Mark P. Jones
One of the defining characteristics of Latin American politics is the prevalence of the presidential form of government in the region. This chapter provides an overview of the functioning of presidentialism and of the legislatures in Latin America. First, it identifies those countries where the presidential regime type is present. Second, it discusses the relationship between presidentialism and democracy in the region. Third, it explores the basic dynamics of the presidential election process. Fourth, it details the basic dynamics of the legislative election process within these presidential systems. Fifth, it examines executive-legislative relations in Latin America’s presidential democracies from both a constitutional and partisan perspective.
In his seminal work on democracy, Arend Lijphart provides a simple yet effective set of criteria for distinguishing between the world’s two most common democratic regime types (presidential and parliamentary) based on whether or not the executive is dependent upon the confidence of the legislature, and whether or not the executive is collegial or unipersonal.1 Based on these criteria, we can identify 18 pure presidential democracies in the region: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Following Lijphart’s binary coding of the French case, the Haitian semi-presidential regime type can also be included in this presidential category. It is upon these nineteen presidential democracies that this chapter will focus.
With two exceptions, all of the remaining democracies in the region employ a parliamentary form of government: Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, and a host (nine total) of microstates with populations ranging from 40,000 to 308,000. The two exceptions are Guyana and Suriname, which represent hybrid regime types that in form and practice do not fall as neatly into either the category of presidential or of parliamentary. Cuba, the Western Hemisphere’s sole remaining dictatorship, remains outside the scope of this analysis.
As will be discussed in greater detail below, there exists considerable variance in the constitutional and electoral rules which shape politics in the nineteen presidential democracies. There also, however, is a wide range of variance in which the country’s constitutional and statutory environment constrain and influence the behavior of political actors, with de jure factors notably more relevant for understanding politics in Latin America’s most consolidated and successful democracies (e.g., Chile, Costa Rica, Uruguay, Panama, Brazil) than in its least consolidated and more flawed democracies (e.g., Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Haiti, Venezuela).2
At the dawn of the third wave of democratization in the early-1980s, with a majority of Latin America’s historically presidential systems transitioning from a dictatorial to democratic regime, scholars concerned with the future of democracy in Latin America began to place the region’s presidential regime type under scrutiny, questioning if perhaps presidentialism was at least in part responsible for the region’s rather dismal democratic track record. It is important to recall that during the 1960s and 1970s numerous democratic regimes (e.g., Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Uruguay) were replaced by authoritarian dictatorships, reaching the nadir of only three (out of the nineteen countries discussed here) democracies in the region in 1977 (Colombia, Costa Rica, Venezuela).
This scrutiny resulted in a seminal edited volume by Juan Linz and Arturo Valenzuela, anchored by a chapter by Linz (which had been circulating in different forms for a decade).3 Based on a well-crafted argument grounded both in theory and empirical evidence, Linz concluded that while Latin America’s democracies had in the past failed for many reasons, it was reasonable to conclude that the region’s use of the presidential form of government had very likely been a contributing factor to democratic breakdown in a notable number of instances.4
The most authoritative response to the position of Linz and Valenzuela that presidentialism was in part responsible for Latin America’s spotty democratic history, and to the implicit assumption that a parliamentary regime type would have been better for the health of Latin American democracy, came from Scott Mainwaring and Matthew Shugart.5 After a thorough theoretical discussion and review of the empirical evidence, Mainwaring and Shugart concluded by agreeing with Linz and Valenzuela that Latin American democracies have performed poorly, but disagreeing with the conclusion that presidentialism (as opposed to parliamentarism) was a major contributing factor to the downfall of the region’s democracies. At the same time however, Mainwaring and Shugart made the extremely important point that the presidential regime type is not a homogenous one, and that factors such as a president’s constitutional and partisan powers could have a profound effect on the functioning of a presidential democracy, concurring with Linz that some facets of presidentialism were detrimental to the well-being of a country’s democracy.6
By the early 2000s, all nineteen Latin American presidential democracies (with the exception, depending on the year, of Haiti) were considered to meet the minimal criteria needed to be classified as electoral democracies, with Chile (1989), Mexico (1991/1994), and Paraguay (1993) being the last to join the ranks of the electoral democracies in the region. Furthermore, the 1990s and 2000s witnessed no democratic governments overthrown by military or military-supported coups with the sole exception of the case of Peru in 1992 when democratically elected president Alberto Fujimori staged a self-coup (autogolpe).7 In sum, Linz’s fear that the third wave Latin American democracies would fail due to their use of presidentialism appears today to have been unfounded.
