The Executive Branch in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

Increasingly, the executive branch has become the key player in democratic regimes, superseding the legislative branch in the leadership of policy proposal and formulation and in leading the day-to-day business of administrating government (Poguntke and Webb 2006). Furthermore, in some regions of the world, Latin America in particular, the executive branch has always been considered the main policy-maker in the land, with the Legislative Branch playing a reactive role (Shugart and Carey 1992; Cox and Morgenstern 2001). Notwithstanding its centrality in politics, there is little comparative research and case studies on how the Executive Branch functions, is organized and influences policy outside of the Presidentialist system of the United States (Edwards III et al. 1993; Moe 1994; Nelson 1994; Krause 2009) and Western Europe, where studies focus on cabinet formation in Parliamentary Regimes (Müller and Strom 2000). We believe it is now time to further expand this research agenda to the new democracies of Latin American and this panel is a step in such direction. Peter Siavelis, Detlef Nolte, Andrés Mejia Acosta and Lucio Renno have agreed to deliver papers on the formal and informal organizational structure of the presidency in Brazil, Chile, Argentina and Ecuador, giving the panel a truly comparative approach.

Title	Details
Coalition Management Strategies from the Executive Office	View Paper Details
Formal and Informal Organisation of the Executive Branch in Chile	View Paper Details
Presidents, The Presidency, and Policymaking in Latin America: Peru Under Alan Garcia	View Paper Details
The Presidency and the Executive Branch in Latin America. What We Know and What We Need to Know	View Paper Details
The Enemy Within? Presidential Power and Democratic Institutionalisation	View Paper Details
The Institutional Organisation of the Brazilian Presidency	View Paper Details