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Weak Democratic Institutionalization and Different Types of Presidential

Leaderships in Inverted Democracy

Submitted

By

Maria Matilde Ollier (UNSAM-Argentina)

Whathever Happened to North-South

International Political Science Association (IPSA) European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) Joint Conference

Hosted by Brazilian Political Science Association

University of Sao Paulo San Paulo, Brazil

February 16 to 19, 2011

Abstract This paper analyzes two apparently opposing phenomena that have occurred in several South American countries after the third wave of democratization: presidential instability (Carlos A. Perez and F. De la Rúa) and the strong centralization of power in presidential hands (i.e. Hugo Chávez and Néstor Kirchner). I assert that these phenomena were possible due to weak democratic institutionalization as well as to the president’s political and institutional position. If the former constitutes a necessary condition, then the latter is sufficient to allow these different types of presidential roles to develop. This paper explains that such a position must be understood according to two dimensions of weak institutionalization: the existence of party configurations instead of party systems, and the impact of extra-partisan forces (unions, armed forces, governors, etc) on the struggle for power. Drawing from the empirical study of two cases -Argentina and Venezuela- this paper formulates four rules which may be useful to explore other democracies in South American countries such as Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Paraguay and Ecuador.

Key words: presidential role, president’s political and institutional position, presidentialist democracy of weak institutionalization, party configuration, extra party resources and president/opposition dynamics.

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INTRODUCTION*

Of the ten South American presidential democracies, only Uruguay and Chile are widely considered to be institutionalized ones. While Brazil appears to be taking the path toward greater institutionalization, Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Paraguay and Ecuador still suffer from weak democratic institutionalization. For the purposes of this paper, these seven cases are called weakly institutionalized presidential democracies (WIPD). Weak institutionalization has important consequences upon the functioning of presidential leadership. Before we can begin to think about potential reforms for these seven countries, it is imperative that we first investigate how presidential democracies actually function in the context of weak institutionalization. Studies on Latin American presidentialism have offereded useful findings, such as the existence of different types of presidentialism and their political consequences, but tend to suffer from a bias towards American presidentialism or European parlamentarism. Both systems tend to be seen as empirical models for understanding Latin American politics. To overcome this bias, it is important that researchers analyze the actual functioning of South American presidentialism, which is founded upon traditions of caudillismo and authoritarianism, characterized by weak institutionalization, and in which, presidential leadership has a strong impact upon the political dynamic. Indeed, presidential leadership defines the performance of WIPDs. In accordance with the above, this paper aims to explain what the relevance of presidential leadership means. Given that presidential performance can be quite different even within the same South American country, it is important to understand the various expressions presidential leadership can take within the context of weak institutionalization. As a proof of those different performances, there are two apparently opposing phenomena that have occurred in several South American countries since the third wave of democratization: hegemonic and unstable presidential leadership. Understanding how these opposing phenomena can occur within the same democratic regime is crucial to any attempt to understand regional democratic building. This paper affirms that these phenomena have been able to occur within the same democratic regime because of the latter’s weak democratic institutionalization, and because of the president’s political-institutional position, and advances two hypothesis: (a) that weak democratic institutionalization is the necessary condition for the observation of cyclical fluctuations between presidential instability and hegemonic presidency, and (b) that given that prior condition, the nature of a president’s political-institutional position is sufficient to determine whether his/her presidency will be unstable or hegemonic. The first section of the paper presents the analytical perspective, and is followed by case studies of both an unstable and a hegemonic president in two separate countries: Argentina (Fernando de la Rúa and Néstor Kirchner) and Venezuela (Carlos A Perez and Hugo Chávez). The work concludes by comparing the cases from both countries, putting forward four general rules about presidential leadership in WIPDs, and shows the reader how either type of PL in WIPDs leads to a dead end.

I.- THE ANALYTICAL PERSPECTIVE This paper analyzes two apparently opposing phenomena that have appeared in

several South American countries since the third wave of democratization: centralization

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of power in the president’s hands (i.e. Hugo Chávez and Néstor Kirchner) and presidential instability (i.e. Carlos A. Perez and F. De la Rúa). The first is called here hegemonic presidential leadership (HP), and is characterized by a high concentration of power in the president’s hands (i.e. Carlos Menem and Néstor Kirchner in Argentina, Alan García (his first presidency) and Alberto Fujimori in Peru, Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, Alvaro Uribe in Colombia, Rafael Correa in Ecuador and Evo Morales in Bolivia).1 The second phenomenon refers to repeated episodes in which presidents have had to leave their presidency without having completed their term in office (i.e. Fernando De la Rúa in Argentina, Carlos A Perez in Venezuela, Gonzalo S. de Losada in Bolivia, Mahuad in Ecuador). I have elsewhere called this phenomenon presidential instability (PI) (Ollier: 2004: 40). Both terms represent attempts to focus on presidents themselves, instead of presidentialism per se.2 Given the vast difference between hegemonic and unstable presidencies, scholars have tended to explore them as separate phenomena, ignoring the possibility that there is an underlying link between them. Thus, some cases have been studied within the context of the neoliberal wave that swept the region in the 90’s (Alberto Fujimori or Carlos Menem), while others have been examined under the rubric of the “swing to the left” of the new millennium (Hugo Chávez, Evo Morales, Néstor Kirchner, Rafael Correa). Yet no one has tried to investigate how it is that such opposing presidencies could have occurred under the same democratic regime, and within relatively short periods of one another. After affirming that both hegemonic and unstable presidencies form part of the same democratic presidential regime that is characterized by low levels of institutionalization, this paper finds the answer to its question in the connection between the centrality of presidential leadership, on one hand, and the weak institutionalization of political relationships (whether these be formal or informal) in South American WIPDs. This connection is expressed in a rule: the less institutionalized a presidential democracy is, the more relevant presidential leadership will be; and vice versa, the more central the role of presidential leadership in a WIPD, the less institutionalized the presidential democracy will be.3 The common denominator of these opposing models of presidential leadership is their weak institutionalization of political relationships. In other words, hegemonic and unstable presidents are merely different manifestations of the same democratic order. That said, it is not a coincidence that the two institutionalized presidential democracies in South America, Chile and Uruguay, have lacked these phenomena since the arrival of the third wave of democratization. This verifies the role that weak institutionalization has played in the development of both phenomena.

Having identified the common denominator that allows for both PLs to exist within the same democratic regime, we are left to figure out what determines which one will actually emerge. This paper argues that the determining factor, or the sufficient condition, is the political-institutional position of the president. If weak institutionalization constitutes the necessary condition for both extreme manifestations of

* I would like to thank Aníbal Perez Liñán for his thoughtful insights and comments, and Mariano Fraschini and Jack Luft for their assistance. 2 Perez Liñán (2007) as the first to study cases of PLs who have had judicial claims filed against them after their term. 3 This is the first of four rules of PLs in WIPDs that this paper puts forward.

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PL, then the political-institutional position of the president constitutes the sufficient condition that may led to either hegemonic or unstable presidency to emerge. Juan Linz’s work on the low compatibility between presidentialism (as a system of government) and democracy sparked a debate that has demonstrated the complexity of Latin American presidentialism by minimizing the sharp contrast between it and parlamentarism (Munk, 2004: 442),4 by adding new arguments in favor of presidentialism (Lanzaro, 2003: 18-22), by drawing attention to problems of stability in parlamentarism (Cheibub, 2005:8), by refuting the decisive influence of the party system upon stability (Ollier, 2006:144-162), and by noting the futility of dwelling upon the supposed incompatibility of presidentialism and democracy when radical reforms, such as a switch to parliamentarism, are not realistic possibilities. Thus, we are left with the urgent need to better understand the impact that institutional design has upon the political dynamic. Institutional weakness implies that the routinization of rules and procedures occurs only partially (O’Donnell, 1994), and therefore, it would be incorrect to consider a country’s institutions per se as the independent variable, as many laws lack the means for their own enforcement. With that in mind, this paper takes an in-depth look at two countries that have experienced both phenomena of PL, but does so by examining how these countries’ institutions actually function, which often means examining their inability to properly function. In other words, this paper attempts to bring to the discussion the meaning of the weak institutionalization of political parties and actors, and what effect this has upon the political dynamic. This paper defines weak institutionalization in the following way. Starting from O'Donnell's claim that weak institutionalization implies that the routinization of rules and procedures is only partial, this paper explains that their routinization is only partial because of the low capacity of institutions to limit the struggle for power. When institutions are limited in this way, democracy is inverted: the rules no longer delimit the struggle for power; the rules are now the outcome of that struggle. In such a situation, the winner finds himself/herself in a position to change, violate, or break the rules.

This paper studies WIPD according to two features found in them: first, the existence of party configurations, as opposed to party systems, and the consequences this has upon executive-legislative relationships; and second, the impact of extra-partisan forces (unions, armed forces, governors, etc.) on the struggle for political power. In turn, the president’s political-institutional position refers to the particular place that each president occupies in WIPDs. The next step requires the systematization of the two central components: weak institutionalization and leadership and president’s political-institutional position. Weak institutionalization is characterized by two features: the existence of party configurations, as opposed to party systems, and the influence of extra-partisan forces (i.e. the armed forces, peasant groups, indigenous groups, unions, governors, etc.) upon the political dynamic. These features allow us to further explore the panel’s third and fourth analytical dimensions as they unfold in WIPDs. The first feature to explore, party configuration, requires a definition of how political parties function. In various South

4 Schamis (2002), Perez Liñán (2003) and Carey (2003) presented parliamentary mechanisms as a way to escape presidential crises.

