DOCUMENTO DE TRABAJO NÚMERO 163 GABRIEL L. NEGRETTO Minonty Presidents and Types of Government in Latin America DIVISIÓN DE Estudios políticos CIDE NÚMERO 163 GABRIEL L. NEGRETTO Minority Presidents and Types of Government in Latín America ENERO 2004 CIDE www.cide.edu Las colecciones de Documentos de Trabajo del CIDE representan un medio para difundir los avances de la labor de investigación, y para permitir que los autores reciban comentarios antes de su publicación definitiva. Se agradecerá que los comentarios se hagan llegar directamente al (los) autor(es). • D.R. ® 2004. Centro de investigación y Docencia Económicas, carretera México-Toluca 3655 (Km. 16.5), Lomas de Santa Fe, 01210, México, D.F. Tel. 5727.9800 exts. 2202, 2203, 2417 Fax: 5727.9885 y 5292.1304. Correo electrónico: [email protected] www.cide.edu Producción a cargo del (los) autor(es), por lo que tanto el contenido así como el estilo y la redacción son su responsabilidad. Abstract A widely accepted argument among students of presidential regimes is that inter-branch cooperation is impaired when president's party holds a minority of legislative seats and the leve/ of party fractionalization in congress is fiigh. This argument fails to tal<e into account t/iree variables tfiat should affect tlie performance of minority presidential governments: the location of the president's party in the policy space, the capacity of the president to sustain a veto, and the formation and nature of cabinet coalitions. Based on a new typology of presidential regimes, I propose the hypothesis that the most conflictive form of minority government is that in which the president's party lacks the support of both the median and the veto legislator and no cabinet coalition holding a majority of legislative seats or including the median legislative party is formed. This hypothesis is supported with data on executive-legislative conflicts and on the premature termination of constitutional terms in Latín America during the period 19792002. Resumen Un argumento ampliamente aceptado entre los estudiosos de regímenes presidenciales es que la cooperación entre ramas de gobierno se ve negativamente afectada cuando el partido del presidente se encuentra en minoría y el nivel de fragmentación partidaria en el congreso es alto. Este argumento no toma en cuenta tres variables que deberían tener impacto sobre el funcionamiento de gobiernos presidenciales minorítarios: la ubicación del partido del presidente en el espacio de políticas legislativas, la capacidad del presidente de sostener un veto, y la formación y naturaleza de las coaliciones. Fundado en una nueva tipología de regímenes presidenciales, propongo la hipótesis de que la forma más conflictiva de gobierno minorítarío es aquélla en la cual el partido del presidente carece de apoyo del legislador mediano y del legislador con veto y no se forman coaliciones de gabinete que sumen una mayoría de asientos legislativos o incluyan al partido mediano en el congreso. La hipótesis se sostiene en datos sobre conflictos ejecutivo-legislativos y casos de terminación anticipada de períodos constitucionales en América Latina, durante el período 1979-2002. Minority Presidents and Types of Government in Latín America Introduction A rich literature on presidential regimes has repeatedly associated party fragmentation, and its likely effect, minority presidencies, with ineffective government, high levéis of executive-legislative conflict, and even dennocratic instability. So far, however, neither single-case studies provide a general explanation of this association ñor large-n statistical studies prove beyond doubt that the relevant variables are significantly correlated. The absence of conclusive results is due to the lack of attention to variables other than the share of seats of the president's party in congress or the level of legislative fractionalization to explain the different performance of minority presidential governments. This paper proposes that there are several logical categories of minority government in presidential regimes; each leading to different expected levéis of inter-branch cooperation. Using an analytic model of executive-legislative relations, I argüe that the most conflictive form of minority government is that in which the president's party lacks the support of both the median and the veto legislator and no cabinet coalition holding a majority of legislative seats or including the median legislative party is formed. This hypothesis is supported with data on executive-legislative conflicts and on the premature termination of presidencies in Latin America during the period 1979-2002. The argument is presented as follows. In section I, I review the literature on minority presidential governments. Section II proposes a new typology of governments in presidential regimes and a series of hypotheses about levéis of inter-branch cooperation based on whether or not the party of the president controls the pivotal legislators necessary to pass a bilí or sustain a veto. Section III analyzes the frequency at which majority coalitions or coalitions including the median party in congress are formed in each type of presidential government. In section IV, the performance of the different forms of minority presidential government is measured by an index on executive-legislative conflicts and cases of premature termination of constitutional terms in Latin America during the period 1979-2002. I conclude by indicating the lines of research that this study suggests. Presidentialism and Minority Government The logic of separation of powers has inspired several hypotheses about the comparative performance of presidential democracies. The most radical of them was initially proposed by Linz (1987, 1990) and other 'critics' of presidentialism (Valenzuela 1994; Skach and Stepan 1994; Linz and Stepan 1996), who argued that sepárate elections and fixed terms in office induce inter-institutional conflict and make the resolution of political crises difficult, DIVISIÓN DE ESTUDIOS POLÍTICOS Gabriel L. Negret^o if not impossible. According to this view, the 'fusión' of powers created by parliamentary regimes is a much better formula to foster effective and stable democracies. In response to Linz and his colleagues, a new literature originated in the work of Shugart and Carey (1992) and foUowed by a series of influential studies (Mainwaring 1993; Jones 1995: Mainwahng and Shugart 1997a, 1997b) proposed that not all presidenti'al regimes are equally problematic from the point of view of democratic stability or good governance. In particular, the socalled 'defenders' of presidentialism proposed that presidents should be able to govern effectively if they can count on the support of partisan majorities in congress. This support, in turn, would emerge if presidential regimes adopt the 'right' combination of electoral variables, namely, plurality rule to elect presidents, party-Ust PR v>/ith modérate district magnitudes to elect legislators, and concurrent electoral cycles. For this line of research, the level of party fractionalization in congress, measured by the effective number of legislative parties (ENLP), is a crucial determinant of the performance of presidential regimes.^ Mainwaring and Shugart (1997b: 466), for instance, argüe that presidential regimes cannot work well when the ENLP is above 4. The logic behind this proposition is that as party fractionalization increases the size of the president's party decreases, thus making more difficult for the president to get legislation passed. While one way to overeóme this situation is to rely on coalitions, these authors argüe that the sepárate survival of presidents and assemblies makes building and maintaining interparty coalitions more difficult as the number of relevant parties in congress grows. What is problematic for good democratic governance, then, is not presidentialism by itself but the 'difficult' combination of presidentialism and multipartism. The idea that presidential regimes work better when the president's party is a major party with significant legislative support found empirical support in the experience of some of the most stable presidential democracies in Latin America, like Costa Rica and Venezuela (until the early 1990s), which combined restrictive electoral rules with two or two-and-one-half party systems. This view, however, is at odds with recent institutional developments in Latin America. Since 1979 the large majority of presidential regimes in the región have shifted from plurality to either majority or qualified plurality electoral formulas for presidential elections. This method of electing presidents, combined with already existing PR formulas of congressional elections, have made multipartism and minority presidential government more the rule than the exception. Yet, in spite of wide variations in quality and performance, minority presidential government did not lead to the massive failure of democracies in the región. ENLP results from the application of the Laakso and Taagepera (1979) formula: I divided by the sum of the squared decimal shares of the seats won by each electoral party. ■ÍOÍ Minority Presidents and Types of Covernmenf ¡n Latin America These results seem somewhat more consistent with the findings of a new series of statistical studies that show that while presidential regi'mes are indeed more vulnerable than parliamentary