We address the strengths and weaknesses of the main available measures of political regime and extend the dichotomous regime classification first introduced in Alvarez et al. (Stud. Comp. Int. Dev. 31(2):3-36 1996). This extension focuses on how incumbents are removed from office. We argue that differences across regime measures must be taken seriously and that they should be evaluated in terms of whether they (1) serve to address important research questions, (2) can be interpreted meaningfully, and (3) are reproducible. We argue that existing measures of democracy are not interchangeable and that the choice of measure should be guided by its theoretical and empirical underpinnings. We show that the choice of regime measure matters by replicating studies published in leading journals

No abstract

This book addresses the following question: why are presidential democracies more likely to break down than parliamentary ones? Conventional wisdom among political scientists pointS to the incentives generated by the form of government itself; the independence of the executive and legislature that defines presidentialism generates incentives that are not conducive to the consolidation of democracy. On the basis of a data set that covers all democracies between 1946 and 2002, this book demonstrates that this is not the case: the incentives generated by presidentialism are as conducive to the consolidation of democracy as the ones generated by parliamentarism. The book argues that what kills presidentialism is the fact that it exists in countries where democracies of any type are not likely to survive. This book will be of interest to academic researchers, graduates and advanced undergraduates enrolled in courses on comparative politics and political economy.

Are government coalitions less frequent under presidentialism than under parliamentarism? Do legislative deadlocks occur when presidents do not form majoritarian governments? Are presidential democracies more brittle when they are ruled by minorities? We answer these questions observing almost all democracies that existed between 1946 and 1999. It turns out that government coalitions occur in more than one half of the situations in which the president's party does not have a majority, that minority governments are not less successful legislatively than majority coalitions in both systems, and that the coalition status of the government has no impact on the survival of democracy in either system. Hence, whatever is wrong with presidentialism, is not due to the difficulty of forming coalitions.

350WORLD POLITICS methodologically flawed since they rarely take into consideration, among other things, the effect of performance on regimes. 1 In view of the inconclusive results produced by empirical analyses, several authors have recently suggested that the category "political regime" is too broad and should be disaggregated for analytical purposes. 2 Although it is undoubtedly important to consider political factors other than regime type to explain variations in policy performance across countries, it is too early to discard questions about the impact of political regimes from our research agenda. After all, the effect that political regimes may have on economic performance still challenges us empirically, theoretically, and politically.This article assesses whether political regimes matter for a particular aspect of economic performance. Specifically, it addresses the question of whether regime type, classified as democracy or dictatorship, has a causal impact on the extractive capacity of a government, as measured by the level of taxes it collects. The fiscal crisis experienced by several countries in the recent past has led many analysts to doubt the capacity of those countries to raise revenue through taxation. For many observers, the resumption of economic development requires an increase in levels of public savings, which, in turn, requires an increase in taxation. 3 Yet, the capacity of governments to raise taxes, particularly under democratic conditions, is normally considered to be limited.

Is economic development conducive to political democracy? Does democracy foster or hinder material welfare? These two questions are examined by looking at the experience of 135 countries between 1950 and 1990. Descriptive information, statistical analyses, and historical narratives are interwoven to gain an understanding of the dynamic of political regimes and their impact on economic development and other aspects of material welfare. The findings, several most surprising, dispel any notion of a trade-off between democracy and development. Economic development does not generate democracies but democracies are much more likely to survive in wealthy societies. Political regimes have no impact on the growth of total national incomes, while political instability affects growth only in dictatorships. Per capita incomes grow faster in democracies since population increases faster under dictatorships. In general, political regimes have more of an effect on demography than on economics.

What are the conditions that generate minority presidents, minority governments, and deadlock in presidential regimes? What is the impact of minority presidents, minority governments, and deadlock on the survival of these regimes? Based on data for all presidential democracies that existed between 1946 and 1996, the author shows (a) that characteristics of the electoral and party systems do affect the level of support for the president in congress and hence the probability of minority presidents and minority governments; (b) that these characteristics, and the minority governments they generate, do not make deadlock more likely; and (c) that minority presidents, minority governments, and deadlock do not affect the survival of presidential democracies. Together, these findings suggest that the view that explains the instability of presidential democracies in terms of the type of executive-legislative relations these regimes are likely to induce must be abandoned. The author offers two reasons, institutional in nature, that may account for the instability of presidential regimes.

We review arguments and empirical evidence found in the comparative literature that bear on the differences in the survival rates of parliamentary and presidential democracies. Most of these arguments focus on the fact that presidential democracies are based on the separation of executive and legislative powers, while parliamentary democracies are based on the fusion of these powers. From this basic distinction several implications are derived which would lead to radically different behavior and outcomes under each regime. We argue that this perspective is misguided and that we cannot deduce the functioning of the political system from the way governments are formed. There are other provisions, constitutional or otherwise, that also affect the way parliamentary and presidential democracies operate and that may counteract some of the tendencies that we would expect to observe if we were to derive the regime's performance from its basic constitutional principle.