Coalitional Presidentialism Research Articles

Making Brazil work? Brazilian coalitional presidentialism at 30 and its post-Lava Jato prospects

The article analyzes the question of coalition presidentialism in the countries of Latin America in general and in Brazil in particular. It offers the reader a close look at coalition presidentialism in all Brazilian governments since the democratization of the country to the present day, presenting the complex relations between Legislative Branch and the Executive Branch in these different moments of Brazilian political reality. The main focus of the article is to relate the impacts of “Lava Jato” operation to this process, seeking to indicate possible consequences of this operation, which caused great repercussion on Brazilian politics, to this scenario of relationship between the Executive and Legislative branches.

Sobreviviendo a reformas, impopularidad y casos de corrupción: el presidencialismo de coalición del Brasil de Temer

El año 2017 demostró la elevada capacidad del presidente brasileño para aprobar su agenda de gobierno y conformar un apoyo sólido y mayoritario en el Congreso Nacional. A pesar de enfrentar una coyuntura económica y social desfavorable, junto con una bajísima popularidad, Michel Temer aprobó una profunda reforma laboral y rechazó dos denuncias de corrupción en el Legislativo. Por medio de la distribución de ministerios a partidos aliados y la conformación de una coalición partidista ideológicamente homogénea, el presidente Temer demostró la gobernabilidad del presidencialismo de coalición brasileño. El cambio del statu quo, afectando incluso a la política exterior, ejemplificó el dominio del presidente en la política brasileña, principalmente en la capacidad para movilizar recursos en la delicada tarea de organizar una coalición partidaria de elevada fragmentación.

Regime semi-presidentiel au Bresil: porquoi pas? | Semipresidentialism System in Brazil: Why Not?

Cet article examine les raisons pour lesquelles le présidentialisme de coalition brésilien centralise trop de pouvoir à l'’Exécutif et n´établit pas de relations politiques transparentes. Après avoir étudié le régime semi-présidentiel et les principales critiques qui lui sont adressées par les juristes et politologues français, l´article propose la réforme du régime brésilien vers l'adoption du système semi-présidentiel. La dyarchie peut contribuer à la stabilité et à l'efficacité du gouvernement ainsi qu’à améliorer le dialogue entre les Pouvoirs.

Multipartidarismo atomístico e (semi)presidencialismo de coalizão

No presente ensaio, os autores propoem uma analise a respeito da convivencia institucional entre o presidencialismo de coalizao e o multipartidarismo sob a egide da Constituicao de 1988. Propoe-se que a vivencia constitucional brasileira conformou incentivos institucionais que fomentaram uma fragmentacao da representacao partidaria no Congresso Nacional, o que, ao final, terminaram por alterar os padroes de interacao entre os poderes executivo e legislativo.Palavras-chave: multipartidarismo atomistico, presidencialismo de coalizao, semipresidencialismo, parlamentarismo.

Regime resilience and presidential politics in Indonesia

ABSTRACTThis article builds on insights from the coalitional presidentialism literature and a more ideational regime-based approach to examine the reasons behind Indonesia's ongoing democratic stagnation. It argues that this stagnation is not, as institutionalists might posit, an ultimately inevitable result of the institutional setup of multiparty presidentialism. Nor is it merely a manifestation of unchallenged oligarchic domination or the cartelization of party politics as other influential approaches to Indonesian politics have argued. Instead, this article argues that presidential politics in Indonesia is above all a reflection of a complex regime configuration in which presidents need to navigate between popular demands from the electorate, the interests of powerful veto actors who use democratic procedures only as an instrument to defend their predominantly material interests, and a constantly evolving but still inefficient set of political institutions that has largely failed to ensure accountability and transparency.

Coalition Presidentialism in Bicameral Congresses: How does the Control of a Bicameral Majority Affect Coalition Survival?

Presidential legislative majorities under bicameral congresses have seldom been considered in the literature on coalition cabinets. However, this combination is far from being an isolated or irrelevant topic. Bicameral congresses comprise a double round of negotiation for the executive, increasing the shadow of the unexpected. Indeed, controlling one of the two chambers may not be sufficient for a president to guarantee the approval of policies. In this case, what if a government does not control both houses? How are coalition cabinets affected by the non-control of one or both chambers? I will focus analysis on the 25 cases of coalition cabinets in Latin America since the return of democracy and present a bicameral framework. Through mvQCA, I find that, contrary to common belief, the controlling of a bicameral majority is neither necessary nor sufficient to ensure stable coalitions.

