Executive Leadership and Legislative Assemblies

There has been a long tradition of dictatorship in Latin America. By world standards, there has also been a long tradition of republican government and democratic ideals. Nevertheless, most people still think of Latin American systems as characterised by weak legislatures dominated by the executive. Historically this was generally true, though the perception was undoubtedly enhanced by the fact that until recently much of the evidence came from the 30-year period of military dominance in Latin America from 1960 to 1990, when for long periods in Argentina and Chile there was no legislature at all. The contrast is all the more striking in that inevitably the main model used for the examination of Latin American legislatures is that of the United States, a uniquely transformative legislature in which organising majorities are highly coalitional. ¹ Yet perhaps, as with other parts of the world, the study of Latin America will show that in this area it is the USA, not its southern neighbours, that forms the deviant case. It could indeed even be argued that the ‘gridlock’ of the 1990s shows that it is the United States that is getting more like Latin America, and not the other way round.