Nos últimos anos, a maior parte da literatura sobre as relações executivo-legislativo em sistemas presidencialistas vem enfatizando o papel da formação de coalizões governamentais, através da distribuição de ministérios, na obtenção de maiorias legislativas. Contudo, essas coalizões formadas raramente são iguais, já que umas são maiores e, por causa disso, mais propensas à problemas coordenativos e de agência. Mas o que explica a decisão de um presidente de incluir mais ou menos partidos em seu gabinete? Com um banco de dados original contendo informações sobre 168 coalizões na América Latina entre 1979 e 2012, este artigo testa algumas das hipóteses correntes sobre o fenômeno. Entre outros, os resultados mostram que legislativos fortes e efetivos, presidentes que dispõem de maiores poderes legislativos e maior fragmentação partidária aumentam a probabilidade de ocorrência de coalizões sobredimensionadas em diversas especificações. / Research on executive-legislative relations in presidential systems have emphasized how presidents use cabinet appointments to form and manage government coalitions in the absence of majority legislative support. Yet not all coalitions look alike, as some are bigger and, consequently, more prone to agency and coordination problems than others. But what shapes presidents’ decision to include more or less parties in their coalitions? While several hypotheses exist in the literature, few have been tested in a systematic fashion, none focusing on why surplus coalitions form. This paper intends to fill this gap by examining an original time-series cross-sectional dataset comprising 168 unique coalitions in all 18 Latin American presidential countries since 1979. In particular, I find that strong and effective assemblies, presidents with great legislative powers and high levels of party fragmentation are associated with oversized coalitions in different model specifications.

Nos últimos anos, a maior parte da literatura sobre as relações executivo-legislativo em sistemas presidencialistas vem enfatizando o papel da formação de coalizões governamentais, através da distribuição de ministérios, na obtenção de maiorias legislativas. Contudo, essas coalizões formadas raramente são iguais, já que umas são maiores e, por causa disso, mais propensas à problemas coordenativos e de agência. Mas o que explica a decisão de um presidente de incluir mais ou menos partidos em seu gabinete? Com um banco de dados original contendo informações sobre 168 coalizões na América Latina entre 1979 e 2012, este artigo testa algumas das hipóteses correntes sobre o fenômeno. Entre outros, os resultados mostram que legislativos fortes e efetivos, presidentes que dispõem de maiores poderes legislativos e maior fragmentação partidária aumentam a probabilidade de ocorrência de coalizões sobredimensionadas em diversas especificações. / Research on executive-legislative relations in presidential systems have emphasized how presidents use cabinet appointments to form and manage government coalitions in the absence of majority legislative support. Yet not all coalitions look alike, as some are bigger and, consequently, more prone to agency and coordination problems than others. But what shapes presidents’ decision to include more or less parties in their coalitions? While several hypotheses exist in the literature, few have been tested in a systematic fashion, none focusing on why surplus coalitions form. This paper intends to fill this gap by examining an original time-series cross-sectional dataset comprising 168 unique coalitions in all 18 Latin American presidential countries since 1979. In particular, I find that strong and effective assemblies, presidents with great legislative powers and high levels of party fragmentation are associated with oversized coalitions in different model specifications.

Diploma thesis attempts to apply an actualized concept of semi-presidential regime of Matthew Shugart on concrete cases of countries where the role of president has weakened over the course of last 30 years (Finland), and where the role of president has conversely grown up (Iceland). Theoretical part of the study presents the thoughts of the main actors of the semi-presidentialism debate and political-systems debate in general from the 1970s till current times. A special regard is being put forward on the conflict between legalist approach of system classifications according to written laws, and behavioralist approach of classifications through the degree of actually exercised power of individual political figures in real time. Practical part of the study follows a long-term evolution of a political system of the two selected Scandinavian republics, whose categorizations have been disputed in the academic literature. Hence a (non)utility of the semi-presidentialism theory is demonstrated exactly on the examples of Finland and Iceland. On the basis of such built-up frame, the author concludes the work by a hypothesis explaining a gradual rise or decline of power of the head of state according to internal and external political factors.

