Bicameralism and Coalition Cabinets in Presidential Polities: A configurational analysis of the coalition formation and duration processes
| Author | Adrián Albala |
| Published date | 01 November 2017 |
| Date | 01 November 2017 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1369148117727440 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
research-article2017
Article
The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations
Bicameralism and Coalition
2017, Vol. 19(4) 735 –754
© The Author(s) 2017
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https://doi.org/10.1177/1369148117727440
DOI: 10.1177/1369148117727440
A configurational analysis of
journals.sagepub.com/home/bpi
the coalition formation and
duration processes
Adrián Albala
Abstract
For too long, scholars have studied coalitions under presidential regimes as they did under
parliamentarism: assuming that the executive needed to look for allies in only one chamber.
However, symmetric bicameralism has made such assumption untenable. As a matter of fact,
bicameralism, particularly symmetrical bicameralism, as it operates under presidential regimes,
may entail significant constraints for policymaking and coalition duration. Indeed, controlling one
of the two chambers may not be sufficient for the president to ensure policy approvals. This
article focuses on the 28 coalition cabinets with a bicameral framework in Latin America since
the return of democracy. I show that bicameralism dramatically affects the composition of the
coalitions as the absence of a majority in both chambers engenders a post-electoral agreement
round. Moreover, I show that when a coalition holds some kind of majority in both houses, the
coalition agreement lasts longer.
Keywords
Bicameral Majorities, Bicameralism, Coalition Cabinets, Latin America, Presidentialism, QCA
Introduction
In recent years, there has been a marked increase—both in terms of quality and diver-
sity of topics—in the political science literature dealing with coalition cabinets in
presidential regimes. Indeed, since the seminal (and later) works that aimed to prove
the existence of the phenomenon (Abranches, 1988; Deheza, 1998), the scope of anal-
ysis has expanded a lot.
Nevertheless, in the mainstream trend of the political science literature, institutions
still constitute the most common dimension for explaining the phenomenon (Alemán
Núcleo de Pesquisa em Políticas Públicas (NUPPs), University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
Corresponding author:
Adrián Albala, Núcleo de Pesquisa em Políticas Públicas (NUPPs), University of São Paulo, Av professor
luciano gualberto, 315, sala 2047, São Paulo 05508-900, Brazil.
Email: adrian.albala@gmail.com
736
The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 19(4)
and Tsebelis, 2011; Altman, 2001; Amorim Neto, 2006; Chaisty et al., 2014;
Chasquetti, 2008; Cheibub, 2007; Cheibub et al., 2004; Kellam, 2017; Martínez-Gallardo,
2012, 2014).
Hence, it is quite surprising that most of these studies have elaborated and tested
arguments using models picked from the parliamentary literature on coalition theories,
without systematising the inclusion of presidential features. Indeed, most authors
based their coalition formation and survival models on data limited to the lowest
chamber only.
Indeed, governments in parliamentary systems—and especially West European ones
(except Italy)—tend to be accountable to a unicameral parliament or an asymmetric one1
(Eppner and Ganghof, 2016), symmetrical bicameralism appears to be the rule for presi-
dential bicameral polities.
Therefore, control of only one of the two chambers by the president may not be suffi-
cient to ensure that policies get approval or –even—to guarantee the survival of the coali-
tion (Binder, 2003; Hiroi, 2008; VanDusky-Allen and Heller, 2014). Indeed, bicameralism
entails a two-round procedure in the policymaking process for the president, thus increas-
ing what Lupia and Strøm (2008) call ‘the shadow of the unexpected’. Thus, it would
seem that, for those polities whose legislature is composed of a bicameral congress, hold-
ing a bicameral majority is a relevant condition for both the policymaking process and
coalition governance (Hiroi and Rennó, 2014).
Hence, the principal argument of this work is that the bicameral condition and,
more precisely, the withholding of a bicameral majority should, thus, enter into the
consideration of the president ‘toolbox’ (Raile et al., 2011). This article aims to fill
this theoretical gap and, enhance the coalition theories literature on presidential
regimes by including a systematic consideration of the bicameral condition. In fact, I
look to answer two central questions: (1) Does bicameralism, and in particular the
controlling of a bicameral majority, enter into consideration during the coalition
formation process in presidential regimes? Also, (2) does the withholding, or not, of
a bicameral majority constitute a relevant condition for determining the duration of
coalition cabinets?
