534534

research-article2014
PRQXXX10.1177/1065912914534534Political Research QuarterlySingh and Carlin

Article
Political Research Quarterly

Happy Medium, Happy Citizens:

2015, Vol. 68(1) 317
2014 University of Utah
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DOI: 10.1177/1065912914534534

Regime Support prq.sagepub.com

Shane P. Singh1 and Ryan E. Carlin2

Abstract
Institutional and behavioral theories of democracy abound but rarely intersect. Do executive lawmaking power and
prowess condition democratic regime support in presidential democracies? We develop theoretical expectations
linking the lawmaking powers of the president and mass regime support and test them by analyzing survey data
from eighteen Latin American countries over ten years. As hypothesized, results indicate that preference for, and
satisfaction with, democracy is highest where presidents have moderate legislative powers and success and lowest
where presidents either dominate policymaking or face gridlock. Hence, a happy medium of presidential power
promotes the attitudinal foundations of democracy.

Keywords
attitudes toward democracy, satisfaction with democracy, presidential powers

At the outset of the third wave of democratization, theo-
rists were highly concerned with getting the institutions
right. To the potential chagrin of many (e.g., Mainwaring
1993; Shugart and Carey 1992; Stepan and Skach 1993),
Latin American constitution drafters uniformly main-
tained presidential models of democracy. Seeking to
avoid the political instability that plagued the first two
waves, in many cases they modified the legislative pow-
ers of the presidency (Negretto 2009; Shugart and Carey
1992). Today, presidents lawmaking powers (Mainwaring
and Shugart 1997; Negretto 2009) and legislative success
rates (Alemn and Calvo 2010; Alemn and Navia 2009;
Saiegh 2009, 2011) vary greatly across the region. Taking
stock of the empirical record, scholars reckon that, despite
the persistence of multipartism and the frequency of pres-
idential challenges and interruptions, modern presidential
regimes have delivered more democratic stability than
predicted (Melo 2009; Pereira and Melo 2012; Prez-
Lin 2007). Still, theorists link these regimes long-run
viability to the support they foster among citizens
(Almond and Verba 1963; Altman and Prez-Lin 2002;
Diamond 1999; Easton 1975; Lagos 2003; Linz and
Stepan 1996; Norris 1999; Torcal and Montero 2006).
Do the diverging types of presidentialism influence
mass regime support in Latin American democracies?
The scant consideration this question has received reveals
a major gulf between institutional and behavioral theories
of democracy, and exploring it will benefit both camps.
For institutionalists, it will inform venerable debates on
presidentialisms capacity to produce democratic stability
and quality. For behavioralists, appreciating the larger
political environments within which democratic attitudes
are nested (e.g., Dalton and Anderson 2011) will help
identify the institutional roots of regime support. On a
practical level, understanding the interplay between mod-
els of presidentialism and legitimacy will be valuable to
institutional engineers tasked with crafting workable
institutions for nascent democracies worldwide.
Joining the institutional and behavioral theoretical tra-
ditions, we model democratic regime support as a function
of presidents legislative powers, conceived in three
dimensions: formal powers, partisan powers, and recorded
legislative success rates. We expect these powers to influ-
ence public regime evaluations in a nuanced fashion. On
one hand, strong presidentialism puts citizens in the para-
doxical situation of electing executives they cannot easily
or effectively control. So presidents who dominate policy-
making should be associated with lower regime support.
On the other hand, if citizens value the political voice and
accountability representative democracy, in theory, affords
(Dahl 1971; Powell 2000), they may disparage political
1
University of Georgia, Athens, USA
2
Georgia State University, Atlanta, USA
Corresponding Author:
Shane P. Singh, Department of International Affairs, University of
Georgia, 303 Candler Hall, Athens, GA 30602, USA.
Email: singh@uga.edu
4 Political Research Quarterly 68(1)
systems in which the presidents agenda is repeatedly
thwarted. And by obscuring policy responsibility, weak
presidents frustrate citizens ability to exact accountability
(Mainwaring and Shugart 1997; Powell and Whitten
1993; Samuels 2004). So presidents who cannot advance
their agendas should also be associated with lower regime
support. By contrast, models of presidentialism that strike
a balance between these two extremes should optimize
public regime evaluations. If so, citizens should be happi-
est with democracy where presidents enjoy a happy
medium of power.
We test these expectations with survey data from eigh-
teen Latin American countries over a ten-year span. In
line with our theoretical priors, two instrumental evalua-
tions of regime supportbelief that democracy is the
best political system and satisfaction with how democ-
racy is functioningare lowest under extremely power-
ful and extremely weak presidents and highest at middling