ones to democratic breakdown, the reason is not the lack of majority support of the president's party or the level of legislative fractionalization per se (Przeworski ef al. 2000). However, neither this study ñor those that foUowed from it (Cheibub 2002; Cheibub and Limongi 2002; Cheibub, Przeworski, and Saiegh 2002) have provided yet more than a list of 'negative' findings to explain the relatively low survival of presidential regimes. Based on the findings of Przeworski ef al. (2000), Cheibub (2002) challenges the conventional wisdom that presidentialism and multipartism is the worst combination for democratic stability by showing that minority presidencies, even when they present conditions for deadlock (the president's party holds less than a legislative majority but is able to sustain a veto), do not affect the survival of democracy. Cheibub, Przeworski, and Saiegh (2002), in turn, argüe that single-party minority governments are not less effective than (majority or minority) coalition governments and that the survival of presidential democracies is not affected by whether or not presidents fail to genérate coalitions. So far, the only exptanations advanced for the instability of presidential democracy are based on three, rather disparate hypotheses: the existence of three relatively equal political parties, the frequency of presidential term limits, and decentralized decision-making processes (Cheibub 2002; Cheibub and Limongi 2002). In spite of the significant progress made during the last decade, the main problem with the current research on presidential regimes is that it still uses very blunt indicators to conceptualize different types of government in presidential regimes and make predictions about their performance. To illustrate this problem let us start with the notion of divided presidential government. According to almost all definitions, presidential government is 'unified' when the president's party holds more and 'divided' when it holds less than 50 percent of the seats in congress (or in one of the chambers of a bicameral assembly).^ This "arithmetical" definition is useful as a preliminary step to distinguish between majority and minority presidents.^ But as a general category it does not capture the number of substantially different situations that may take place once presidents fail to obtain majority support in congress. ^ Perhaps only Shugart (1995) departs from this conventional definition by restricting the term 'divided' government to situations in which a party different from the president's controls more than 50 percent of the seats in congress. This corresponds to the notion of 'congressional' government that I propose below. See Elgie (2001) for the distinction between the arithmetical and the behavioral deifinition of divided government. DIVISIÓN DE ESTUDIOS POLÍTICOS B| Gabriel L. Negretto Even if the president's party falls short of a majohty of seats in congress the parties in the opposition may be too fragmented and weak to form a solid opposition block. In this situation, the party of the president could always find partners to form alternative coalitions on different pieces of legislation. A minority president may also have legislative powers to influence policy making. A presidential veto, for instance, may be skillfuUy used to forge tacit legislative coalitions on different pieces of legislation that neither the president's ñor opposition parties have the power to approve on their own, Finally, a minority president, even without effective legislative powers, may still be able to legislate through a cabinet coalition integrated by parties holding a majority of seats in congress. Obviously enough, one cannot use the same category to denote these different forms of minority government. Something similar happens with the attempt to explain the different performance of minority presidents based on the level of legislative fractionalization measured by the effective number of legislative parties. The effective number of legislative parties does not indicate the share of seats of the president's party vís-á-vis opposition parties, how many coalitions are feasible, or what parties are critical in sustaining those coalitions. To see this, compare two situations, one with two and another with three relevant legislative parties. In the first situation, the president's party holds 45 percent of the seats, while the main opposition party holds 55 percent of the seats. The ENLP is here 1.98. In the second situation, the party of the president holds 35 percent of the seats, while two parties in the opposition hoid, respectively, 30 and 35 percent of the seats. The ENLP is here 2.98. In the first case there is only one possible coalition, which the opposition party would have very few incentives to join if it wants to differentiate itself from the government in coming elections. In the second situation there are 3 possible coalitions, two of which include the president's party. This means that inter-branch cooperation should be more difficult in the first situation, even though the level of party fractionalization is lower than in the second. Moreover, if policy positions matter, one can reinforce the argument that party fragmentation does not necessarily impair the ability of a minority president to build majority legislative support. Suppose that with three relevant parties the party of the president is a centrist party, while the 2 opposition parties are located one on the center-left and one on the right. There are two possible coalitions here and both include the president's party. A similar argument could be made with more than three relevant parties if the party of the president is centrally located on the policy space and opposition parties on either side of the policy spectrum do not hold together a majority of seats to legislate on their own. This analysis indicates that the classification of minority presidential regimes and the possible hypotheses about their performance cannot be based CIDE Minority Presidents and Tyoes of Government m Latín America on quantitative measures and mechanical associations alone. We need a better sense of the distribution of preferences and institutional powers among the relevant actors. I turn to this task in the next section. Pivotaí Politics and Types of Presidentíal Government Using a modified versión of Krehbiel's model of pivotal politics (1996, 1998), it is possible to créate a typology of presidentíal governments according to the particular location of three decisive actors: the president's party (PP), the veto party (VP) and the median party (MP) in congress (Colomer and Negretto 2004). PP is the party that controls the executive office, VP is the party that controls the legislator whose support allov/s the president to sustain a veto, and MP is the party that controls the median legislator, that is, the legislator whose proposals v/ill gather the support of a legislativa majority. The assumptions of this model are 1) a unidimensional policy space, 2) singlepeaked preferences, and 3) disciplined parties. Following this model, one can distinguish three basic forms of government in separation-of-powers systems, which I propose to cali presidential, divided, and congressional, respectively. 'Presidential' government occurs whenever the president's party includes both the veto and the median legislator, as shown in Figure 1. This form of government comprises two possible situations. One, which can properly be defined as 'unified' presidential government, derives from an election in which the president's party obtained more than 50 percent of the seats in the assembly. The other, which can be labeled 'median' presidential government, takes place whenever the president's party, even with less than 50 percent of legislativa seats, is appropriately located around the 'center' of the policy space. FIGURE 1 PRESIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT OUTCOME 1 PRESIDENT'S PARTY PRESIDENT VETO LEGISLATOR MEDIAN LEGISLATO R DIVISIÓN D£ ESTUDIOS POLÍTICOS Gabriel L. ^ieg^efto While unified presidential government is usually the result of plurality formulas to elect presidents and concurrent electoral cycles (Mainwaring and Shugart 1997a), there is in principie no institutional variable guaranteeing that the president's party, short of a legislative majority, will be the median party in congress/ A president whose party controls a majority of legislators should have more capacity than a minority president to implement most of his agenda with very little cost in terms of inter-branch negotiation. Thus the allure of unified presidential government among many scholars. Nevertheless, one should expect a median minority president to be more effective and face less executive-legislative conflict than any other minority president. A median minority president may be in this sense equivalent to minority governments in parliamentary regimes. A single-party minority government can be a viable government in a parliamentary regime if there is no coalition of opposition parties that can defeat its proposals by majority vote (Strom 1990; Laver and Schofield 1990). Using the same logic, one could argüe that a single-party minority government in a presidential regime could achieve a good record of legislative success and inter-branch cooperation if the president's party controls the median legislator in congress. What in