| As
many formerly authoritarian regimes have been replaced by democratic
governments in Latin America, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere, questions
have arisen about the stability and durability of these new governments.
One concern has to do with the institutional arrangements for governing
bequeathed to the new democratic regimes by their authoritarian predecessors
and with the related issue of whether presidential or parliamentary
systems work better for the consolidation of democracy.
In this book, Peter Siavelis takes a close look at the important
case of Chile, which had a long tradition of successful legislative
resolution of conflict but was left by the Pinochet regime with
a changed institutional framework that greatly strengthened the
presidency at the expense of the legislature. Weakening of the legislature
combined with an exclusionary electoral system, Siavelis argues,
undermines the ability of Chile's National Congress to play its
former role as an arena of accommodation, creating serious obstacles
to interbranch cooperation and, ultimately, democratic governability.
Unlike other studies that contrast presidential and parliamentary
systems in the large, Siavelis examines a variety of factors, including
socioeconomic conditions and characteristics of political parties,
that affect whether or not one of these systems will operate more
or less successfully at any given time. He also offers proposals
for institutional reform that could mitigate the harm he expects
the current political structure to produce. |
|
|
