TY - JOUR
T1 - Government coalitions and legislative success under presidentialism and parliamentarism
AU - Cheibub, José Antonio
AU - Przeworski, Adam
AU - Saiegh, Sebastian M.
PY - 2004/10
Y1 - 2004/10
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
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U2 - 10.1017/S0007123404000195
DO - 10.1017/S0007123404000195
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:7644232911
VL - 34
SP - 565
EP - 587
JO - British Journal of Political Science
JF - British Journal of Political Science
SN - 0007-1234
IS - 4
ER -