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American countries, political parties display two components —summed up in the words “configuration” and “fragmentation/factiousness”.5 The first difference between political parties in WIPD’s and those in more institutionalized democracies resides in the difficulty that South American party configurations have when they try to become party systems, which has led Cavarozzi and Casullo (2002:12-15) to call them party configurations. Party configurations contain two fundamental weaknesses: not only are the individual political parties weak, but so are the links between them. The difference between a party system and a party configuration lies precisely in this second weakness, as it is what prevents political parties from establishing relationships between each other that are defined by a system of rules. The existence of party configurations goes a long way toward explaining the breakdown or fragility of various political parties in the region.6 The lack of a party system should not distract us from the weak institutionalization of the parties themselves. Their weakness is explained, in part, by the predominance of political movements rather than political parties in the classic sense of the term. Political movements bring social actors and/or influential corporations onto the political stage. The second distinguishing component of South American WIPD party configurations is their varying degree of both intra- and inter-party fragmentation (Ollier, 2003: 173 and 2006; Valenzuela, 2004, 12), which is to say nothing of those parties that are extremely weak. Although fragmented parties are different from weak parties, in both cases, the relevance of individual leadership increases.7 Something similar can be expected from inter-party fragmentation. The lack of a classic party tradition is accompanied by a clear intra-party fragmentation that must be kept in mind from a theoretical point of view, but even more importantly, from an empirical one if we wish to understand how representative democracies and their relevant actors and institutions function and interact. The party design described above, characterized by fragmentation and factiousness, bestows a preponderant role upon leaders: the fewer the rules, the greater the opportunity for leaders to make individual decisions.8 The result of this is a vicious circle in which weak institutionalization allows leaders to create political parties, which leads to greater fragmentation within the party configuration. The double fragmentation of party configurations leads us to the second feature of weak institutionalization, which goes hand-in-hand with the first the high degree of influence that extra-partisan forces of power have upon party business. These extra-partisan forces choose to form part of, respond to or influence the performance of political parties by strengthening or weakening the president. The president’s strength or

5 Mainwaring and Scully (1995) pioneered a method that establishes a party system’s degree of institutionalization. 6 The collapse of AD and COPEI in Venezuela; the weakening of APRA added to the atomization of Peru’s party spectrum before the emergence of Fujimori; the fragmentation of the Unión Cívica Radical (UCR) and Partido Justicialista (Peronist party) in Argentina around 2000; the factiousness of the Partido Colorado in Paraguay with the election of Cubas Grau as president in 1999; the existence of various political forces with very little representation for indigenous peasants in Bolivia as Sánchez de Lozada took office in 2002, and the regionalization of parties in Ecuador around the time of Correa’s arrival in 2006— these are a few examples of the party configurations I refer to. 7 Regarding intra-party fragmentation, Panebianco (1990: 125-26) draws attention to the inverse relationship that exists between the degree of party institutionalization and the degree of organization of the groups acting within it, which provides us with the second rule: “the more institutionalized a party is, the less organized its internal groups will be. And conversely, the less institutionalized a party is, the more organized its internal groups will be.” 8 The third rule warns: the less institutionalized a party is, the greater the influence individual leadership will have upon that political party, and vice versa: the greater the prevalence of individual leadership is in a political party, the less institutionalized that party will be.

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weakness depends upon whether or not he or she has the support of a sufficient number of these groups. We must turn our attention to these extra-partisan forces, as they play a fundamental role in the president’s ability to govern.9 The presence of actors and/or institutions that strengthen or weaken the party’s performance in the political arena constitutes a key dimension of WIPDs. Perhaps their strength is one of the key differences between weakly and strongly institutionalized democracies. This is because it is not the party configuration per se nor the existence of extra-partisan forces that determines whether a president is weak or strong, but rather how the head of state situates himself within this configuration and in relation to these extra-partisan forces. What is the relationship between the executive and the legislative power in the WIPDs? To begin, it should be emphasized that, in these democracies, their relationship varies in accordance with the strength or weakness of the president. Given that fragmentation and factiousness express themselves most explicitly within congress, the strength or weakness of the president plays a huge role in providing party discipline there. In consolidated presidential democracies, such as that of the United States, congress enjoys a certain level of autonomy from the executive, and thus, is able to operate as a legitimate representative body. The example of American presidential democracy influenced Linz’s understanding of Latin American presidentialism, and led him to claim that congress’ power to block the executive’s agenda puts in doubt the compatibility of presidentialism and democracy in Latin America. These two types of fragmentation, that within a party and that between parties, impacts congress in two potential ways: in one, a hegemonic president finds himself in favorable circumstances for forming congressional majorities, whereas weak or unstable presidents must struggle, often unsuccessfully, just to create the minimum level of consensus necessary to pass the laws that allow him to govern. It should be noted that the presence of a power-concentrating leadership does not necessarily prevent intra-party fragmentation, but such a president can reduce the negative impact such fragmentation can have upon governability, particularly during economic booms.10 However, once the boom has passed or a leader has been weakened, those factions will begin to acquire renewed visibility and importance. In short, during fat years, a strong presidential leadership will find itself in a position to control factions. However, when sources of revenue dry up, it will find itself without the ability to prevent inter-party fragmentation. Congresses in WIPDs make no attempt to maintain weak and unpopular presidents, and often have political factions that promote his downfall. In contrast, a delegative president is able to get congress to do almost whatever he wants —in Peru, Fujimori closed Congress with the help of the military. Looking at these extreme realities, we are led to conclude that congress is executive dependent in South American

9 These extra-partisan forces exist in other presidential democracies, but they are highlighted here because of the greater influence they are able to exercise over both political parties and the political dynamic. In WIPDs, they are able to engage in a two-level game that ends up weakening the influence of political parties upon the political dynamic. Panebianco (1990) refers to sponser institutions, such as the Church, in the case of Christian democracy. 10 However, as weak institutionalization and the political-institutional position of a president unfold in a socio-economic context marked by problems that the executive attempts to resolve, that context will have positive or negative effects upon PL. Because of this, it is always important to consider the effect external factors have upon a president’s performance. While the unstable presidencies of the 90’s found themselves in economic contexts characterized by recessions and depressions, the phenomena of delegative presidencies in the new millennium have found themselves benefited by significant growth in the global economy, a situation that has notoriously worked to the advantage of Latin American exports.

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WIPDs. It is unable to control a delegative president, and is forced to back up his initiatives; whereas under dire circumstances, it shows itself incapable of maintaining a weak president, or preventing his downfall.11

Leadership and Political-Institutional Position of the President Although the relevance of presidential leadership has been highlighted in analyses of presidentialism and democracy in South America (Linz: 1990 and 1998, O’Donnell: 1994, Samuels and Mainwaring: 2004, Valenzuela: 2004, and Hakim: 2003), it has rarely been studied systematically, with Linz and O’Donnell having gone the furthest in this direction. That said, the idea of leadership has been theorized quite extensively. Summarizing that debate, however, would exceed the scope of this paper. For our purposes, the role of presidential leadership will be defined according to Fabbrini’s formula of political leadership. This author defines political leadership as an activity that assumes a series of relationships on the part of the one who exercises it, and he distinguishes it from the idea of a leader, which is “a particular individual invested with the power to make decisions”.12 Whereas the concept of a leader refers to an actor, that of leadership refers to relationships. It is the intersecting of two key ideas: activity and relationships. Thus, presidential leadership is the act of governing, and implies the ties that the president develops with parties, other powers within the state, and with society understood in the widest sense possible. This concept of leadership helps us understand the political-institutional position of the president by showing us how to locate where he stands in relation to his party (or coalition government) and the various institutions by which they express themselves, as well as in relation to the various institutions and actors over which the president has (or does not have) power (e.g., unions, indigenous groups, the armed forces, governors, etc.).13 Thus, the performance of a president depends upon his political-institutional position. If it is strong, he will be able to implement changes or maintain the status quo. On the contrary, if his position is weak, he will run the risk of instability. Even though governors belong to political parties and are elected as candidates of parties, I locate them within the category extra-partisan forces, because they have an important influence upon the political dynamic. Once in office, their influence goes beyond their party. To sum up the analytical section, WIPDs are characterized by the existence of party configurations and by the influence of extra-partisan forces upon the struggle for political power. These are the necessary conditions for the appearance of either extremes of presidential leadership. However, it is the political-institutional position of the president of a WIPD that acts as the sufficient condition that determines which extreme

11 This takes us to the fourth rule: in WIPDs, Congress is executive dependent: it does not control a delegative president, and is forced to back up his initiatives; whereas under dire circumstances, it shows itself incapable of maintaining a weak president, or preventing his downfall. 12 Fabbrini (1999: 10). 13 Leadership also possesses a subjective element that allows the person exercising it to produce political changes. Here it is important to bring back in the concept of the leader, as it contains the subjective element present in presidential leadership. That individual invested with the power to make decisions, which is the implied idea of a leader, contains a subjective element: what to decide and how to decide it. In other words, the ability to imagine routes and tools for resolving problems, along with the ability to persuade his interlocutors of the solutions he considers to be the most efficacious. In this sense, the speeches and public interventions of a president offer us a tool for marking the political-institutional position of a president.

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he will assume.14 The rest of the paper will empirically examine two WIPDs: Argentina and Venezuela. Regarding the analytical dimensions proposed by the panel, the first two dimensions (the “public/private” role(s) of the President of the Republic/Head of the State in the political system context, and the content analysis of relevant presidential speeches, as well as public intervention) will be developed from the president’s political-institutional position. The third and fourth analytical dimensions (president vs. parliament: political and institutional relations —with particular reference to both the parties’ and MPs’ roles, along with the relevance and character of political parties-- related to presidential interventions) will be studied in accordance with the two dimensions of WIPDs: party configurations and their impact on executive-legislative relationships, and the existence of extra parties actors. The fifth dimension (democratic transition/nation-state building process: the president’s activity) will take into account each case in the political dynamic of the local context.

