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‘Congruent We Govern’: Cost of Governance in Multiparty Presidentialism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 May 2022

Carlos Pereira Open the ORCID record for Carlos Pereira [Opens in a new window] ,
Frederico Bertholini  and
Marcus Melo
Carlos Pereira*
Affiliation:
Brazilian School of Public Administration and Business (EBAPE), Getulio Vargas Foundation, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Frederico Bertholini
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Brasilia, Brasilia, Brazil
Marcus Melo
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Federal University of Pernambuco, Recife, Brazil
*
*Corresponding author. Email: Carlos.Pereira@fgv.br
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Abstract

The received wisdom on executive–legislative relations in multiparty presidential systems is that the size of the president's majority in Congress is the key factor explaining governance patterns, particularly the president's legislative success. However, in many cases presidents enjoying a nominal majority have been unable to pass legislation and have faced institutional instability. The article departs from a conventional definition of divided government and focuses on the preference incongruence between the governing coalition and the floor of Congress. It argues that the ideological distance between the floor and the coalition is a key factor explaining the president's cost of governing (which includes factors such as the distribution of cabinet portfolios and budgetary transfers to coalition partners). The article provides an empirical test with data from Brazil that find that the greater the ideological incongruence, the higher the cost of governing for the president.

Keywords

ideological congruencecoalition governmentmultiparty presidential regimecost of governance
Type
Article
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 58 , Issue 4 , October 2023 , pp. 843 - 861
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Government and Opposition Limited

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