José Antonio Cheibub

Texas A&M University | TAMU · Department of Political Science

A hidden facet of democratization in the world over the past two centuries has been the increased weight of people's voice in electing presidents. On the basis of new data on all presidential elections in the world since 1789, we show that they evolved from systems in which the final decision was made by someone other than voters, to systems in whi...

Steffen Ganghof's Beyond Presidentialism and Parliamentarism: Democratic Design and the Separation of Powers (Oxford University Press, 2021) posits that "in a democracy, a constitutional separation of powers between the executive and the assembly may be desirable, but the constitutional concentration of executive power in a single human being is no...

A hidden facet of democratization in the world over the past two centuries has been the increased weight of people’s voice in electing presidents. On the basis of new data on all presidential elections in the world since 1789, we show that they evolved from systems in which the final decision was made by someone other than voters, to systems in whi...

Although most new democracies have a relatively high level of party system fragmentation, most of them experience a reduction in the number of parties over time. In Brazil, the number of parties has increased significantly since the first election after the 1988 constitution, even though no significant institutional change has taken place. Existing...

This chapter approaches elections in Latin America from a narrow and precise perspective: as a method for deciding who rules. In fact, Latin America has a long history of popular elections, and the main objective is to assess their capacity to define who will rule, that is, whether they function as a mechanism to select leaders. Hence, a crucial in...

This paper analyses the institutions associated with government termination in parliamentary systems: no-confidence and confidence motions, and the early dissolution of the parliament. We consider constitutional texts for all European countries between 1800 and 2019 and identify two broad trends: (1) the constitutionalisation of practices that have...

Open list proportional representation (PR) systems require that candidates seek personal votes in order to be successful. This feature of the system is considered to lead to intense competition among co-partisans and, ultimately, to weak electoral and legislative parties, narrow public policies, localism, clientelism, and corruption. We examine the...

In parliamentary systems, political parties must often bargain with each other in order to form a government. Do parliamentary rules regulating government formation impact the type of government that is formed? Existing scholarship suggests that the need for an investiture vote—a requirement that a new government must face a parliamentary vote at s...

This chapter analyzes the expansion of political participation in Brazil between 1945 and 2010. During this time, the country lived under three different political regimes: two democratic (1945–1964, 1985–2010) and one authoritarian (1964–1985). The analysis focuses on electoral participation, showing how social inequality impacted voters’ ability...

Cambridge Core - Comparative Politics - Constituent Assemblies - edited by Jon Elster

Although often conceived as nonpartisan actors, presidents wield considerable political and institutional powers in parliamentary and semipresidential democracies. Do they interfere in the government-formation process in such a way as to change the outcome that parliamentary parties would have otherwise reached? We address this issue by examining t...

Translation to Portuguese of "What makes democracies endure", by Adam Przeworski, Michael Alvarez, José Antônio Cheibub and Fernando Limongi.

The view that multiparty elections in changing authoritarian regimes should be held sooner rather than later has been increasingly under attack. Critics argue that, under conditions of low institutional development, multiparty elections may lead to violence and civil war, rather than to the peaceful allocation of authority that everyone desires. St...

Provisions for a parliamentary investiture vote have become increasingly common in parliamentary democracies. This article shows that investiture provisions were largely introduced when new constitutions were written or old ones fundamentally redesigned. It also shows that the constitutions that endowed executives with strong legislative agenda pow...

The presidential-parliamentary distinction is foundational to comparative politics and at the center of a large theoretical and empirical literature. However, an examination of constitutional texts suggests a fair degree of heterogeneity within these categories with respect to important institutional attributes. These observations indicate that the...

The presidential-parliamentary distinction is foundational to comparative politics and at the center of a large theoretical and empirical literature. However, an examination of constitutional texts suggests a fair degree of heterogeneity within these categories with respect to important institutional attributes. These observations lead us to suspec...

This paper demonstrates that there is a distinctive style of presidentialism in Latin American constitutional design. While early constitutions in the region tended to follow the US model of presidency, subsequent constitutions evolved away from this model in favor of giving the president more authority in lawmaking. We demonstrate a substantial am...