I assume that, whatever the nature of a coalition cabinet—whether programmatic, het-
erogeneous or ‘negative’—its members would prefer to enjoy a legislative majority so as
to minimise the costs of bargaining and ensure, or maximise, a positive outcome in the
policymaking process. Therefore, every coalition cabinet would seek to reach a bicameral
majority. Moreover, I can expect that if a coalition holds a bicameral majority, then it
would last longer.
Based on a sample of 28 elected coalition governments in Latin America, dealing
with bicameral legislatures, I posit that the existence of a second –symmetric—cham-
ber and the necessity to control it have a determinant impact on the formation of
coalition cabinets by extending the bargaining process between potential coalition
members. In addition, I carried out a duration test, using fuzzy sets methodology,
showing that when coalition cabinets hold a bicameral majority, they last longer than
if they do not.
Thus, this work is an attempt to generalise the consideration of bicameralism for leg-
islative studies applied to presidential regimes. I confirm the hypothesis that the control
of a bicameral majority is a crucial condition for the formation and survival of coalition
cabinets in Latin American presidential regimes.
Albala
737
How bicameralism might affect coalition cabinets under
presidentialism
First, it appears that, until recently, political science literature has focused little attention
on bicameralism beyond coalition theories. This is quite surprising as bicameralism is
quite a frequent constitutional feature throughout the world: as a matter of fact, Tsebelis
and Money (1997) have pointed out that one-third of all the legislatures in the world
comprise two chambers.
Hence, Tsebelis (2002) considers the two chambers as two potentially distinct veto
players if—and only if—the two chambers are incongruent (i.e. the party contingents in
the two chambers are not equal). Scholars who follow this line of thought emphasise that
by increasing the number of players, bicameralism affects the policymaking process by
creating delays or vetoes during the process (Hallerberg, 2011; Hunnerup Dahl, 2013;
Pérez-Liñán and Rodríguez-Raga, 2009; VanDusky-Allen and Heller, 2014).
Applied to coalition theories, it appears that, in fact, very few works have considered
the potential impact of bicameralism on the processes of formation and dissolution of
coalition cabinets.2 As a matter of fact, the consideration of bicameralism is of huge sci-
entific relevance. Indeed, despite the existence of a diversity of bicameral models under
presidential polities, most share the same tendency whereby both chambers have formally
comparable powers, attributes and influence, and the legitimacy of the chambers always
relies on the direct vote3 (Llanos and Nolte, 2003; Reynoso, 2010; Sánchez, 2004). Since
the president is accountable to neither of the two chambers (legitimacy having been con-
ferred by the popular vote; Cheibub et al., 2014), he or she can choose which chamber to
submit bills to first. In other words, bicameralism under presidentialism consists of two
legislative bodies that have similar powers and influence. The major differences between
the different models of bicameralism are connected to the electoral process (e.g. district
size for electing senators vs deputies) and the duration of the mandate within each house.4
Thus, given the complete lack of comparative studies dealing with the impact of
bicameralism on presidential coalitions, the assumptions and prime hypothesis of these
studies rest on the (few) existing references from the literature which explore coalition
cabinets in parliamentary systems. Below, I present the theoretical impact of bicameral-
ism on the formation process. Later on, I discuss the impact of a bicameral majority on
the duration of a coalition agreement.
The potential impact of bicameralism on coalition formation
The forming of a coalition government and the beginning of a coalition cycle articulate a
priori around recent or forthcoming elections, shown in Figure 1 as ‘t0’. The range of pos-
sible scenarios implies different degrees of organisation, institutionalisation and coalition
pre-visibility. Figure 1 sets out these scenarios in a simplified form, according to the tim-
ing of their formation. Thus, the coalition formation process may operate from either side
of ‘t0’, meaning that coalitions may have a pre-electoral inception (‘t –1’) formed during
the electoral campaign or even before.5 Coalitions are considered to be post-electoral
(‘t+1’) if they were formed during the lapse between Election...
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