strict sense I propose to cali 'divided' presidential government is a situation where the president's party controls the veto legislator but a party other than the president's has the support of the median legislator in congress, as shov^n in Figure 2. The threshold required to override a presidential veto determines the occurrence of divided government. In particular, the probability of having a divided government is higher the higher is the threshold required to override a presidential veto in congress, so, for instance, divided government is more likely with a 2/3 than with a 1/2 override rule. Given the override rule, divided government is also more likely when the threshold applies to each of the sepárate chambers of a bicameral assembly than when it applies to the joint vote of a bicameral assembly or to unicameral assemblies. According to Colomer and Negretto (2004), majority runoff elections for president result in the selection of median candidates in a higher proportion than in plurality elections. This does not mean, however, that the party of the president would be in those cases the median party in congress. The reason is that there may be more parties competing in the congressional election than parties presenting candidates in the presidential election so that the median parties in both elections may not necessarily coincide. CIDE Vlinorífy Presidenfs and Types of Government in Latín America FIGURE 2 DIVIDED GOVERNMENT GRIDLOCK INTERVAL PRESIDENT'S PARTY PRESIDEN! MEDIAN PARTY VETO LEGISLATOR MEDIAN LEGISLATOR This definition of divided government is closely associated to the notion of 'deadlock' that many authors use. This is so because in this type of government congress can pass legislation and still be unable to change the status quo if the president prefers the latter to the new policy and the legislative nnajority lacks the necessary votes to override his veto. In other words, neither the president (who lacks a majority) ñor the opposition parties (who lack the votes to override a veto) are able to rule. The risk of a stalemate, of course, is the reason why this type of presidential regime is often supposed to constitute the most indecisive, costly, and conflictive form of minority government. However, the occurrence of gridlock under divided government depends, first, on the location of the legislative status quo and on the policy preferences of the pivotal actors (Krehbiel 1998). If the initial status-quo policy is located in between the preferences of the median party and the president with effective veto, policy changes may be, in effect, impossible. The president will veto any change approaching the outcome to the median party's preference and moving it away from the presidential one. It is for this reason that the policy space between the two decisive actors defines the 'gridlock interval', that is, the set of policy decisions that v^ill be stable in spite of the existence of a legislative majority favoring policy change -as illustrated in Figure 2. But policy change is possible if the legislative status quo is outside the gridlock interval. For instance, when the legislative status quo is located at a rather extreme position with respect to the ideal points of the decisive actors, significant policy changes may occur at exactly the ideal point of the median party. This is so because the president will not veto proposals made by the median party if they are closer to his or her preferences than the status quo is. Policy change, though only incremental, may also occur if the DIVISIÓN DE ESTUDIOS POLÍTICOS Gabriel L. Negrefto Status quo is outside the gridlock interval but cióse to the ideal policy of either the president's or the median party. In other words, policy immobilism is not a structural trait of divided government. From its definition we can only assume that gridlock may occur from time to time, but not how often or when it will lead to inter-branch conflict. This does not mean, however, that we should expect from divided government the same level of legislative effectiveness and inter-branch cooperation as we can expect from median presidential government. All things being equal, a president whose party occupies a median position in congress should be able to obtain more support from congress than a president invested with just a veto. A third possible category of government in a separation-of-powers system exists when parties different from the president's control the median and the veto legislator.^ We can cali this form of government 'congressional,' as illustrated in Figure 3. FIGURE 3. CONGRESSIONAL GOVERNMENT OUTCOME PRESIDENT'S PARTY PRESIDENT MEDIAN PARTY VETO LEGISLATOR MEDIAN LEGISLATOR Source: Colomer and Negretto (2004) This is the most potentially conflictive form of minority presidential government. Given his popular election, the president may feel he has a popular mándate to implement a political platform, but only to find that he has no institutional power to influence policy-making. In other words, congressional government is an invitation to what Juan ünz rightly identified as conflicts of "dual legitimacy." In principie, one party may control both or different parties may control each one of these legislators. CIDE Minority Presidents and Tyoes of Government in Latin America However, a non-median minority president without a veto has two basic options: either to accept or to challenge congressional rule. Acquiescence to congressional rule would usually take the form of a coalitional government in which the president tries to overeóme her disadvantage in congress by distributing cabinet positions among parties whose votes are necessary to reach a legislative majority. Defiance to congressional rule, instead, would usually take the form of unilateral presidential government, either by using powers granted by the constitution, like decrees, or by extra-constitutional actions, like the usurpation of legislative powers or the dissolution of congress. In fact, it is only when this option is taken that one should expect congressional government to produce the highest rate of executive-legislative conflicts among all minority presidencies. In Table 1 I have Usted the types of presidential government that, following the classification proposed in this paper, have existed in 18 Latin American countries since the last inauguration of a democratic regime until 2002.^ Within each country, presidencies are classified according to the policy position of the president's party relative to the location of the median and the veto party on a left-right scale. Parties, in turn, were located on this scale on the basis of expert judgments.'' The table includes 98 cases, 33 of which correspond to unified presidential government, 22 to median presidential government, 20 to divided government and 23 to congressional government. * The beginning of the period varíes for each countt7. It starts with the year in which the Pirst democratically elected government took office or with the year of the first democratic election: Argentina (1983), Bolivia, (1982), Brazil (1985), Chile (1989), Colombia (1974), Costa Rica (1953), Dominican Republic (1986), Ecuador (1979), El Salvador (1985), Guatemala (1986). Honduras (1982), México (1997); Nicaragua (1990), Panamá (1994), Paraguay (1989), Perú (1980), Uruguay (1985), Venezuela (1958), ' Party policy positions were classified based on a comparison of the expert opinions gathered by Coppedge (1997), Mainwaring and Scully (1995), and Alcántara and Freidenberg (2001). DIVISIÓN DE ESTUDIOS POLÍTICOS Gabriel L. Negrefto TABLE 1 TYPES OF PRESIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT IN LATíN AMERICA i PRESIDENTIAL (UNIFIED) 1995-97 (MENEM II) IARGENTINA iCoLOMBiA 1974-78 (L. MICHELSEN) JCOLOMBIA 1978-82 (TUR8AY) jCoLOMBiA 1986-90 (BARCO) ICoLOMBiA 1990-94 (GAVIRIA) iCoLOMBiA 1994-98 (SAMPER) ICosTA RICA í'953-58 ("FIGUERES I) jCosTA RICA 1962-66 (ORLICH) DIVIDED CONGRESSIONAL (UNIFIED) ÍARGENTINA 1983-89 (ALFONSIN) COLOMBIA IARGENTINA 1999-2001 (DE LA RúA) COLOMBIA 1982-86 (BETANCOURT) 1998-2002 (PASTRANA) 1982-85 (S. SuAZO) íCONGRESSIONAL (MEDIAN) 1989-94 (ALWYN) JBOLIVIA 1989-93 (P. ZAMORA) ÍCHILE 1994-2000 (FREí) JBOLIVIA 1997-2001 (BáNZER) iCosTA RICA 1966-70 (T. FERNANDEZ) IBRAZIL 1985-90 (SARNEY) COSTA RICA 1978-82 (C. Óbiój IBRAZÍL i990-92 (COLLOR) COSTA RICA 2002-06 (PACHECO E.) JBRAZIL 1992-94 (FRANCO) íBOLIVIA JCHILE ICosTA RICA 1970-74 (FIGUERES II) iCosTA RICA 1982-86 (MONGE A.) ICOSTA RICA 1986-90 (ARIAS S.) iCosTA RICA 1990-94 (CALDERóN F.) iCosTA RICA 1998-2002 (RODRíGUEZ) jDoM. REP. 2000-02 (HIPóLITO M.D.) EL SALVADOR 1985-88 (DUARTE) EL SALVADOR 1989-91 (CRISTIANI) ;GuATEMALa> 1986-91 (CEREZO) DOM. REP. 1986-90 (BAU>>GUER) pOM. REP. 1990-94 (BAUS>GUER) pOM. REP. 1994-96 (BALOIGUER) poM. REP. 1998-2000 (F. REYNA) POM. REP. 2002-04 (H. MEJíA) ECUADOR 1998-2000 (MAHUAD) EL SALVADOR 1988-89 (DUARTE) EL SALVADOR 1991-94 (CRISTIANI) EL SALVADOR 1994-99 (CALDERóN) jGuATEMALA 1995-99 (ARZü) : jGuATEMALA 1999-2003 (PORTILLO) HONDURAS 1981-85 (SuAZO CóRDOBA) MéXICO 2000-20Ó3 (Fox) PANAMá 1999-2004 (Moscoso) EL SALVADOR 1999-2002 (FLORES) 1994-98 (CARDOZO I) 1998-2002 (CARDOZO II) ICHILE 2000-06 (U\GOS) JECUADOR 1984-88 (F. CORDERO) ECUADOR 1990-1992 (BORJA) 1 1 i i ; ECUADOR 1992-96(DURáN-BALLéN) I IGUATEMALA 1991-95 (SERRANO) I íPARAGUAY 1993-98 (WASMOSY) i ÍPERú 1990-92 (FUJIMORI I) i íBRAZIL IPERú 2000 (FUJIMORI III) i ÍURUGUAY 1989-94 (LACALLE) : i 1993-98 (CALDERA II) 1998-2000 (CHáVEZ I) [VENEZUELA 2000-2006 (CHáVEZ II) TOTAL coNGRESsioNAL=23 : 1989-93 (CALLEJAS) 1993-97 (REINA) [HONDURAS 1997-2001 (FLORES) í VENEZUELA [HONDURAS I [VENEZUELA 1990-96 (BARRIOS) [NICARAGUA 2001-06 (BOIAñOS) [ I [PARAGUAY 1989-93 (RODRíGUEZ) 1998-2002 (CUBAS/ G. M) | i [ [PERü 1985-90 (Au\N GARCíA) [PERú 1995-2000 (FUJIMORI II) IVENEZUELA j 1 j 1968-73 (CALDERA 1) 1978-83 (H. CAMPINS) íVENEZUELA [HONDURAS [PARAGUAY j i IBRAZIL VENEZUELA [NICARAGUA j froxAL DIVIDED=20 1985-89 (AZCONA) ÍHONDURAS I 1958-63 (BETANCOURT) K/ENEZUEUv 1973-78 (ANDRéS PéREZ I) [VENEZUELA 1983-88 (LUSINCHI) [TOTAL UNIFIED=33 CIDE Mínority Presidents and Types of Governmenf in Latín America Table I (cont.) PRESIDENTIAL (MEDIAN) JARGENTiNA 1989-95 (MENEM I) IBOLIVIA ! 