Coalitional Presidentialism in Comparative Perspective: Minority Presidents in Multiparty Systems
This
book provides the first cross-regional study of an increasingly
important form of politics: coalitional presidentialism. Drawing on
original research of minority presidents in the democratising and hybrid
regimes of Armenia, Benin, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Kenya, Malawi,
Russia, and Ukraine, it seeks to understand how presidents who lack
single party legislative majorities build and manage cross-party support
in legislative assemblies. It develops a framework for analysing this
phenomenon, and blends data from MP surveys, detailed case studies, and
wider legislative and political contexts, to analyse systematically the
tools that presidents deploy to manage their coalitions.
The authors
focus on five key legislative, cabinet, partisan, budget, and informal
(exchange of favours) tools that are utilised by minority presidents.
They contend that these constitute the 'toolbox' for coalition
management, and argue that minority presidents will act with imperfect
or incomplete information to deploy tools that provide the highest
return of political support with the lowest expenditure of political
capital. In developing this analysis, the book assembles a set of
concepts, definitions, indicators, analytical frameworks, and
propositions that establish the main parameters of coalitional
presidentialism. In this way, Coalitional Presidentialism in Comparative
Perspective provides crucial insights into this mode of governance.
Oxford
Studies in Democratization is a series for scholars and students of
comparative politics and related disciplines. Volumes concentrate on the
comparative study of the democratization process that accompanied the
decline and termination of the cold war. The geographical focus of the
series is primarily Latin America, the Caribbean, Southern and Eastern
Europe, and relevant experiences in Africa and Asia. The series editor
is Laurence Whitehead, Senior Research Fellow, Nuffield College,
University of Oxford.
