The Executive Toolbox: Building Legislative Support in a Multiparty Presidential Regime

• Author: Eric D. Raile,Carlos Pereira,Timothy J. Power
• Published date: 01 June 2011
• Date: 01 June 2011
• DOI: 10.1177/1065912909355711
• Subject Matter: Articles

Political Research Quarterly

64(2) 323 –334

© 2011 University of Utah

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DOI: 10.1177/1065912909355711

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The Executive Toolbox:

Building Legislative Support

in a Multiparty Presidential Regime

Eric D. Raile1, Carlos Pereira2, and Timothy J. Power3

Abstract

How do presidents win legislative support under conditions of extreme multipartism? Comparative presidential research

has offered two parallel answers, one relying on distributive politics and the other claiming that legislative success is

a function of coalition formation. The authors merge these insights in an integrated approach to executive-legislative

relations while also considering dynamism and particular bargaining contexts. The authors find that the two presidential

“tools”—pork and coalition goods—function as imperfect substitutes. Coalition goods establish an exchange baseline,

while pork covers the ongoing costs of operation. Pork expenditures also depend upon a president’s bargaining leverage

and the distribution of legislative seats.

Keywords

multiparty presidentialism, legislative support, pork, Brazil

In the early 1990s, the critique of presidentialism advanced by

Linz (1994) and others was widely influential, and the coex-

istence of presidentialism with multipartism was viewed as a

particularly “difficult combination.” Multipartism was

expected to exacerbate the “perils of presidentialism” by

increasing the probability of deadlock in executive-legisla-

tive relations, promoting ideological polarization, and

making interparty coalition building difficult to achieve

(Mainwaring 1993; Stepan and Skach 1993). The best

chance for the survival of presidential democracies, it was

argued, lay in the adoption of a two-party format, which

would reduce polarization, obviate coalitional politics, and

promote governability. Yet multiparty presidentialism was

here to stay. This unanticipated outcome has raised questions

about how presidents have managed this “difficult combi-

nation.” That multiparty presidential democracy is sustain-

able is now beyond dispute, yet we lack a comprehensive

explanation for this durability. This paper aims to extend

and refine recent models of multiparty presidentialism by

adopting a wider perspective on the “tools” available to

presidents who face fragmented legislatures.

Institutional approaches to these questions have pro-

duced promising evidence. As Shugart and Carey (1992)

anticipated, institutions that help lubricate the machinery

of government often appear when constitution writers

have reasons to believe that governability will be difficult.

As a result, the structure of multiparty presidentialism

does not preclude the formation of coalition governments.

Quite to the contrary, as Cheibub (2007, 50) observes,

“There is a range of possible scenarios in presidential sys-

tems where presidents will make coalition offers and par-

ties will find it in their interest to accept them.” Coalition

presidencies have in fact proven unexpectedly functional

and durable (Cheibub, Przeworski, and Saiegh 2004)

while becoming the modal form of democracy in Latin

America.

In what follows, we first note problems with applying

theoretical models designed primarily for parliamentary

regimes directly to separation-of-powers regimes. We

then build on extant research concerning legislative sup-

port in multiparty presidential systems. In so doing, we

integrate two separate institutional arguments about how

presidents solve the “governability equation” under multi-

partism. The first of these arguments holds that presidents

win support via distributive politics, particularly through

the targeted transfer of pork to legislators (e.g., Ames 2001).

1North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND, USA

2Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA; and Getulio Vargas

Foundation, São Paulo, Brazil

3University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

Corresponding Author:

Timothy J. Power, St Antony’s College, Oxford, UK OX2 6JF

Email: timothy.power@lac.ox.ac.uk