
Decorations
- Large-officer of the Legion of honor
- Commander of the National order of the Merit
Doctor Honoris causa
Maurice Duverger is honorary doctor of several universities among which:- University of His
- University of Geneva
- University of the New Jersey
- University of Milan
- University of Barcelona
- University of Warsaw
- University of Sofia
- University of Prague
- University of Athens
See too
Internal bonds
- Separation of the capacities
- semi-presidential Mode
- Sciences Po Bordeaux
Outstanding works
- the political parties
- Failure with the King
- Political institutions and constitutional law (I. Political Great systems and II. The French political system)
- Tomorrow the Republic
- the Life Republic and the presidential regime
- French institutions
- political Constitutions and documents
- Introduction to the policy
- Sociology of the policy
See too
Voting system | Political party ----
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