president, in government, the officer in whom the chief executive power of a nation is vested. The president of a republic is the head of state, but the actual power of the president varies from country to country; in the United States, Africa, and Latin America the presidential office is charged with great powers and responsibilities, but the office is relatively weak and largely ceremonial in Europe and in many countries where the prime minister, or premier, functions as the chief executive officer.
In North America the title of president was first used for the chief magistrate of some of the British colonies. These colonial presidents were always associated with a colonial council to which they were elected, and the title of president carried over to the heads of some of the state governments (e.g., Delaware and Pennsylvania) that were organized after the start of the American Revolution in 1776. The title “President of the United States” was originally applied to the officer who presided over sessions of the Continental Congress and of the Congress established under the Articles of Confederation (1781–89). In 1787–88 the framers of the new country’s Constitution created the vastly more powerful office of the presidency of the United States. The president was vested with a variety of duties and powers, including negotiating treaties with foreign governments, signing into law or vetoing legislation passed by Congress, appointing high-ranking members of the executive and all judges of the federal judiciary, and serving as commander in chief of the armed forces.
The office of president is also used in governments in South and Central America, Africa, and elsewhere. Much of the time these chief executives function in a democratic tradition as duly elected public officials. Throughout much of the 20th century, however, some elected presidents—under the pretense of emergency—continued in office beyond their constitutional terms. In other cases, military officers seized control of a government and afterward sought legitimacy by assuming the office of president. Still other presidents were virtual puppets of the armed forces or of powerful economic interests that put them in office. During the 1980s and ’90s many countries in these regions underwent a transition to democracy, which subsequently enhanced the legitimacy of the presidency in their governments. In most of these countries the constitutionally defined powers of the office are similar to those of the president of the United States.
In contrast to the Americas, most western European nations have parliamentary systems of government in which executive authority is vested in cabinets responsible to parliaments. The cabinet’s head, and the leader of the majority in parliament, is the prime minister, who is the actual chief executive officer of the nation. In most of these governments the president serves as a titular, or ceremonial, head of state (though in the constitutional monarchies—such as Spain, the United Kingdom, and the countries of Scandinavia—this role is performed by the monarch). Various methods of selecting presidents have been adopted. For example, in Austria, Ireland, and Portugal the president is directly elected, Germany and Italy utilize an electoral college, and the president is appointed by the parliament in Israel and Greece.
At the behest of Charles de Gaulle, the constitution of the Fifth Republic of France (1958) endowed the office of president with formidable executive powers, including the power to dissolve the national legislature and call national referenda. The elected French president appoints the premier, who must be able to command the support of a majority in the lower house of France’s legislature, the National Assembly. When that premier represents the president’s own party or coalition, the president retains most political authority and the premier is charged with managing the president’s legislative agenda. After the Socialist Party of Pres. François Mitterrand was defeated in parliamentary elections in 1986, Mitterrand was forced to appoint a premier, Jacques Chirac, from the ranks of the opposition—a situation that came to be known as “cohabitation.” Although the French constitution had not anticipated the possibility of an executive divided by party, the two men informally agreed that the president would control foreign relations and national defense and the premier would handle domestic policy, an arrangement that was followed during subsequent cohabitational periods. After the fall of communism in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe in 1989–91 (see collapse of the Soviet Union), a number of countries, including Russia, Poland, and Bulgaria, created presidential offices similar to that of the French.