However, while Latin America’s democratic regimes did not break down during the past twenty years, over one dozen democratically elected presidents were forced from office during this period of regime stability. Often the vehicle by which presidents were removed from office was through the route of impeachment or through a credible threat of impeachment resulting in an anticipated resignation by the president. Aníbal Pérez-Liñán has aptly referred to this dynamic as “stable presidentialism with unstable presidents.”8 While Pérez-Liñán highlights the positive role of the impeachment process in avoiding the types of conflicts which in the past often resulted in military intervention, he at the same time underscores the traumatic and extraordinary nature of impeachment as a tool for the removal of an unpopular and/or ineffective president from power.9
Central to the new focus of scholars concerned with presidential democracy in Latin America over the past dozen years have been those factors which affect presidential- legislative relations, in particular those which result in gridlock and conflict between the two branches as well as in simply inefficient/sub-optimal policymaking.10 Present concerns with the presidential regime type thus now lie much less with its relationship to democratic breakdown than with the greater possibility (compared to parliamentarism) of serious executive-legislative conflict that either results in the anticipated departure of the president from office11 or deficient policymaking.12
All Latin American presidents are directly elected, with Argentina (in 1989) being the last county to indirectly elect its president via an electoral college. The most popular method of presidential election in Latin America is the majority runoff/two-round method under which if no candidate receives at least 50% + 1 of the vote in the first round, a second round runoff election is held between the top-two candidates from the first-round. Brazil, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Peru, and Uruguay utilize this method. Costa Rica uses an identical approach, except that instead of a threshold of 50% + 1, a 40% threshold is employed. The second most popular method is the plurality formula, under which the candidate garnering the most votes in a single round is elected president. Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, and Venezuela utilize this method.
Advantages of the majority runoff method of presidential election are linked primarily to its ability to insure that no candidate is elected without the support of a majority of the country’s voters, something that can and does happen quite frequently in countries that utilize the plurality method of presidential election.13 For instance, it is less likely that an extremist candidate would emerge victorious in a presidential contest held under the majority runoff framework than using the plurality rule.14 Disadvantages of the majority runoff method include its tendency to encourage the fragmentation a country’s party system by providing incentives for several viable candidates/parties to compete in the presidential contest as well as by creating incentives for the establishment of a national party system with more than two major political parties.15 This fragmentation of the party system in turn increases the probability that a president’s party will not possess a majority of the seats in the legislature, potentially undermining the president’s ability to implement his/her policy agenda or even to effectively govern the country. Finally, critics of the majority runoff system also point out that the legitimacy provided to a candidate who wins a second round runoff (i.e., a “majority) is at times tarnished by the reality that in this runoff voters are restricted to only two choices, and thus to varying degrees forced to opt merely between the lesser of two evils.16
Another group of countries each employ a distinct variant of the double-complement rule to elect their president. First adopted by Argentina in 1994,17 in this version a runoff is held between the two top finishers from the first round unless either: (1) a candidate receives at least 45% + 1 of the vote, or (2) a candidate wins at least 40% of the vote and at the same time garners at least 10% more of the vote than the first runner-up. Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua also employ variations of this methodology.
The two most important trends over the past twenty years in the rules governing presidential elections have been the replacement of the plurality rule by the majority runoff method (Colombia, Dominican Republic, Uruguay) and the replacement of a variety of other methods of presidential election (Argentina, Bolivia, Nicaragua) by the modified versions of the double complement rule.18 The latter method is considered to provide many of the benefits of the majority runoff rule (e.g., avoiding the legitimacy problems resulting from a president being elected with a small share of the vote and/or the election of an extremist candidate) while attenuating many of the problems associated with the majority runoff formula (e.g., problems of governance stemming from its tendency to fragment the party system and thereby reduce the size of the president’s legislative contingent).
The constitutions which guided the Latin American presidential democracies during the early days of the third wave of democratization almost uniformly (the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua represent two partial exceptions) prohibited the immediate re-election of presidents.19 The underlying fear in most countries was that unfettered by constraints on reelection, incumbent presidents might abuse their control of the state and in doing so undermine the country’s democratic system.20 However, starting with Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori in 1993 and Argentine President Carlos Menem in 1994, popular and ambitious Latin American presidents began to actively work to throw off the shackles of term-limits via constitutional reforms to allow for the immediate re-election of the president (normally for one term). Since that time, several other presidents have successfully pushed through similar reforms to allow them to run for immediate re-election, including Fernando Henrique Cardoso in Brazil (1997), Hugo Chávez in Venezuela (1999), Álvaro Uribe in Colombia (2001), Hipólito Mejía in the Dominican Republic (2002), Rafael Correa in Ecuador (2008), and Evo Morales in Bolivia (2009). Of these eight presidents, all but Mejía were re-elected. However, not all reform efforts by sitting presidents during this period were successful, with the failed 2009 attempt of Manuel “Mel” Zelaya in Honduras, which resulted in his forced removal from power, the most dramatic example.
