Measuring Presidential Dominance over Cabinets in Presidential Systems: Constitutional Design and Power Sharing

Abstract

This study focuses on the degree of political dominance exercised on cabinets by the executive chief in presidential systems. According to a debate that began in the 1990s, presidential systems are characterized by a non-collegial decision-making process, led by and personified in the figure of the president, in contrast to parliamentary systems where a joint decision-making process is prevalent. The key argument of this research note is that, although the majority of presidents have the constitutional power to remove cabinet ministers, the executive decision-making process in presidential systems is not necessarily vertical or based on a noncollegial process. By building a new index, we reveal a significant variation in the executive power exerted by presidents over their cabinets. To classify the degree of political dominance of presidents over their cabinets, we analyzed the rules of cabinet decision-making processes as defined in 18 Latin American constitutions.

Ministros-técnicos e ministros-políticos nos governos do PSDB e do PT

“…In Brazil, the scholarly literature on the appointment of ministers is primarily inserted within the debate regarding the president's conditions of governability and his relations with the Legislative Branch. The argument states that "coalition presidentialism" offers more alternatives to the head of State to form a cabinet than a parliamentary regime (Amorim Neto, 2006;Araújo, Silva and Vieira, 2016;Batista, 2013;Figueiredo and Limongi, 2001). However, within a setting of several effective parties, and with increasing party fragmentation in Congress, the coalition costs required for governability increase (Pereira, Bertholini and Raile, 2016).…”

The Presidential Logic of Government Formation in Latin American Democracies

“…Similar interpretations use this perspective to explain the formation of minority or majority governments (Figueiredo et al 2012;Meireles 2016), the government parties' preferences and the formulation of public policies (Alemán and Saiegh 2007;Altman and Castiglioni 2009), and the endurance of the cabinet (Deheza 1997;Altman 2000;Carlin et al 2014;Martínez-Gallardo and Schleiter 2014). Recent analyses consider the survival of ministers (Camerlo and Pérez-Liñan 2015), the development of the institutional presidency 2 (Inácio and Llanos 2016), and formal (Araújo et al 2016) or informal (Siavelis 2016) rules that affect the decision-making process in multiparty cabinets in Latin American democracies.…”