Resumo Until not very long ago, the literature on legislative-executive relations was bifurcated. It had evolved into two separate and independent bodies of work. One branch focused on parliamentary and the other on presidential systems, which were considered to represent two completely independent and alternative forms of government. Today a more...

A central promise of democracy is to deliver good governance by holding politicians accountable for their performance in office. I explain why, in new democracies, elections may fail as an instrument of electoral accountability and thereby precipitate the breakdown of democracy. I model the process by which elections allow candidates to build reput...

A central promise of democracy is to deliver good governance by holding politicians accountable for their performance in office. I explain why, in new democracies, repeated dissatisfaction with the performance of individual politicians can turn into doubts about the value of democracy as a political system and thus precipitate its breakdown. I mode...

A central promise of democracy is to deliver good governance by holding politicians accountable for their performance in office. I show why political accountability may fail in young democracies and thus lead to their breakdown. I model the process by which elections allow candidates to build reputations for performing well and weed out candi-dates...

We address the strengths and weaknesses of the main available measures of political regime and extend the dichotomous regime classification first introduced in Alvarez et al. (Stud. Comp. Int. Dev. 31(2):3–36, 1996). This extension focuses on how incumbents are removed from office. We argue that differences across regime measures must be taken seri...

The presidential-parliamentary distinction is a foundational one in the comparative study of law and politics, at the center of a large theoretical and empirical literature. This paper examines the categories themselves and their internal coherence. Though some debate has concerned the conceptualization of presidentialism, parliamentarism and semi-...

According to a widely held view of Brazilian politics, part of the difficulty Presidents experience in governing the country stems from the fact that national legislators respond to pressures from the States rather than from the national government. Based on the argument, governors use their institutional position not only to influence national deb...

According to a widely held view of Brazilian politics, part of the difficulty Presidents experience in governing the country stems from the fact that national legislators respond to pressures from the States rather than from the national government. Based on the argument, governors use their institutional position not only to influence national deb...

This article examines the relative importance of regional and national forces in shaping the behavior of Brazilian legislators at the national level. A widely held view is that national legislators respond to state pressures in making decisions, rather than pressures from the national government. Governors not only can influence national debates bu...

If we count the indirect, but competitive, election of 1985, Brazil has already experienced six presidential and six legislative elections since the end of the military dictatorship (1985, 1989, 1994, 1998, 2002, 2006; 1986, 1990, 1994, 1998, 2002, and 2006). Democracy has been in place for over 20 years now and, contrary to the image that is often...

In 1946 there were three democracies in the world with constitutions that, on the one hand, required the government to obtain the support of a legislative majority in order to come to and remain in power and, on the other hand, established a popularly elected president. In 2002, this number had grown to 25. Constitutions with this feature are often...

Many countries since 1990 have adopted semi-presidential constitutions, which are often considered to be problematic, primarily because of the potential for conflict between the assembly-supported government and the popularly elected president. Such conflicts are said to lead to unstable governments, policy paralysis and the eventual undermining of...

This paper examines the impact of the form of government—presidential or parliamentary—on fiscal outcomes in democratic systems. Based on data for democracies in 98 countries between 1970 and 2002, it shows that the gross domestic product ratio of the central government budget balance is higher in presidential than in parliamentary democracies. It...

Are government coalitions less frequent under presidentialism than under parliamentarism? Do legislative deadlocks occur when presidents do not form majoritarian governments? Are presidential democracies more brittle when they are ruled by minorities? We answer these questions observing almost all democracies that existed between 1946 and 1999. It...

Through their power to sentence, trial judges exercise enormous authority in the criminal justice system. In 39 American states, these judges stand periodically for reelection. Do elections degrade their impartiality? We develop a dynamic theory of sentencing and electoral control. Judges discount the future value of retaining office relative to im...

Os autores sustentam que fatores econômicos e institucionais são suficientes para gerar uma explicação convincente da dinâmica das democracias sem que seja necessário recorrer à cultura. Concluem que, embora possa haver boas razões para esperar que culturas importem, o material empírico disponível provê pouco apoio para a concepção de que a democra...