At present, seven of the region’s democracies (all but one located in South America) allow for the immediate re-election of the president, while a majority of the remaining countries allow for presidential re-election, but only after the president has been out of office for one or two terms. Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and Paraguay alone retain the absolute prohibition on any form of presidential re-election.
Historically, the presidential candidates of the major political parties in Latin America were selected by small groups of elites or by party conventions.21 Over the past twenty years however the selection process for choosing a party’s presidential candidate has moved increasingly from the smoked-filled back rooms of yore to the ballot box via the implementation of direct primary elections.22 However, the adoption of democratic primaries for the selection of presidential candidates has not been uniform across the region nor has the use of primaries been found to have improved the level of intra-party democracy.23 In some countries mandatory primaries are now in force for the selection of presidential candidates, with Honduras, Paraguay, and Uruguay the prime examples of this model. In other countries primaries are not mandated, yet their use is relatively common within at least one of the principal parties or alliances (e.g., Chile, Dominican Republic, Panama). Lastly, there are many countries where the use of primaries to select the leading presidential candidates has never occurred or is extremely rare (e.g., Bolivia, Brazil, Guatemala).
The overall impact of the use of direct primaries to choose a party’s candidate on general election performance (compared to selection by elites) is unclear. There exists some evidence that primaries produce candidates who are more popular among the electorate at large as well as better enable parties to resolve internal conflicts, but other evidence which suggests primaries can have a negative impact on general election performance if they are especially divisive, poorly run, or restricted to a relatively limited selectorate (e.g., party members only).24
In an overwhelming majority of the Latin American presidential democracies, presidential and legislative elections are held at the same time (concurrently). The advantages for governability provided by concurrent elections are widely acknowledged by scholars and policymakers, with two countries (Chile, Dominican Republic) that previously held their presidential and legislative elections at separate times reforming their respective constitutions over the past decade to adopt concurrent elections. To date, El Salvador, Haiti, and Venezuela remain as the region’s sole examples of nonconcurrent systems, along with Colombia which though does always hold its elections in the same year, with legislative elections in March and presidential elections in May.25 In addition, Argentina and Mexico employ a mixed electoral cycle with elections held at the midpoint of a president’s term in office. In Argentina one-half of the Chamber of Deputies and one-third of the Senate is elected in the midterm elections while in Mexico the entire Chamber is renewed. Finally, in the case of the Argentine (one-third every two years), Brazilian (one-third or two-thirds every four years), and Chilean (one-half every four years) senates, the terms of the senators are longer than that of the president, with the senate renewed via partial renovation.
Within the checks-and-balances framework of presidentialism, the legislative branch (and the individual legislators who comprise its membership) plays a much more active and prominent role in governance than is generally the case in parliamentary systems. The number of legislative chambers, the geographic distribution of legislative seats, and the rules governing the election of legislators therefore have far more direct consequences for the nature of executive-legislative relations and public policy in presidential democracies than is the case in most parliamentary systems.
Within the Latin American presidential systems there exist both bicameral and unicameral legislative branches. In contrast to the case in bicameral parliamentary systems, the two legislative chambers in the Latin American presidential bicameral systems are essentially equal (symmetric) in terms of their constitutional powers.26 The region is roughly divided equally between those countries with bicameral legislatures (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Mexico, Paraguay, Uruguay) and those with unicameral legislatures. During the third wave of democratization, two countries have eliminated their senate (Peru, Venezuela), while no country has moved from a unicameral to bicameral structure.
The nine senates vary considerably in terms of the allocation of seats across the national territory. At one extreme are countries which have an equal number of senators elected from each of their principal sub-national units (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Haiti). The next most common mode of senate election is from a nation-wide district (Colombia, Paraguay, and Uruguay). Mexico represents a mixture of these two models as does Chile to some extent, albeit in a more complex manner.
All of the single/lower houses allocate their seats across the national territory based principally on the population of the subnational territorial units. However, in all countries there is at least some overrepresentation of the most rural/least populated districts, which varies from noteworthy (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil) to minimal (Costa Rica, Honduras, Uruguay).27
Four general families of electoral systems are utilized to elect legislators in Latin America. At the majoritarian extreme are a handful of systems (one lower house and three senates) that select all legislators from single-member or two-member districts using either the plurality or majority runoff formula.
At the other extreme is the large number of systems (fifteen lower/single houses and five senates) where legislators are electing entirely utilizing proportional representation (PR). These systems can be subdivided based on the type of electoral districting utilized (multimember or national, with the former by far the most common) and whether citizens cast a vote for a closed list of candidates presented by a party or are able to cast a preferential vote for specific legislators.