levels of presidential power and prowess. Theoretically
and practically, this suggests models of presidentialism
and legitimacy are linked: democracys attitudinal moor-
ings are least secure when presidents lawmaking power
is either grossly inflated or completely emasculated and
most secure under institutional designs that foster com-
promise between presidents and legislatures.
Presidential Powers and
Policymaking
The linkage between presidential power and mass demo-
cratic regime support begins with the lawmaking process
in presidential regimes, which is largely conditioned by
executivelegislative relations. As each branch holds its
own electoral mandate, the dual legitimacy problem
makes their relationship inherently tense (Linz 1990).
Exactly how this plays out in the policymaking arena
depends on the branches relative powers as well as the
institutional arrangements and ideological constraints to
which they are subject. For their part, presidents possess
two types of lawmaking powers: formal constitutional
powers and partisan powers derived from the distribution
of partisan support in the legislature. We expect these
powers, along with presidents actual success in lawmak-
ing, to shape mass democratic regime support.
Formal Legislative Powers of the President
Presidents formal powers come in legislative and non-
legislative varieties. As our theory concerns the bilateral
policymaking process, we restrict our analysis to the for-
mer.1 Legislative powers are classified as proactive or
reactive. Proactive powers include decree authority,
agenda-setting powers, and budgetary powers; reactive
powers consist of the veto, the partial veto, and exclusive
bill introduction powers. Proactive powers help presi-
dents change the status quo, while reactive powers help
them defend it. Both types of power give presidents tools
to limit the legislatures role in the policymaking process
(Mainwaring and Shugart 1997; Negretto 2004).
Democratic transitions in Latin America were gener-
ally accompanied by new constitutions or major amend-
ments to existing ones that altered the presidents formal
legislative powers. In many cases, however, these institu-
tions remained in flux. Indeed, Negretto (2013, 39) counts
eighteen post-transition reforms in the region from 1978
to 2008, two-thirds of which strengthened presidential
lawmaking ability. Of these, only two instances (El
Salvador in 1983 and Uruguay in 1996) raised power
exclusively by bolstering the presidents veto power; the
rest strengthened presidents agenda-setting powers. By
2008, only constitutions in Costa Rica, the Dominican
Republic, Mexico, and Nicaragua deprived presidents of
significant agenda-setting power.
Partisan Powers of the President
Beyond formal de jure powers, presidents de facto parti-
san powers strongly shape their policymaking capabili-
ties. These powers vary with party discipline, legislative
and party system fragmentation, unified (vs. divided)
government, and majority (vs. coalition) rule. They affect
presidential lawmaking insofar as changing policy
becomes increasingly costly as the number of parties to a
negotiation, or the diversity of their preferences,
increases (Cox and McCubbins 2001, 27). Besides the
number and preferences of the actors, their distribution
across lawmaking bodies matters as well. Veto players
theory views partisan powers in terms of individual and
collective actors (e.g., legislative coalitions and legisla-
tive chambers) who must agree to change the status quo
(Tsebelis 2002). Presidentialism in Latin America consis-
tently takes place within multiparty contexts, and party
discipline and ideological cohesion in the legislature and
the government can vary widely. These facts of political
life often require presidents to form coalitions or to cob-
ble together majorities bill by bill (Mainwaring and
Shugart 1997).
Legislative Success of the President
Presidents actual policymaking prowess can be gauged
by their statutory success. According to Saiegh (2009,
2011), Latin American presidents pass their policy pro-
posals at rates ranging from 10 to 90 percent. Saiegh
argues executive statutory success is complicated by the
uncertainty introduced by cross-pressured legislators
who factor their values, constituents views, position-
taking, and party leader preferences into their votes. Latin
Singh and Carlin 5
American presidents legislative success also reflects
their more ephemeral and imprecise knowledge of the
political lay of the land (Cox and Morgenstern 2002,
466). Thus, formal powers and partisan support imper-
fectly affect presidents clout because party discipline
and presidents own perceptions are imperfect.
Theory
Under the assumption that democratic attitudes are held
by individuals who are embedded in political contexts
(Dalton and Anderson 2011, 3), much work on Europe
(e.g., Anderson and Guillory 1997) and beyond (e.g.,
Lijphart 2012; Norris 1999; Singh 2014) explores how
models of democracy affect regime support. Shugart and
Mainwaring (1997, 53, emphasis added) posit that the
most important explanation for presidentialisms poor
record of democratic stability in the region is not insti-
tutional, but rather is an effect of lower levels of develop-
