This research aims at explaining the apparently higher breakdown rate of presidential democracies over parliamentary ones. It shows that the alleged greater negative effect of presidential regimes on democratic breakdown than parliamentary democracies would disappear, not just when military legacy is considered, but also when the effectiveness or power of legislatures is taken into account.

Speaker Bio

Ming Sing is Associate Professor at the Department of Public and Social Administration, City University of Hong Kong. He is a Visiting Fulbright Scholar at the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California, San Diego (2006-07).

His current research interests are comparing political culture in Asia and institutional engineering in the world. He joined the Asiabarometer Survey Team in 2006 exploring political culture of all Asian societies in relation to democracy He has been doing research on institutional and non-institutional factors shaping global democratic breakdown longitudinally.

He has published on various aspects of democratization in Hong Kong and is the author and editor of three books: Hong Kong's Tortuous Democratization: a Comparative Analysis (New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004), and Hong Kong Government & Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003). His third book (University of Hong Kong, 2007) focuses on the institutional engineering and governance problems in Hong Kong. He has also published articles in Government & Opposition, Democratization, East Asia, China Information, Chinese Law & Government, Journal of Contemporary Asia, International Journal of Public Administration and elsewhere.