Runoff

I examine the five nations where levels of democracy improved and runoff worked well. Runoff opened the political arena to new parties, enhanced presidential legitimacy, and/or enticed parties at extremes toward the center. The number of parties did not increase in the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, or Uruguay and, although the number of parties was large in Brazil and Chile, two broad coalitions formed for presidential elections. This chapter first contrasts the negative effects of plurality and the positive effects of runoff in the country that is a model for runoff advocates: Uruguay. Next, it shows the negative effects of plurality in another country that adopted runoff during the third wave: the Dominican Republic. Then, the chapter turns to Brazil and Chile, where the advantages of runoff for both legitimacy and the incorporation of the left were very evident. Finally, I turn to El Salvador, where until 2014 the advantages of runoff were least apparent.

Runoff

Is there a “sweet spot” between openness to new parties and a plethora of parties that can be achieved through a reduced threshold for election to the presidency? Specifically, through a threshold between 40% and 50%? Unfortunately, although the evidence is not definitive, the answer appears to be: usually, no. Raising barriers to entry, a reduced threshold is disadvantageous if a cartel party or a party with an authoritarian past is strong, as in Argentina between 1983 and the present. Also, although in principle a reduced threshold raises barriers to entry, in practice—as in Ecuador between 2002 and 2006—it may not; the reasons for a larger or smaller number of parties are manifold. Further, a reduced threshold is risky. Although it voids runoffs that would have been unnecessary, it also voids runoffs that would have added presidential legitimacy.

Mexico’s Political Militarization Returns

This paper discusses the unprecedented militarization of the Mexican government under the current presidency of Felipe Calderón Hinojosa. This paper presents an overview of the military infringement upon civil control that has existed since 2006 in Mexico and continues to exist due to various factors that will be discussed in this essay, such as: The United States’ strong military influence over the Mexican Armed Forces, the use of the military as a substitute for a failing presidential legitimacy, the use of ‘fuero militar’ to abuse civilians’ human rights and lastly, the Mexican government’s decision to use the military as the only possible solution to intervene and eliminate the drug cartels.

What Happens When Institutions Do Not Work: Jueteng, Crises of Presidential Legitimacy, and Electoral Failures in the Philippines

In the Millennium Development Goals discussion, the question of how we eliminate bad institutions that perpetuate global poverty often arises. Democracy and participatory institutions are proposed as meta-institutions that are meant to create better ones. Democracies, however, also stumble. We study two episodes of crisis of presidential legitimacy in the Philippines: one arising from perceived electoral failure and the other from involvement in an illegal numbers game called Jueteng. A crisis of legitimacy can arise because the “declared winner” may not be the “true winner” because of the compromise of mechanisms of recall and accountability, or because the “true winner” reveals himself or herself ex post to be the “incorrect choice,” or both. The ensuing crisis of legitimacy, in turn, robs the executive of political mandate and momentum for reform. In the struggle to survive, executive autonomy is traded away as the power brokers of the status quo are enlisted for the defense. Thus, democracy's march to good institutions may be blocked or even reversed.

The 1988 French Presidential Election

THE 1986 ELECTION WAS THE BEGINNING OF ‘COHABITATION’ and 1988 was the end of it — at least of the Fifth Republic's first experience of it. Cohabitation between the President and a Prime Minister who was his chief political adversary was to be the last great test of the stability and adaptability of the Fifth Republic's political institutions. It had been the dominant theme in 1986 just as the fearsome prospect of cohabitation between left-wing parliamentary majorities and previous presidents had been to the forefront in the parliamentary elections of 1978 and even 1973. It was as the President of cohabitation that FranGois Mitterrand won his extraordinary 1988 victory. The survival of presidential legitimacy against the onslaught of prime ministerial power is what the 1988 presidential election will be remembered for. This is the principal theme of this article.

Power, Rhetoric, and the State: A Theory of Presidential Legitimacy

Most studies of presidential power assume that legitimacy is derived from the Constitution. This essay argues that presidents can become authors of their own legitimacy, whether understood in normative or behavioral terms. Specifically, the thesis is that presidential assertions of power, cloaked in an antipower rhetoric which formally honors the dominant values of the culture, have created an American state that has served as an extraconstitutional source of presidential legitimacy. It is widely believed that American constitutionalism undermined the state by destroying sovereignty. Lincoln's interpretation and use of the war power, however, denned a supreme national authority located in the presidency. In addition, his Gettysburg Address provided a paradigmatic metaphor for concealing presidential power rhetorically. Subsequent presidents have taken advantage of both effects by attempting to assert power as revolutionary principle. Linguistically, these concealments are reflected in tropes which constitute legitimizing defenses for exercise of extraordinary power.