II.- THE CASE OF ARGENTINA When Argentina returned to democracy in 1983, it appeared as if its political system, which had been defined by the presence of two political movements, the Radical Civic Union (UCR) and Peronism, were on the verge of a major transformation, as both movements seemed posed to become political parties in the classical sense of the term.15 However, this transformation was frustrated for two reasons: first, Peronism became the central party within Argentina’s party configuration, and second, the UCR became increasingly weak. Since then, the country has had two types of presidents: unstable, as represented by Fernando de la Rúa (1999-2001) and hegemonic, as represented by Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007). The following section analyzes their respective presidencies. (See Annex)

II. 1.- THE UNSTABLE PRESIDENT (FERNANDO DE LA RUA, 1999-2001) This section examines unstable PL by locating De la Rúa´s political-institutional position in relation to Argentina’s party configuration and extra-partisan forces. Fernando de la Rúa assumed the presidency as the head of The Alliance, a coalition formed between the UCR, his party, and the Front for a Solidary Country (Frente para un país solidario, FREPASO). He took over for Carlos Menem, a Peronist who served as president from 1989 until 1999, and who in that time, reversed the populist economic principles that had long guided Argentina, implementing neoliberal policies in their place. Menem’s economic policies were based on the privatization of state-owned enterprises and the Law of Convertibility, which established that one Argentine peso was equal to one dollar. When De la Rúa entered office, convertibility was in crisis, but maintained an 80% rate of approval among citizens. This would become a major problem for his government. 14 Finally, given the caudillo tradition of these democracies as well as the increased personalization of power they have experienced in recent decades, it is important to note that the traditional dynamic of ruling party versus opposition has been replaced by that of president versus opposition. This has left the president in the role of ruling party, and thus, ultimately responsible for running the government. The president’s political-institutional position will be examined in reference to this dynamic. 15 Gutiérrez (2003) analyzes the Peronism case.

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1.- Weak institutionalization is characterized by two features: the existence of party configuration and the influence of extra-party resources upon the political dynamic. a) Party configuration in Argentina has shown that not only have the individual political parties been weak, but so have the links between them. Clear indications of Argentina’s low level of institutionalization can be seen in both the existence of political movements or conglomerations that answer to one leader, and in the high levels of fragmentation and factiousness within each party and between parties. Such movements or conglomerations answer to the will of their leader, who is the key figure in the decision-making process. The result of this is that party rules are unstable, and tend to change according to the leader’s will. This behavior is not particular to the Peronist party and the UCR; it has been reproduced by new political forces such as the Civic Coalition, led by Elisa Carrió, or the PRO, which is run by Mauricio Macri. Under De la Rúa, party configuration was bipolar, in the sense that it was shaped by two opposing political forces. De la Rua, as president, represented the non- Peronist pole, and Carlos Alvarez, his vice president, was the political boss of Frepaso. The Alliance took shape in 1997, as the main opposition force in the midst of a party configuration centered on the ruling Peronism. Peronism was the center of the party configuration because of its superior capacity to win elections and its relatively high electoral support—it tended to get 30-35% of the vote, wheras no other party could guarantee even 20% of the electorate. Although the Alliance managed to unite to win the 1999 election, the agreement between the UCR and Frepaso was marked by a lack of institutionalization. Initially, the Alliance was led by a group of five politicians belonging to both parties. Later on, this arrangement was abandoned, with the effect of leaving all decision-making power in the hands of De la Rúa. There were noticeable differences between the parties that made up the Alliance. To begin with, the UCR is a party possessing an hundred-year tradition, whereas Frepaso was a relatively young coalition of small political parties. The UCR boasted of having a good presidential candidate and a solid party structure (even if it suffered from low public approval rates). Frepaso, on the other hand, enjoyed more public support, but had no single territorial anchor; it was composed of small, disparate parties with low levels of institutionalization (Ollier: 2001, 51-53). The relationship between the Executive and the Legislature. Regarding the relationship between the president and Congress, Mustapic (2005, 268) has collected data that proves De la Rúa matched Menem in his use of decress of urgency and necessity [decretos de necesidad y urgencia], with each averaging about twenty-seven per year. This allows Mustapic (2005, 268) to categorize De la Rúa’s presidential strategy as imperial, in accordance with the categories of Cox and Mogerstern (2002). To understand why De la Rúa adopted such a strategy, one must look at the congressional makeup he had to govern with. In the House, the Alliance held the largest minority (127 seats), while the PJ was a close second with 101. These numbers left the coalition two seats short of the number needed to reach its own quorum. On top of this, the Peronist party had a majority in the Senate. Lacking a majority in both chambers of Congress, the Alianza found itself confronted with a divided government. The Alliance’s relative weakness in Congress, however, did not prevent factionalism within the coalition. Little by little, some Alliance representatives in the Lower Chamber of Congress began to vote against presidential initiatives, and soon

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enough, Congress became a sounding board where the UCR and Frepaso legislators carried out their fights over presidential initiatives. These disagreements began to appear shortly after the De la Rúa took office.16 Alliance representatives contested his proposed labor reform, public sector salary adjustments and pension cuts. Corrales (2003, 30-35) argues that the permanent conflict between the president and the ruling party created an internal political shock that acted as one of the triggers of the crisis (the appointment of Domingo Cavallo as minister of economy was the main trigger). Although the Radical block continued to vote dutifully in favor of all presidential initiatives, after Alvarez’s resignation, the Frepaso bloc began to voice its opposition towards De la Rúa. After a poor showing in the legislative elections of October, 2001, some of the Alliance's more opportunistic candidates withdrew from the coalition. In a matter of hours, they had moved from the ruling party to opposition parties. Some of them entered into Argentina para una República de Iguales (ARI), founded Elisa Carrió, a former Radical deputy. Others joined Polo Social, a recently-created, minor party. Thus, the ruling coalition was also affected by defections within its own ranks; further proof of its factionalism. Given that de la Rua’s presidency signified the end of Menem’s power, Peronist leaders were fighting to become the new Peronist boss. The result of this was that they backed laws and decrees that would benefit their political aspirations of becoming the next boss of the Peronist party. For instance, they supported Cavallo’s request for special powers, as they knew that their support would give them leverage later on, when negotiating particular state resources for their provinces with Cavallo. At the same time, Peronist legislators clearly sabotaged other initiatives that would have harmed their interests. On June 14, 2000, Peronist Senators blocked a handful of harsh structural adjustment measures meant to reduce the fiscal deficit. In the eyes of the international community, this action confirmed the suspicion that De la Rúa faced governance problems. The following day, Argentina found itself - for a period of twenty-four hours – without the possibility of obtaining international loans. Peronist Senators were well aware of the consequences of such political behavior. Up until the 2001 legislative elections, the PJ had supported various presidential initiatives in Congress. However, the Peronist victory in those legislative elections, along with the high percentage of destroyed ballots and contested votes (the so-called voto bronca), sparked a political crisis. Having attained a congressional quorum in the elections, the PJ reinforced its role as the opposition. To its power in the Senate and its superior control over extra party resources, the PJ added the possibility of achieving a majority in the Lower House. This was possible because the Alternativa para una República de Iguales (ARI), a spin-off party of the Alianza, had agreed to vote with the Peronist party. After the 2001 legislative elections, the Peronist party focused on accumulating power, with the ultimate goal of taking back the presidency. In the pursuit of these goals, the party ignored two long-standing informal rules. Both examples illustrate that despite its internal disputes, the Peronist party was preparing to take back power. b) Extra-partisan forces. The principal extra partisan forces in Argentina are governors and unions. The latter are mostly affiliated with Peronism, and are weaker than Peronist governors. While unions had been quite powerful, Menem’s neo-liberal reforms, weakened them considerably. Governors, on the other hand, remained a powerful extra- 16 The IMF imposed permanent adjustments during the Alianza’s administration (Schamis: 2002; Corrales: 2002).

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partisan forces, that was largely aligned with Peronism. During de la Rúa’s time in office, Peronists held the governorships of fourteen of the county’s twenty-four provinces, including the most politically and economically relevant ones (Buenos Aires, Santa Fe and Córdoba). Provincial governors came to constitute the party’s principal extra-partisan forces. The Alliance, on the other hand, won the governorships of only six provinces and the Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires; the UCR took Catamarca. The Alliance’s weak position in relation to the PJ was underscored by its loss in the province of Buenos Aires, whose candidate belonged to Frepaso.17 This loss had two consequences. First, it weakened the national government’s ability to control the suburbs of Buenos Aires, a potential source of social conflict with extremely deep national repercussions, as would become evident in the December 2001 crisis. Second, since all provinces governed by the Alliance were in the hands of the UCR (Frepaso had not won any of the provincial governorships), the balance of power within the coalition tipped in favor of the UCR. As a result, the Alliance began to look like a UCR government even before the resignation of the vice president. Given its dominant position in Argentina’s party configuration along with its control of key governorships, the Peronist party enjoyed high visibility as the opposition. It used this visibility, and the influence that came with it, to exhibit an ambiguous stance towards De la Rua’s government. On one hand, it supported various presidential initiatives in Congress; but on the other hand, it strongly criticized the government in the media.18 By doing this, the Peronist party contributed to the discrediting of the president, and it did so for a simple reason. With Menem’s power gone since he had left office, Peronist governors were jockeying to become the next party leader. Thus, they combined discrete support for the government in Congress with strong public criticism of presidential measures. 2.- The political and institutional position of the president. The coalition’s low degree of institutionalization meant that major decisions were left solely in the hands of De la Rúa, who however, lacked the qualities necessary to become a truly effective political boss for the Alliance. To begin with, both parties of the coalition already had their own leaderships: the UCR looked to Raúl Alfonsín, while Carlos Alvarez was the indisputable leader of Frepaso. Moreover, Frepaso´s weak institutionalization made it highly dependent on Alvarez. As a result of this, during its entire term in office, the Alianza not only was unable to institutionalize it decision-making process, it never managed to project the image that De la Rúa was a respected leader. Alvarez’s resignation only worsened the situation by further splitting the coalition’s leadership. If the Alianza´s lack of institutionalization left the decision-making process in De la Rúa hands, Alvarez’s resignation eliminated the coalition’s most significant counter-weight to the president, Frepaso. Faced with the above-mentioned political-institutional context, the president chose a strategy of isolated governance, assuming an increasingly factional attitude toward his own coalition and the opposition. He trusted only those who were close to him, who had little or no party tradition. This was reflected in the composition of his cabinet, as well as in his links to the legislative branch. From the beginning of his term, De la Rua’s cabinet had a Radical majority with a bias towards Radical leaders from the

