The price of governing: coalition management costs in Brazil’s presidential system

• Autor(a) principal: Bertholini, Frederico
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Outros Autores: Pereira, Carlos
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por; eng
• Título da fonte: Revista de Administração Pública
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.fgv.br/rap/article/view/71171
• topic: governing costs; coalition management; multiparty presidential system; president; Executive-Legislative relations; costos de gobernar; manejo de coaliciones; presidencialismo de coalición; presidente; relaciones Ejecutivo-Legislativo; custos de governo; gerência de coalizão; presidencialismo multipartidário; presidente; relações Executivo-Legislativo

This paper examines the effects of a president’s coalition management decisions on the costs of governing. An innovative Governing Costs Index (GCI) was developed, taking into consideration political and financial transfers made by the president to coalition parties. GCI is calculated employing a principal component analysis. The relationship between the variations on the management strategies and the costs were estimated using a first-di­fferences panel. GCI was considered as the dependent variable and the coalition size, ideological heterogeneity, and cabinet proportionality among partners as the explanatory variables. Results indicate that large, ideologically heterogeneous coalitions and disproportional cabinets tend to be more expensive over time. The results also sug­gest that presidential decisions about how to manage coalitions influence governing costs in important ways, even when controlling exogenous constraints like party fragmentation at the Congress and presidential popularity. In addition, spending more political and financial resources with coalition allies does not necessarily lead to greater political support for the president in the Congress.