How Do Minority Presidents Manage Multiparty Coalitions? Identifying and Analyzing the Payoffs to Coalition Parties in Presidential Systems

The preponderance of minority presidents in modern democracies has concentrated the attention of researchers on the multiparty coalitions that presidents form to govern in legislative assemblies. This analysis of “coalitional presidentialism” has focused almost exclusively on presidential systems in Latin America, and Brazil in particular. It has understood multiparty presidential coalitions as cabinet-level constructs, which bind the support of parties in legislatures through portfolio payoffs. In this article, we explore this analysis in a non-Latin American context: post-Soviet Ukraine. Using original quantitative and qualitative data, we find that portfolio payoffs are an important tool for managing Ukrainian coalitions. But we also find that minority presidents have relied systematically on the support of legislative parties outside of the cabinet and have used different payoffs to manage their support. Given that this complexity also exists in other new democracies, we argue that there is a need to distinguish between cabinet-level and floor-level coalitions in minority presidential systems.

Fim do consenso: a Política Externa Brasileira no século XXI

Da política externa brasileira do governo Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995-2002) à gestão atual, marcada pela consolidação do impeachment da presidenta Dilma Rousseff em agosto de 2016, pode ser vislumbrada como um arco de ascensão, consolidação e declínio. Entendemos que a ascensão e a consolidação foram possíveis devido a um consenso político interno em volta do presidencialismo de coalizão que produziu estabilidade, além, evidentemente, de inúmeros fatores internos e externos que são apreciados aqui de forma adjacente. A partir da eleição de Dilma Rousseff para o segundo mandato esse consenso foi desfeito. A ‘guerra’ política ficou amplamente aberta. Portanto, o objetivo central do artigo é visualizar esse arco da ascensão ao declínio para, dessa maneira, obter ferramentas analíticas capazes de identificar as primeiras marcas e desafios do governo atual, especialmente no que tange as capacidades de autonomia e desenvolvimento nacionais. Para tanto, o texto procura se auxiliar dos conceitos de autonomia e desenvolvimento produzidos e entendidos por grandes pesquisadores da área. Por fim, frisa-se esta linha argumentativa e analítica do texto: conceitos ou valores entendidos como fundamentais e constantes na política externa brasileira; características gerais e essenciais da política externa de FHC, Lula e Dilma; e o delineamento da política externa atual, bem como seus desafios.

Presidential coattails in coalitional presidentialism

Research on presidential coattails in elections has focused nearly exclusively on two-party systems like the United States. Much less is known, however, about presidential coattails in multiparty systems where electoral and governing coalitions are common currency. Under coalitional presidentialism, we argue that presidential coattails are diffused, benefiting the president’s party but also her coalition party members, especially those most strongly associated with the coalition itself. Using electoral data from Chile and Brazil, two widely studied but distinct cases of coalitional presidentialism, we find strong evidence supporting this claim. The results carry important implications for students of coalitional presidentialism, presidential coattails, and party systems, more generally.

Presidencialismo de coalición en Brasil: el estado del debate y apuntes para una nueva agenda de investigación

Presidencialismo de coalición en Brasil: el estado del debate y apuntes para una nueva agenda de investigación

Explaining infrastructure underperformance in Brazil: cash, political institutions, corruption, and policy Gestalts

ABSTRACTBrazil’s infrastructure underperforms compared to that of peer emerging economies. Why? The political institutions of coalitional presidentialism with strong federalism undermine rational national planning. Politicians’ incentives to distribute ‘pork’ combine with sector-specific oligopoly characteristics, offering fertile ground for corruption. Yet the greatest challenge is low infrastructure investment, a consequence of weak private capital markets and regulatory inconsistency. Recent center-right governments improved infrastructure service delivery without stimulating investment, while center-left governments raised investment, but undermined public finances and efficiency. Greater technocratic consensus across the partisan divide on reforms to stimulate investment is one positive consequence of Brazil’s current crisis.

