Introduction: Presidentialism and Presidential Breakdowns in Latin America

Abstract

When Juan Linz published his book on the breakdown of democratic regimes, the third wave of democratization was just beginning in Latin America. At the time, military regimes and regime instability had been the rule for decades, and in this context Linz argued that, among other factors, the characteristics of presidentialism, the prevailing regime type in the region, could explain Latin America’s endemic instability and authoritarian tendencies. Thirty years on, however, the third wave seems to have marked the end of democratic breakdown and long-lived authoritarian regimes. Latin America is still dominated by a variety of presidential regimes and, with few exceptions, democracy, albeit imperfect, holds sway from the Rio Bravo to Tierra del Fuego. Even though democratic regime breakdowns are less of a peril now than they were thirty years ago, government crises have persisted into the democratic era. These crises, which in contemporary Latin America occur separately from regime crises, are the object of study of this book.

To change the government in a presidential regime when the president is unwilling... requires a break with the rules of democratic election of the chief executive: government crises almost by definition become regime crises. —(Linz 1978, 74)