17 For an analysis of the Alianza’s loss in Buenos Aires province, see Ollier (2001: 131-139). 18 Ollier (2008).

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Federal Capital and Buenos Aires province. That is to say, his cabinet did not reflect the federal makeup of the Radical party, neglected extra-partisan forces and was composed of his close friends. As these problems in the Alliance emerged, the president was also losing citizen support. His increasing unpopularity was caused by his inability to resolve the depression that was wreaking havoc upon the Argentine economy, causing record levels of unemployment that particularly hit his electoral base: the middle class. Working-class sectors, which were mostly supporters of the Peronist opposition, were the other principal victims of the depression. De la Rúa’s lack of skill in resolving the central problem affecting multiple sectors of Argentine society and his continued dependence upon a worn-out economic system founded on convertibility signaled the beginning of his decline. If support for De la Rua’s administration was already diminishing, Alvarez’s resignation had the double effect of creating animosity between himself and society and reducing the president’s popularity even further. The departure of the vice president left Frepasista voters with the feeling that their future was exclusively in the hands of an increasingly inept president. The De la Rúa’s unpopularity was made evident in the October 2001 legislative election results, yet he refused to acknowledge them as a defeat. He argued that because they were legislative elections, it was not his administration that had been judged at the polls. The president’s self-imposed isolation and lack of response to Argentina’s economic problems explain the emergency economic measures ordered at the end of November by the minister of economy, which included the corralito. This measure prohibited the withdrawing of savings from banks, and was taken in an attempt to halt the capital flight and the decrease in deposits that were causing fears of a devaluation. Measures like the corralito ended up weakening the scant remaining support the government had among the citizenry.19 After the corralito, social mobilization against the president began. Various middle class neighborhoods of the city of Buenos Aires protested, expressing their dissatisfaction under the slogan that was heard around the world: “que se vayan todos (Kick them all out)”. This protest converged with the Peronist mobilization of the Buenos Aires province, governed by Ruckauf, who had been De la Rúa’s fiercest critic. This latter mobilization reached its boiling point when mobs looted supermarkets in various suburbs of Buenos Aires, while the police watched, making no attempt to restore order. The synchronization of these lootings hardly seemed spontaneous. In sum, weak institutionalization damaged De la Rua’s political-institutional position. The factiousness within the Alliance and from the opposition exploded as soon as de la Rua’s government began. Such factiousness appeared in a) vice president Alvarez’s resignation; b) the departure of several members of the House from the Alliance to other political parties, (they had won their seats in the legislative elections in October, 2001 under the name of the Alliance); c) De la Rúa’s self-imposed isolation, which showed his own factiousness. He appointed family and friends to his Cabinet in the midst of Argentina’s most serious economic crisis in decades. Most of the extra-partisan forces—the majority of the governors and unions—were not allies of the president. On the contrary, they played for the opposing team. Faced with this adversity, De la Rúa proved unable to strengthen his political-institutional position, which might

19 The International Monetary Fund imposed permanent structural adjustments during the Alliance’s administration (Schamis: 2002, 82-85: Corrales: 2002, 36-37).

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have allowed him to find solutions to Argentina’s most pressing problems, and fulfill his term in office.

II. 2.- THE HEGEMONIC PRESIDENT (NÉSTOR KIRCHNER, 2003-

2007) After the political crisis that interrupted De la Rúa’s constitutional government

but did not suspend democracy in Argentina, Congress played a crucial role in pushing the country towards its next presidential succession, which was achieved via legal means. A broad parliamentary agreement between the PJ, the UCR and some factions of FREPASO appointed Eduardo Duhalde, considered to be the strongest candidate to lead such a transition, president until the next presidential elections, which were scheduled for 2003. 1.- Weak institutionalization benefited Néstor Kirchner. Fearing that Carlos Menem would win the 2003 presidential election, Duhalde orchestrated a congressional agreement that suspended primary elections. This resulted in three Peronist candidates running for the presidency in 2003. Menem came in first place with 24% of the vote, while Kirchner took 22%. As neither candidate received over 50% of the votes, they had to face off in a second round. Fearing an electoral loss, Menem dropped out of the second round, and as a result, Kirchner assumed the presidency. Kirchner had Duhalde to thank for both his candidacy and his victory, as it was the latter who had placed the most powerful electoral machine in Argentina, the Peronism of Buenos Aires province, behind Kirchner. a) Party configuration. The recovery from the 2001 economic crisis had already begun during Duhalde’s administration, which gave Kirchner an important advantage upon assuming office. In the aftermath of the crisis, the demands of Argentine society were limited. With the economic recovery already in place, the country merely asked to be governed, for a basic level of order. On top of this, party configuration favored Kirchner in two ways that it had not for De la Rúa. First, the 2001 crisis had entirely discredited the opposition, which still found itself deeply divided. Second, despite being fragmented, the Peronist party has always counted upon a tradition according to which a Peronist president is considered to be the party boss.20 Thus, Kirchner had the support of his own party, which meant that he had the support of the central axis of Argentina’s party configuration, most provincial governors, and the Senate. The Lower Chamber and the Supreme Court were the only institutions that Kirchner did not control upon taking office, and he immediately set about to create a majority in the House, and to renew the Supreme Court so that had responded to Menem. Like Peron during the first Peronism and Menem in 1989, Kirchner sought to concentrate power in his hands in order to be able to govern.

The relationship between the Executive and the Legislature. Lacking the double legitimacy (from the intra-party competition and the national elections) that Menem had obtained in 1989, Kirchner began his term with the goal of building a presidential leadership that would be compatible with public opinion (Menem had also done this).21 To increase his power, Kirchner undertook a number of political actions that quickly turned him into a popular president. These included his initiatives in favor of human

20 For an interpretation of Peronism and leadership (1945-2007), see Ollier (2010a). 21 For a detailed analysis of Kirchner’s government, see Ollier (2005: 7-32; 2010).

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rights, his renovation of the Supreme Court and appointment of reputable judges there, his confrontational discourse with the old political machines, his creation of a coalition that included non-Peronist political leaders, and his center-left position that singled out the Menem era as public enemy number one. At the same time, Kirchner, with the help of his economic minister, Roberto Lavagna (who had remained in the post from Duhalde’s administration), carried out the successful negotiation of Argentina’s debt with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In short Kirchner managed to accomplish what Argentines had asked of him: he was a president who got things done. Kirchner’s relationship with Congress went through two phases between 2003 and 2007, with 2005 marking the divide. In the first phase, which began in 2003, as governors and members of Congress were up for election, Kirchner did not have congressional approval of his initiatives guaranteed. Thus, he had to create consensus in order to get them passed. However, three obstacles stood in the way of achieving that consensus: first, despite the Peronism’s tendency towards vertical leadership, it was highly fragmented when Kirchner took office, which made it difficult for him to align all of Peronism behind his policies; second, Kirchner’s allies from other parties were split amongst three groups—Peronists, Kirchnerists and Frepasistas—and thus, did not always back his policies; and third, the powerful influence of Duahlde in the Lower Chamber of Congress. Becoming a popular president along with the recovery of the national economy gave birth to the second phase of Kirchner’s relationship with Congress. By strengthening his relationship with most of the provincial bosses, Kirchner was able to obtain legislative support for his initiatives without having to rely exclusively upon the help from Peronism. In the legislative elections of 2005, in a typical case of give-and-take, Kirchner made a deal with the Peronist governors and five Radical ones guaranteeing that his trusted leaders be included on the election list for members of the House, and in exchange, he promised them more public works for their provinces. After this deal, and with his popularity high, Kirchner confronted the only remaining Peronist caudillo capable of challenging him, Eduardo Duhalde. In this battle, Kirchner made use of Felipe Solá, the governor of Buenos Aires province, to swing the support of the majority of the Peronist bosses of Buenos Aires away from Duhalde and toward Frente para la Victoria (the legal name of Kirchner’s Peronist movement, and a clear example of fragmentation). Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, wife of the president and then Senator of the province of Santa Cruz, headed the list of national Senators for Buenos Aires, claiming her birth in Buenos Aires. She defeated the Peronist candidate to the national Senate, Hilda González de Duhalde. Frente para la Victoria also managed to win a significant number of seats in Congress, defeating Duhalde’s candidates.22 Kirchner viewed the 2005 legislative elections as a referendum on his administration, and after them, he enjoyed broad congressional support. For this reason, the 2005 elections mark the beginning of the second phase of his relationship with Congress. At Kirchner’s request, Congress passed 229 laws with the endorsement of other parties.23 This shows that the president was able to count on party discipline not only within the Peronist party, but also from other political forces that recognized his leadership. Although Kirchner had considerable success in getting Congress to pass his