Three countries utilize a mixed-member system (Bolivia–Chamber, Mexico–Chamber, Venezuela) where a portion of the legislators are elected from single-member districts using the plurality rule and a portion from multi-member districts via PR. Finally, the members of entire Argentine Senate and three-fourths of the Mexican Senate are elected from three-member districts (the province/state), with two seats allocated to the party which receives the most votes and one seat to the first runner-up (the remaining quarter in Mexico is elected from a nation-wide PR district).
In districts where more than one legislator is being elected, two general types of party lists are utilized. Most common in Latin America are closed lists, where the party presents a rank-ordered list of candidates that cannot be altered by the voter. For instance, in a district electing five members, a party will present a list of candidates ranked from one to five. Voters cast a single vote for a party list, and, if, for example, the party is allocated three seats based on its vote total, then the first three individuals on the rank-ordered list are elected.
An alternative to closed lists are lists which allow a voter to cast a preference vote for one or more candidates. In contrast to closed list systems, where the seats are awarded based on the order of the list presented by the party, in open list systems the seats are awarded to the party’s candidates based on the number of preference votes they garnered in the election. Under the most common form of preference voting in Latin America (Brazil–Chamber, Chile–Chamber and Senate, Colombia–Chamber and Senate [most parties], Dominican Republic–Chamber, Panama, Peru–unicameral), voters may only cast a preference vote(s) for the candidates of a single party or alliance. In Ecuador and Honduras, voters are allowed to cast preference votes across multiple parties or alliances.
Other factors held constant, the utilization of preference voting tends to result in legislators who are less beholden to their parties, and more responsive to voters, than is the case with legislators who are elected from closed lists. These latter legislators generally follow the instructions of the party leaders who were responsible for placing them on the ballot in an electable position.28
Over the past twenty years, the Latin American legislatures have been in the global vanguard of efforts to increase the proportion of women legislators via the use of positive action. In 1993 Argentina was the first country in the world to implement gender quota legislation for the election of national legislators. The impact on the election of women to the country’s Chamber was profound. Between 1983 and 1991, an average of only 5% of deputies elected were women (ranging from 3% to 6%). Following the adoption of quotas, the proportion of women elected increased to 21% in 1993, 28% in 1995, and since 2001 has not dropped below 31% (averaging 34%). As a result of the use of effective quota legislation, the percentage of women in the Argentine Chamber and Senate today is 39% and 35%, respectively.
In all, two-thirds of the Latin American presidential democracies have adopted some form of gender quota legislation for the election of national legislators over the past twenty years.29 However, not all of this legislation has been well-designed, resulting in many cases (e.g., the Brazilian Chamber, Panamanian Assembly, and Paraguayan Chamber) in which the implementation of quota legislation has failed to substantially improve the presence of women in the legislature. Legislatures elected using well-designed quota legislation on average have a comparatively large proportion of female members, with all of the Latin American legislatures whose composition is 25% or more female employing well-designed quota legislation to elect either all or some of their legislators (Bolivia–Senate 47%, Argentina– Chamber 39%, Costa Rica 39%, Argentina–Senate 35%, Ecuador 32%, Peru 28%, Mexico 26%, Bolivia–Chamber 25%).30
In contrast to the case for presidents, virtually all Latin American legislators are allowed to run for unlimited re-election. The noteworthy exceptions are Costa Rica and Mexico, where legislators must sit out for one term prior to running for re-election, and Venezuela where legislators may only be re-elected twice.31
The relationship between the executive and legislative branches in Latin America’s presidential democracies is powerfully shaped by the constitutional powers granted to each body as well as the partisan powers of the president vis-à-vis the legislature and the level of polarization in the country’s political party system.32 The combination of these factors (along with others related to legislative careers and legislative capacities) has a prominent impact on the extent to which the legislature is a mere rubber-stamp of executive initiatives versus an effective and active participant in the policymaking process.33
The president’s constitutional powers can be divided into two general categories: legislative powers and non-legislative powers.34 Principal legislative powers include veto, decree, and agenda-setting powers. There is little variance in non-legislative constitutional powers in Latin America.35
Two aspects of the veto process are most relevant for understanding presidential power in this area.36 The first is whether or not the president can only veto an entire bill approved by congress (package veto) or if the president has the power to strike-down specific articles/ sections of a bill (line-item veto). Given the greater latitude allowed to the president, the line-item veto enhances presidential power in relation to the legislature to a greater extent than the package veto alone. A majority of the Latin American constitutions provide the president with both package and line-item veto powers, with the exception of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, and Mexico where the president only has the option of vetoing the entire bill.
