I don’t know whether this series of posts is interesting to anyone other than me, but I have been doing some detective work and I can confirm that, contrary to Duverger’s assertion, Hubert Beuve-Méry, was not the first to use the phrase ‘semi-presidential’ in 1959. Moreover, the term was indeed in some sort of current usage prior to the first use by Duverger in 1970.

I searched JSTOR for references to ‘semi-presidential’, ‘semipresidential’ and ‘semi-presidentialism’. This provides coverage of a lot of US-based journals, including Law, areas studies and political science. I also searched persee.fr, which provides access to the most established French journals going back decades. Finally, I searched Parliamentary Affairs, a UK journal that is a likely source of places for references to semi-presidentialism.

Anyway, the unequivocal conclusion is that, on the basis of these sources, the earliest references to the term ‘semi-presidential’ date back to the early 1950s and, in particular, in relation to articles on Eritrea.

Two of these articles were written by the same person, Sir Duncan Cumming, who was a British administrator in the area at the time. The content of the two articles is basically the same. They are:

Duncan Cameron Cumming, ‘The UN Disposal of Eritrea’, Middle East Journal, vol. 7, no. 1, 1953a, pp. 18-32 (ref. on p. 28).
Duncan Cumming, ‘The UN Disposal of Eritrea’, African Affairs, vol. 52, no. 207, 1953b, pp. 127-136 (ref. on p. 132).

However, an article in French on the same subject was published the previous year.

Roger Pinto, ‘Une expérience constituante des Nations unies’, Politique étrangère, vol. 17, no. 5, 1952, pp. 349-360 (ref. on p. 357).

So, what is the story? In 1950 the UN agreed to create a federation of Ethiopia and Eritrea. Within the federation Eritrea would have its own constitution, including legislative, executive and judicial powers over domestic affairs. A UN Commissioner, Dr. Eduardo Anze Matienzo from Bolivia, was appointed to help prepare the constitution.

The Commissioner is reported as describing the constitution as “semi-presidential”. The system was not semi-presidential in the way the term is understood now. Instead, it referred to where “a Chief Executive is elected by a one-chamber legislature for the term of its own office. The Chief Executive is to be charged with all executive power and is not politically answerable to the Assembly” (Cumming, 1953a, p. 28). So, Dr Matienzo currently has bragging rights about the first use of the term.

Aside from these references, I also found two further pre-1970 references. Both are in Parliamentary Affairs:

Jean Blondel, ‘Constitutional Changes in Former French Black Africa’, June 1960, vol. XIV, pp. 507 – 517.
J. E. S. Hayward, ‘Presidentialism and French Politics’, August 1964, vol. XVIII, pp. 23 – 39.

While I am on the topic, there is also a further reference to the term ‘semi-presidential’ in 1970. The historian, Kenneth O. Morgan, refers to the British PM, David Lloyd George, having “semi-presidential stature” during the First World War.

Kenneth O. Morgan, ‘Lloyd George’s Premiership: A Study in ‘Prime Ministerial Government’, The Historical Journal, vol. 13, no. 1, 1970, pp. 130-157 (ref. on p. 144).

I will post about the first use of the term ‘semi-presidentialism’ another time.