22 For the discourse of both candidates in the political campaign, see Ollier (2010b). 23 Mecle and Neri (2008).

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initiatives, he often avoided the necessity of such negotiations by using two tools: decrees of urgency and necessity (DNUs), and by appealing to the existence of an economic emergency.24 These tools allowed him to get congressional approval for “superpowers”, which he retained throughout his term in office. These “superpowers” allowed Kirchner to avoid legislative control over the national budget, as they put it in the hands of his Chief of Staff. A lot of data has demonstrated the relevance of these tools during Kirchner’s presidency. 372 bills were presented by the executive during that time, and 62% of them were approved.25 Of those 372 bills, 125 began in the Lower Chamber, while 247 had the Senate, where Kirchner had an institutional advantage, as their House of Origin. This makes evident the support that Kirchner had in the Senate as a result of his relationship with provincial governors. However, Kirchner also issued 238 decrees of necessity and urgency, for which he did not follow the legal procedures required for such decrees. He issued another 60 decrees that delegated legislative powers to him.26 Kirchner’s use of decrees of necessity and urgency and his assuming of certain legislative powers had the effect of strengthening the executive to the detriment of the legislature. b) Extra-partisan forces. As shown above, the 2005 legislative elections allowed Kirchner to make deals with several Peronist and non-Peronist governors. Through these deals, an important extra-partisan forces, provincial governors, aligned itself with the president. Prior to that agreement, towards mid-2004, Kirchner promoted the unification of Argentina’s General Confederation of Labor (CGT in Spanish) as part of a strategy to rebuild the traditional Peronism. The organization had been divided into two Peronist organizations, a division that had been weakening both. Kirchner helped unify them under Hugo Moyano, leader of the truck drivers union, which is one of the most important Argentine unions. Once made, Kirchner took special care to protect this alliance, as it was crucial for his ability to govern. Although the CGT would stage protests, these tended to be well-organized events, with notice given to the government. Around the same time as the reunification of the CGT, a social movement called los piqueteros (piqueters) began to take over streets and highways in Buenos Aires, by closing them off. An organization of unemployed persons, this social movement had emerged during De la Rúa government, who had helped create them. Their principal demands were food and state financial assistance. Piquetero protests were more chaotic than those of the CGT, but the government managed to win the support of one of their sectors with the promise of political appointments. 2.- The political-institutional position of the president reveals that the two dimensions of institutional weakness, party configuration and extra-partisan forces, interacted in his favor. His high personal concentration of power and confrontational style were permitted by a favorable international economic context for Argentina and a political context marked by discredited and fragmented rivals allowed Kirchner to concentrate power for himself, and to employ a confrontational governing style. According to this style, political rivals had no right to impose their agenda, or to reach

24 From 2003 until 2007, the Lower Chamber had forty-five blocks, and Frente para la Victoria held 128 seats, with 129 being the amount necessary to reach quorum. By having thirty-eight senators, Frente reached quorum in the Senate, which is set at thirty-seven. 25 Mecle and Neri (2008). 26 125 of these refered to social policy. The president also made use of his full veto power on 13 occasions, with 12 of those occurring during the years 2003 and 2004, when congressional majorities were not very solid. He made use of partial vetoes on 25 occasions, 14 of which occurred during his first two years in office; Mecle y Neri (2008).

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credibility and political autonomy. Kirchner achieved informal, and later on, formal leadership of the Peronist party in the context of a party configuration in which it played the central role. The strongest extra-partisan forces—unions and governors—along with lesser ones like los piqueteros and human rights organizations, all supported his government.27 In sum, when we compare unstable and hegemonic PL, the differences between each presidents’s political and institutional positions are obvious. Weak institutionalization benefits or damages a president depending upon his political-institutional position. De la Rúa was damaged by his own place in the UCR and The Alliance, by party factiousness and by the intervention of extra-partisan forces against him. On the contrary, despite having reached the presidency with few votes, Kirchner was able to benefit from Menem’s unpopularity, and from belonging to the central party in Argentina’s party configuration. Once in power, little by little, factiousness and extra- partisan forces began to play to his favor. Fragmentation within Peronism ended under his government, partially because Kirchner’s popularity disciplined the party (as established in the manual for good Peronists), and partially, because the country was flush with money, and Kirchner knew how to manage governors using the bait of federal resources. In Argentina, provincial governments depend upon revenues from the central government for survival, and Kirchner handled this situation in a completely arbitrary fashion. In this context, the support of Radical governors for Kirchner makes sense. Kirchner concentrated as much power in his hands as he could: he disciplined the CGT, most of the governors, important sectors like los piqueteros and the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, as well as Congress. Finally, having replaced several judges that had been appointed by Menem with reputable ones, he had a judiciary that never ruled against him.

III.- THE CASE OF VENEZUELA Beginning with the transition to democracy in 1958 and lasting until the end of

the 1980’s, the Venezuelan party system was defined by an institutional arrangement between AD (Democratic Action), COPEI (Social Christian Party of Venezuela) and, in early days, URD (Democratic Republican Union) called the Punto Fijo pact, which was characterized by a populist tone and founded upon conciliation between the elites.28 The accord: 1) defined electoral contests and how political conflicts were to be resolved; 2) substituted or complemented, depending upon the particular situation, majority rule with that of unanimity, and by doing so, was able to include minority interests with veto power; and 3) until the late 1960s distributed political appointments amongst the various parties independently of electoral results. According to Rey (1991), the pact worked due to three factors: i) abundant economic resources from state oil revenues; ii) society’s demands were relatively simple, and thus, could be met quickly; iii) political organizations that were capable of channeling those demands. Since the end of the 1980’s Venezuela has had two types of presidents: unstable, as represented by Carlos A Perez (1988-1993) and hegemonic, as represented by Hugo Chávez (1998-to present). The following section analyzes their respective presidencies. (See Annex)

27 Mecle and Neri (2008). 28 Rey (1991).

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III.- 1.- THE UNSTABLE PRESIDENT (CARLOS ANDRÉS PEREZ, 1988-1993)

The following section analyzes how the two features of weak institutionalization —party configuration and extra-partisan forces— played out during Carlos A. Perez’s presidency, and locates his political-institutional position. 1) The weak institutionalization that accompanied Carlos A. Perez’s government was shown in the erosion of the Punto Fijo pact, which left Venezuela’s party system fragmented, and opened the door to intervention by extra-partisan forces (the armed forces, unions, and oil profits) opposed to the president.29 a) Party configuration. Under the Punto Fijo pact, Venezuelan political parties achieved a centrality that contrasted with other party systems in Latin America. AD and COPEI alternated power after the transition to democracy, and displayed party discipline in Congress.30 In spite of their hierarchical internal structures, both parties managed to incorporate students groups, professionals, unions, peasant groups, and private organizations. This “partycracy” (partidocracia) allowed AD and COPEI to monopolize the electoral process and dominate the legislative dynamic.31 However, these features of the pact underwent a crisis during Carlos A. Perez’s presidency. Although Perez, who belonged to AD, had won the presidency with 53% of the vote, he soon found himself embroiled in a political and economic context that weakened his leadership. His adjustment plan (“Gran Viraje”) set in march a restructuring of the public sector that included the privatization of state-owned enterprises, along with fiscal and tax reforms. In the midst of accusations of corruption, the plan ended up worsening the economic crisis, and put into question the ability of Venezuela’s parties to govern. As a result of these crises, AD and COPEI’s power diminished, and Venezuela’s bi-party system began to mutate in to a fragmented party configuration as new political forces emerged (Naim: 2001, 23-24).32 The president’s party eventually found itself divided between those who still supported him and an orthodox faction that managed to win control over AD in an internal election in 1991. Seven days later, that faction demanded the resignation of the minister of economy. As a result of this division, the main instrument Perez was left with for resolving Venezuela’s economic crisis was a plan of reforms that, being unpopular with both social forces as well as his own party, began to cost him popularity. Paradoxically, the plan began to show signs of success in 1991, just as the president’s popularity dropped due to the public’s negative perception of the economy and a series of corruption scandals against which he took no action.33 Various ministers were accused of mismanagement of funds, which eventually led to a request for the resignation of the defense minister. The opposition on both the left and right united in the accusations, as did the Causa R. Faced with this wave of scandals, the president’s party called for a discipline board and for the signing of a pact of reforms by the government, the 29 In the case of Venezuela, oil profits constitute an extra-partisan source, in spite of the fact that they are clearly not a political or social actor. This is because oil revenues constitute the state’s main source of financing, and as will be shown, in Venezuela, there is a connection between the price of oil and the ability to govern. 30 AD won four of the six presidential elections, and CONEI won the other two. 31 Coppedge (1994). 32 According to Kornblith and Levine (1995), the reforms of the 1980’s increased the participation of small forces like The Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) and Causa R in the political dynamic. 33 Perez’s popularity was at 46% in 1989. At the end of 1990, it dropped to 41%, then dropped to 37% in September of 1991. By June of 1992 it had plummeted to 21% (Perez Liñán, 2007).

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opposition, and los Notables (a group of known public figures). However, the opposition and los Notables refused to sign such a pact, blaming the government for failing to fulfill its duty, and instead, launched a campaign to remove Perez from office. That the Venezuelan party system was collapsing became evident when Rafael Caldera, a fierce opponent of Perez, won the next presidential election. His opposition to Perez had been expressed in his support of the Caracazo, an important social revolt, as well as in an ambiguous speech in which he had simultaneously condemned and approved of Chavez’s 1992 coup attempt. Executive-Legislative relationship. According to Perez Liñán (2008), winning the presidential election in 1989 with 53% of the vote, while his party received only 40% in both Houses of Congress, led Perez to believe that he had won the intra-party struggle. His resultant strategy of ignoring his party in Congress would eventually cost him dearly. Although AD controlled 48% of the seats in the House and the Senate, party support for Perez evaporated quickly, and eventually morphed into a demand for his resignation—the House even went so far as to propose the possibility of calling for an election to revoke Perez’s presidential mandate.34 In other words, AD’s intra-party factiousness had a serious effect upon executive-legislative relations, as it resulted in an AD faction siding with the opposition, and thus, weakened Perez. His remaining supporters’ vote against a political trial was merely a symbolic gesture of support for him, as they knew they lacked the majority necessary to block the trial (Perez Liñán: 2007). In fact, one of those supporters, Ramón Velásquez, ended up being named interim president as the result of an agreement between factions in Congress. b) Extra-partisan forces. Two important extra-partisan forces, the unions and the armed forces, hurt Perez, as did a severe drop in state oil revenues. Despite being traditionally aligned with AD, in May of 1989, the Confederation of Workers of Venzuela (CTV, in Spanish) expressed its disagreement with the government and the “Gran Viraje”. The series of social protests known as the Caracazo, which left 300 dead, and the subsequent general strike led by the CTV in May of 1989 revealed the depth of the opposition’s discontent. It was in this context of social upheaval that the armed forces began to become adversaries of the president. By guaranteeing their interests, Punto Fijo had managed to subjugate the armed forces to civilian rule, and guarantee in turn, their acceptance of the rules of democracy. This implicit agreement began to fall apart with the crisis of Punto Fijo. The armed forces contributed to the weakening of the president when, in 1992, in the midst of general social discontent, different sectors led two coup attempts, which according to Perez Liñán (2007: 101), were justified in the eyes of many Venezuelans. The second coup attempt occurred nineteen days after José Vicente Rangel --a journalist who sympathized with Hugo Chávez, and who would eventually become his vice president— accused Perez of having withdrawn funds from a secret account at a favorable exchange rate. The story was on the front page of the newspapers the next day, and led to the formation of a commission in the House to investigate the allegation. As the commission verified the allegations, the Supreme Court initiated a political trial against the president, which caused the armed forces to divide into two groups: those opposed to and those in favor of the president. While this division of the armed forces

