Of presidents, parties, and ministers: Cabinet formation and legislative decision-making under separation of power

This dissertation attempts to show (1) how cabinets help Latin American presidents implement their policy making strategies; (2) which are the main determinants of the type and the party composition of cabinets; and (3) what is the impact of cabinets on legislative decision-making.;To answer those questions I propose a six-fold typology of cabinets centered on their degree of partisanship. And to explain the choice of the cabinet type a decision-theoretic model of presidential policy-making is developed in chapter 2. I argue that Latin American presidents have two policy making strategies available: to seek a statutory implementation of policy goals or a decree-based one. The model predicts that the size of the president's party, presidential decree powers, the distance between the president's policy position vis-a-vis the median legislator, legislative fragmentation, and the elapsing of the presidential term are the key determinants of the policy making strategy chosen by chief executives. The decision between the two policy making strategies lead in turn to a clear prediction of what kind of cabinet presidents should appoint. If the combination between the legislative situation faced by presidents and their constitutional prerogatives favors a statutory strategy, presidents should appoint more partisan cabinets. If this combination favors a decree-based strategy, presidents should appoint less partisan cabinets.;The analysis of 75 cabinets appointed by 57 Latin American presidents in chapter 3 demonstrates that the larger the president's party, the higher the partisanship in the cabinet; that presidents endowed with the constitutional authority to issue decrees appoint less partisan cabinets; and that the larger the distance between the president's policy and that of the median legislator, the lower the partisanship in the cabinet.;To determine the impact of cabinets on legislative decision-making I do case studies of Brazil and Venezuela. Chapter 4 shows that more partisan cabinets lead to higher rates in the cohesion of cabinet parties in Brazil. And chapter 5 reveals that the legislative surplus provided by the cabinet and the congruence rate between cabinet shares and parties' legislative weight are found to affect the legislative performance of the executive in Venezuela.