ment and nondemocratic political cultures. Yet neither
they nor others (e.g., Booth and Seligson 2009; Vairo
2012) test how models of presidentialism influence
regime support. Taking this possibility seriously, we
advance a theory linking presidential power and prowess
to regime support, which encompasses instrumental eval-
uations of democratic principles and performance (Dalton
2004; Easton 1975). We expect regime support is greatest
where presidents enjoy moderate degrees of lawmaking
clout and lowest where they are either exceedingly weak
or exceptionally strong.
Our proposition that extreme executive power erodes
regime support hinges on two principalagent problems.
First, voters (principals) who elect presidents (agents)
expect a degree of control. Direct elections at once raise
control by making executives more identifiable
(Mainwaring and Shugart 1997), but also inflate per-
ceived mandates: [t]he feeling of having independent
power, a mandate from the people . . . is likely to give a
president a sense of power and mission that might be out
of proportion to the limited plurality that elected him
(Linz 1994, 19). Thus, citizens should be more critical of
the regime where the rules of the democratic game
embolden them to elect exceedingly powerful presidents
but provide only rare opportunities to rein these rulers in.
A second principalagent problem emerges regarding
representation. Voters (principals) elect legislators
(agents) who they expect to represent their interests in the
policymaking process (Mansbridge 2003). But what if
principals feel an overbearing president supersedes their
agents actions? Liberal representative democracy is
meant to grant citizens a voice, a measure of self-rule,
and mechanisms for accountability (Dahl 1971; Powell
2000). If perceptions of representation and responsive-
ness powerfully influence democratic attitudes (Almond
and Verba 1963; Miller 1974), then feeling left out of the
policymaking process could spur disillusionment with
the principles and performance of democratic regimes
(Anderson et al. 2005, 2326). Where presidents do not
(or are not obliged to) respect the balance of policymak-
ing power, perceived government responsiveness should
diminish and disgruntlement with democracy should
grow.
Just as very powerful presidents fuel democratic dis-
content, so should very weak ones. Because presidents,
like legislators, are directly elected and enjoy their own
mandates, an enfeebled presidency can generate a princi-
palagent problem of representation similar to that just
described. Moreover, presidents who lack formal and/or
partisan legislative powers can contribute to two demo-
cratic deficits. The first goes by several names: policy
stalemate, gridlock, deadlock, impasse, or immobilism.
When leaders cannot alter national conditions, it can
exclude marginalized groups from the governing process
(Young and Dugan 2011) and threaten stability
(Mainwaring 1993). Second, otherwise powerless presi-
dents may advance their agendas with plebiscitarian or
authoritarian overtures such as resorting to unilateral
decree powers, holding national referenda, effecting self-
coups, replacing the constitution, or packing the courts.
Therefore, either by failing to resolve policy immobilism
or resolving it in ways that undermine representation by
violating the letter or spirit of the law, hamstrung presi-
dents may hinder the attitudinal consolidation of democ-
racy (Linz and Stepan 1996).
Overall, power extremitiestoo little or too much
should accentuate these principalagent problems under
presidentialism and, in turn, weaken citizen evaluations
of regime principles and performance. From a citizens
perspective, then, the sweet spot should lie in a happy
medium. This expectation resonates with research on
presidentialism and governability. Viewing the lawmak-
ing process as a multilateral game, Pereira and Melo
(2012) argue strong presidentialism works best when
executives control discretionary coalition goods and face
checks and balances in fragmented legislatures. While
they acknowledge strong legislatures could bias policy
toward the status quo and weak legislatures might not
check executives (Pereira and Melo 2012, 16768), they
nonetheless propose party fragmentation itself works to
constrain a powerful executive, functioning as a kind of
parliamentary oversight (Pereira and Melo 2012, 161).
Similarly, Pereira, Singh, and Mueller (2011) argue effec-
tive democratic governance requires a delicate balance
between resoluteness and adaptability. Both logics align
with our proposition regarding the value of a happy
medium of executive authority vis--vis the legislature.
Behavioral evidence also indicates that citizens would
prefer to strike a middle ground of presidential power.
6 Political Research Quarterly 68(1)
Saiegh (2011) finds violent riots are most frequent when
executives pass either a very low (<15%) or very high
(>80%) percentage of their bills, and least frequent when
they pass roughly half (see also Machado, Scartascini,
and Tommasi 2011; Przeworski 2010). If violent political
protests correspond to presidential policy prowess in a
nonlinear manner, democratic attitudes might reasonably