1997-99 (MENEM II) \ 1985-89 (P- ESTENSSORO) I IARGENTINA jBoLiviA 1993-97 (S. DE LOZADA) jCosTA RICA 1958-62 (ECHANDI) i jCosTA RICA 1974-78 (ODUBER Q.) j ¡COSTA RICA 1994-98 (FiGUERAS) ; jDoM. REP. 1996-98 (F. REYNA) ECUADOR _i 1979-84 (ROLDóS/HURTADO) i jEcuADOR 1988-90 (R. BORJA) j jEcuADOR 1992-96 (A. BUCARAM) I jHoNDURAS 2001-05 (MADURO) IMéXICO [NICARAGUA IPANAMá | 1997-2000 (ZEDILLO) | 1996-2001 (ALEMáN) j 1994-99 (P. BALLADARES) : 1980-85 (BELAüNDE) \ 2000-05 rroLEpo) ÍURUGUAY 1984-89 (SANGUINETTI) IURUGUAY 1994-99 (SANGUINETTI) | i j IPERú [PERú IURUGUAY 1999-2004(BATTLE) k/ENEZUELA 1963-68 (LEONI) IVENEZUELA 1988-93 (ANDRéS PéREZ II)J jTOTAL MEDIAN = 22 rrOTAL PRESIDENTIAL= 55 Source: Áutíior, based on "Élections around the world" (URL:http://www.electionworld.org), Nohlen (1993), and Jorge Schiavon (URL:http://www.cide.edu/investigadores/jorge schiavon/electoral.html), for electoral data, and Coppedge (1997), Mainwaring and Scully (1995), and Alcántara and Freidenberg (2001), for party poUcy positions. Minoríty Presidents and Coalition Making I have argued that one cannot predict the performance of a minority presidential government without knowing whether the president's party includes the median and/or the veto legislator in congress. We also need to consider the impact of coalitions, particularly when minority presidents, as it happens in congressional government, have no institutional means to influence policy outcomes.^ On cabinet coalitions in presidential reglmes, see Deheza (1998), Amorlm Neto (1998, 2002), AItman (2001) and Chasquetti (2001). DIVISIÓN DE ESTUDIOS POLÍTICOS Gabriel L. Negretto The sepárate origin and survival of presidents and assemblies creates several structural differences between the process of coalition nnaking in multiparty presidential and multlparty parliamentary regimes. In the first place, whereas in a presidential regime the constitution establishes that the president is the formateur regardless of the representation of his party in congress and its policy location, in a parliamentary regime the formateur is usually the largest and/or the median legislative party (Laver and Schofield 1990). In addition, while the autonomy of presidents in terms of government formation is subject to variations, in a parliamentary regime cabinets are strictly dependent on legislative support to obtain investiture and win confidence votes. These differences, should and do make coalition governments a more frequent event under parliamentarism than under presidentialism (Samuels and Eaton 2002; Cheibub, Przev^orski, and Saiegh 2002). Within presidential regimes, however, one should expect variations in the frequency and nature of coalitions depending on the type of government. Table 2 shows these variations according to whether an executive coalition is formed, whether the party members of the coalition hold together a majority of seats in congress, and whether a minority coalition includes the median party in congress.^ An executive coalition is defined here as the set of iegislators belonging to parties that hold cabinet positions. This coalition is considered to be a majority coalition only if the parties holding cabinet posts gather a majority of seats in a unicameral assembly or in both chambers of a bicameral assembly. TABLE 2 FREQUENCY AND TYPE OF EXECUTIVE COALITIONS TYPE OF GOVERNMENT i UNIFIED PRESIDENTIAL MEDIAN PRESIDENTIAL EXECUTIVE COAUTIONS .21 .52 .28 .87 MAJORITY COAUTIONS MEDIAN COAUTIONS - i - ; :38 i - i DiVIDED .00 1 .i i .39 .04 CONGRESSiONAL Source: Author, based on Cha;iquetti (2001), Zueco (2002), anci Fundación CIDOB (http://www.cidob.org/bios/Cidob.com) As one could expect, Table 2 shows that the frequency of executive coalition formation is the iowest in unified presidential government (22 percent). The reason is that in this category presidents do not need outside support to accomplish their agendas. From this perspective, one possible explanation The presídencies of Pérez Balladares and Hoscoso in Panamá were excluded due to the absence of Information. CIDE Minority Presidents and Types of Government ín Latín America explanation why presidents may form coalitions in spite of the fact that their parties have majohties in congress is the intention to intégrate a 'National Unity' government in the context of power-sharing agreements, such as the Punto Fijo pact in Venezuela (1958-63) and the National Front agreement in Colombia (1958-74)/° Among the different categories of 'minority' presidents, the lowest percentage of coalitions in general (28 percent) and of majority coalitions in particular (O percent) corresponds to divided governments.^^ In median presidential governments executive coalitions have been formed at a relatively high frequency of 52 percent for coalitions in general and 38 percent for majority coalitions. Congressional government, finally, is the minority government with the highest frequency of executive coalitions. In 20 out 23 cases (87 percent) presidents in a congressional government situation ruled through executive coalitions. This result clearly shov^s that, against a previously held belief in the literature, coalitions are a common event in certain types minority presidential governments.^^ The incentives of presidents to form executive coalitions seem clear in the case of congressional government: neither their parties have a pivotal role in policy-making ñor they have an instrument, like the veto, to shape legislation. Yet, although most presidents in this category managed to incorpórate outside parties in the cabinet, not all them forged coalitions that would make congressional government viable in policy terms. Of the 23 cases, only 9 (39 percent) presidents managed to form a majority coalition.^^ The question, then, is why some presidents in congressional government did while others did not form executive coalitions holding a majority of seats in congress. One possible answer is that not all presidents in this situation have the same incentives to rely on outside support to govern. One implicit assumption of the pivotal model of decision-making outlined above is that no player has special agenda-setting powers. In reality, however, many presidents do have these powers and they can use them to change legislation without sufficient legislative support. This is the case, in particular, with the capacity of presidents to issue decrees of legislative content. These powers may allow non-median minority presidents to change the legislative status quo and impose a new policy if the median party in congress prefers the latter to the reverslonary outcome, that is, the outcome that would result from rejecting the decree after it produced effects (Figueiredo and Limongi 1998; Negretto 2004). If this is the case, then, a president invested with these powers may '° On this point. see Deheza (1998) ' ' In 2 out of 18 cases (I I percent), the presidencies of Alwyn (1989-94) and Frei (1994-200) in Chile, nnlnority coalitions included the median party, but only for the Chamber of Deputies. Cheibub, Przewroski and Saiegh (2002) show a similar finding. ' ^ In I case, the presidency of Lagos (2000-06) in Chile, a minority coalition included the median party, but only in the Chamber of Deputies. DIVISIÓN DE ESTUDIOS POLÍTICOS Gabriel L. Negrefto not feel the need to rely on a majority coalition as much as a president without them. At the same time, the incentives of presidents to build majority coalitions may also be determined by their degree of autonomy in terms of cabinet formation and change. In spite of the sepárate origin of presidents and assemblies that characterizes presidential regimes, there is a wide range of variation in terms of congressional control over cabinets (Shugart and Carey 1992; Colomer and Negretto 2004). A president who has the formal power to appoint and remove cabinet members may be in fact restricted in his degree of autonomy if legislators are able to vote a binding censure or impeach cabinet ministers. The same could happen if in the absence of majority winners in a presidential election, congress regularly intervenes in the final selection of presidents, somewhat resembling the investiture vote in a parliamentary system. With these elements in mind, we can make sense of the cholee that minority presidents in a congressional form of government have. The incentives to accept congressional rule by building a portfolio coalition large enough to muster majority support in congress should be greater when presidents are subject to congressional control and have no decree powers than when they face no congressional control and/or have decree powersJ'* Table 3 lists the information about coalition making in congressional government along with the relevant institutional variables for each case. A president was considered to have decree powers if the constitution explicitly grants him the authority to initiate policy by decree (constitutional decree authority or CDA) or when general emergency provisions include the capacity of presidents to make law and regúlate rights by decree. A congress was considered to have control over cabinets when presidents are selected by congress or when legislators from opposition parties actually had the necessary votes established by the constitution to propose and decide a binding censure and/or impeach ministers.