Bras. Political Sci. Rev.2009;3(2):155-71.
Political and Institutional Determinants of the Executive’s Legislative Success in Latin America
DOI: 10.1590/1981-3862200900020006
Introduction
Our objective is to report the results of an ongoing comparative research project that aims to investigate the institutional and political determinants of government performance in Latin America. Our dependent variable is the legislative success of the executive. Studies on government performance in parliamentary countries usually focus on the stability of the government measured by its duration. The literature on presidential performance, in turn, has turned its attention to the fate of bills sponsored by the government.
These different approaches perhaps derive from opposite views concerning the way parliamentarism and presidentialism function, particularly when a majority government does not emerge from an election. In parliamentary systems, the executive’s legislative success presumably stems from the formation of the government itself. When the executive fails, the government falls. In presidential systems, on the contrary, given the president’s fixed term, legislative success depends on various dimensions of the process that follows the inauguration of the president, including the formation of coalition governments.
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