Yes / This article analyses the governance tools available to three Brazilian presidents – Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff – to direct and enact policy in the area of law-and-order, that is, to prevent crime, improve policing and develop effective penal responses. It examines the commonalities and the differences in the ways that each approached their key roles as president: communicating with the public on the issues, using the agencies of the federal bureaucracy, managing intergovernmental relations with the subnational units (states and municipalities), and managing their multiparty coalition and relations with Congress. In particular, it highlights the way in which Brazil’s highly fragmented and porous party system, which underpins the country’s coalitional presidentialist form of governance, has also encouraged the entry into legislative arenas of direct representatives of criminal justice professionals (police) and indirect representatives of private security actors. This has resulted in increasing producer capture of law-and-order policy within both the federal bureaucracy and legislative arenas at all levels of government. In the crisis of the Dilma presidency, to which they contributed, they were able to move from being veto-players to agenda-setters on law-and-order policy, intent on reversing the direction set by these presidents.

Presidential power and constitutional issues are at the very core of recent popular upheavals in the former Soviet republics, as demonstrated by the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004, and similar protests in Georgia in 2003 and in Kyrgyzstan in 2005. After the demise of the Soviet Union, these countries opted for a particular form of semi-presidentialism, here referred to as president-parliamentary. This dissertation deals with president-parliamentary systems, as well as with the other form of semi-presidentialism, namely premier-presidentialism. The study examines a typical feature of semi-presidentialism, i.e. intra-executive conflicts between the president and the prime minister/cabinet, by analysing the pattern, institutional triggers, and implications of such conflicts in Central and Eastern Europe. In addition, the choice of semi-presidentialism and differences in transitional context and constitutional building are accounted for. The following countries are specifically dealt with: Bulgaria, Croatia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, and Romania, Russia and Ukraine. The study’s empirical base is a mixture of data derived from literature, reports, review of constitutional documents, as well as from an expert survey conducted among analysts with an expert knowledge on the countries under scrutiny. The results suggest that both actor-oriented and historical-institutional factors have to be considered in order to understand why so many post-communist countries ended up with semi-presidentialism, and why there is such a sharp divide between Central Europe and the (non-Baltic) former Soviet republics with regard to the choice of semi-presidential type. The pattern of intra-executive struggles reveals that conflicts were somewhat more recurrent in the early period following the transition, but persist as a frequently occurring phenomenon throughout the post-communist period. The most common type of conflict has revolved around division of powers within the executive branch. As for triggers of conflict, the study suggests that certain institutional factors, such as electoral concurrence and party system fragmentation, have been important. Regarding the management of conflict, and the options available to the conflicting parties, the analysis indicates that the constitutional courts have played an important role as conflict mediators, and that attempts of changing the constitution, and using public addresses are options preferred by the presidents. Finally, the analysis shows that intra-executive conflict is associated with cabinet instability. A case study example also illustrates how the president-parliamentary framework can be related to policy ineffectiveness. The study finally concludes that premier-presidential systems have great governance potential provided that the party systems develop and consolidate. The conclusions regarding the president-parliamentary system are less encouraging, and it is argued that the adoption of this system is an important factor in relation to the failed democratisation in many post-Soviet countries.