be expected to do so as well.
While we expect moderate presidential powers are
ideal for cultivating support for democratic regimes, there
are several reasons why this might not be the case. One is
that citizens may respect and desire a powerful, decisive
figure at the helm. Presidentialism creates a unique aura
and self-image around a leader (Linz 1990, 53), and
some citizens are drawn to dominant authoritative figures
(Pratto, Sidanius, and Levin 2006). Moreover, Latin
Americans who are pleased with political and economic
performance are often willing to grant presidents wide
unilateral powers with the potential to undermine checks
and balances (Carlin and Singer 2011). Second, it is pos-
sible that, independent of their actual powers, citizens
generally perceive presidents to be quite powerful. Voters
may reward or punish presidents for outcomes for which
they are not necessarily responsible (e.g., Achen and
Bartels 2004). Still, although baseline perceived presi-
dential powers may be high, we expect variation in actual
presidential powers and lawmaking prowess to alter citi-
zens perceptions around this baseline and, in turn, their
regime support.
A third concern is that the causal arrow may run the
other direction: regime support may influence presidential
power and prowess. Yet the theoretical grounds for this
proposition are not well established. Across Latin America,
presidents formal legislative powers and prerogatives
were reshaped by new constitutions or major institutional
reforms at the outset of democratic transitions. Thereafter,
governability challenges prompted further reforms in a
host of countries. Prevailing theories of institutional
choice, however, suggest a disconnect between the crisis
that precipitates constitutional change and nature of the
eventual amendments or reforms adopted.
According to Negrettos (2013) study of third wave
Latin American democracies, constitutional change takes
place when institutions fail to meet a cooperative goal
outcomes such as political order, stable government,
effective decision-making, and citizen inclusion and par-
ticipation (e.g., Jillson and Eubanks 1984; McGuire 1988).
Although all actors agree that reforms are needed, they
typically disagree about, or do not know, which are most
appropriate. Moreover, institutional designers invariably
seek to adopt rules to their political advantage. Thus, a
correlation could plausibly exist between levels of regime
support and reforms to alter presidential powers. But
determining reverse causality requires a clear expectation
as to the direction of such reformswhether they moder-
ate power or push it to strong or weak extremeswhich is
not obvious a priori. Nevertheless, we discuss some of
these reforms in more detail and empirically analyze the
possibility of reverse causality below and in the
Supplemental Materials (http://prq.sagepub.com/supple-
mental/). We find no evidence that mass regime support
precipitates institutional restructuring or changes in presi-
dential prerogative and prowess within countries.
Data, Measurement, and
Methodology
Dependent Variables
Our theory links presidential power to regime support,
part of the broader concept of political support, which also
includes support for the political community and support
for authorities (Easton 1975). Dalton (1999, 2004) theo-
rizes that regime support is directed at three main objects
principles, performance, and institutionsand citizens
can hold affective and instrumental orientations to each.
We expect presidential power and prowess to shape instru-
mental support for regime (democratic) principles and
performance in line with the principalagent problems
and dilemmas inherent in the extreme (weak or strong)
models of presidentialism outlined above.
To measure these two dimensions of regime support,
we select indicators from the Latinobarometer, a widely
used source of regional survey data (e.g., Alcaiz and
Hellwig 2011; Cramer and Kaufman 2011; Fernandez
and Kuenzi 2010; Sarsfield and Echegaray 2006).2
Instrumental support for regime principles is mea-
sured with the classic Linzian item:
With which of the following statements do you most agree?
A.
Democracy is preferable to any other kind of
government.
B.Under some circumstances, an authoritarian government
can be preferable to a democratic one.
C.For people like me, it does not matter whether we have
a democratic or a nondemocratic regime.
From these responses, we create a dichotomous vari-
able coded 1 for respondents who selected option A and
coded 0 for those who chose B or C. Instrumental support
for regime performance is gauged with a common mea-
sure of democratic satisfaction:
In general, would you say that you are very satisfied, fairly
satisfied, not very satisfied, or not at all satisfied with the
way democracy works in (country)?
Singh and Carlin 7
From these responses, we code an ordinal variable that
assigns a 4 to respondents who are very satisfied, a 3 to
those who are fairly satisfied, a 2 to those not very satis-
fied, and a 1 to those not at all satisfied. Nonresponses are
coded as missing. Figures A1 and A2 of the Supplemental
Materials illustrate the mean values of both dependent
variables across the countries in our sample.
