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Can Presidentialism Work Like Parliamentarism?1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Josep M. Colomer  and
Gabriel L. Negretto
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Abstract

Inter-institutional cooperation between the congress and the presidency may be the best way to promote good governance in a regime of separation of powers. In order to evaluate the performance of different political institutions, especially the different frameworks associated with ‘presidentialism’ and ‘parliamentarism’, we adopt the criterion that policy outcomes coinciding with the median voter's preference can produce the highest satisfaction or social utility. From this perspective, proportional representation in congress can be very appropriate since it tends to establish a close correspondence between the median party's and the median voter's preferences. Likewise, cooperation – rather than conflict or mutual checks – between the median party in congress and the presidency for both legislative decisions and cabinet formation can favour socially efficient outcomes. A survey of some recent institutional reforms in democratic presidential regimes in Latin America shows that ‘parliamentarization’ of presidentialism is gaining acceptance, although intermediate formulae may be more conflictual than a global, more coherent institutional reform.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 40 , Issue 1 , 2005 , pp. 60 - 89
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2005.

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Footnotes

1

We are grateful for comments and suggestions on previous versions to John M. Carey, Barbara Geddes, William Keech, Fabrice Lehoucq, Juan Molinar, G. Bingham Powell and Arturo Valenzuela.

References

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9 Gary Cox, Making Votes Count, Cambridge and New York, Cambridge University Press, 1997.

10 Shugart and Carey, Presidents and Assemblies, op. cit.; Mainwaring, ‘Presidentialism, Multipartism, and Democracy’, op. cit.; Mainwaring and Shugart, Presidentialism and Democracy in Latin America, op. cit.

11 Powell, Elections as Instruments of Democracy, op. cit., pp. 240–3.

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13 It should be noted, however, that urgency decrees might make a return to the status quo ante impossible because they enact policies with immediate force of law. On the rules that determine the reversionary outcome in the absence of approval of presidential proposals, see Negretto, Gabriel, ‘Government Capacities and Policy-Making by Decree in Latin America: The Cases of Brazil and Argentina’, Comparative Political Studies, 37: 5 (2004), pp. 531–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 Gabriel Negretto, ‘Minority Presidents and Types of Government in Latin America’, paper presented at the Latin American Studies Association Meeting, Dallas, 26–9 March 2003.

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17 Negretto, ‘Government Capacities and Policy-Making’, op. cit.

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