Impeachment and Removing Leaders

In presidential systems, where leaders cannot be removed by a simple no-confidence vote, impeachment provides a way to remove them for serious misconduct. In the US, the House of Representatives impeaches by majority vote and the Senate convicts by a two-thirds vote; Andrew Johnson in 1868 survived by a single vote, and Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 before likely impeachment. In Latin America, impeachment became more frequent after the 1990s: Brazil's Fernando Collor resigned during his 1992 trial, and Dilma Rousseff was removed in 2016.

South Korea's Constitutional Court upheld the removal of President Park Geun-hye in 2017, after rejecting an earlier impeachment of Roh Moo-hyun in 2004. Scholars such as Aníbal Pérez-Liñán argue that impeachment has partly replaced military coups as a way of resolving crises. Debate continues over whether particular impeachments reflected genuine wrongdoing or political conflict, with each case viewed differently by different sides.