Hacia una teoría ideacional de la difusión institucional. La adopción y adaptación del presidencialismo en América Latina durante el siglo XIX

Abstract

Diffusion theories have paid little attention to the dissemination of political institutions, so far. Moreover, they have offered better explanations of processes of adoption than adaptation ones. The creation of political institutions in Latin America after the wars of independence provides an excellent opportunity for theory-building while correcting these biases. The USA presidential model was adopted by Latin American countries during the xix century, but with certain adaptations, in the sense that the “copies” had fundamental differences from the original paradigm. Latin American presidentialism grants the president a significantly greater role in the dynamics of government than the American one. Ideational factors explain not only the initial choice for presidentialism; but they also contribute to explaining the meaning and intensity of the deep mutation experienced by the Philadelphia model.