ABSTRACT
How do presidents promote policies when they lack congressional majorities? Why would legislators and their parties vote with the president if they are not part of the government? Existing approaches to coalition formation in presidential systems discuss three possible scenarios: a) presidents can cement legislative support through power-sharing agreements, b) presidents compromise nationally-oriented policy goals to accommodate particularistic demands of legislators, and c) presidents use constitutional prerogatives to rule by decree and veto powers, to bypass the congressional opposition (Mainwaring and Shugart 1997; Krehbiel 1998; Ames 2001; Morgenstern and Nacif 2002; Binder 2003). This chapter proposes an analytical framework to understand the choices presidents-and legislators-make to promote policy changes in the context of a highly fragmented legislature.
