Coalitional Presidentialism in Comparative Perspective ― Minority Presidents in Multiparty Systems

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.

Paul Chaisty, Associate Professor in Russian Government, University of Oxford,Nic Cheeseman, Professor of Democracy and International Development, University of Birmingham,Timothy J. Power, Associate Professor in Brazilian Studies, University of Oxford

Paul Chaisty is Associate Professor in Russian Politics at the University of Oxford. His publications include Legislative Politics and Economic Power in Russia (2006), as well as articles in journals such as Europe-Asia Studies, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Party Politics, Political Research Quarterly, Political Studies, Post-Soviet Affairs. His research interests cover legislative, party and interest group politics in the former Soviet Union; political attitudes in Russia and Ukraine; and post-Soviet nationalism.


Nic Cheeseman is Professor of Democracy and International Development at Birmingham University. He is the co-editor of the collections Our Turn to Eat (2010), The Handbook of African Politics (2013), and African Politics: Major Works (2016), and the author of Democracy in Africa: Successes, Failures, and the Struggle for Political Reform (CUP, 2015). Dr Cheeseman is also the founding editor of the Oxford Encyclopaedia of African Politics, a former editor of the journal African Affairs, and an advisor to, and writer for, Kofi Annan's African Progress Panel.

Timothy J. Power is Associate Professor in Brazilian Studies at the University of Oxford, where he is a member of the Department of Politics and International Relations. An Associate Fellow of Chatham House (Royal Institute of International Affairs), he has published widely on political institutions, democratization, and Brazilian politics and government. He is the author of The Political Right in Postauthoritarian Brazil (2000), and his articles have appeared in the Journal of Politics, Political Research Quarterly, Comparative Political Studies, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Party Politics, Electoral Studies, and many other journals.