34 Rey (1993) and Rodríguéz Valdéz (1993), cited by Perez Liñán (2007).

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reduced the chances of a military coup, the specter of one convinced the political class of the need to remove Perez in order to protect its own power. All scholars of Venezuelan politics coincide in pointing out that oil revenues, being the state’s main source of revenue, are a key factor in Venezuelan politics (Perez Liñán: 2009; Schamis: 2006). It was the desire to control those abundant revenues that led the signees of Punto Fijo to cooperate in the first place. Conversely, the drop in those revenues during the 90’s, along with excessive external debt, high levels of corruption and a loss of legitimacy by the national leadership resulted in the discrediting of the government and the early exit of Perez. In short, unions and the armed forces increased their involvement in the political dynamic against the president when oil revenues, which had formed the basis of the political and social pact in Venezuela, entered into crisis. 2.- The political-institutional position of the president was fragile in this context of weak institutionalization and amidst threats of a coup. That fragility was expressed not only by the fact that the president was not the leader of his party. It was also seen when a faction within AD took over party leadership, and then, publicly opposed the president’s reforms. This intra-party opposition was added to the inter-party opposition. Faced with this scenario, Perez made no attempt to unify his party, and gain more support. His cabinet, an important resource for any president, was made up of pro-market technocrats. Almost all of them were young, foreign-trained professionals, who lacked both previous political experience and party affiliation. They were there just to design and implement a structural adjustment plan. The president also lacked the support of the unions and the armed forces. The first openly opposed Perez’s plan of reforms, and the second attempted two coups against his government. To this opposition was added the drop in state revenues, due to a drop in the price of oil. Little by little, the citizenry that had voted Perez in began to abandon him, a result of their negative perception of the economy and the successive corruption scandals that had hit his administration. In July of 1993, with the president’s approval rating at 20%, the cost of living overtook corruption as the number one concern in the citizen polls, in spite of the economic recovery.

III. 2.—THE HEGEMONIC PRESIDENT (HUGO CHAVEZ, 1998—TO PRESENT) This section analyzes how the two features of weak institutionalization —party configuration and extra-partisan forces— have unfolded under Hugo Chávez and locates his political-institutional position over the past ten years. 1.-Weak Institutionalization The 1998 Venezuelan presidential elections witnessed a highly fragmented party configuration (Ramos Rollón: 2002). Fearing that Chávez would win the presidency, AD, COPEI and CN separated presidential elections from legislative elections. However, the future president, as we will later see, outsmarted the opposition, and managed to obtain a favorable Congress. Chávez won the 1998 presidential election heading the Polo Patriotico (PP) alliance, and running on a platform that combined populism, nationalism, anti-liberalism, as well as criticism of Venezuela’s previous bi-party system.35 These new political developments resulted in fewer votes for the traditional political parties and the rise of a center-right party, Proyecto Venezuela (PV), which promoted Henrique Salas Romer as its candidate. 35 The PP was made up of the MVR, MAS, PPT, and other leftist, minority parties.

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a) Party configuration and the establishment of new rules of the game The Venezuelan institutional map suffered a radical upheaval with the election of

Chávez, who soon after his victory, called for a series of popular referendums to enable him to change the Constitution, and then called for new elections in 2000 for all offices in the Republic, including his own. Chávez set a course toward a greater concentration of presidential power, but supported by a new institutional design that has constantly changed according to his needs. Voter turnout for the rewriting of the constitution and for the conformation of the Constitutional Assembly was the lowest since the start of Punto Fijo, and the traditional political parties won no seats in the assembly.36 Conflicts over the roles the legislative and the judicial branches would play during the Constitutional Assembly (CA) were resolved when the Supreme Court ruled that the CA was “supra-constitutional”, and thus, could not be subjected to the then-present Constitution. And in another move to concentrate more power, Chávez became the president of MVR (Movement of the Fifth Republic), breaking the informal rule according to which presidents had always abstained from holding party offices. The new Constitution assured greater presidential power in two ways: first, it extended the president’s term from five years without the possibility of immediate reelection to six years with the possibility of immediate reelection; and second, it implemented mechanisms of direct democracy.37 Both measures complemented each other in strengthening a plebiscite democracy capable of connecting the president to citizens without mediations, as later measures taken show. Kornblith (2008) claims that the new Constitution presents direct democracy in opposition to representative democracy, and therefore, each instance of popular participation tends to reinforce the connection between the president and society to the detriment of representative democracy. 38 The mega elections of 2000 continued the refounding of Venezuela by electing the president, governors, mayors, National Assembly and National Legislature all at once.39 In these elections, Chávez was able to capitalize on his popularity, with his party winning a majority in the National Assembly, and taking control of a majority of the provincial governorships and legislative bodies. (The authorities of these provincial bodies had been elected one month before the presidential elections of 1998, and were still in the hands of the opposition.) After the mega elections, the signing parties of Punto Fijo found themselves out of power and without a congressional majority for the first time since 1958.40 Simultaneously, party fragmentation began to diminish as Chávez new political movement gained hegemony. The National Assembly, which is unicameral and has 165 seats, replaced Congress. By winning control of Congress along with a majority of the governorships, Chávez guaranteed himself the ability to undertake radical economic measures. At the

36 Turnout was 37,67%, 46,5% y 44,37 %, with abstention levels between 50% and 60%, www.cne.gov.ar. 37 International agreements on human rights were given constitutional status; rights for indigenous populations and Poder Ciudadano were also included. 38 For presidential powers, see Lissidini (2008). 39 With 59.76% of the vote, Chávez defeated his rival, Francisco Arias Cárdenas, an ex-companion of his during the coup attempt of 1992. Cárdenas was supported by Cause R, various small parties, and several supporters of AD and COPEI; http://www.cne.gov.ve Voter abstention reached 43. 69%. Chávez obtained a majority in the National Assembly, with 101 seats, while AD and COPEI reduced their representation from 48% in 1998 to 23% in 1998, Molina Vega and Perez Baralt (2002). 40 Martínez Barahona (2002).

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end of 2001, he announced a package of forty-nine laws aimed at undoing the neo-liberal structure that had been imposed upon the country throughout the ‘90’s.41 Venezuela’s principal business groups, unions, and media organizations accused the government of acting in an arbitrary fashion, as it had not consulted them about the reforms that affected their interests, and by way of response, launched the first general strike against Chávez. In this strike, the CTV and the business group, Fedecamaras, came together. The sheer size of the strike displayed the power of opposition groups. However, their attempt to revoke Chavez’s presidential mandate in 2004 ended in a clear defeat, as they received only 30.08% of the votes against Chávez’s 59%.42 This shows that Cháve’z political-institutional position was not guaranteed before the 2002 coup, but that shortly after, he won the struggle for hegemony in Venezuela. Even though voter abstention dropped to 25.3% in the 2006 presidential election, Chávez still took home 62.84% of the votes.43 His principal rival, Manuel Rosales, got 36.9%. After this election, Chávez continued to concentrate power for himself, and to move further away from the system of representative democracy. He began to organize community councils, which are vertical organizations in which Chávez maintains control over all nominations, at both the state and local level. Kornblith (2008) has pointed out that these councils are subordinate to Chávez. Although he lost the 2007 referendum to rewrite the Constitution for a second time,44 he managed to amend it two years later so that there are no longer limits to the number of presidential terms he can seek.45 Lissidini (2008: 26) has argued that the inclusion of mechanisms of direct democracy in the new constitution allows for an ambiguous reading, as they simultaneously expand citizen rights and increase presidential power to the detriment of congressional power. According to her, this body, as well as the Bolivarian Circles, urban land committees, water committees, and community councils are all controlled by the executive power; and in many cases, they act as networks that “reproduce old clientelistic practices of corruption, and serve as tools for recruiting political activists for the Chavista cause (…) The popular consultations promote a direct relationship between citizens and the government, reinforcing the latter’s power at the expense of other mechanisms of representation, such as political parties and autonomous social organizations”.46 Kornblith (2008) makes a similar argument. Direct democracy is reinforced by participatory democracy, and both weaken the power of political-party elites. The social movements that presented 642 proposals to the Constitutional Assembly, in 1999, provide a good example of participatory democracy in Venezuela.47 Half of those proposals were incorporated into Venezuela’s new Constitution, which establishes that the state promote citizen participation in its decision-making. The Constitution also promotes citizen participation by requiring primary

41 The new hydrocarbons law establishes that the state will be the majority shareholder in any mixed company that has petroleum operations (Ellner: 2006). The Land and Agricultural Development Law, which aimed to split up under-utilized land holdings, ended up causing more controversy (Marcano and Barrera: 2005). 42 The process was marked by all kinds of irregularities, according to Kornblith (2008). 43 In the previous legislative elections, which took place in 2005, the opposition abstained from competing, thus, the government and its allies got 100% of the seats. 44 He lost with 49.3% of the vote against an opposition of 50.7%. Voter abstention was 44.1%. 45 With 50% of the vote versus an opposition of 45.14%, and a drop in voter abstention to 29.67%. 46 Lissidini (2008). 47 Ellner (2006).