^^ ''* Amorim Neto and Tafner (2002) and Anriorim Neto (2002) show that there is a relation between the use and existence of decree powers and coalition-making strategies. Opposition parties usually reach the necessary votes to control cabinets when the constitution requires a vote by absolute majority in congress. But congressional control could also exist with a requirement of two-thirds if the president lacks the support of more than one-third of legislators. CIDE Minority "residents and Types of Covernmenf ín Latín America TABLE 3 COALITION-MAKING IN CONGRESSIONAL GOVERNMENTS PRESIDENCY ; i DE LA RúA i PAZ ZAMORA i BáNZER COALmON j i MEDIAN DECREE POWERS j YES Yñ ] No No No YES (CDA) YES No Yi¿ YES YES YES YES (CDA) No YES YES YES YES : SUAREZ 1 i SARNEY i ! COLLOR YES i FRANCO j CARDOSOI i CARDOSO II :LAGOS i BETANCOURT i PASTRANA i PEBRES ; CORDERO j RODRIGO ; BoRJA j DURáN-BALLéN : SERRANO i WASMOSY : FUJIMORI i : LACALLE : CALDERA I : H. CAMPINS i CALDERA II i CHáVEZ I YES íCHáVEZII i i YES i j YiS \ YES i i i i i 1 No 1 Yis 1 i Ño YES i i i No No 'ZJKIJ Ño YÉs No YES NO YES No i YES i ! i YES YES No YES YES i Yis Yis No i YES i j i \ j' i NO i i Ño No No i j i Ño Yis Ño i :: CONGRESSIONAL CONTROL i No No No Yis Yi¿ Yñ YES YES Yis i j MAJORITY (CDA) (CDA) YES (CDA) YES (CDÁj No* YES (CDA) YES (CDA) YES (CDA) YES YES YES YES No No NO NO \ i i 1 (CiiJÁ) YES (CDA) YES (EMERGENCY) i i No i' YES (EMERGENCY) íi i\ Ño i YES (EMERGENCY) i ;: YES (EMERGENCY) ; Ño No NO YES i YES YES i YES YES : NO Yis YÜ i i YES NO No No No No YES (EMERGENCY) YES YES (EMERGENCY) YES YES YES i YES (EMERGENCY) i No Source: Author, based on Chasquetti (2001), Zueco (2002) and Fundación CIDOB (http://www,cidob.org/bios/Cidob.com) for coalitions, and Política! Data Base of the Americas (http://www.georgetown.edu/Ddba/spanish.html) for decree powers and congressional control. *CDA restricted to budget Totalcases=23 Cases with executive coalition= 20 Cases with majority or median minority coalition=10 According to this table, a large majority of 18 out of 23 presidencies in the category of congressional government had the capacity to issue decrees of legislative content. For this reason, it was rare to find presidents subject to congressional control and without decree powers. Of the 13 presidents that were subject to congressional control, only 3 (2 in Bolivia and 1 in Uruguay) also lacked decree powers. In these three cases presidents did form majority coalitions. A simple analysis of conditional probabilities shows that having decrees is in itself a relevant factor to predict whether or not a minority president DIVISIÓN DE ESTUDIOS POLÍTICOS i i i i 1 Gabriel L. Negretto would form a majority coalition. Table 4 shows that the probability of keeping a minority government given decree powers is 12/18 or 67 percent while the probability of forming a majority coalition given the same condition is only 6/18 or 33 percent. This may explain why if the number of coalitions is so high in congressional government so few of them hold a majority of seats in congress or have the support of the median party in congress. Using a chi square significance test, we can reject the nuil hypothesis that no relationship exists between decree powers and coalition making strategies with the probability of making a false rejection of 0.0626. TABLE 4 COALITION MAKING AND DECREE POWER DECREE POWERS S*í^ V YES 6 YES No 4 MAJORITY COALITION No I 12 CHI-SQR = 3.4677 1 P-VALUE = 0.0626 To sum up, not all minority presidents inevitably need a majority coalition to influence policy and secure a minimum of inter-branch cooperation. Some minority presidents may compénsate their lack of majority support with their control over the median legislator in congress or with their veto power. Coalition-making, however, may be crucial for minority presidents in congressional government and those who fail to do so are expected to be the most problematic of all minority presidencies. Executive-Legislative Confíicts and Premature Termination of Constifutional Terms The conventional view on the performance of minority presidencies is that they are associated with high levéis of executive-legislative conflict and democratic instability. One way to challenge this view is to show that these effects vary according to the factors indicated above: whether the president's party includes the median and/or the veto legislator and whether a majority executive coalition is formed. I have relied on two indicators to pursue this CIDE Minority Presidenfs and Types of Covernment in Laün c^'^e'-ica test: the frequency of executive-legislative conflicts and the cases of premature termination of constitutional terms in Latín America from 1979 to 2002. FoUowing a methodology proposed by Jones (1995), I have constructed an Índex of executive-legislative conflicts based on the Latin American Weekly Report (l_AWR) from 1979 to 2002. In particular, the Índex reflects the number of articles per year that reported executive-legislative conflicts out of the total number of articles that had politics as its main or secondary theme. The conflicts reported are either reiated to ordinary legislation (rejection of presidential proposals, presidential vetoes, etc.) or to political measures of congressional control, such as censure of cabinet ministers or impeachments. My unit of analysis is each presidency classified according to the typology proposed in this article. I have excluded presidencies before 1979 and current presidencies with less than two complete years by 2002.^^ The sample covers 18 countries with a total number of 82 presidencies, 26 of which are unified, 17 median, 17 divided and 22 congressional. The latter were in turn disaggregated between those that did (10) and those that did not form (12) executive coalitions holding a majority of seats in congress or including the median legislative party. Using the same universe of cases, I also made a sepárate analysis of those presidencies that ended their terms prematurely. A constitutional term was considered to end prematurely when presidents were ousted from office after a successful impeachment process, when they legally or illegally decided to dissolve congress, when they were forced to resign after the emergence of social mobilizations against the government, and when their governments were overthrown by a military coup. I gathered a total of 14 presidencies whose terms ended prematurely according to this definition. The mean frequency of executive-legislative conflict for each presidency supports the central hypothesis of this paper, namely, that the most conflictive form of government in a presidential regime is that in which the presidenfs party does not control the median legislator, the president lacks effective veto power, and no majority or median minority executive coalition is formed. As shown in Table 5, the mean frequency of conflict for congressional governments without majority or median minority coalitions is the highest among all types of government. The analysis also confirms that whether or not presidents in a congressional government form a cabinet coalition with sufficient legislative support makes a crucial difference in terms of performance. The mean frequency of conflict in congressional '° Unlike Jones (1995), who uses each presidential year as a unit of analysis, I did not exelude from the counting those years where the number of articles was below 6. This means that in some cases my Índex on the frequency of conflicts is lower (when no conflicts were reported that year) and In some other cases higher (when conflicts were reported) than Jones'. DIVISIÓN DE ESTUDIOS POLÍTICOS Gabriel L. Negretto governments without coalition support is twice as high congressional governments with coalition support. TABLE as that of 5 EXECUTIVE-LEGISLATIVE CONFLICT INDEX TYPE OF GOVERNMENT UNIFIED PRESIDENTIAL i MEDIAN PRESIDENTIAL i DiVIDED i COAUTIONAL CONGRESSIONAL i i MlNORlTY CONGRESSIONAL N 26 17 17 10 12 i i MEAN FREQUENCY STANDARD DEVIATION 0.05482272 0.09317715 0.05850569 0.09146600 0.18152583 0.07 0.10 0.07 0.06 0.09 INTERVAL Low MéDIUM Low MéDIUM HIGH i Source: Author, based on latín American Weekly Report, 1979-2002. Countries and years: Argentina, 19832001; Bolivia, 1982-2001; Brazil, 1985-2002; Chile, 1989-2001; Colombia, 1979-2001; Costa Rica,1979-2001; Dominican Republic, 1986-2001; Ecuador, 1979-1999; El Salvador, 1985-2001; Guatemala, 1986-2002; Honduras, 1982-2001; México, 1997-2002; Nicaragua, 1990-2001; Panamá, 1994-1999; Paraguay, 1989-1998; Perú, 1980-2000; Uruguay, 1985-2001; Venezuela, 1979-2001. Whüe the same analysis