The second aspect is the proportion of the members of the legislature who must vote to override a veto. At one extreme are systems where a veto can only be overridden by a two-thirds vote of the full membership of the legislature (Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Panama) followed by those where a two-thirds vote is required, but the denominator is the number of legislators present at the session, not the full membership (Argentina, Chile, Mexico). At the other extreme are the remaining systems where a veto may be overridden by simple majority of legislators (in some cases the denominator is the full membership and in others the legislators present). Uruguay, with a 60% threshold, occupies an intermediate position.
Legislative decree power allows the president to legislate without going through Congress.37 The degree of this power to bypass Congress in the legislative process varies across the presidential democracies considerably. Roughly half of the presidents in the region have no decree powers, while many of those who enjoy this prerogative do so in a constrained manner as the use of legislative decrees is limited to specific policy areas, emergency situations, or can be in force only for a limited period of time.
In addition to veto and decree powers, presidents are advantaged in their interaction with the legislative branch via the possession of a series of agenda-setting powers. First, is the conditional agenda-setting power under which a president can amend vetoed bills returned to Congress.38 Second, is the exclusive right of a president alone to introduce legislative bills in specific thematic areas. Third, is the power of the president in the budget process, with particular focus on the ability of the congress to modify the budget bill submitted by the president and the reversion point in the event congress fails to pass a budget.39 In the former case some legislatures can modify all aspects of the budget bill, in others the legislature is unable to increase spending in specific budget lines nor overall. In the latter case, the most common reversion point in Latin America is the prior year’s budget, although in one-third of the countries if no budget is passed, the budget bill originally submitted by the executive is automatically adopted.40
The Latin American presidential democracies can be divided into three rough groups in terms of the constitutional power of their president vis-à-vis the legislature: Strong (Brazil, Chile, Colombia), Moderate (Argentina, Ecuador, Panama, Uruguay, Bolivia, Peru, El Salvador, Honduras, Venezuela), and Weak (Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Haiti, Nicaragua, Mexico, Paraguay).41
Three party system related factors are crucial for understanding executive-legislative relations in a country: the size of the presidential legislative contingent, the level of polarization existing among the political parties in the legislature, and the extent to which the members of the presidential legislative contingent are responsive to the party leadership and/or president. These factors combined have a prominent impact on the degree of a president’s partisan powers vis-à-vis the legislature as well as affect the level of difficulty experienced by president in forming either long-term of short-term alliances to pass legislation in particular and to govern more generally.42
At present in several countries (e.g., Brazil, Chile, Guatemala Paraguay), the president’s party holds only a modest (e.g., less than 40%) of the legislative seats while in other countries the president’s party occupies an absolute majority of the seats (e.g., Bolivia, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Uruguay, Venezuela). There is considerable debate regarding the consequences of presidential legislative contingents that are below majority status, particularly those that drop below one-third or one-quarter of the legislative body.43 While some consider small presidential contingents (especially those that are around 33% and below) to be problematic for governance, others do not. However, there is substantial agreement that in instances where the president’s party lacks a majority of the seats in the legislature (or does not at least approach a majority, with, for instance, at least 40% or 45% of the seats), that in order to be able to govern effectively the president must form some type of legislative coalition.44 Where these coalitions are not formed, governance problems are likely to emerge.45 The formation of coalitions is most feasible when there are low levels of ideological polarization in the party system.46 Where high levels of ideological polarization exist, the barriers to forming coalitions are much greater, and the costs (in terms of payoffs/sidepayments) much greater.
To summarize, where there is a large presidential legislative contingent, presidents should be able to effectively implement their policy agenda regardless of the level of ideological polarization. While low levels of polarization may have some positive attributes, they are not necessary for effective and efficient governance in these situations. When the president lacks a legislative majority or near-majority, the level of ideological polarization becomes more important. Where ideological polarization is low, presidents should on average be more likely to be able to form, and then successfully maintain, legislative coalitions. Where polarization is high, coalition formation and maintenance is likely to be much more difficult, as well as much more costly in terms of payoffs (e.g., inefficient pork expenditures, bribes, excess patronage positions).
The size of a president’s legislative contingent is only one side of the partisan powers coin. Also of great relevance to a president is the degree of responsiveness or discipline of his/her party’s/alliance’s legislative contingent. This level of responsiveness can vary significantly across countries (as well as across parties within countries), thereby influencing the extent to which a president can count on the support of his or her co-partisans in the legislature. This level of responsiveness to the president (and to the central party leadership) can also influence the nature of legislative coalitions, particularly the individuals with whom a president negotiates the formation and maintenance of the legislative coalitions (e.g., the national party leadership vs. intra-party faction/regional leaders vs. individual legislators).
