Government Coalitions and Legislative Success Under Presidentialism and Parliamentarism

Abstract

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.

Power brokers: Middlemen in legislative bargaining

“…Fractionalized power is a relatively common occurrence in legislatures across the world: in 45% of the seat distributions in presidential democracies and 57% of seat distributions in parliamentary democracies, no party controlled a majority of seats in the legislature (Cheibub, Przeworski, and Saiegh (2004)). In these cases, either minority parties form relatively stable policy coalitions, or policy compromises are attained on a case-by-case basis, suggesting that political intermediation can be particularly important in these settings.…”

“…In these cases, either minority parties form relatively stable policy coalitions, or policy compromises are attained on a case-by-case basis, suggesting that political intermediation can be particularly important in these settings. In fact, Cheibub, Przeworski, and Saiegh (2004) show that the absence of a majority party doesn't affect legislative success, as measured by the proportion of government bills turned into law: single-party minority governments are at least as successful as majority coalitions.…”

Political Prowess or “Lady Luck”? Evaluating Chief Executives’ Legislative Success Rates

“…21 As Cheibub et al (2004) note, government coalitions tend to form when the policy distance between a minority party in government and the rest of the parties in the legislature is large. Therefore coalition governments are typically quite heterogeneous and have more players who could potentially veto a change.…”

“…A government is considered to be a multiparty coalition if two or more political parties represented in the national legislature hold cabinet positions. Source : Cheibub, Przeworski, and Saiegh (2004). legislators represent a ''national'' rather than a ''local'' constituency.…”

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

“…According to Mainwaring (1993), in a system of government that is guided by non-cooperative incentives between the executive and legislative powers-a system which consequently offers no incentive for the formation of coalitions- and CASTIGLIONI, 2010;AMORIM NETO, 2006;CHASQUETTI, 2001;CHEIBUB, 2002;CHEIBUB, PRZEWORSKI and SAIEGH, 2004;DEHEZA, 1997;MEJÍA ACOSTA, 2009;NEGRETTO, 2006;ZELAZNIK, 2001). …”