Under Daltons (1999, 58, Table 3.1) taxonomy, the
Linzian item taps instrumental evaluations of regime
principles and satisfaction with democracy taps instru-
mental evaluations of regime performance. This distinc-
tion matches Torcal and Moncagattas (2011) conceptual
review, aligns with Linde and Ekmans (2003) critical
appraisal of these two measures, and is consistent with
evidence that mass support for regime principles and per-
formance, measured with these and similar indicators,
retains an instrumental, utilitarian flavor in Latin America
(Booth and Seligson 2009; Carlin and Singer 2011;
Sarsfield and Echegaray 2006).
While these measures are commonly employed in the
literature, they are imperfect. Both may suffer problems of
comparability related to how respondents define democ-
racy (Canache 2012). Finding that satisfaction with
democracy correlates with support for regime principles,
institutions, and political authorities, Canache, Mondak,
and Seligson (2001) conclude it fails to measure any dimen-
sion of political support. A more sanguine reading of their
evidence is that satisfaction with democracy measures
regime performance and is somewhere in between specific
support and institutional confidence (Anderson 2001, 11).
Principal component analysis3 supports this basic intu-
ition. Satisfaction with democracy (regime performance
evaluations) loads moderately on both of the first two
components, which together capture 64 percent of the
variance; Linzian support (regime principles evaluations)
is unrelated to the first component but strongly related to
the second. Furthermore, institutional trust measures
(Congress, parties, judiciary, president, government) are
unrelated to the second component and strongly related to
the first. Still, our two regime support measures are weakly
related (polychoric correlation = 0.29), and we acknowl-
edge the imperfection with which they can be separated.
Explanatory Variables
Our key explanatory variables, outlined below, were col-
lected across each country for each available year in
which the Latinobarometer survey was conducted.
Legislative powers of the president. As a de jure measure,
we use Negrettos (2009, see his Appendix A) Compara-
tive Index of Legislative Powers, which records cross-
national and over-time variation in the following
constitutional powers of Latin American presidents: veto
powers, decree authority, budgetary powers, whether the
president can convene Congress at will, and whether a
president can call a referendum on a bill. Theoretically,
his Legislative Powers index captures the proactive tools
presidents can use to enact their agendas. Because it is
derived via principal component analysis, Legislative
Powers overcomes the limitations of extant additive
indexes, which assume that each particular power con-
tributes equally to a presidents overall power (Negretto
2009, 12728). The measure has a theoretical range of 1
to 100, with higher values indicating greater legislative
powers of the presidency. In contrast to the alternative
operationalizations of presidential lawmaking power
described below, Negrettos index is not relational, mean-
ing it does not capture the presidents power vis--vis
other political players and, thus, the constraints he or she
faces in the policymaking arena.
Political constraints. As noted above, presidents also derive
power from their partisan support within and between
lawmaking branches. Veto players preferences across
these branches must align for policy to change, and depar-
tures from the status quo are less likely where veto players
are numerous and the ideal points of different veto players
diverse (Tsebelis 2002, 2). Employing the veto players
concept, Henisz (2000) creates a measure of political con-
straints gauging the likelihood of changing the policy sta-
tus quo if the presidents preferences change. The measure
accounts for the number of independent branches of gov-
ernment and the preferences of these branches, based on
party composition. For example, if the presidents party
has large majority in the legislature, the variable will
decrease. Alternatively, if the president must rely on a
fractionalized coalition in the legislature, the variable will
increase. So whereas Negrettos Legislative Powers index
reflects the presidents constitutional powers, Heniszs
Political Constraints accounts for changing political land-
scapes. Its theoretical range is from 0 to 1. As Political
Constraints approaches 0, it indicates that the executive
faces an increasingly veto-free policymaking environ-
ment. Alternatively, as it approaches 1, it indicates that
changing the status quo becomes increasingly difficult.4
Legislative Box Score. Finally, we use a measure of presi-
dents realized legislative success. The Box Score, as
calculated by Saiegh (2009, 2011), is the percentage of
bills initiated by the president that were approved by the
legislature in the year under study. A low Box Score indi-
cates the presidents agenda has met resistance in the leg-
islature; a high Box Score suggests the president has little
trouble implementing his agenda by statute.
Our models include both the raw and squared versions
of each measure of presidential legislative power and