The level of responsiveness of legislators to the president is influenced by a host of factors, with four of particular importance. First, is the locus of nomination authority for the selection of legislative candidates, with legislators more responsive when this authority is completely centralized in the hands of the presidential candidate/party leadership and legislators less responsive when nomination authority resides with district-level party leaders or primary-voters.47 Second, is election timing, with legislators likely to be more responsive to the president when elections are concurrent than when they are either nonconcurrent or mixed.48 Third, is the ballot format for legislative elections, with systems which provide incentives to cultivate a personal vote for legislators (e.g., multi-member districts, PR, and preference voting; single-member districts) producing legislators who are less responsive to the president/party leadership than those systems that do not provide such incentives.49 Fourth, is the value of the party label/access to the ballot under the party label, with systems in which the party label is a valuable commodity engendering greater responsiveness than those where the label and/or the ballot access it provides has little value for legislators.
Contrary to the case twenty years ago, presidentialism in Latin America is no longer associated with democratic breakdown. The structure of a country’s presidential system is however extremely relevant for the functioning of its democratic system and its ability to effectively adopt and implement optimal public policies. As the above review underscores, while a total of nineteen Latin American democracies employ a presidential form of government, these nineteen presidential systems are extremely diverse in structure and functioning. This chapter has served to underscore the considerable variance in several key features related to the executive, the legislature, and the interaction between these two branches of government, variance which is extremely relevant for the quality of these countries’ democracies and the public policies they produce. Whereas in some countries the design of the political institutions helps to foster the crafting, passage, and implementation of public policies which work to advance economic and social development in the country, in others suboptimal institutional arrangements often undermine development efforts. It is for this reason that the world’s most prominent multi-lateral institutions whose mission centers on development such as the Inter-American Development Bank (in particular), the United Nations Development Programme, and the World Bank have in recent years made tremendous investments in improving scholarly understanding of the design and functioning of democratic political institutions in Latin America, with particular focus on the consequences of institutional design and functioning for the policymaking process.
1 Arend Lijphart, Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999); Jorge Lanzaro, “Tipos de Presidencialismo y Modos de Gobierno en América Latina,” in Jorge Lanzaro (ed.), Tipos de Presidencialismo y Coaliciones Políticas en América Latina [Types of Presidentialism and Political Coaltions in Latin America] (Buenos Aires: CLACSO, 2001), pp. 15–40.
2 Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2011. www.freedomhouse.org.
3 Juan J. Linz and Arturo Valenzuela (eds.), The Failure of Presidential Democracy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994).
4 Juan J. Linz, “Presidential or Parliamentary Democracy: Does It Make a Difference?”, in Juan J. Linz and Arturo Valenzuela (eds.), The Failure of Presidential Democracy, pp. 3–87.
5 Matthew Soberg Shugart and Scott Mainwaring, “Presidentialism and Democracy in Latin America: Rethinking the Terms of the Debate,” in Scott Mainwaring and Matthew Soberg Shugart (eds.), Presidentialism and Democracy in Latin America (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 12–54.
6 Shugart and Mainwaring, “Presidentialism and Democracy in Latin America”; Scott Mainwaring and Matthew Soberg Shugart, “Conclusion: Presidentialism and the Party System,” in Scott Mainwaring and Matthew Soberg Shugart (eds.), Presidentialism and Democracy in Latin America (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 394–437. Also relevant to this initial concern with presidential regime-type heterogeneity are: Matthew S. Shugart and John M. Carey, Presidents and Assemblies: Constitutional Design and Electoral Dynamics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Scott Mainwaring “Presidentialism, Multipartism, and Democracy: The Difficult Combination,” Comparative Political Studies 26 (1993): 198–228; Mark P. Jones, Electoral Laws and the Survival of Presidential Democracy (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995).
7 Charles D. Kenney, Fujimori’s Coup and the Breakdown of Democracy in Latin America (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2004).
8 Aníbal Pérez-Liñán, Presidential Impeachment and the New Political Instability in Latin America (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 204.
9 Pérez-Liñán, Presidential Impeachment.
10 Barry Ames, The Deadlock of Democracy in Brazil (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001); Ernesto Stein and Mariano Tommasi (with Pablo Spiller and Carlos Scartascini), Policy-making in Latin America: How Politics Shapes Policies (Washington D.C.: Inter-American Development Bank, 2008); Eduardo Alemán and Ernesto Calvo, “Unified Government, Bill Approval, and the Legislative Weight of the President,” Comparative Political Studies 43 (2010): 511–34.