The role of the Brazilian Congress in defining public social policies

ABSTRACTThe analysis of the role of Congress in defining public policy matters to the debate on the characterisation of legislatures in a spectrum that ranges from the ‘transformative’ to the ‘arena’ type (according to the typology of Polsby). This paper, related to the Brazilian case, considers definitions relevant to the areas of education and health. On education, this study presents an analysis of the content of the legislative proposals of parliamentarians and two case studies, which discuss policy definitions of funding and quality assessment. On health, this article presents an analysis of related legislative proposals and especially those that resulted in funding rules. These studies suggest that Congress in Brazil has an important part to play in defining public policies, acting either as a transforming agent or as an arena for debates. The Brazilian Congress seems to have been, at the same time, active, reactive, collaborative and innovative. This finding leads to the conclusion that the Brazilian Legislature must be placed at an intermediate level between the extreme types of Polsby’s categories; this position is compatible with the ‘coalitional presidentialism’.

Coercing Loyalty: Coalitional Presidentialism and Party Politics in Jokowi's Indonesia

Scholars of coalitional presidentialism have focused on the question of how presidents in multi-party systems manage to establish stable governments. Some authors have argued that in the case of Indonesia, post-authoritarian presidents have prioritized inclusivist alliance building, with all parties offered cabinet seats and other rewards in exchange for loyalty. However, as this article demonstrates, President Joko Widodo has opted for a more coercive approach: reactivating power tools not used since the days of Suharto’s autocracy, he intervened in the internal affairs of at least two opposition parties and eventually forced them to declare their support for his administration. This method, while designed to obstruct the anti-democratic agenda of the opposition, has in itself had detrimental effects on Indonesia’s democratic quality.

The Institutional Presidency in Latin America: A Comparative Analysis

This article focuses on the evolution of the institutional presidency in six Latin American presidential democracies since the last wave of redemocratization. Institutional presidency refers to the bulk of agencies that operate under direct presidential authority and are in charge of supporting the presidential leadership. We document all structural changes occurring under the umbrella of the president for the period of analysis. We find that the expansion in the number of presidential agencies is a deliberate response to situations of conflict or weakness. It is more likely under coalitional presidentialism—when presidents must share cabinet positions and manage relationships with coalition partners—as well as when presidents implement structural reform policies to face critical economic circumstances.

Políticas públicas coordenadas e presidencialismo de coalizão: o caso do PROMESO

Resumo As políticas públicas têm sido estudadas com base em diferentes aspectos teóricos. No entanto, ainda persiste uma lacuna nas questões relacionadas à integração de ações das agências governamentais. Essas dimensões, quando estudadas, pouco se aproximam da perspectiva dos impactos decorrentes da arquitetura do presidencialismo de coalizão sobre as políticas públicas, que, no caso brasileiro, corrobora sua fragmentação e competição entre agências governamentais que deveriam atuar de forma integrada. Este artigo objetiva identificar onde esse problema se manifesta e o ponto de inflexão entre o discurso da ação coordenada e a implementação que evidencia o contrário. Para demonstrar como isso ocorre foi escolhido o Programa de Promoção da Sustentabilidade de Espaços Sub-Regionais (Promeso), que tem agendas compartilhadas como um de seus importantes instrumentos. A elaboração da pesquisa demandou uma revisão teórica que se debruçou sobre a arquitetura institucional do presidencialismo de coalizão e dos partidos políticos, além de adotar, na pesquisa empírica, a base de dados da Secretaria de Orçamento Federal (SOF/MPOG) e do Sistema Integrado de Administração Financeira do Governo (Siafi/MF), que permitiram espacializar a distribuição dos recursos públicos segundo as lógicas partidárias e regionalizadas, e consultar documentos oficiais do Ministério da Integração Nacional (MI) que caracterizam o programa objeto deste estudo. A pesquisa comprovou que o presidencialismo de coalizão afeta diretamente as políticas públicas, evidenciando um caráter competitivo entre as agências do governo federal, em razão das lógicas particularizadas, determinadas pelos dirigentes dessas instituições.

Coalitional presidentialism and legislative control in post-Soviet Ukraine

Two political scientists explore the significance of pro-presidential legislative coalitions in Ukrainian politics since 2000. They draw on an original survey of MPs and cabinet data to engage with the extant analysis of coalitional politics in Ukraine. Using the framework of “coalitional presidentialism,” which was first developed in the study of Latin American presidential systems, they find evidence to suggest that legislative coalitions are a meaningful feature of Ukrainian legislative life, and point to the tools that presidents use to maintain them.

