Reducing the Perils of Presidentialism in Latin America through Presidential Interruptions

Abstract

Apresidential regime is defined by the independent origin and survival ofthe chiefexecutive and the legislature. The fixed electoral terms of the two popularly elected institutions led Linz to argue that presidentialism is a rigid regime that often creates political conflicts that the regime's institutions are unable to handle. Based primarily on Latin American evidence, Linz argued that such conflicts would cause the breakdown of democracy.' Since the third wave of democratization there have been twenty interrupted presidencies in Latin America and several more failed attempts at interruption.2 A presidential interruption is an incident in which the president leaves, or is forced to leave, the presidency before the end of the constitutional term. This article discusses the political crises and the presidential interruptions in Latin American third wave democracies. It does not seek to explain the occurrence of the political crises that ended in presidential interruption, but rather to provide a new interpretation of the interruptions and make descriptive inferences about their consequences for Latin American presidentialism.3 First, the interrupted presidencies should not be indiscriminately lumped together as one type of cases. To paraphrase Ragin, what are the interrupted presidencies cases of? 4 Aside from constitutionally prescribed elections, five different procedures for removing a democratic government have been successfully employed in the third wave democracies in Latin America: coups, impeachment, declarations of presidential incapacity, resignation, and resignation by calling early elections. Second, interrelatedly, the way the many political crises in the region have been handled demonstrates that presidential regimes in Latin America are more flexible than previously thought.5 The cases of presidential interruptions exhibit a mitigation of one of presidentialism's most serious flaws: fixed terms or rigidity. This flaw is reduced by the many presidential interruptions in Latin America because presidential survival is no longer independent from legislative and popular will. This presidential flexibility is a result of a changed practice within formal structures that have not changed. Latin America is still, and will remain, constitutionally presidential.6 The discussion of the interrupted presidencies will be related to Linz and Valenzuela's arguments.7 Even though there have been many statistical tests of Linz's argument (with diverging results), the logic of his argument is still persuasive.8 If the argument presented

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