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Presidential elections with few candidates held in temporal proximity to legislative elections are believed to promote the nationalization and consolidation of the legislative party system. However, contrary to the existing literature, the authors argue here that the shadow presidential elections cast over legislative elections is contingent on the relative powers of the president vis-a-vis the legislature. Specifically, the authors find that proximate presidential elections with few presidential candidates promote the nationalization and consolidation of the legislative party system only when the president is neither very weak nor very powerful. They also find that proximate presidential elections with many presidential candidates promote the denationalization and fragmentation of the legislative party system only when the president is at least reasonably powerful. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright holder.]

Presidential elections with few candidates held in temporal proximity to legislative elections are believed to promote the nationalization and consolidation of the legislative party system. However, contrary to the existing literature, the authors argue here that the shadow presidential elections cast over legislative elections is contingent on the relative powers of the president vis-à-vis the legislature. Specifically, the authors find that proximate presidential elections with few presidential candidates promote the nationalization and consolidation of the legislative party system only when the president is neither very weak nor very powerful. They also find that proximate presidential elections with many presidential candidates promote the denationalization and fragmentation of the legislative party system only when the president is at least reasonably powerful.

This article explicates the mechanisms through which presidential elections shape the legislative party system, an issue that has received little attention to date. The authors argue that presidential elections exert their influence through two distinct channels. First, they affect the incentives of candidates, voters, and parties to coordinate within electoral districts. Second and most importantly, they shape the incentives of candidates to coordinate across legislative electoral districts under a common party banner, leading to more aggregated or nationalized party systems when there are few presidential candidates. The authors find support for the relative importance of this cross-district effect using a unique data set of district-level election results from approximately 600 elections in 70 countries.