11 Arturo Valenzuela, “Latin American Presidencies Interrupted,” Journal of Democracy 15:4 (2004): 5–19.
12 Stein and Tommasi, Policymaking in Latin America; Carlos Scartascini, Ernesto Stein, and Mariano Tommasi (eds.), How Democracy Works: Political Institutions, Actors, and Arenas in Latin American Policymaking (Washington D.C.: Inter-American Development Bank, 2010).
13 Shugart and Mainwaring, “Conclusion.”
14 Giovanni Sartori, Comparative Constitutional Engineering (New York: New York University Press, 1994).
15 Jones, Electoral Laws; David J. Samuels, “Presidentialized Parties: The Separation of Powers and Party Organization and Behavior,” Comparative Political Studies 35 (2002): 461–83.
16 Linz, “Presidential or Parliamentary Democracy.”
17 Matthew S. Shugart and Rein Taagepera, “Majority Versus Plurality Election: A Proposal for a Double Complement Rule,” Comparative Political Studies 27 (1994): 323–48.
18 Karen Remmer, “The Politics of Institutional Change: Electoral Reform in Latin America, 1978–2002,” Party Politics 14 (2008): 5–30.
19 Presidential term lengths in Latin America range from four to six years, with all countries having four or five year terms with the exception of Mexico and Venezuela.
20 John M. Carey, “The Reelection Debate in Latin America,” Latin American Politics and Society 45 (2003): 119–33.
21 Manuel Alcántara Sáez and Flavia Freidenberg (eds.), Partidos Políticos de América Latina [Political Parties of Latin America]: Volumes 1, 2, and 3 (Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 2001); John M. Carey and John Polga-Hecimovich, “Primary Elections and Candidate Strength in Latin America,” The Journal of Politics 68 (2006): 530–43; Bonnie N. Field and Peter M. Siavelis, “Candidate Selection Procedures in Transitional Polities,” Party Politics 12 (2008): 620–39.
22 Flavia Freidenberg and Manuel Alcántara Sáez, “Selección de Candidatos, Política Partidista y Rendimiento Democrático: Una Introducción” [Candidate Selection, Party Politics and Democratic Performance: An Introduction], in Flavia Freidenberg and Manuel Alcántara Sáez (eds.), Selección de Candidatos, Política Partidista y Rendimiento Democrático [Selection of Candidates, Democratic Party Politics and Performance] (Mexico City: Tribunal Electoral del Distrito Federal, 2009), pp. 13–34.
23 Freidenberg and Alcántara Sáez, “Selección de Candidatos.”
24 Carey and Polga-Hecimovich, “Primary Elections”; Miguel De Luca, Mark P. Jones, and María Inés Tula, “Revisando las Consecuencias Políticas de las Primarias. Un Estudio Sobre las Elecciones de Gobernador en la Argentina” [Reviewing the Political Consequences of the Primaries. A Study of Governor Elections in Argentina], POSTData 13 (2008): 81–102; Ozge Kemahlioglu, Rebecca Weitz-Shapiro, and Shigeo Hirano, “Why Primaries in Latin American Presidential Elections?”, The Journal of Politics 71 (2009): 339–52; Gilles Serra, “Why Primaries? The Party’s Tradeoff Between Policy and Valence,” Journal of Theoretical Politics 23 (2011): 21–51.
25 In El Salvador the executive and legislature are respectively elected for five and three year terms, resulting in every fifth legislative election and every third presidential election being held in the same year (though in 2009 legislative elections were held in January and the presidential elections in March).
26 Lijphart, Patterns of Democracy.
27 David Samuels and Richard Snyder, “The Value of a Vote: Malapportionment in Comparative Perspective,” British Journal of Political Science 31 (2001): 651–71.
28 John M. Carey and Matthew S. Shugart, “Incentives to Cultivate a Personal Vote: A Rank-Ordering of Electoral Formulas,” Electoral Studies 14 (1995): 417–39; Brian F. Crisp, Maria C. Escobar-Lemmon, Bradford S. Jones, Mark P. Jones, and Michelle Taylor-Robinson, “Electoral Incentives and Legislative Representation in Six Presidential Democracies,” The Journal of Politics 66 (2004): 823–46; J. Mark Payne, Daniel Zovatto G., and Mercedes Mateo Díaz, Democracies in Development: Politics and Reform in Latin America (Washington D.C.: Inter-American Development Bank, 2007).
29 Mark P. Jones, “Gender Quotas, Electoral Laws, and the Election of Women: Evidence from the Latin American Vanguard,” Comparative Political Studies 42 (2009): 56–81.
