Suchergebnisse

Little research has been devoted to the analysis of how different characteristics of the executives affect structural reforms. This article analyzes the impact of cabinet fragmentation and the presidential ideological position on the scope of structural reforms in nine Latin American presidential democracies of the postauthoritarian period. In so doing, it treats cabinets as conglomerates of actors that are accountable both to the president and to their parties, with nonpartisan ministers being only accountable to the president. It shows that the higher the percentage of nonpartisan ministers, the lesser the costs associated with bargaining a reform within the executive. When presidents build governing coalitions, they limit their capacity of acting unilaterally. However, they are better able to advance their structural reform proposals than single‐party governments are. Data on cabinet composition were collected by the authors and data on the dependent variable structural reform comes from Lora (2001).

The electoral campaign & outcome of the 2004 presidential election in Uruguay are studied. A brief overview of the Uruguayan political and electoral systems is provided, emphasizing how the Colorado Party or National Party have traditional held national power & the circumstances that prompted the formation of the center-left Encuentro ProgresistaFrente AmplioNueva Mayoria opposition coalition. Scrutiny of the electoral campaign revealed that both the Colorado Party & the National Party attempted to discount the center-left coalitions capability to produce economic & political reform. Several features of the electoral outcome are noted including almost 90% of the voting age population voted in the election & the center-left coalition achieved a majority victory in the first round of the presidential election. Four explanations for the electoral outcome are offered, eg, Uruguayan citizens are dissatisfied with the Colorado Party's & the National Party's administration of the national economy's slow growth. Several challenges facing the center-left coalition in its first presidential administration are highlighted, eg, negotiating corporate involvement in national economic reform & maintaining political consensus among the coalitions disparate political parties. Tables, References. J. W. Parker

AbstractMainwaring and Scully's concept of party system institutionalization (PSI) has greatly influenced the literature on parties and party systems. This article contributes to the "revisionist" literature on PSI by exploring the recent evolution of the concept's four dimensions in Chile. It finds that the Chilean party system is not homogenously institutionalized (as conventionally argued) but is simultaneously frozen at the elite level and increasingly disconnected from civil society. In this regard, it approaches some recent descriptions of the Brazilian party system, a prototypical example of an "inchoate" party system that has gained stability over time without developing roots in society. This article argues that the current operationalization of the concept of PSI is problematic. Not only should all four dimensions of the concept be simultaneously measured, probably through multiple indicators for each one, but their trends across time and space should also be better integrated into the concept's theoretical structure.

We examine how differences in how democracy is institutionalized affect life satisfaction across nations. To our knowledge, this is the first rigorous, systematic study of this subject. Using data for 21 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries from 1981 to 2008, we find robust evidence that citizens report living more satisfying lives in countries with a parliamentary (rather than presidential) executive, a proportional representation electoral system (as opposed to single member districts), and a unitary (rather than federal) governmental structure. Moreover, the findings suggest that the real-world consequences for these types of democratic institutions for human well-being are substantial, rivaling or exceeding other common predictors. We conclude with a discussion of the practical and theoretical implications of the results.