Beyond Brazilian Coalition Presidentialism: the Appropriation of the Legislative Agenda

Even though they possess several power resources, Brazilian Presidents also elaborate their legislative proposals based upon bills already being processed in Congress through a phenomenon called Appropriation of the legislative agenda. In this paper I examine the conditions under which this phenomenon occurs by means of a typology and a qualitative comparative analysis (QCA). I conclude that Appropriation provides the President with the expansion of the formal support base by controlling the agenda of allied and opposition parties as well as obtaining the paternity of several policies already in motion in Congress, thus enabling a public association of the President's actions and his or her party with the possibility of social benefits. Be it in the pursuit of promising agendas or for the maintenance of their own dominance, Appropriation shows that Brazilian Presidents must go beyond coalition presidentialism.

The Development of Brazilian Multiparty Presidential System Theories: A Comparative Approach

In this paper we’ll review the literature of Brazilian Multiparty Presidential System, also known as coalitional presidentialism. We’ll not offer only a guide for the last 25 years of research, but also give some suggestions. Were identified six kinds of studies about Executive-Legislative relations in Brazil: the pessimistic view, comparing presidentialism with parliamentarism; creation of government coalitions, analyzing the proportionality in the cabinets; maintenance of the coalitions with resources provided by the Executive to Congressmen for pork barrel; power of institutions; strength of party leadership inside the Congress; and finally, researches about federalism and its consequences. We can make at least three observations. First: create a proportionality index of cabinets giving the same weight to all Departments, like the literature did, isn’t the best thing to do. Second: what happen with the maintenance of coalition if a new law is approved stating that the Executive must give the same resources for pork to all Representatives? Third: there’s another view about federalism looking at the weakness of Governors compared to the strength of Mayors and Presidents, how can it be analyzed inside this framework?

A Comparative Analysis of Brazilian Departments

This paper intends to carry out in a comparative perspective a deep analysis of Brazilian cabinet (in Portuguese, ministerios). Much of the current literature on multiparty or coalitional presidentialism usually considers there is no reason to assume that different parties inside the government coalition have different interests when they are receiving a department (or ministry) from the executive. In this view, proportionality, regarding the number of seats each party has in the House of Representatives, and the number of departments given by the federal executive to this party in order to get future legislative support, should take into account only the gross number of departments received by the parties. It does not consider that for some kind of party one specific department is preferable than another one. This assumption must be questioned, so, it will be checked the characteristics of Brazilian cabinet regarding the degree of discretion in spending the budget, the ability to hire outsourced employees, normative power and others. Then all these Brazilian features will be compared with those of other nations.

Legislative Representation and Governability in Brazil

Democracy is, ideally, an equality fostering tool in face of different demands present in any given society and that currently is put in practice by a representative democratic model. Nevertheless, several modern thinkers are pointing to an unmeasured scale of interests within the representation spheres, in which the most powerful society’s sectors overcome the less influential social and economical groups, turning democratic representation into an uneven scheme. By having this in mind, this reflection is aimed to make an analysis of the Brazilian democratic representation model, specifically in relation to its majoritarian government composition, that, in this country, is part of a unique legislative model named as “Coalition Presidentialism”. At the composition idealized by the Brazilian National Constitution, the federal parliamentary ministers have the responsibility for the formulation of laws as well as monitoring the executive power in consonance with the will of the society’s sectors that has got them elected by the voting system. The conflict is established though, when the actual governmental practices leave aside the constitutional principle of a plural representation in consequence of economic and power interests that act independently from the diverse interests and needs of other groups belonging to the Brazilian society. It can be argued that the establishment of governmental practices better aligned to the concept of global justice, in the Brazilian case, can be achieved by a better quality democracy, through adequate governance mechanisms and plural representation practices that are capable of attending the distinct demands of diverse society layers. Thus, this article is aimed to present how the Brazilian democratic representation works, exploring its conflicts and deployments and mainly its divergences in relation to the democratic morality that presupposes the existence of gradated ways to the reaching of higher social and political equality levels, closer to the general global justice ideas.