Institutional Presidency

This commentary on the 1921 presidential elections in Peru was published on the website of the Occupied Tucson Citizen on August 25, 2021, Tucson, Arizona, USA.

Este comentario, en inglés, sobre las elecciones presidenciales de 2021 en el Peru se publicó en el sitio web de Occupied Tucson Citizen, Tucson, Arizona, 25 de agosto de 2021.

The concept of impeachment has its origins in the history of political and
legal thought as a constitutional mechanism to remove public officials for serious violations of the law or abuse of power. Originating from England, it has influenced the constitutions of the United States and the countries of Latin America. In addition to concrete grounds for impeachment, constitutions also allow for impeachment based on abstract grounds, designed for cases where no specific offence can be proven, but the abuse of power is so obvious that the people must be guaranteed the right to recall their elected leader. In Latin America, military coups have been replaced by so-called “soft coups”, which abuse various legal instruments. The abstract nature of the grounds for impeachment contributes to the potential misuse of this mechanism as a tool of lawfare, as many cases demonstrate. During the past decade, Peru has experienced a series of impeachments, with three presidents facing removal from office due to political conflicts between the legislative and executive branches. These cases highlight the use of impeachment as a tool of lawfare, undermining democratic stability and raising concerns about the transparency and impartiality of the process, as well as the erosion of democratic principles.

Purpose-This study attempts to figure out the factors that contributed to deposing certain elected presidents before the end of their constitutional terms, alongside tracing the new political context that prevailed in Latin America since 1978 and its impact on direct political participation and military behavior during presidential crises. Design/methodology/approach-The paper uses the comparative method to investigate the causes of presidential instability in three case studies. Findings-The likelihood of presidential instability increases when a president enacts austerity economic policies that marginalize large sectors of the citizenry, becomes implicated in acts of corruption and develops a hostile relationship with members of the ruling coalition. Originality/value-This study integrates the social movement theory with analytical perspectives from parliamentary behavior to explain presidential instability. It attempts to investigate the dynamics of interaction between the acts of furious citizens and disloyal legislators through the in-depth analysis of three case studies.

We propose a method, based on the network of correlations among roll-call sequences of votes of Representatives in the Chamber of Deputies, to investigate the dynamical evolution of Representative's behavior from 2007 to 2015. The fact that the votes of each deputy in each proposed bill is publicly available as required by the Brazilian transparence law allowed us to obtain the correlation matrix between Representatives, without any appreciation of the content of each bill. A Minimum Spanning Tree organized correlation matrix revealed the clusters of the Deputies. This Minimum Spanning Tree network draw shows clearly that Deputies form clusters accordingly to their party, and the nodes connecting different parties as well as sub-clusters within the large network. Our unbiased method allows for a deeper understanding of the intricate relations among Representatives and their parties. Our result reveals an unambiguous transition from a polarized to a consensual state towards the e...

This article investigates whether governing parties strategically time austerity policies to help them win re-election. It contributes to existing research by focusing directly on government policy output, analyzing over 1,200 welfare and taxation austerity measures in thirteen Western European countries over twenty years. In line with previous research, the authors find that governments become less likely to introduce austerity measures as elections approach. The study introduces original hypotheses about which governments have the ability and opportunity to strategically time policy decisions. The authors suggest that minimal winning cabinets with leadership change (new prime ministers) face less complex bargaining environments and can credibly shift responsibility for austerity measures to the preceding government. The empirical analyses show that these governments are most likely to strategically time austerity policies.

Polifacético, innovador, polemista mordaz y crítico acérrimo de la política exterior de su
país, Chomsky es quizás uno de los pensadores contemporáneos más influyentes. Se lo ha
definido como el padre de la lingüística moderna, como filósofo analítico, como científico
cognitivo, como analista político y como activista; y, a decir verdad, con sus más de ciento
veinte libros, otros tantos artículos científicos y periodísticos, y varias decenas de apariciones
públicas y entrevistas, ha contribuido con interesantes aportes en cada uno de esos campos.
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Debido, pues, a la vastedad y variedad de su obra es imposible hacerle justicia en pocas
líneas, y me veo forzado a tomar una decisión fundamental: presentaré al Chomsky téorico,
dejando de lado su participación pública en causas sociales y en asuntos coyunturales de
política internacional. Me concentraré, de este modo, en las secciones subsiguientes, en la
presentación filosófica de dos grandes temas de su obra: el lenguaje y la naturaleza humana.

This article analyzes the redesign and the dynamics of the presidential center in Brazil since the democratic transition (1986-2014). This analysis is undertaken in light of the coordination challenges problems of coordinating multi-party enclosures in a context of strong party fragmentation, the different reform agendas undertaken by the presidents and the leadership style that they exercise in the office. The main argument is that the design of this center, despite the growing strength of its structures, is swinging and responding to Presidents’ strategies to coordinate their cabinets. The sharing of resources and responsibilities between presidents and coalition members is selective and organizationally differentiated.  I built a typology of the Presidential centers differencing four models: cabinet; presidency-centered cabinet; hypertrophied presidency; and ministerial dominance. Presidents’ coordination strategies vary from the centralization of the priority tasks of governments within the presidency to delegation of these tasks to strategic ministries. The centrality of the coordinating ministries has been persistent, but with variation in the degree of autonomy of these ministries vis-à-vis Presidency agencies. This study of the presidential center in Brazil presents the oscillating process of the centralization of government coordination tasks along eight (08) presidential terms and under the coordination of 07 (seven) presidents.

The recently established presidents in Argentina, Brazil, and Peru are seeking to implement governmental agendas that represent a policy shift with respect to previous administrations. However, in doing so, they face political and social constraints. Executive politics – that is, the presidential approach to the design of the highest executive agencies and appointment strategies – stands out as a tool to improve presidential leeway and coordination capacity.