The authors hold that economic and institutional factors are sufficient to generate a convincing explanation of the dynamic of democracies without any resource to culture. Their conclusion is that, while there may be good reasons to expect that culture matters, the available empirical evidence provides little support for the view that democracy req...

Acknowledgments: We thank Adam Przeworski, Tasos Kalandrakis and, especially, Argelina Cheibub Figueiredo, who has participated in many of the conversations that led to this paper. We also thank the Leitner Program in International Political Economy at Yale University for support for this research and the Fundação de Pesquisa e Amparo à Pesquisa do...

What are the conditions that generate minority presidents, minority governments, and deadlock in presidential regimes? What is the impact of minority presidents, minority governments, and deadlock on the survival of these regimes? Based on data for all presidential democracies that existed between 1946 and 1996, the author shows (a) that characteri...

Are government coalitions less frequent under presidentialism than under parliamentarism? The only difference be w e the two systems is that unscheduled elections are held under parliamentarism in those situations in which under presidentialism a majority legislative coalition opposes the executive. In both systems, portfolio coalitions are formed...

Is economic development conducive to political democracy? Does democracy foster or hinder material welfare? These two questions are examined by looking at the experience of 135 countries between 1950 and 1990. Descriptive information, statistical analyses, and historical narratives are interwoven to gain an understanding of the dynamic of political...

This book examines whether the mechanisms of accountability characteristic of democratic systems are sufficient to induce the representatives to act in the best interest of the represented. The first part of the volume focuses on the role of elections, distinguishing different ways in which they may cause representation. The second part is devoted...

Recent political and economic transformations in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe have brought about a renewed interest in the incentives and capabilities of different types of political regimes to implement policies that are deemed necessary for economic development, in particular, policies aimed at increasing tax revenue. One centr...

O objetivo do artigo é examinar a validade empírica de duas proposições, que se relacionam em virtude da definição da democracia como regimes nos quais os governantes são selecionados por meio de eleições regulares e competitivas: primeiro, que os regimes democráticos se caracterizam pela responsabilidade dos governantes perante os governados e, se...

Democracy has moved to the centre of systemic reflections on political economy, gaining a position which used to be occupied by the debate about socialism and capitalism. Certitudes about democracy have been replaced by an awareness of the elusiveness and fluidity of democratic institutions and of the multiplicity of dimensions involved. This is a...

Com base na descoberta da importância dos fatores econômicos na sustentação das democracias os autores constatam, após observar 135 países entre 1950 e 1990, que riqueza, crescimento com inflação moderada, desigualdade em declínio, clima internacional favorável e - na dimensão institucional - parlamentarismo são condições propícias à preservação de...

This study presents a classification of political regimes as democracies and dictatorships for a set of 141 countries between 1950 or the year of independence and 1990. It improves existing classifications by a better grounding in political theory, an exclusive reliance on observables rather than on subjective judgements, an explicit distinction be...

Journal of Democracy 7.1 (1996) 39-55 If a country, any randomly selected country, is to have a democratic regime next year, what conditions should be present in that country and around the world this year? The answer is: democracy, affluence, growth with moderate inflation, declining inequality, a favorable international climate, and parliamentary...

Etude des mouvements de la Revolution mexicaine de 1913 a 1915 expliquant le developpement de chacun d'eux en fonction des mecanismes utilises pour chaque mobilisation. Apres avoir discute du probleme de l'action politique a partir de la these de M. Taylor sur le role de la communaute dans la mobilisation paysanne, l'A. examine le mouvement Zapata...

seminar participants at UIUC departments of political science and economics, and 2010 MPSA Conference. Abstract The occurrence of state repression is a puzzle. If repression is to succeed, dissidents should not rebel. If it is to fail, the state should concede in order to save the costs of unsuccessful repression. I propose an explanation for the "...

A key, unresolved, question in the study of coalition government is the design and consequences of the investiture rule in parliamentary systems. Strom, Budge and Laver (1994) suggest that investiture rules potentially constrain cabinet formation, for example, if the outgoing government or largest party is favored in the investiture process. Bergma...

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