InstItutIons and polItIcIans: an analysIs of the factors that determIne presIdentIal legIslatIve success manuel alcántara and mercedes garcía montero

This study questions the level of influence that different Latin American presidents have on the making of laws. In order to delimit this analysis, it is necessary to understand the factors that affect decision making in Latin American parliaments. Many of the theoretical approaches that tackle the study of decision making within legislative bodies maintain that the laws that arise from this decisional process, in addition to depending on the institutional organization of the parliament itself, depends on the political actors taking part, on their strategies when adapting to this institutional framework, and on their interests as well as on their collective and individual preferences. The aim of this research is to verify the explanatory strength of these theories in Latin American countries. Thus, an analysis is made of the importance that the institutional factors—relating to regulatory design—and the party factors—relating to both the presence of the political parties in the parliament and government and the ideological attitudes shown by the legislators—have in the legislative performance of diverse Latin American presidents. resumen El trabajo se pregunta por el grado de influencia que distintos Presidentes latinoamericanos mantienen sobre la producción legislativa. Para delimitar este análisis, es necesario comprender los factores que inciden en la toma de decisiones en el interior de los Parlamentos latinoamericanos. Muchos de los enfoque teóricos que abordan el estudio de la toma de decisiones dentro de las instancias legislativas mantienen que los productos -en forma de leyque surgen de este proceso decisional dependen, además de la propia organización institucional del Parlamento, de los actores políticos que intervienen en el mismo, de sus estrategias al adecuarse a este entramado institucional, de sus intereses así como de sus preferencias tanto colectivas como individuales. La pretensión de la investigación es comprobar la fuerza explicativa de estas teorías en los países latinoamericanos. Para ello, se contrasta el peso que los factores institucionales –relativos al diseño normativoy los factores partidistas –relacionados tanto con la presencia de los partidos políticos en el Parlamento y Gobierno como con las actitudes ideológicas mostradas por los legisladorestienen sobre el desempeño legislativo de diversos Presidentes latinoamericanos. 1 Alcántara – García Montero IntroductIon Studies focusing on legislative activity in Latin America, and more specifically on the importance of the role played by the president in this activity, have mainly been case analyses, with the two largest countries, Mexico and Brazil, being the center of attention of most researchers. From these studies it can be gathered that when explaining legislative activity, scholars resort to both institutional and political factors. However, with a lack of other cases for comparison, they cannot conclude what the legislative influence of the presidents and parliaments is due to in comparative terms; they can only reach conclusions that relate a country’s legislative activity over time and see the effect of the political and institutional changes that have occurred during that time period. Comparative studies focusing on legislative activity are quite scarce and recent. Among these mention must be made of the article by Saiegh (2004), which analyses the passage rates achieved by thirty-five executives, including eight in Latin American countries, and concludes that the presidents of parliamentary systems have higher rates of success than those of presidential systems, with this rate decreasing when the executive is formed by a coalition government. After analyzing these same data and focusing again on the form of government, Cheibub et al. (2004: 578) state that legislative paralysis is very rare, even in presidential countries with minority governments. For these authors, the rate of presidential success falls when party positions on politics are polarized and political change has to be negotiated, and when government coalitions are internally divided as to their preferences. Another comparative study is the one carried out by Alcántara et al. (2005) which analyzes the legislative activity of twelve Latin American countries. Although the objective of the current work is not to reflect on the factors affecting such activity, 2 Alcántara – García Montero empirical progress is made by showing, comparatively, the differences existing among the different countries and by disproving the statement that the role of Latin American parliaments is marginal in all cases. A recent comparative study by García-Montero (2007a and 2007b) defends the importance of institutional factors in the influence of presidents and parliaments on legislation. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the few existing studies of legislative activity in Latin America. Specifically, we seek factors that determine the degree of legislative success of the presidents of fourteen countries in the area. Hence, we carry out an in-depth study of the contributions made by the different theories and methodologies that analyze the effects of institutional arrangements in legislative policy and at the same time compare their validity using data on lawmaking. In the first part, we define a presidential legislative success indicator, which compares the executive’s passage rates in the different countries analyzed. Next, we delimit different factors that may have an effect: the institutions, the political parties, and the electoral cycle. For the institutions, we decided to use of the index of legislative institutional power (ILIP) (García-Montero, 2007a) which reflects the institutional capacity of the parliament and executive to intervene in legislative activity. For the political parties, the weight of six variables is contrasted. Three have to do with their presence in the parliament and in the executive (legislative majorities, party fragmentation, and forming of coalitions) and the other three focus on ideological attitudes and positions (polarization, ideological coherence, and attitudinal discipline). The sources for the indicators for the first set of three are the electoral results, whereas the attitudinal variables were made operative from data from the research project: “Elites Parlamentarias Latinoamericanas” (Latin American Parliamentary Elites, or PELA). The last variable whose explanatory power is tested is the electoral cycle. 3 Alcántara – García Montero the legIslatIve success of the executIve and the unIts of analysIs This study inquires into the factors affecting the different rates of legislative passage of proposals by Latin American presidents. The indicator used for measuring these different rates, based on Alcántara et al. (2005), is “legislative success,” which refers to the relationship between the number of initiatives presented by the executive and those finally passed (Alcántara et al. 2005: 99). The units of analysis are the annual sessions or two-year legislative periods, except in the cases of Venezuela and Paraguay, where the unit of analysis is the whole presidential period in office, and Mexico, where it coincides with the term of office (three years). In all, 103 periods of sessions pertaining to twelve Latin American countries are analyzed, coinciding with 40 different presidential terms of office. Figure 1 shows the values the aggregated legislative success indicator takes per presidential term of office and per period analyzed in each country. We affirm that, indeed, in the countries analyzed, the presidents have different rates of legislative success. If we focus on the entire period of analysis in each country, the Mexican case, in which the executive achieved passage of 95.4 percent of the laws initiated from 1982 to 2003, clearly stands out. The data indicate that, despite the fact that Mexico is an extreme case, there are another six countries out of the twelve analyzed (Paraguay, Honduras, Panama, Chile, Peru, and Bolivia) where the executive success rate is between 70% and 80%. Moreover, except for Ecuador, where during 1995–2002 the executive scarcely managed to carry through 38.9% of its proposals, in none of the countries did the government have legislative success below 50%. However, if the legislative success rate of the Latin American presidents is compared with those of European countries characterized by parliamentary systems, it is clear that these rates are relatively low, since Europe has what Olson (1994: 85) calls the 90% rule—that is, approximately 90% of the projects of the executive are passed (Alcántara et al. 2005). 4 Alcántara – García Montero 69.1 58.8 51.0 6.,4 27.9 57.9 72.1 68.7 70.4 65.9 80.8 69.3 72.0 64.0 70,.6 42.6 59.1 38.9 81.3 75.8 78.6 95.4 75.4 77.5 76.4 77.8 66.1 71.9 96.2 80.3 75.6 65.0 79.3 66.7 70.6 68.6 86.8 56.3 57.8 66.7 50.0 89.5 67.8 54.4 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 Alfonsín (1983-1989)