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elections for both general and party elections, but as it also eliminated state financing of campaigns, it has further weakened political parties.48 b)-Extra-partisan forces. The armed forces constitute one of the primary challenges to the refounding of the Venezuelan political system. Chávez’s institutionalization of a new relationship between the state and the armed forces has included, according to Lissidini, the weakening of the military’s subordination to civilian rule, the delegating of the power over lower-level military promotions to the armed forces (previously, these promotions were the outcome of negotiations between the Senate, the armed forces, and the executive), and the transfer of the power over top military appointments to the president (Lissidini, 2008: 15). Put simply, these measures have strengthened the personalization of presidential power. And after the failed coup of 2002, Chávez began to use his power to promote military officials in a systematic manner to increase his power. Chávez’s dream of returning the army to the pueblo and making it serve the citizens of Venezuela explains his Plan Bolivar 2000, which according to Gomez Calcagno and Arenas (2002), have made military resources, experts and professionals available to provide health, nutrition, and transportation services to Venezuela’s poor. However, some members of the armed forces have publicly expressed their discontent with Plan Bolivar in spite of the benefits it has brought them. To their discontent was added that of the principal opposition groups, the CTV and Fedecamaras, who mounted general strikes against the government in 2001. And in 2002, some factions of the armed forces carried out a failed coup against Chávez. After various skirmishes, Chávez was detained in Fuerte Tiuna. However, the clumsiness of the opposition, symbolized by its election of Pedro Carmona, who was then president of Fedecamaras, as Chávez’s replacement, along with its decision to dissolve all public powers, tipped the balance back towards Chavez. In the words of the intellectual and opposition politician, Teodoro Petkoff: “that decree (…) was what determined the swerve in support that reestablished Chavez in the government. (…) you cannot replace a government that you have accused of every kind of anti-democratic perversion with a dictatorial regime”.49 Under Chávez, military power has also extended into the civilian sphere, where key posts in public administration having been filled by military officers. Many of these officers have no relevant experience, and have often replaced civil servants with long careers in public administration. If the failed coup of 2002 reflected the armed forces discontent with Chávez’s project, their later adhesion to that project can be seen in the support for it expressed by high officials of the armed forces since 2004 (Arenas: 2007). Provincial governors have constituted the other extra-partisan forces. In the beginning of his first term, when most governors and mayors still belonged to the opposition, Chávez tried to fence them in economically with threats of federal intervention in their jurisdictions (Ramos Rollón: 2002). The tension from these battles culminated in 2001, when Chávez ordered that the offices of two governors be raided. In the elections of 2000, the PP won sixteen of the twenty-three governorships that were up for election, an increase of seven (Lalander: 2004). With these elections, Chávez’s government obtained the support of the governors, who with the few exceptions of

48 Lander and López Maya (2000). 49 Marcano and Barrera (2005). After the failed coup, Chávez initiated Plan Avila, which according to Marcano y Barrera (2005: 245), involved the armed forces acting as an instrument of repression in order to restore civil order.

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opposition governors, returned to their pre-1989 role of being representatives of the national executive before being representatives of sub-national states. Both sources of power, the governors and the armed forces, have tended to unify under Chávez. By 2007, one-third of the governorships were held by officers loyal to the president. This has led several authors to refer to a civilian-military government. As proof of their claim, they point to the civilian-military education, the militant Bolivarian circles, the creation of militias based upon the Cuban model, the increase in military expenditures (including those for arms and military equipment), and the various misiones that are administered by ex-officers.50 Oil revenues constitute a key extra-partisan source that maintains the Chavista state, just as they helped maintain Punto Fijo in its glory days. Schamis (2006) argues that increased oil revenues explain how Chávez managed to transform himself so rapidly from a president on the verge of being ousted in 2002 into the energetic figure he has become since 2004. Those revenues have allowed him to carry out not only his social programs but also his plans to emerge as a regional leader capable of influencing the domestic politics of various Latin American countries. 2.- The political-institutional position of the president has been characterized by a continual concentration of presidential power. Chávez has been able to do this because he has the approval of the popular classes and the armed forces, and because of the collapse of Venezuela’s bi-party system. His electoral victory in 1998 did not earn him a strong political-institutional position; the PP did not have a congressional majority, and had few governorships. However, with the calling of the Constitutional Assembly and the subsequent legitimization of those offices, Chávez was able to obtain institutional resources that he had lacked when first elected. If his triumph came out of the collapse of the previous system (a collapse that included the high levels of voter abstention seen in elections and referendums until 2006), that collapse is what allowed Chávez to design a new constitutional architecture that has legitimized the use of concentrated presidential power. In the 2000 elections, Chávez held on to the presidency, and won control over Congress as well as a significant majority of the governorships. Upon the heels of this victory, Chávez began to push through social and economic changes. His strategy was explicit as Marcano and Barrera (2002) pointed out. However, the political-institutional position of Chávez cannot be understood without taking into account the dual roots, political and military, of his leadership. Besides his ability to win popular support and to create novel legal frameworks grant him more power, Chávez’s political-institutional position has been strengthened by the support of the armed forces. The mimetizacion of Bolívar-patria has allowed the armed forces to see themselves as the custodians of that sacred substance known as “patria”.51 The appeal to the pueblo, proffered by a president who belonged to their ranks, adds another component to the mix, at the same time as it identifies Chávez as the leader of the pueblo. Now the formula is Bolívar-patria-pueblo-Chávez. Access to political tools like unlimited reelection, the Enabling Act of 2007 —in which the National Assembly delegated power over various areas of legislation to the president— and the community councils have placed Chávez in a political-institutional

50 Gratius (2007). 51 Straka (2005), cited by Arenas (2007).

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position that would have been difficult for any other Venezuelan PL to have achieved since 1958.52 His reforms have established mechanisms of direct and participatory democracy, but have as their ultimate goal the elimination of the checks and balances that are fundamental to a republican division of powers. Chávez’s accumulation of personal power cannot be understood apart from how he has made use of mechanisms of direct democracy. The strength of his political-institutional position has been founded upon his dual background in politics and the military—which has guaranteed him the support of the armed forces—his ability to seek unlimited reelection (against an atomized opposition), his control over the mechanisms of direct and participatory democracy (mechanisms that have, in turn, weakened representative democracy), the majority he held in the National Assembly until 2010, the support of the majority of provincial governors, and upon the abundant oil revenues he controls. Just as in the case of Argentina, when unstable and hegemonic presidential leaderships are compared, the political-institutional position of each president becomes evident. The institutional weakness of this democratic regime constitutes the necessary condition for either presidential leadership to emerge. Carlos A. Perez’s position was weakened by intra-party factiousness, which ended in the faction opposed to him aligning with AD’s opposition. The faction that remained loyal to Perez was unable to reach a majority in either the House or the Senate, and intra-party factiousness eventually brought the opposition to the presidency. From this, it can be seen that Perez was not the leader of his party. In time, the CTV assumed an opposition role, the armed forces withdrew their support from Perez, and the drop in oil revenues significantly reduced state revenues. Chávez’s political-institutional position, which has been marked by his dual background in politics and the armed forces, has strengthened he assumed the presidency, a result of his alliance with the armed forces and the collapse of the Punto Fijo pact—which was expressed by high levels of voter abstentation. By introducing institutional reforms and creating new organizations that connect the president with the citizenry, Chávez has been able to concentrate an enormous amount of personal power. And impressive state oil revenues have allowed him to maintain his new Bolivarian Republic. Under Chávez, direct democracy and participatory democracy have worked together to weaken representative democracy, and in turn, to increase his personal power. IV.- FINAL REFLECTIONS This paper has argued that presidential leadership in WIPDs will be hegemonic or unstable depending upon the president’s political-institutional position. In order to prove this, it showed that weak institutionalization constitutes the necessary condition for either type of leadership to emerge; while the president’s political-institutional position is the sufficient condition that determines which one will appear. By applying this theory to the cases of Argentina and Venezuela, we proved that the political-institutional position of De la Rúa and Perez caused them to become unstable presidents, whereas the political-institutional position of Kirchner and Chávez allowed them to become hegemonic

52 This unlimited delegation of powers is incompatible with the rule of law, according to the Venezuelan Academy of Political and Social Sciences. From El Nacional, 9/2/2007, and cited by Arenas (2007: 34).

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presidents. The difference between the two lies in the possibility the president has of controlling the dominant party in his country’s party configuration, and of allying himself with his country’s main extra-partisan forces. If he is able to accomplish these things, he will be a hegemonic president; if not, he will be a weak, and possibly, unstable president. Based on these cases, this paper establishes four rules. The first rule states that the less institutionalized a presidential democracy is, the more relevant presidential leadership will be; and vice versa, the more central the role of presidential leadership is, the less institutionalized that presidential democracy will be. The flip side of this coin is that low institutionalization seriously limits the margin of action of fragmented or weak parties. This brings us to the second rule, which comes from Panebianco’s warning, “the more institutionalized a party is, the less organized its internal groups will be; and conversely, the less institutionalized a party is, the more organized its internal groups will be.” The third rule is a logical extension of the second: the fewer the rules, due to a context of weak institutionalization, the greater is the opportunity for leaders to make individual decisions. In the case of presidents, if he/she wins the struggle for power and is a hegemonic president, he/she will find himself in a position to change, break, or simply not follow the rules. Given that WIPDs make presidential leadership the central variable in the political dynamic, the role of congress in WIPDs is always diminished. From this, we arrive at the fourth rule: in WIPDs, congress is always executive dependent; it is unable to control a hegemonic president and is forced to back up his initiatives; whereas under dire circumstances, it shows itself incapable of maintaining a weak president, or preventing his downfall. This last rule presents us with a paradox: Congress is unable to control a hegemonic president, and does not cooperate with a weak one. In conclusion, weak institutionalization is what allowed Kirchner and continues to allow Chávez to develop favorable political-institutional positions for themselves. In turn, this afforded Kirchner and continues to afford Chávez the margin of action necessary for the successful implementation of their respective political projects. In contrast to them, the unfavorable political-institutional position of Perez and De la Rúa limited their ability to govern to such a point that both had to leave office early. It should be pointed out that Perez and De la Rúa had to confront economic and financial crises, whereas Chávez and Kirchner presided over economic booms. To what degree a country’s economic situation affects its president’s power remains to be fully explored. That said, the first two years of Carlos Menem’s presidency in Argentina were plagued by hyperinflation, but his strong political-institutional position allowed him to successfully handle that economic crisis, and to be reelected. This would suggest that the economic dimension should be subsumed under the WIPD model so that we can better understand the functioning of presidential leadership. By way of a final point, students of the WIPD model must not overlook the apparent dead end it leads to: when a hegemonic president bypasses the institutional checks upon his power and, in doing so, does not respect laws, yet is able to satisfy citizen demands, his leadership goes unquestioned by both the majority of the population and by his own political party. Such presidents do not strengthen political parties, because that would limit their own personal power. This is why the political parties of strong presidents do not control them. So long as political parties remain fragmented and fragile, hegemonic presidents will continue to exercise their will arbitrarily. Not only will