also supports the hypothesis that unified presidential government is the least conflictive type of government, it contradicts the hypothesis that one should expect a higher level of executive-legislative conflict in divided than in unified presidential government. The difference between the mean frequency of conflict for each type of government is minimal and both are located within the same interval of low conflict for the whole sample. Moreover, divided government also outperforms median presidential government, which, in fact, shows a mean frequency of médium conflict almost identical to that of coalitional congressional government. This means that the hypothesis that one should expect a similar level of interbranch cooperation in unified and median presidential government is not confirmed either. The relatively low level of inter-branch conflict observed in divided government may be due to the fact that in the majority of cases the most relevant proposals of legislative change affected a status quo policy located outside the ghdlock interval. In this situation, either the median party had an incentive to accept presidential proposals of legislative change or the median party had an incentive to modérate its proposals for the sake of reaching an agreement with the president's party. Whatever the case, this finding confirms the need to revise the widely held belief that divided government is the most conflictive form of minority presidential government. The standard deviation for the frequency of inter-branch conflict in median presidential government suggests that this category includes presidencies with widely different performances. These differences are not CIDE Minority Presidents and Types of Government in Latin America related to the size of the president's party in congress. The highest frequency of executive-legislative conflict in the median presidential category for the whole sample corresponds to the presidency of Roídos (1979-1981) in Ecuador, whose party had 44 percent of the seats in congress. Meanwhile, the presidency of Sanguinetti II (1994-1999) in Uruguay had the lowest frequency of executive-legislative conflict in the category in spite of the fact that his party had only 32 percent of the seats in the chamber of deputies. The most plausible explanation for the relatively poor performance of median presidential governments is that the assumption that parties are disciplined and legislators care mostly about policy does not hold equally well for all the counthes under consideration. From this perspective, the different performance of the presidencies of Roídos, on the one hand, and Sanguinetti, on the other, may be due to the fact that in Ecuador parties are less disciplined and less programmatic than in Uruguay. This calis for an analysis, which I cannot pursue in this paper, of how well partisan policy positions allow us to predict the behavior of legislators in each country. The cases of presidencies terminated before the end of the constitutional term deserve a sepárate analysis. Table 6 provides a list of these presidencies since 1979 indicating the president, year and reason for termination. TABLE 6 PREMATURE TERMINATION OF PRESIDENCIES IN LATíN AMERICA PRESIDENT MONTH/YEAR 1980-2001 MOTIVE i SILES SUAZO NOVEMBER/1984 FORCEO RESIGNATION IN THE CONTEXT OF AN ECONOMIC CRISIS, SOCIAL UPHEAVAL, THREAT OF A COUP, AND EXECUTIVE-LEGISU^TIVE CONFLICTS, INCLUDING A THREAT OF IMPEACHMENT : ALFONSíN JuLY/1989 FORCEO RESIGNATION IN THE MIOST OF AN ECONOMIC CRISIS ANO SOCIAL UPHEAVAL j i GAVIRIA DECEMBER/1990 IRREGULAR CONVOCATIONOF A CONSTITUENTASSEMBLY WHICH REPIACED THE EXISTING CONGRESS i i FUJIMORI I APRIL/1992 ÁÜGÜST/Í992 I i DiSSOLUTION OF CONGRESS BY PRESIDENT WITH SUPPORT j OF THE MILITARY AFTER A SERIES OF EXECUTIVE; LEGISLATIVE CONFLICTS ON THE POWERS OF THE PRESIDENT TO RULE BY DECREE ON THE ÁREAS OF i CÓLLOR j i i | ECONOMIC MANAGEMENT AND TERRORISM i IMPEACHMENT BY CONGRESS DUE TO CHARGES OF CORRUPTION IN THE MIOST OF AN ECONOMIC CRISIS, SOCIAL UPHEAVAL AND A LONG SERIES OF EXECUTIVE- i : LEGISLATIVE CONFLICTS DIVISIÓN DE ESTUDIOS POLÍTICOS > i <•í Gabriel L. Negretto Table 6 (Cont.) MONTH/YEAR PRESIDENT SERRANO ANDRéS PéREZ 'BALAGUER ;BucARÁM . i i I fCÜBAS MOTIVE i MAY/ 1993 i FORCEO RESIGNATION AFTER A FAíLED ATTEMPTTO i j i DISSOLVECONGRESSANDRULEWITHSUPPORTOFTHE ; MIUTARY j I íÁUGUST/1993 | DESTITÜTION BY CONGRESS DUE I i j [ÁÜGlJsf7l994 \ i i FEBRIJARY/Í997 j j i ! i CORRUPTIONINITIATED AFTER A VI0LENT SOCIAL i UPHEAVALAGAINSTTHEPRESIDENT'SECONOMICPOUCY IANDAFAILEDCOUP lÁNTICIPAfEDCALLTOR ELECTIONSDÜETÓINTERNALAND I INTERNATIONAL PRESSURES AFTER ALLEGATIONSOF \ FRAUD IN THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS OF 1994 i DESTITÜTION BY CONGRESS UNDER THE CHARGESÓF i MENTAL INCAPACITYINITIATED AFTER SOCIAL i MOBILIZATIONSAGAINSTTHE PRESIDENT'SECONOMIC j POLICYANDTHEALLEGEDCORRUPTIONOFTHE i GOVERNMENT _ TRESÍGNATION AFTER IMPÍACHMENf PROCESS INITIATED BY : THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES Í'MARC'H7Í'999 fo CHARGÉS OF \ i \ I j i i j i CHáVEZ í f ÁPRÍL/Í999 : i CONVOCATION OF AN IRREGULAR CONSTITUENTASSEMBLY i : THAT TERMINATED THE PREVIOUS CONSTITUTIONAL PERIOD j i AND REPI^CED EXISTIMO CONGRESS i rMAHUAD Í'JANÜARY/2ÓWSÓ6 .r'FuJiMORI iií i DE LA RúA i TlQOÓ j rDÉCEMBER/izbÓi j SOCIAL ÜPHEAVAL j AND AN ATTEMPTED COUP T'DESTITÜfl'oN OF'PRESIDENT BY CONGRESS AFTÉR : CORRUPTION SCANOAL I FÓRCED RESIGNATION DOETO SOCIAL MOBILIZATION I AGAINST DéLA RÚA'SECONOMICPOLICY AND AFTER THE i i I OPPOSITIONINCONGRESSREJECTEDTHEPOSSIBILITYOFA i I i I NATIONAL UNION COALITION TO SUPPORT THE I Soürce; Áutfior, T ÁBANDONMENT ÓF PRESIDENCY ÁFTER I i GOVERNMENT based on' lofi'n ' Jmer^^^ Repórt, í'979-2d02, i i \ j and Fundación CTDOB (http://www.cidob.org/bios/Cidob.com) In 4 cases (CoUor, Pérez, Bucaram, and Cubas), presidencies were terminated in the context of a process of impeachment, and in 1 case (Suazo) in the context of a series of executive-legislative conflicts that included the threat of impeachment. In 4 cases presidents resigned or abandoned the office, 2 times (Alfonsín and De la Rúa) due to social mobilizations against the government, 1 time (Mahuad) due to an attempted coup, and 1 time (Fujimori III) due to a corruption scandal. In one case (Balaguer III) the president decided to anticípate elections due to internal and international pressures. Finally, in 4 cases (Gaviría, Fujimori I, Serrano and Chávez) presidents terminated their terms by their decisión to dissolve the existing congress and cali a constituent congress, although in 1 case (Serrano) the president failed in his attempt. In spite of these variations, the premature termination of the presidential term signáis, in its most extreme form, the breakdown of cooperation and the CIDE Minority Presidents and íypes of Covernmer.* 'n Lafin America emergence of an open conflict between presidents and congresses. Whatever the nature of the crisis that presidents and legislators had to face, it seems clear that in most cases either congress or the president saw its potential solution in the elimination of the other. From this perspective, the forced resignation or impeachment of presidents, on the one hand, and the dissolution of congress by presidents, on the other, can be seen as symmetric non-cooperative outcomes. If we divide the cases per type of government, one can observe that unified presidential government has the lowest (8 percent), while congressional government without the support of a majority executive coalition has the highest frequency (50 percent) of premature termination of constitutional terms. Median presidential governments (12 percent) and divided governments (23 percent) present intermediate categories, while coalitional congressional governments have no cases of interruption of presidential terms. These frequencies are shov^n in Table 7. TABLE 7 PREMATURE TERMINATION OF PRESIDENCIES PER TYPE OF GOVERNMENT N TYPE : i i : : : UNIFIED PRESIDENTIAL MEDIAN PRESIDENTIAL DIVIDED COALITIONAL CONGRESSIONAL PREMATURE TERMINATION 26 17 17 10 i i 2 2 4 0 12 i 6 PERCENTAGE ■ .08 :í2 i 1 .23 .00 i .50 i ^ MINORITY CONGRESSIONAL \ i As v/e know from the previous analysis of executive-legislative conflicts, this result does not mean that coalitional congressional government is free from conflicts but, again, it indicates that the difference between having or not the support of a majority or median minority cabinet coalition is crucial when the president does not have a veto and an opposition party is located at a median position in congress. So crucial, indeed, that in some cases it may entail a difference between ending or not a constitutional term. It is also interesting to note that if one looks at the substance of actual conflicts, most congressional governments that did end their terms without sufficient support from coalitions could have very well ended prematurely. The presidencies of Pebres Cordero, Borja (for the period 1990-92), and Durán-Ballén in Ecuador provide perhaps the clearest illustration. All these presidents intended to alleviate Ecuador's fiscal crisis and debt problems by means of austerity policies that were paralyzed or watered-down DIVISIÓN DE ESTUDIOS POLÍTICOS Gabriel L. Negretto in congress. In addition, and as a demonstration of congressional reaction to massive social protests generated by those policies, opposition legisiators continuously harassed the president through the impeachment of his ministers (Conaghan 1995: 452-53; Isaacs 1996). In fact, in the last year of Borja's presidency, congress formally requested the Supreme Court to initiate impeachment procedures against the president himself and in 1995 (after the censure of several of his ministers) congress impeached Durán-Ballén's vicepresident. Durán-Ballén, in turn, responded with a failed attempt to cali a constituent assembly and reform the constitution to strengthen the powers of the president vis-á-vis the congress. Other presidencies in this category also present similar indicators of extreme conflict. President Pastrana, á la Chávez, intended but failed to cali a referendum on constitutional reform that included cutting the number of congressional seats by half and calling new congressional elections. During Wasmosy's presidency in Paraguay, president and legisiators were engaged in a bitter conflict that included a threat by congress to impeach the president. Finally, both terms of Caldera became a symbol of problematic presidencies in Venezuela. During his first presidency, Caldera faced permanent obstruction from congress and institutional attacks that eventually led to a constitutional crisis when the opposition approved a law depriving the president from his participation in the nomination of judges (Coppedge 1994: 339).