8 Political Research Quarterly 68(1)
prowessLegislative Powers, Political Constraints, and
Legislative Box Scoreto determine whether they exhibit
an inverted-U-shaped association with instrumental
regime support, as our theory predicts. Specifically, we
expect regime support to be lowest at the extremes of
Legislative Powers than at more judicious degrees of
power. Similarly, we expect lower levels of regime sup-
port when presidents face either very many or very few
Political Constraints and greater support in moderately
constrained contexts. Regarding Legislative Box Score,
again we also expect that, up to a point, evaluations of
democratic principles and performance should rise with
the presidents ability to implement his or her legislative
agenda, only to fall once the legislature begins to function
as a rubber stamp for presidential initiatives.
In the Supplemental Materials, Figures A3 to A6 dis-
play the means of each presidential power index across
the countries in our sample. Furthermore, Figure A7 illus-
trates that there are no strong linear dependencies among
the indices of presidential power and prowess. This sug-
gests our analyses are not exact replicas of one another
but rather can be considered separate tests of the relation-
ships between democratic regime support and presiden-
tial authority. Finally, Figures A8 to A13 plot the values
of the presidential powers and prowess measures and the
mean levels of support for democratic regime principles
and performance over time across all eighteen countries.
Control Variables
We control for a host of factors previously linked to
regime support. In the interest of space, we discuss the
theoretical bases for the inclusion of each control variable
and their measurement in the Supplemental Materials. At
the survey level, we control for wealth, economic growth,
and age of democracy. At the individual level, we control
for age, gender, education, retrospective economic evalu-
ations, political interest, ideological proximity to the
president, and crime victimization.
Data on each of our variables is available across 142
surveys of a total of 107,330 individuals in eighteen
countries for the years 19951998, 2000, 2001, and
20032005,5 with the exception of Legislative Box Score,
which is available for only thirteen of the eighteen coun-
tries in the sample.6 As such, models employing this mea-
sure include just 71 surveys and 54,541 individuals. All
variables are summarized in Table A1 of the Supplemental
Materials.
Methodology
The data are observed at three levels, with individuals
(Level 1) clustered within surveys (Level 2), which them-
selves are clustered within countries (Level 3). As there
are only eighteen observations at Level 3, modeling the
country-level effects in a multilevel framework is poten-
tially inadvisable (cf. Heck and Thomas 2000; Hox 2002;
Stegmueller 2013). Yet Wells and Krieckhaus (2006)
show the importance of accounting for hierarchical data
structures in cross-national models of democratic atti-
tudes. To do so, we use multilevel models that estimate a
random intercept for each survey within each country.
While this does not explicitly account for country-level
effects, it does model unobserved variance due to survey-
level effects and characteristics attributable to the envel-
oping country. Furthermore, to examine the robustness of
our findings, we estimated our models in a full three-level
framework with both maximum likelihood and Bayesian
estimation techniques. The results are robust to these
approaches (see Tables A7A10 in the Supplemental
Materials).
Our general model is illustrated with following
equation:
yij = j + xij + ij ,
where j = j + j .
Each individuals (i) score on the dependent variable
in a given survey (j) is denoted as yij. Individual-level
variables are contained in xij and survey-level variables
are contained in j. The coefficients associated with xij are
contained in vector , and coefficients associated with j
are contained in vector . The j term captures variation
around the survey-specific intercepts, j, and ij cap-
tures the random error for each individual. This approach
also permits an estimation of = var(j) / [var(j) +
var(ij)], the proportion of unmodeled individually held
variance in the dependent variable due to unobserved sur-
vey- or country-level effects. This value ranges roughly 4
and 7 percent across each model, indicating that unex-
plained variance in regime support at the survey and
country levels exists even after we account for multiple
Level 2 factors.7
For the dichotomous dependent variable tapping
instrumental support for regime principlesthe Linzian
democracy is best measurewe use a logistic link to
map from the covariates to the outcome; these results are
presented in Table 1. For the ordinal-dependent variable
gauging instrumental evaluations of regime perfor-
mancesatisfaction with democracywe use an ordinal
logistic link; results are presented in Table 2.
Results
As expected, each model is consistent with our claim that
instrumental evaluations of regime support initially rise
as presidential powers and prowess rise, but at a certain
point, further increases in presidential strength lower
Singh and Carlin 9