30 Inter-Parliamentary Union, “Women in National Parliaments,” www.ipu.org.
31 Michelle M. Taylor, “Formal Versus Informal Incentive Structures and Legislator Behavior: Evidence from Costa Rica,” The Journal of Politics 54 (1992): 1053–71; Joy Langston, “Legislative Recruitment in Mexico,” in Peter M. Siavelis and Scott Morgenstern (eds.), Pathways to Power: Political Recruitment and Candidate Selection in Latin America (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2008), pp. 143–63.
32 Sebastián Saiegh, “Active Players or Rubber Stamps? An Evaluation of the Policymaking Role of Latin American Legislatures,” in Carlos Scartascini, Ernesto Stein, and Mariano Tommasi (eds.), How Democracy Works: Political Institutions, Actors, and Arenas in Latin American Policymaking (Washington D.C.: Inter-American Development Bank, 2010); Shugart and Mainwaring, “Presidentialism and Democracy”; Payne, Zovatto G. and Mateo Díaz, Democracies in Development. 33 Gary W. Cox and Scott Morgenstern, “Latin America’s Reactive Assemblies and Proactive Presidents,” Comparative Politics
33 (2001): 171–89; Saiegh, “Active Players or Rubber Stamps?”.
34 Payne, Zovatto G., and Mateo Díaz, Democracies in Development.
35 Payne, Zovatto G., and Mateo Díaz, Democracies in Development. Haiti represents a noteworthy exception due to its semi-presidential system.
36 Payne, Zovatto G., and Mateo Díaz, Democracies in Development.
37 Carey and Shugart, “Incentives to Cultivate.”
38 George Tsebelis and Eduardo Alemán, “Presidential Conditional Agenda Setting in Latin America,” World Politics 57 (2005): 396–420.
39 Payne, Zovatto G., and Mateo Díaz, Democracies in Development.
40 Payne, Zovatto G., and Mateo Díaz, Democracies in Development; Stein and Tommasi Policymaking in Latin America; Scartascini, Stein, and Tommasi, How Democracy Works.
41 Payne, Zovatto G., and Mateo Díaz, Democracies in Development.
42 Daniel Chasquetti, “Democracia, Multipartidismo y Coaliciones en América Latina: Evaluando la Difícil Combinación” [Democracy, Multipartism and Coalitions in Latin America: Assessing the Difficult Combination], in Jorge Lanzaro (ed.), Tipos de Presidencialismo en América Latina, pp. 319–59; Andrés Mejía Acosta and Carlos Pereira, “Policymaking in Multiparty Presidential Democracies: A Comparison Between Brazil and Ecuador,” Governance 23 (2010): 641–66; Mainwaring and Shugart, “Conclusion”.
43 Joe Foweraker, “Review Article: Institutional Design, Party Systems and Governability-Differentiating the Presidential Regimes of Latin America,” British Journal of Political Science 28 (1998): 651–76; Payne and Díaz, Democracies in Development.
44 Cecilia Martínez-Gallardo, “Inside the Cabinet: The Influence of Ministers in the Policymaking Process,” in Carlos Scartascini, Ernesto Stein, and Mariano Tommasi (eds.), How Democracy Works: Political Institutions, Actors, and Arenas in Latin American Policymaking (Washington D.C. and Cambridge MA: Inter-American Development Bank, 2010).
45 Gabriel L. Negretto, “Minority Presidents and Democratic Performance in Latin America,” Latin American Politics and Society 48 (2006): 63–92; Chasquetti, “Democracia, Multipartidismo y Coaliciones.”
46 David Altman, “The Politics of Coalition Formation and Survival in Multiparty Presidential Regimes,” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Notre Dame (2001); Octavio Amorim Neto “The Presidential Calculus: Executive Policy Making and Government Formation in the Americas,” Comparative Political Studies 39 (2006) 415–40; Foweraker, “Review Article”; Hebert Kitschelt, Kirk A. Hawkins, Juan Pablo Luna, Guillermo Rosas, and Elizabeth J. Zechmeister, Latin American Party Systems (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010).
47 Peter M. Siavelis and Scott Morgenstern (eds.), Pathways to Power: Political Recruitment and Candidate Selection in Latin America (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2008); Brian F. Crisp and Juan Carlos Rey, “The Sources of Electoral Reform in Venezuela,” in Matthew Soberg Shugart and Martin P. Wattenberg (eds.), Mixed-Member Electoral Systems: The Best of Both Worlds? (New York, Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 173–93.
48 Samuels, “Presidentialized Parties”; David J. Samuels and Matthew S. Shugart, Presidents, Parties, and Prime Ministers: How the Separation of Powers Affects Party Organization and Behavior (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010).
49 Carey and Shugart “Incentives to Cultivate”; Samuels and Shugart, Presidents, Parties, and Prime Ministers.