The usual wisdom is that Hubert Beuve-Méry coined the phrase “semi-presidential’ in 1959. Duverger then used the term as a classification of a specific political regime, in contrast to presidential and parliamentary regimes, in the 11th edition of his book Institutions Politiques in 1970. Certainly, the 10th edition in 1968 does not make reference to this type of regime.

Previously, I reported an article by Jean-François Bayart in the Revue française de science politique, 1970, vol. 20, no. 4, pp. 681-718, where there is a reference to Cameroon being ‘semi-presidential’. Anyway, while rooting around in the LSE library on Friday I came across an earlier reference still.

In the Revue Juridique et Politique d’Outre-Mer, vol. 14, no. 3, 1960, p. 318, Bertrand Mounier calls the then new political system in Madagascar a ‘semi-presidential democracy’. He notes that the president is elected by a then French-style electoral college, rather than being popularly elected as in the US and that, for him, makes Madagascar semi-presidential.

I have no information about M. Mounier, apart from his then affiliation as an adviser in the Madagascan Senate.

Even though the term was being used differently then than now, it is interesting that the concept of semi-presidentialism was in circulation nearly a decade before Duverger first used the term in his textbook.