Dysfunctional Presidentialism: Latin America and Beyond

The dysfunctional presidentialism in Latin America has been observed both in countries that used to be problematic and in cases viewed as models. The problems have to do with different issues. There have been presidential attempts to concentrate power and to undermine control institutions, which has paved the way for corruptions scandals and has turned against the own presidents, exposing their excesses and weakening them. At the same time, the legislative has acquired new powers over the public budget, which has weakened the executive’s capacity to negotiate with legislators. Also there has been a discretionary use of the constitutional mechanisms for deposing a president, working as a sort of “parliamentarization” of the presidentialism. Finally, fragmented legislatures and weakly institutionalized party systems have made more difficult to govern with coalitions. These factors help explain why the presidential toolbox are not enough anymore to make coalitional presidentialism work and have led to dysfunctional presidentialism since the 2010s, which the literature has been unable of identifying and conceptualizing.