The Coalitions Presidents Make
The Coalitions Presidents Make

Author: Marcus Mietzner

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2023-12-15

Total Pages: 191

ISBN-13: 1501772678

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In The Coalitions Presidents Make, Marcus Mietzner explains how Indonesia has turned its volatile post-authoritarian presidential system into one of the world's most stable. He argues that since 2004, Indonesian presidents have deployed nuanced strategies of coalition building to consolidate their authority and these coalitions are responsible for the regime stability in place today. In building coalitions, Indonesian presidents have looked beyond parties and parliament—the traditional partners of presidents in most other countries. In Indonesia, actors such as the military, the police, the bureaucracy, local governments, oligarchs, and Muslim groups are integrated into presidential coalitions by giving them the same status as parties and parliament. But while this inclusiveness has made Indonesia's presidential system extraordinarily durable, it has also caused democratic decline. In order to secure the stability of their coalitions, presidents must observe the vested interests of each member when making policy decisions. The Coalitions Presidents Make details the process through which presidents balance their own powers and interests with those of their partners, encouraging patronage-oriented collaboration and disincentivizing confrontation.

Informal Coalitions and Policymaking in Latin America
Informal Coalitions and Policymaking in Latin America

Author: Andrés Mejía Acosta

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2009-09-11

Total Pages: 323

ISBN-13: 1135849323

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This book explains how presidents achieve market-oriented reforms in a contentious political environment. Using an impressive amount of quantitative and qualitative empirical evidence, most of which is reported for the first time, Mejía Acosta argues that presidents in Ecuador adopted significant reforms by crafting informal yet functional coalitions with opposition parties in congress. This pattern of success is particularly relevant in a country known for its chronic political fragmentation and deep regional and ethnic divisions. Paradoxically, the adoption of constitutional reforms to promote governance undermined the success of informal coalitions and directly contributed to greater regime instability after 1996. Mejía Acosta's work offers a compelling analysis of how formal and informal political institutions contribute to policy change. His far-reaching conclusions will capture the attention of political scientists and scholars of Latin America.

The President and the Supreme Court
The President and the Supreme Court

Author: Paul M. Collins (Jr.)

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 287

ISBN-13: 1108498485

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Examines the relationship between the president and the Supreme Court, including how presidents view the norm of judicial independence.

Building Coalitions, Making Policy
Building Coalitions, Making Policy

Author: Martin A. Levin

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2012-06-04

Total Pages: 560

ISBN-13: 1421405954

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Getting past "No" in an age of partisan noise. In an age when partisan politics has reached a deafening—and arguably impotent—pitch, how does the real work of politics get done? This book opens the door on backroom politics and gives readers an insider's perspective on the efforts of policymakers from three presidential administrations to get past the naysayers and effect real and lasting policy changes. The editors take a comparative approach, offering a thorough overview of policymaking during the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, with further discussion of President Obama's successful and failed attempts to build coalitions and get past no. The contributors, a national network of prominent political scientists, reveal the sausage-making of politics and policy. Readers can almost see the political players in the proverbial smoke-filled room, shirtsleeves rolled up and BlackBerrys in hand, developing the strategies and hammering out the compromises designed to hold the party base while winning over independent voters. Combining an insider's perspective with actual case studies, the volume examines the policymaking behind such programs as • No Child Left Behind • tax cuts • Social Security privatization • Medicare prescription drug reform • education and immigration reform • environmental policy • judicial politics • national security Covering all major areas of policymaking, Building Coalitions, Making Policy gives instructors in political science, public administration and policy, American government, and American presidential studies plenty of provocative examples for classroom debate.

