ABSTRACT
Institutional reformers and scholars have paid less attention, however, to a critical dimension that goes to the heart of democratic govemability in Latin America and has significant implications for addressing the challenges of democratic representation, accountability, and efficacy. Although Latin America emulated Europe in devising its electoral and judicial systems, it patterned its form of government after the United States, the homeland par excellence of presidentialism. Of the fifty-three presidents elected in Latin America in the current phase of redemocratization which began in 1980, less than half twenty to be exact obtained absolute majorities. Curiously, the reaction to the impasse of presidentialism in Latin America led over time to a sharp increase in presidential prerogatives and the use of executive decrees as legislatures abdicated their prerogatives or constitutional changes created "stronger" executives. In the current wave of democratization in Latin America, the most serious disruptions of the constitutional order have occurred in Haiti, Peru, and Guatemala.