Democratization is a fragile process, easily reversed when and where its advance is most recent. African countries present particular challenges to democratization, given generally low levels of economic and social development, often combined with ethnic and cultural fractionalization. Debates about democratization have not been sufficiently developed with the African context in mind. In particular, assessment of the effects of presidential systems on democratization has not been sensitively applied to African cases where most regimes are Presidential. Moreover, a particular feature of African democracy, the dominant party within a multi-party system, also raises questions that have not been so pertinent elsewhere. Debates about the merits and demerits of electoral system options for democratic consolidation also require more empirical analysis in Africa. This study is based on the assumption that debates about the relationship between political institutions and democratization in Africa can only be advanced by recognition of the interactions that can be identified between the institutions of presidential, parliamentary and party systems, particularly within the dynamics of one-party dominance. Empirical leverage takes advantage of an important case with a parliamentary system and proportional representation: South Africa. The most appropriate comparator from the Presidential and majoritarian camp is Nigeria. These are the two largest and most important states in Africa, sharing a British colonial heritage and a federal system and each dominated by a single party for about two decades. The thesis conceptualizes democratization in terms of legitimation and institutionalization. Legitimation focuses on the micro-level: the quality of elections and the voting process, the presence or absence of government-sponsored violence or coercion, the extent of public confidence in politicians and public support for democratic principles and practices. Institutionalization is focused at the macro-level: elite compliance to constitutional norms, political accountability, and the absence of violent intervention against the state, by the military or other internal forces. The thesis finds that leadership transitions within the parties take place with more accountability in South Africa than Nigeria. While corruption is a problem in both countries, it is more pervasive and there are more incentives to generate it in Nigeria due to a combination of the candidate-centred nature of politics, the country’s great dependence on oil exports, and its lower accountability in leadership transitions. Mechanisms to promote consensus politics differ in both countries and within-party arrangements call into question an assumption that one-party government is necessarily majoritarian. Although the process of legitimation has advanced well in both countries, they share many problems associated with lack of development. The main threat to democracy in Nigeria lies partly in the mutual distrust occasioned by the unsettled issues of ‘power rotation’, ‘resource sharing’ as well as the widening economic disparity between regional blocs of the principally Islamic North and largely Christian South with possible central state responses that might increase rather than reduce the conflicts, while in South Africa the threat lies in the high level of inequality between the white and black communities. Radical political action to address this inequality might increase the already high level of violence in the country. Such tension could ultimately lead to the break-up of the ANC, but an end to dominant-party politics in South Africa could as well destabilise rather than consolidate democracy. Similarly, in Nigeria, a break-up of the PDP, which has been nearly made possible due to a crisis of confidence in an ‘elite consensus’ on power rotation among the regional blocs, could as well constitute a threat to democratic consolidation and national integration.

This thesis deals with the topic of semi-presidential systems. As the title suggests, semi-presidential modes oscillate somewhere on the border between parliamentarism and presidentialism. Considering the fact that even the scholars have no consensus how to define this term, the whole study is conceived as a comparison of the opinions of prominent Czech as well as international constitutional lawyers and political scientists. Nowadays the necessity to define the semi-presidential model clearly becomes important because there has been a lengthy discussion after implementation of new constitutional phenomenon in the Czech Republic (the direct election of the head of the state) about how it affected the constitutional system of the state. Both the public and many prominent experts have the opinion that it is the direct presidential election that has changed the constitutional system of the Czech Republic from a purely parliamentary model to a semi- presidential model or at least, it significantly leads to it. The objectives of this study are modest. Since the number of mutually different definitions of this system from the perspective of many constitutional lawyers and political scientists is really large, it was impossible to cover such a broad topic completely, therefore this work is devoted to the...

According to a lot of experts presidential systems under conditions of multipartism are leading to instability, because there is peril of executive-legislative deadlocks. This thesis is focusing on three stable countries under these conditions (Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay). The main goal of this thesis is to find out the sources of system stability of these three countries. The thesis analyzes them on the basis of four criteria (number of parties, ideological distance, party system institutionalization and simultaneous presidential and parliamentary elections together with electoral system). This thesis analyzes election results of these countries since their transition to democracy. The thesis demonstrated, that party system format is not crucial for stability. More important is his stability together with the same actors and unchangeable ties between them.