Coalitional Presidentialism in Comparative Perspective
Coalitional Presidentialism in Comparative Perspective

Author: Paul Chaisty

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 0198817207

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This book provides the first cross-regional study of an increasingly important form of politics: coalitional presidentialism. Drawing on original research of minority presidents in the democratising and hybrid regimes of Armenia, Benin, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Kenya, Malawi, Russia, and Ukraine, it seeks to understand how presidents who lack single party legislative majorities build and manage cross-party support in legislative assemblies. It develops a framework for analysing this phenomenon, and blends data from MP surveys, detailed case studies, and wider legislative and political contexts, to analyse systematically the tools that presidents deploy to manage their coalitions. The authors focus on five key legislative, cabinet, partisan, budget, and informal (exchange of favours) tools that are utilised by minority presidents. They contend that these constitute the 'toolbox' for coalition management, and argue that minority presidents will act with imperfect or incomplete information to deploy tools that provide the highest return of political support with the lowest expenditure of political capital. In developing this analysis, the book assembles a set of concepts, definitions, indicators, analytical frameworks, and propositions that establish the main parameters of coalitional presidentialism. In this way, Coalitional Presidentialism in Comparative Perspective provides crucial insights into this mode of governance. Oxford Studies in Democratization is a series for scholars and students of comparative politics and related disciplines. Volumes concentrate on the comparative study of the democratization process that accompanied the decline and termination of the cold war. The geographical focus of the series is primarily Latin America, the Caribbean, Southern and Eastern Europe, and relevant experiences in Africa and Asia. The series editor is Laurence Whitehead, Senior Research Fellow, Nuffield College, University of Oxford.

Coalition Government as a Reflection of a Nation’s Politics and Society
Coalition Government as a Reflection of a Nation’s Politics and Society

Author: Matt Evans

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-10-29

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 0429748779

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Through examination of parliamentary governments in twelve countries, this book demonstrates the ways in which study of the parties in governing coalitions, and their parliamentary opposition, provides insight into numerous aspects of countries’ cultural values, societal schisms, and the issues of greatest contention among their people. Each chapter analyses the political parties in a different country’s parliament and illustrates how they represent the country’s competing interests, social divisions, and public policy debates. Coalition and opposition parties are also shown to reflect each country’s: political institutions; political actors; political culture; and societal, geographic, and ideological rifts. In many of the countries, changes in the constellation of parties in government are emblematic of important political, social, and economic changes. This book will be essential reading for students of parliamentary government, political parties, electoral politics, and, more broadly, comparative politics.

Presidents on Political Ground
Presidents on Political Ground

Author: Bruce Miroff

Publisher: University Press of Kansas

Published: 2018-01-19

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 0700626484

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How much power does a president really have? Theories and arguments abound—pointlessly, Bruce Miroff says, if we don't understand the context in which presidents operate. Borrowing from Machiavelli, Miroff maps five fields of political struggle that presidents must traverse to make any headway: media, powerful economic interests, political coalitions, the high-risk politics of domestic policy, and the partisan politics of foreign policy. The prince readying for war, Machiavelli writes, must “learn the nature of the terrain, and know how mountains slope, how valleys open, how plains lie, and understand the nature of rivers and swamps.” So it is with presidents navigating the political landscape. The variability of political ground, and of the conflicts fought on it, is a core proposition of this study. The swift collapse of the Soviet Union, the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and the financial crisis of 2008—recent history offers a quick lesson in fortune’s role in the careers of presidents. Taking a historical perspective, which opens on an array of cases, Miroff explores the various ways in which a president's agenda is constrained or facilitated by political conditions on the ground. His book reveals how political identity is constructed and contested in the media through the ever-changing presidential spectacle; what happens when Democrats in the White House tangle with the titans of the economy; why presidents claiming to represent the entire nation have to manage political coalitions that direct rewards to their own followers; why domestic policy has become “tough terrain” for presidents; and how partisan polarization has reshaped presidential leadership in foreign policy, an area once considered “beyond politics.” Providing a new perspective on why and how presidents succeed or fail in each of these areas, this book is an indispensable resource for understanding the forces that shape presidencies and the power of a president to fight on such fraught terrain.