Delegation and accountability in parliamentary democracies

Parliamentary democracy has been widely embraced by politicians and especia lly by the scholarly community but remains less widely understood. In this essay, I identify the institutional features that define parliamentary demo cracy and suggest how they can be understood as delegation relationships. I propose two definitions: one minimal and one maximal (or ideal-typical). I n the latter sense, parliamentary democracy is a particular regime of deleg ation and accountability that can be understood with the help of agency the ory, which allows us to identify the conditions under which democratic agen cy problems may occur. Parliamentarism is simple, indirect, and relies on l essons gradually acquired in the past. Compared to presidentialism, parliam entarism has certain advantages, such as decisional efficiency and the indu cements it creates toward effort. On the other hand, parliamentarism also i mplies disadvantages such as ineffective accountability and a lack of trans parency, which may cause informational inefficiencies. And whereas parliame ntarism may be particularly suitable for problems of adverse selection, it is a less certain cure for moral hazard. In contemporary advanced societies , parliamentarism is facing the challenges of decaying screening devices an d diverted accountabilities