Table 1. Linzian Support for Democracy and Presidential Powers.

Dependent variable: Democracy is best

Model 1: Legislative powers Model 2: Political Model 3: Legislative Box

of president constraints Score

Variable Coefficient p value Coefficient p value Coefficient p value

Survey level
Legislative powers 0.043 <.001
Legislative powers2 0.0004 <.001
Political constraints 3.464 <.001
Political constraints2 3.332 <.001
Box score 0.090 <.001
Box score2 0.001 <.001
Wealth 0.212 <.001 0.011 .704 0.476 .008
Growth 0.001 .645 0.036 <.001 0.005 .781
Duration of democratic regime 0.015 <.001 0.016 <.001 0.011 .001
Individual level
Age 0.007 <.001 0.007 <.001 0.006 <.001
Education 0.305 <.001 0.304 <.001 0.322 <.001
Female 0.092 <.001 0.092 <.001 0.101 <.001
Economic evaluations 0.031 <.001 0.033 <.001 0.014 .071
Political interest 0.191 <.001 0.192 <.001 0.211 <.001
Ideological proximity 0.041 <.001 0.043 <.001 0.067 <.001
Crime victimization 0.053 <.001 0.049 <.001 0.077 <.001
Model statistics
Constant 3.483 1.553 7.283
var(ij) 3.290 3.290 3.290
var(j) 0.129 0.143 0.229
0.038 0.042 0.065
Prob. > 2 <.001 <.001 <.001
Number of individuals 107,330 107,330 54,541
Number of surveys 142 142 71

p values are two-sided. Results are from multilevel logistic regressions.

instrumental regime support. Figure 1 charts the relation-
ships. The y-axes in the left-hand side panels capture the
predicted probability that a respondent feels democracy is
the best form of government (support for regime princi-
ples). The y-axes in the right-hand side panels illustrate
the predicted probability that a respondent is either fairly
or very satisfied with democracy (support for regime
performance).8
The upper-left panel of Figure 1 helps visualize the
key result from Model 1. It shows that the likelihood of a
respondent agreeing that democracy is the best form of
government builds with formal constitutional presidential
powers (Legislative Powers) up to a score of about 54
before quickly deteriorating. At the sample minimum for
the Legislative Powers index (21.4, Mexico 1917pres-
ent), a standard deviation ( = 24.3) increase in the index
is associated with about a 7 percentage point increase in
the likelihood of Linzian support for regime principles.
Contrast this with Argentina since 1994, which scores
67.2, about one standard deviation above the observed
mean (54.1) of the Legislative Powers index. According
to our model, if Argentina were to strengthen the presi-
dents formal lawmaking power by one standard devia-
tion, the likelihood of the average respondent viewing
democracy as the best form of government is predicted to
decrease by roughly 15 percentage points. In other words,
instrumental evaluations of regime principles could be
expected to fall if the Argentine president were to gain
additional power.
The middle-left panel of Figure 1 depicts the parabolic
relationship between the presidents partisan powers and
Linzian democratic support estimated in Model 2.
Respondents are more likely to view democracy as the
best form of government as Political Constraints increase;
that is, presidents lose partisan power. But the returns to
instrumental support for regime principles begin to taper
10 Political Research Quarterly 68(1)

Table 2. Satisfaction with Democracy and Presidential Powers.

Dependent variable: Satisfaction with democracy

Model 4: Legislative Model 5: Political Model 6: Legislative Box

powers of president constraints Score

Variable Coefficients p value Coefficients p value Coefficients p value

Survey level
Legislative powers 0.057 <.001
Legislative powers2 0.001 <.001
Political constraints 3.576 <.001
Political constraints2 3.687 <.001
Box score 0.072 <.001
Box score2 0.001 <.001
Wealth 0.187 <.001 0.093 <.001 0.749 <.001
Growth 0.105 <.001 0.023 <.001 0.022 <.001
Duration of democratic regime 0.019 <.001 0.019 <.001 0.023 <.001
Individual level
Age 0.004 <.001 0.004 <.001 0.005 <.001
Education 0.090 <.001 0.079 <.001 0.027 .312
Female 0.010 .369 0.011 .341 0.009 .564
Economic evaluations 0.211 <.001 0.211 <.001 0.187 <.001
Political interest 0.189 <.001 0.191 <.001 0.202 <.001
Ideological proximity 0.079 <.001 0.076 <.001 0.093 <.001
Crime victimization 0.203 <.001 0.206 <.001 0.185 <.001
Model statistics
1 not satisfied|not very satisfied 3.294 2.181 9.129
2 not very satisfied|fairly satisfied 5.553 4.440 11.387
3 fairly satisfied|very satisfied 7.385 6.272 13.327
var(ij) 3.290 3.290 3.290
var(j) 0.181 0.174 0.189
0.052 0.050 0.054
Prob. > 2 <.001 <.001 <.001
Number of individuals 107,330 107,330 54,541
Number of surveys 142 142 71

p values are two-sided. Results are from multilevel ordered logistic regressions.

