Legislative Coalitions in Presidential Systems: The Case of Uruguay

Abstract

The paper analyzes executive-legislative relations in Uruguay (1985-2005), and shows that even after controlling for ideological affinity, and accounting for the fact that ideology affects presence in the cabinet, legislators whose factions hold ministerial positions behave in a more pro-government way than what their ideology would predict. This result not only shows that coalitions “work,” but suggests that they work because the presidents use resources under their control to attract support from legislators. The paper presents a systematic analysis of executive-legislative relations in multiparty settings that makes use of the fact that non-ideologically contiguous coalitions often formed to separate the ideological from the strategic determinants of legislative behavior. It also contributes to the literature by presenting a new set of roll-call data, and, more generally, highlighting the risks of attempting to infer ideology directly from legislative behavior in presidential multiparty settings.