The exact opposite is true. The only consistently working, stable democracies do not have a single leader of the executive branch, e.g. Switzerland.

The CIA sponsored extensive studies on this and came to the conclusion that democracies with a strong presidential role are associated with a greater risk of failure. It's not really surprising, and it can be seen in the US right now.

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qwytw 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> The only consistently working, stable democracies do not have a single leader of the executive branch, e.g. Switzerland.

That system had to develop organically over many generations to be successful (in the case of Switzerland it was 500+ years with only a few significant interruptions) . In a centralized country with no traditions of communal and local politics it can just result in chaos.

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kubb 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The system was introduced around 170 years ago and it was done very suddenly after a civil-religious war won by protestant liberals.

	▲	qwytw 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		On the federal level yes but that only reduced the autonomy that the cantons had, it didn't introduce a fundamentally different system of government, most decisions were still taken on the local level.

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consensus1 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The system we had in the US pre New Deal was much more like Switzerland. Decentralization works just fine out of the box. The problem is that human instinct tends towards power which requires more centralization to accumulate.

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CMay 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yes and no. The US presidency is very different than the way it's reported on, but it is true that the executive branch is being more assertive to make up for the disfunction of the legislation. We're doing that intentionally and for good reason, to demonstrate to China that the US can act with speed as one small part of the overall deterrent against World War 3. The US is almost always hugely misunderstood, because there isn't any other country in the world that actually works exactly like the US does.