ABSTRACT
Coalitional presidentialism is about the conduct of executive–legislative relations and the efforts of presidents to muster majorities in multiparty systems where the appointment of politicians affiliated with parties other than the president’s party is the rule. Students of executive–legislative relations in Brazil must identify the various strategies and tactics adopted by presidents to find allies and put together stable legislative majorities. This chapter investigates the key concepts, measures, and hypotheses utilized in the study of cabinets and coalitions. Using Goertz’s tenets of concept formation, it analyzes the concept structure of a majority coalition cabinet as it has been defined in Brazil. It then dissects some operational indicators developed in the past two decades to measure the political makeup of cabinets and patterns of cabinet appointments. It also assesses their impact on the choice of executive policy-making instruments and presidential support in Congress. Applying these measures, the chapter analyzes updated data on presidential cabinets from 1985 to 2016, with a focus on Dilma Rousseff’s two terms. The concluding section discusses, in light of Brazil’s current political troubles, whether coalitional presidentialism has run its course.