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they rule uncontrolled by Congress and the Judiciary, they will also remain unchecked by their own party. It is for this reason that no hegemonic president will contribute to the strengthening of parties nor further the institutionalization of democracy in his country. WIPDs contain a vicious circle that makes it difficult to improve the quality of democracy: the “successful” concentration of presidential power further weakens the already weak institutionalization. Put simply, hegemonic presidents in WIPDs do not contribute to the strengthening of democratic institutions, and weak presidents, regardless of their intentions, lack the capacity to improve them.

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Gratius, Sussane (2007). “La ‘revolución’ de Hugo Chávez: ¿proyecto de izquierdas o populismo histórico?”, in Fride Comentario, February. Gutiérrez, Ricardo (2003). “Peronismo y democracia entre 1983 y 1995”, Política y Gestión Vol 5, Escuela Política y Gobierno, UNSAM, Ciudad Autónoma. Hakim, Peter (2003). “Latin American’s Lost Illusions: Dispirited Politics.” Journal of Democracy, vol. 14. (pp. 108-22). Kornblith, Miriam and Daniel Levine (1995). “Venezuela. The Life and Times of the Party System”. Scott Mainwaring and Timothy R. Scully (eds), Building Democratic Institutions. Party Systems in Latin America. Stanford University Press, California. (37-73). Lalander, Richard (2004). “La descentralización venezolana y el chavismo: Transformaciones del sistema político partidista”, Revista Venezolana de Ciencia Política No 26. Lander, Luis and Margarita López Maya (2000). “Venezuela. La hegemonía amenazada” Nueva Sociedad N° 167, Caracas (pp. 5-25). Lanzaro, Jorge (ed) (2003). Tipos de presidencialismo y coaliciones políticas en América Latina, Buenos Aires: CLACSO. Linz, Juan J. (1990) “Perils of Presidentialism”. Journal of Democracy, 1990, vol .1 No 1, (pp. 51-69). Lissidini, Alicia (2008). “Democracia directa latinoamericana: riesgos y oportunidades”, in Alicia Lissidini, Yanina Welp and Daniel Zovatto (eds), Democracia directa en Latinoamérica, Prometeo, Buenos Aires. Mainwaring, Scott and Timothy Scully (1995). Building Democratic Institutions Party Systems in Latin America, Stanford University Press, California. Marcano Cristina y Barrera Alberto (2005). Hugo Chávez sin uniforme: Una historia personal, Editorial Debate, Buenos Aires. Martínez Barahona, Elena (2002). “¿Ante un nuevo Parlamento en la V República Venezolana?”. In Marisa Ramos Rollón (ed.) Venezuela: rupturas y continuidades del sistema político 1999-2001. Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca. Salamanca. Mecle, Elina and Daiana Neri (2008). “El proceso de formación y sanción de las leyes en el período 2003-2007. Análisis e interpretación cuanti y cualitativa” First Workshop on Political Science in Río Negro. Universidad Nacional de Comahue.

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Molina Vega, José E. and Carmen Pérez Baralt (2002). “Venezuela ratifica el cambio: elecciones de 2000”. In Marisa Ramos Rollón (ed.). Venezuela: rupturas y continuidades del sistema político 1999-2001. Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca. Salamanca. Munck, Gerardo (2004). “Democratic Politics in Latin America: New Debates and Research Frontiers”. Annual Review of Political Science Annual Reviews, Palo Alto, vol.7, (pp. 437-462). Mustapic, Ana (2005). “Inestabilidad sin colapso. La renuncia de los presidentes: Argentina en el año 2001”, Desarrollo Económico, vol 45 (178) (263-79). Naím, Moisés (2001). “The Real Story behind Venezuela’s Woes”. Journal of Democracy, April, Volume 12, Number 2. (17-31). O’Donnell, Guillermo (1994). “Delegative Democracy”. Journal of Democracy, vol. 5 No 1, (pp. 55-69). Ollier, María Matilde (2010b). Atrapada sin salida. La imbricación de Buenos Aires en la política nacional, 1916-2007, UNSAM Edita, Argentina. ----------------------(2010a) “El liderazgo político en democracias de baja institucionalización (El caso del peronismo en la Argentina)”, in Revista de Sociología, No 24, (pp. 127-150), Santiago, Chile. ------------------ (2008). “La institucionalización democrática en el callejón: la inestabilidad presidencial en la Argentina, 1999-2003)”, in América Latina Hoy, 49, Universidad de Salamanca (pp. 73-103). ----------------- (2006) “Más allá del presidencialismo y del parlamentarismo”, in POSTData. Revista de Reflexión y Análisis Político, vol. 11, (pp. 223-33). ------------------ (2005) “Liderazgo presidencial y jefatura partidaria: entre la confrontación y el pacto (2003-2005)”. Temas y Debates, vol. 10, Pp. 7-34.

-------------------- (2004) “Hacia un patrón argentino de inestabilidad presidencial”. Estudios Sociales, vol. 27, (pp. 39-70).

--------------------- (2003) "Argentina: Up a Blind Alley Once Again? From an Alliance in Executive to a Coalition in Parliament", Bulletin of Latin American Research, 22 (2), London. --------------------- (2001) Las coaliciones políticas en la Argentina. El caso de la Alianza, Fondo de Cultura Económica, Buenos Aires. Panebianco, Angelo (1982). Modelos de partido. Alianza, Madrid.

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Perez Liñán, Aníbal (2007). Presidential Impeachment and the New Political Instability in Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. -------------------- (2003) “Presidential Crises and Democratic Accountability in Latin America (1990-1999)”. In Eckstein Susan and Timothy Wickham-Crowley (eds) What Justice? Whose Justice? Fighting for Fairness in Latin America. Berkeley: University of California Press, (pp 98-129). Ramos Rollón, Marisa (2002). “Estructuración ideológica de los partidos y grupos políticos en Venezuela (1998-2000)”. In Marisa Ramos Rollón (ed.), Venezuela: rupturas y continuidades del sistema político 1999-2001. Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca. Salamanca. Rey, Juan Carlos (1991). “La democracia venezolana y la crisis del sistema populista de conciliación”. Revista de Estudios Políticos, No 74. Samuels, David and Scott Mainwaring (2004). “Strong Federalism, Constraints on the Central Government, and Economic Reform in Brazil.” En Gibson, Edward. Federalism and Democracy in Latin America, Baltimore and London: The John Hopkins University Press, 2004, (pp. 85-130). Schamis, Héctor (2006). “A Left Turn in Latin America? Populism, Socialism and Democratic Institutions”, in Journal of Democracy, No 17, vol 4, October, National Endowment for Democracy and The Johns Hopkins University Press (pp. 20-34). ------------------ (2002). “Argentina: Crisis and Democratic Consolidation?” Journal of Democracy, vol. 13 (2), (pp. 81-94). Valenzuela, Arturo (2004. “Latin American Presidencies Interrupted”, Journal of Democracy, vol. 15, No 4, (pp. 5-19). ANNEX PRESIDENT

WEAK INSTITUTIONALIZATION implies that the routinization of rules and procedures occurs only partially. (Necessary condition)

POLITICAL-INSTITUTIONAL POSITION in relation to the two dimensions that determine it: Party configuration and Extra-partisan forces (Suficcient condition)

OUTCOME

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Fernando de la Rúa (1999- 2001)

Weak institutionalization

Party configuration: a) The coalition government does not belong to the party configuration's central political movement b) The president is not the party boss c) The president is not the head of the coalition d) The coalition's parties have their own political bosses e) There is intra- and inter-party factiousness f) In his relations with Congress, the president is weak. He lacks a majority in the House; the principal opposition party has a majority in the Senate. Extra-partisan forces: a) Unions are aligned with the opposition b) Majority of the governors are aligned with the opposition

Unstable

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Carlos A. Pérez (1989- 1993)

Weak institutionalization Party configuration: a) He is not his party's boss b) Intra- and inter-factiousness c) In his relations with Congress, the president is weak. His faction lacks a majority in both Houses of Congress. Extra-partisan forces: a) Unions (align with the opposition) b) The armed forces withdraw support for the president c) Low state oil revenues

Unstable

Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007)

Weak institutionalization Party configuration: a) His political party is the central axis of the party configuration b) He is the party boss c) He is the boss of his coalition d) Diminished intra-party factiousness. Continued fragmentation within the opposition. e) He is strong in his relations with Congress, and

Hegemonic

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holds a majority in both Houses. Extra-party sources: a) Unions b) Has the support of a majority of governors c) Various piquetero groups

Hugo Chávez (1998-Present)

Weak institutionalization Party configuration: a) His political party is hegemonic within the party configuration b) He is the party's boss c) He holds a majority in the new Assembly Extra-partisan forces: a) The armed forces b) Majority of the governors c) High state oil revenues

Hegemonic

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