Quando se trata do presidencialismo existente no Brasil, nas funcionalidades das partes envolvidas no processo orçamentário do governo federal até então independentes entre si, como bem explana a Teoria da Separação dos Poderes, são observáveis diversas falhas, em decorrência da discricionariedade atribuída ao Executivo na realização de despesas não obrigatórias e do interesse do Legislativo na política clientelista em poder executar emendas que beneficiem suas principais bases eleitorais. A hipótese é de que, diante da necessidade de aprovação de projetos para aumento de governabilidade determinado volume de emendas é executado e verbas despendidas, o que caracteriza a barganha entre os poderes Executivo e Legislativo, fenômeno dessa pesquisa. Sustentado pela teoria econômica da agência e da Formação de Coalizões, o objetivo aqui foi verificar a ocorrência desse fenômeno de barganha nos anos de 2000 a 2017 e, na existência desse, caracterizar os parlamentares que mais se beneficiaram dessa relação. Por meio de dados do governo federal, para se chegar a esse objetivo foram usadas técnicas econométricas de análise em dois estágios de dados em painéis não balanceados, que caracterizaram inicialmente as emendas parlamentares e posteriormente seus autores correlacionados aos seus respectivos comportamentos em votações no Congresso Nacional, assim como os aportes na execução de suas emendas pelo poder Executivo. Os testes estatísticos aqui aplicados corroboraram para a validação da hipótese da existência da barganha entre Executivo e Legislativo, observado no âmbito desse trabalho pela maior liberação de recursos aos parlamentares que mais apoiaram propostas executivas, podendo caracterizar assim os mais beneficiados dessa relação / When it comes to the existing presidentialism in Brazil, in the functionalities of the parties involved in the budget process of the federal government hitherto independent of each other, as well as the Theory of the Separation of Powers explains, several failures, as a result of the discretion attributed to the Executive in the execution of non-compulsory expenses and the interest of the Legislature in the pork-barrel policy in being able to execute amendments that benefit its main electoral bases. The hypothesis is that, given the need for approval of projects to increase governability, a certain volume of amendments is executed and money spent, which characterizes the bargain between the Executive and Legislative branches, phenomenon of this research. Underpinned by the Economic Theory of Agency and Formation of Coalitions, the objective here was to verify the occurrence of this phenomenon of bargaining in the years 2000 to 2017 and, in its existence, to characterize the parliamentarians who have most benefited from this relationship. By means of federal government data, econometric analysis techniques were used in two stages of data in unbalanced panels, which initially characterized the parliamentary amendments and later their authors correlated to their respective behaviors in voting in the National Congress, as well as the contributions in the execution of its amendments by the Executive branch. The statistical tests applied here corroborated the validation of the hypothesis of the existence of the Executive and Legislative bargain, observed in the scope of this work by the greater liberation of resources to the parliamentarians who most supported executive proposals, thus being able to characterize the most benefited of this relationship

Este trabalho trata dos vetos presidenciais ocorridos no Brasil entre outubro de 1988 e dezembro de 2000. Seu objetivo é identificar eventos que estejam associados ao uso do veto pelo presidente, e que permitam prever com alguma precisão as chances de sua ocorrência. O universo de análise é composto pelos 1322 projetos aprovados no período, excluindo-se os projetos relativos ao Orçamento e aqueles de autoria do Judiciário. São observadas cerca de duas dezenas de variáveis, classificadas em dois grupos: no primeiro estão as variáveis ligadas diretamente aos projetos e aos seus respectivos processos de tramitação; no segundo grupo estão as variáveis referentes ao ambiente político e às condições gerais da relação Executivo-Legislativo. A hipótese testada é que as variáveis do primeiro grupo têm um impacto muito maior sobre as chances de ocorrência de veto que as do segundo, indicando que o contexto político pouco afeta o uso do veto, e que este se dá predominantemente por meio de exames caso a caso. Os resultados, obtidos por meio de regressões logísticas e testes de pós-estimativa, corroboram a hipótese, e apontam uma diferença crucial entre os vetos parciais e os vetos totais. Enquanto os primeiros são difíceis de prever e envolvem uma gama maior fatores, os últimos são usados sistematicamente contra as propostas do Poder Legislativo, impedindo-as de entrar em vigor / This work accesses the presidential vetoes occurred in Brazil from October/1988, when the current Constitution was approved, to December/2000. Its goal is to identify events that may be related to the use of the veto, which can help foreseeing its occurrence. The analyzed database contains the 1322 bills approved during that period, excluding appropriations bills and those presented by the Judiciary. Near twenty variables are observed, divided in two groups: one containing factors directly linked to the projects and their legislative procedures; the other composed by factors concerning the political environment and the general conditions of the Executive-Legislative relation. The hypothesis is that the variables in the first group have much bigger impact on the chances of a veto occurring than the variables in the second group. This indicates that there is no such thing as a veto-prone political context, and that the vetoes occur due to a case-to-case basis analysis. The results obtained by logistical regressions and post-estimative tests support the hypothesis, and show a crucial difference between line-item vetoes and total vetoes. The formers are hard to predict, and are affected by a high number of factors, while the last are systematically used against bills proposed by the legislators , preventing them to become effective