^'' In his second presidency, Caldera decided to face the deep economic crisis affecting the country by suspending economic rights and implementing economic measures by decree (Crisp 2000). Once congress attempted to restore those rights, it was forced to back down by Caldera's threat to cali a referendum on a proposal of constitutional reform, which would have enabled him to dissolve congress. ^^ In other words, individual case studies for the presidencies included in the category of congressional government without majority coalition would probably confirm the finding of both the comparative analysis of the frequency of conflicts and the special case of interrupted presidencies. The probability that minority presidencies lead to high levéis of executivelegislative conflict and to the interruption of constitutional terms increases when the president's party has no control over the median and yeto legislator and the parties that include them are not part of the presidential cabinet. '^ According to Coppedge (1994, 339), those institutional attacl<s included at one point ADs attempt to change the presidential regime into a parliamentary one. '8 See Latin America Weekly Report, I 1/08/94. ■IDE Minority Pres/dents and Types of Government ¡n Latín America Conclusions Since the early 1990's, the idea that presidential regimes are inherently unstable has been replaced by the hypothesis that it is not presidentialism per se but the combination of presidentialism and multipartism what affects government's effectiveness and democratic survival in separation-of-powers systems. As a consequence, research on presidentialism has focused on the electoral variables that are supposed to limit party fragmentation and secure substantive congressional support for presidents. The 'difficult combination' hypothesis is today under attack by a series of studies that question the correlation betv^een multipartism, legislative effectiveness and democratic survival and point out to other variables, such as presidential term limits, the distribution of strength among parties, or the degree of centralization of decision-making to explain the performance of presidential regimes. To date, however, no study has provided a plausible and theoretically grounded explanation of the causal mechanisms that foster or hinder cooperation between executives and legislators in minority presidential governments. This paper is a first attempt to elabórate such an explanation. I have argued that different forms of presidential government should be distinguished by taking into account not only the size of the president's party in congress but also its location in the policy space and its relation with two pivotal actors: the median and the veto legislators. FoUowing this logic, I proposed that different degrees of cooperation between presidents and assemblies could be expected depending on whether the government is unified, median, divided or congressional. I have also proposed that congressional government is the most conflictive form of minority government when presidents fail or do not attempt to build executive coalitions holding a majority of legislative seats or including the median party in congress. This hypothesis is supported by both the frequency of executive-legislative conflicts and the premature termination of constitutional terms in Latin America during the period 1979-2002. Both indicators also suggest that the difference between congressional governments with or without executive coalitions able to gather a majority of seats in congress is quite significant. The mean frequency of inter-branch conflict goes from a médium to a high level when no majority or median minority executive coalition is formed. In addition, while half of the presidencies that did not form a majority or median minority executive coalition failed to reach the end of their constitutional terms, no presidency ended prematurely when presidents in congressional government managed to forge a majority or median minority executive coalition. DIVISIÓN DE ESTUDIOS POLÍTICOS Gabriel L. Negretfo The hypothesis that divided govemment is more confUctive than median presidential government was not confirmed by the frequency of executivelegisiative confUcts under each type. While divided government presents a level of inter-branch conflict cióse to unified presidential government, the levéis are almost identical in median presidential and in coalitional congressional government. This calis for a comparative analysis of party discipline and cohesión for all the countries considered in the median presidential category and for a better understanding of the way in which divided government actually works. The analysis provided in this paper suggests that research on presidential democracies should shift from its exclusive focus on electoral variables affecting the effective number of parties to the electoral and institutional variables that make cooperation between branches possible in the absence of a legislative majority supporting the president in congress. In this respect, a new research agenda should pay attention to the electoral formulas that make more likely than others the selection of presidents whose parties occupy a median position in congress, the influence of presidential vetoes on policy output, and the interaction between the proactive legislative powers of presidents and congressional control over cabinets over the likelihood of majority coalition formation. CIDE Minority Presidents and Types of Government in Latín America Bibliography Alcántara, Manuel and Flavia Freidenberg, eds. 2001. Partidos Políticos de América Latina: Países Andinos. Biblioteca de América Series 18, Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca. eds. 2001. Partidos Políticos de América Latina: Países Andinos. Biblioteca de América Series I'', Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca. eds. 2001. Partidos Políticos de América Latina: Centroomérica, México y República Dominicana. 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Divided Government in Comparative Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Figueiredo, Argelina Chebub, y Fernando Limongi. 1998. Institutionai Legacies and Accountability: Executive Decrees in Brazil and Italy. Paper presented at the Conference on Institutionai Legacies, Buenos Aires. Haggard, Stephan, and Mathev^/ MacCubbins (eds.) 2001. Presidents, Parliaments and Policy. Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press. Isaacs, Anita. 1996. Ecuador: Democracy Standing the Test of Time?. In Constructing Democratic Governance: South America in the 1990s, edited by Jorge Domínguez and Abraham Lowenthal (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press). Jones, Mark P. 1995. Electoral Laws and the Survival of Presidential Democracies. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press. Krehbiel, Keith. 1996. Institutionai and Partisan Sources of Gridlock: A Theory of Divided and Unified Government. Journal of Theoretical Politics 8: 7-40. . 1998. Pivotal Politics: A Theory of U.S. Lawmaking. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Laakso, Markku and Rein Taagepera. 1979. "Effective Number of Parties: A Measure with Appplication to West Europe." Comparative Political Studies, pp. 3-27. Lanzaro, Jorge ed. 2001. Tipos de presidencialismo y coaliciones políticas en América Latina. Buenos Aires: CLACSO. Laver, Michael, and Norman Schofield. 1990. Multiparty Government. The Politics of Coalition in Europe. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. Laver, Michael and Kenneth Shepsle. 1991. Divided Government: America Is Not Exceptional. Governance 4 (3): 250-69. Linz, Juan J. 1990a. The Perils of Presidentialism. Journal of Democracy 1 (1): 5169. . 1990b. The Virtues or Parliamentarism. Journal of Democracy 1 (4): 8491. Linz, Juan and Arturo Valenzuela eds. 1994. The Failure of Presidential Democracy. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Linz, Juan and Stepan. 1996. Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. CIDE Minority Presidents and Tyoes of Govemmenf ín Latin America Mainwahng, Scott. 1993. Presidentialism, Mutipartism, and Democracy: The Difficult Combination. Comparative Political Studies 26: 198- 228. Mainwaring, Scott, and Timothy Scuüy (eds.). 1995. 6u/7d;ng Democratic Institutions: Party Systems in Latin America, Stanford: Stanford University Press. Mainwaring, Scott and Matthew S. Shugart eds. 1997a. Presidentialism and Democracy in Latin America. New York: Cambridge University Press. . 1997b. "Juan Linz, Presidentialisnn, and Democracy: A Critical Appraisal." Comparative Poiitics, 29, 4: 449-471. Morgenstern, Scott, and Benito Nacif. 2002. Lesislative Poiitics in Latin America. Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press. Nacif, Benito. 2000. La lógica de la parálisis y el cambio bajo gobiernos sin mayoría. México: CIDE. Working Paper 126. Negretto, Gabriel. 2004. Government Capacities and Policy-Making by Decree in Latin America: The Cases of Brazil and Argentina. Comparative Political Studies. Nohlen, Dieter and Mario Fernández B. eds. 1998. El presidencialismo renovado. Caracas: Nueva Sociedad. Nohlen, Dieter, ed. 1993. Enciclopedia electoral latinoamericana y del Caribe. San José, Costa Rica: Instituto Interamericano de derechos Humanos. Przeworski, Adam, Michael E. Alvarez, José A. Cheibub and Fernando Limogi. 2000. Democracy and Development. New York: Cambridge University Press. Shugart, Mattthew. 1995. The Electoral Cycle and Institutional Sources of Divided Government. American Political Science Review 89 (2): 327-43. Samuels, David, and Kent Eaton. Presidentialism And, Or, and Versus Parliamentarism: The State of the Literature and an Agenda for Future Research. Paper presented at the Conference on Consequences of Political Institutions in Democracy, Duke University, April-5-7, 2002. Shugart, Matthew S. and John M. Carey. 1992. Presidents and Assemblies. Constitutional Design and Electoral Dynamics. New York: Cambridge University Press. Shugar, Matthew. 1998. The Inverse Relation Between Party Strength and Executive Strength: A Theory of Politicians' Constitutional Choices. British Journal of Political Science 28: 1-29. Shugart, Matthew. The Electoral Cycle and Institutional Sources of Divided Presidential Government. American Political Science Rev/ew 89 (2): 327-43. Shugart, Matthew and Stephan Haggard. 2001. Institutions and Public Policy in Presidential Systems. In Presidents, Parliaments and Policy, edtied by Stephen Haggard and Mathew MacCubbins (Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press): 64-102. Stepan, Alfred, and Cindy Skach. 1994. Presidentialism and Parliamentarism in Comparative Perspective. In The Failure of Presidential Democracy, edited by Juan Linz Juan and Arturo Valenzuela (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press), Vol. 1: 119-36. Strom, Kaare. 1990. Minority Government and Majority Rule. Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press. Valenzuela, Arturo. 1994. Party Poiitics and the Crisis of Presidentialism in Chile: A Proposal for a Parliamentary Form of Government. In The Failure of DIVISIÓN DE ESTUDIOS POLÍTICOS Gabriel L. Negretto Presídentíal Democracy, edited by Juan Linz Juan and Arturo Valenzuela (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press), Vol. 1: 91-150. Zueco, César. 2002. Datábase on Cabinet Coalitions in Latín America. Department of Political Science, UCLA, unpublished. CIDE Novedades DIVISIóN DE ADMINISTRACIóN PúBLICA Cabrero Mendoza, Enrique, Políticas de modernización de la administración municipal. Viejas y nuevas estrategias para transformar a los gobiernos locales. AP-128 Cabrero Mendoza, Enrique, Los cambios en la agenda de políticas públicas en el ámbito municipal: Una visión introductoria. AP-129 Areüano Gault, David & J. Ramón Gil García. Public Management PoUcy and Accountability in Latín America: Performance-Oriented Budget ín Colombia, México and Venezuela. AP-130 Graizbord, Boris, Allison Rowland £t Adrián Guillermo Aguilar, Spatial and Dístributive Impacts of Globalizatíon on México C/ty. AP-131 Cárter, Nicole, Water Conflíct and Covernance in the Río Bravo Basin. AP-132 Rivera Urrutia, Eugenio, Teorías de la regulación. Un análisis desde la perspectiva de las políticas públicas. AP-133 Del Castillo, Arturo y Manuel Alejandro Guerrero, Percepciones de la corrupción en la Ciudad de México ¿ Predisposición al acto corrupto ?. AP-134 Mariscal, Judith, Digital Divide in México. AP-135 Kossick, Robert & Judith Mariscal, Citizen Participation in the Digital Age: The ínitíal Experience of México. AP-136 Bracho González, Teresa, Administración centrada en la escuela. AP-137 DIVISIóN DE ECONOMíA Hernández Trillo, Fausto, Primero lo primero:¿Cómo financiar el desarrollo económico mexicano?. E-275 Rosellón, Juan & Kristiansen T., A Merchant Mechanism for Electricity Transmission Expansión. E-276 Scott, John, Decentralization of Social Spending in México. E-277 Unger, Kurt, Los Clusters industriales en México: especializacíones regionales y la política industrial. E-278 Gómez Galvarriato Aurora y Gabriela Recio, El nacimiento de la sociedad anónima y la evolución de las organizaciones empresariales en México: 18861910. E-279 Ávalos Bracho , Marco & José Carlos Ramírez Sánchez, International Trade and Merger Policy. E-280 Hernández Trillo, Fausto y Héctor Iturribarría, Tres Trampas del federalismo fiscal mexicano. E-281 Ramírez, José Carlos, Usos y limitaciones de los procesos estocásticos en el tratamiento de distribuciones de rendimientos con colas gordas. E-282 Antón, Arturo, On the Welfare ¡mplications of the Optimal Monetary Policy. E-283 Torres Rojo, Juan M., y Arturo G. Valles Gándara, Crecimiento poblacional de rodales puros y mezclados de coniferas y latifóUdas. E-284 DIVISIóN DE ESTUDIOS INTERNACIONALES Schiavon, Jorge A., Bicameralismo en América Latina:¿Hace alguna diferencia? El-91 Jones, Adam, Paramilitarism, Death and Squads and Covernance in Latin America. El-92 Ortiz Mena, Antonio, México s Trade Policy: Improvisation and Vision. EI-93. Mahon, James, Fiscal Contracts, International Capital and the Quest for a Liberal. El-94 Kahhat, Farid, Democracy as a Collective Problem In the Western Hemisphere: The Case of Perú Dunng the 1990s. EI-95 Ortiz Mena, Antonio, México in the Multilateral Tradins System. EI-96 Minushkin, Susan, De Banqueros a Bolseros: La transformación estructural del sector financiero mexicano. EI-97 Schiavon, Jorge Alberto, Cohabitando en el Consejo de Sesuridad: México y Estados Unidos ante la Guerra contra Irak. EI-98 Jones, Adam, The Politics of United Nations Reform. El-99 Kahhat, Jones, Los estudios de seguridad tras el fin de la Guerra Fría. EI-100 DIVISIóN DE ESTUDIOS JURíDICOS Magaloni, Ana Laura y Layda Negrete, El poder Judicial federal y su política de decidir sin resolver. EJ-1 Pazos, María Inés, Derrotabilidad sin indeterminación. EJ-2 Pasara Pazos, Luis, Reforma y desafíos de la justicia en Guatemala. EJ-3 Bergman S., Marcelo, Confianza y Estado de Derecho. EJ-4 Bergman S., Marcelo, Compliance with norms: The Case of Tax Compliance in Latin America. EJ-5 DIVISIóN DE ESTUDIOS POLíTICOS Benton, Allyson, Dissatisfied Democrats or Restrospective Voters? Economic Hardship, Political Institutions and Votins Behavior in Latin America. EP-153 Colomer M., Josep, Tamins the Tiser: Votins RiS^ts and Political tnstability in Latin America. EP-154 Colomer M., Josep, Votins in Latín America: Low Benefits, Hi^h Costs. EP-155 Colomer M., Josep, Policy Making ín Divided Government: A Pivotal Actors Model with Party Discipline. EP-156 Dion, Michelle, México's Welfare Resime befare and after the Debt Crisis: Orsanized Labor and the Effects of Clobalization. EP-157 Nacif, Benito, Instituciones políticas y transición a la democracia en México. EP-158 Langston, Joy, Senate Recruitment and Party Orsanizational Chance in México sPRL EP-159 Langston, Joy & Alberto Díaz- Cayeros, The Consequences of Competition: Cubernatorial Nominations in México 1994-2000. EP-160 Crespo, José Antonio, México: El fin de la hesemonía partidista. EP-161 Beltrán Ugarte, Ulises, The Combined Effect of Advertisement and News Coverage in the Mexican Presidential Campaign of 2000. EP-162 DIVISIóN DE HISTORIA Meyer, Jean, Guerra, relisión y violencia, el contexto salvadoreño de la muerte de Monseñor Romero. H-17 Pipitone, Ugo, Caos y Globalización. H-18 Barrón, Luis, Un civil en busca del poder: La carrera política de José Vasconcelos 1910-1924. H-19 Barrón, Luis, La tercera muerte de la Revolución Mexicana: Historiografía reciente y futuro en el estudio de la revolución. H-20 García Ayluardo, Clara, De tesoreros y tesoros. La administración financiera y la intervención de las cofradías novohispanas. H-21 Medina Peña, Luis, Porfirio Díaz y la creación del sistema político. H-22 Sauter J., Michael, Visions of the Enlightenment: Johann Christoph Woellner and Prussia's Edict on Relision of 1788. H-23 Sauter J., Michael, Preachers, Ponytoils and Enthusiasm: On the Limits of Publicness in Enlightenment Prussia. H-24 Bataillon, Gilíes, Guatemala: de L'instauration du terrorisme d'état au réasencement du pouvoir militaire. H-25 Ventas DIRECTAS: 57-27-98-00 Ext. 2906 y 2417 Fax: 57-27-98-85 INTERNET: [email protected] www.cide.edu LIBRERíAS DONDE SE ENCUENTRAN DOCUMENTOS DE TRABAJO: . 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