The Influence of Political Culture on Democracy in Parliamentary and Semi-Presidential Systems. Case Study: Albania vs France

ABSTRACT: The governing systems are affected by how a country develops the elements of the political culture. Political culture differs from the approaches, recognitions, assessments or interpretations that are made to the political system itself. The measuring indicators of political culture are freedom, equality, democracy, civil rights, and individual responsibility. Political culture is influenced by a country’s political, economic and historical conditions, but the way the government systems approach the political culture varies from country to country. The purpose of this research paper is to compare the impact of the political culture of two democratic but no similar governing systems. The first system is the system of the parliamentary republic where the case study will be the Republic of Albania and the second system is the semi-presidential system where the case study will be the Republic of France. The methodology used in this paper is the qualitative comparative analysis. Qualitative analysis will provide preliminary research information for both countries being studied. The comparison of political systems will be carried out through the indicators of political culture, which will be provided by the evaluation of the indices of international institutions. The semi presidential system of the Republic of France turns out to have the highest indicators of political culture. Measuring indicators such as democracy, civil rights, political rights, and equality show stability in the democracy of this country. Indicators for the Republic of Albania have significant differences in comparison to the Republic of France. Based on the study, it is concluded that the political culture has not managed to consolidate democracy in the parliamentary Republic of Albania. KEYWORDS: parliamentary, semi-presidential, index, political culture, system