Presidential coattails in coalitional presidentialism

Abstract

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.

The Illusion of Electoral Stability: From Party System Erosion to Right-Wing Populism in Brazil

“…PBV in Brazil is 4.5 times higher than in Chile, while average extra-system volatility is 2.4 times higher. Variation in PBV is consistent with differences across cases: Chilean coalitions since the transition in 1989 have been characterised by extraordinary stability, while coalitions in Brazil lack ideological consistency and their partisan composition changes substantially across elections (Borges and Turgeon, 2019). Thus, the comparative data presented in Table 2 provide preliminary evidence to support the claim that measures of stability in components of the system provide an incomplete picture of the patterns of party system stability and change.…”

Why do parties cooperate in presidentialism? Electoral and government coalition formation in Latin America

“…The fourth independent variable is related to the simultaneousness of presidential and legislative elections. When these two elections are concurrent, coalition formation is more likely to occur (see Borges and Turgeon, 2017). Concurrent elections force parties to have a national strategy, in which larger parties will tend to negotiate with smaller parties for legislative support, and smaller parties will tend to negotiate with larger parties in exchange for cabinet portfolios.…”

Modelling Coalitions: From Concept Formation to Tailoring Empirical Explanations

“…Typically, studies of Latin American presidential systems have resorted solely to statistical evidence and models [60][61][62], but models that focus on pre-electoral coalition bargaining (such as Carroll and Cox [63], which was originally tested with evidence collected from West European democracies) may offer invaluable insights for the designing of quasi-conceptual and extrapolative models capable of encompassing the particular reality of Latin American democracies. Borges et al [61], for instance, analyse the pre-electoral bargaining process in 18 Latin American democracies, which are characterised by displaying multiparty coalition presidentialism, adding to a body of literature that has been profoundly concerned with the particular institutional setting that culminates in coalitional presidential systems [64][65][66]. Similarly, new approaches to coalition formation and breakdown in multiethnic societies have been emerging in the context of African politics, but the traditional statistical approach remains dominant [67][68][69][70][71].…”