beyond their peak score at 0.52Perus score from 2002
through 2006as partisan support collapses. Based on
these results, then, too much partisan support, and the
associated lack of political constraint, is actually worse
for mass support for democracy than too little.
When it comes to legislative prowess, as Model 3 and
the bottom-left panel of Figure 1 show, instrumental sup-
port for democracy as the best form of government is
most likely where the president enjoys moderate levels of
statutory success and least likely where the president
implements either very little or very much of his or her
agenda. Ceteris paribus, this likelihood peaks at a passage
rate of roughly 59 percent. In our sample, Argentina in
2003 comes closest to hitting this mark. But the chances
of a respondent expressing Linzian democratic support
are much lower at the sample maximum (Mexico in 1995
and 1996) than at the sample minimum (Argentina in
2001). This finding mirrors a pattern observed in the pre-
vious two analyses: positive instrumental evaluations of
democratic regime principles are more difficult to gener-
ate at higher levels of presidential power than at lower
levels. A happy medium of power and prowess, however,
strikes the optimal balance for generating citizen support
for a regime that poses them with two thorny principal
agent problemscontrolling the president and delegating
legislators to represent their interests.
Comparing panels in Figure 1 from left to right shows
the relationships between the presidential powers and
prowess and instrumental support for regime perfor-
mance (satisfaction with democracy) are remarkably
similar to those observed for Linzian instrumental sup-
port for regime principles. Levels of democratic satisfac-
tion initially increase as formal constitutional powers
(Legislative Powers, Model 4), partisan powers (Political
Singh and Carlin 11

.8

.4
Pr(Satisfied with Democracy)
Pr(Democracy is Best)

.35
.7

.3
.6

.25
.5

.2
.4

.15
20 40 60 80 100 20 40 60 80 100
Legislative Powers Legislative Powers
.8

.4
Pr(Satisfied with Democracy)
Pr(Democracy is Best)

.35
.7

.3
.6

.25
.5

.2
.4

.15

0 .2 .4 .6 .8 0 .2 .4 .6 .8
Political Constraints Political Constraints
.8

.4
Pr(Satisfied with Democracy)
Pr(Democracy is Best)

.35
.7

.3
.6

.25
.5

.2
.4

.15

20 40 60 80 100 20 40 60 80 100
Legislative Box Score Legislative Box Score

Figure 1. Democratic support and presidential powers.

Left-hand side panels created from results of Models 13 in Table 1. Right-hand side panels created from results of Models 46 in Table 2. Shaded
areas represent 95 percent confidence intervals.
12 Political Research Quarterly 68(1)
Constraints, Models 5), and statutory success (Legislative
Box Score, Model 6) increase, but at certain points, fur-
ther increases are associated with lower levels of satisfac-
tion. And the same asymmetry emerges: very strong and
weak presidents both generate lower levels of instrumen-
tal regime support than presidents with a happy medium
of power, but both Linzian support for democratic prin-
ciples and satisfaction with regime performance are lower
under very strong presidents than they are under very
weak ones.
Rather than going through each model and graph in
detail again, we flesh out the general pattern with the
example of statutory success as measured by Legislative
Box Score (bottom-right panel of Figure 1). Consider a
president whose passage rate is just 33 percent, like
Colombian president Ernesto Samper in 1996. Our theory
predicts that where the president implements so little of
his or her agenda, the public will desire a more effectual
president. As such, instrumental support for regime per-
formance will respond positively to increases in the presi-
dents legislative success. Indeed, starting at a Legislative
Box Score of 33, a standard deviation ( = 18.2) increase
in the passage rate is associated with about a 7 percentage
point increase in the likelihood that a respondent reports
being either fairly or very satisfied with democracy.
Compare this to a president with twice the success rate
(66%), such as Honduran president Carlos Roberto Reina
in 1996. In this case, we expect citizens will be satisfied
with the moderate, but not overwhelming, legislative suc-
cess of the president but will become less satisfied if the
president further imposes his agenda. Illustrating this
dynamic, at a Legislative Box Score of 66, a standard
deviation increase in passage rates is associated with
about a 10 percentage point decrease in the likelihood of
a respondent expressing satisfaction with democracy.
Across Models 1 to 6, likelihood ratio tests indicate
that introducing the squared terms to nested linear models
significantly improves model fit and a clear pattern
emerges: citizens give democracy the best marks where
their president is neither impotent nor omnipotent but
instead possesses a moderate amount of authority and is
thus able to successfully pass legislation with the consent
of other political actors.
In the Supplemental Materials, we probe potential
extensions of our theoretical framework. We first con-
sider whether economic performance might condition the
effects of presidential powers on democratic support.
Citizens may appreciate a powerful president when the
economy is robust but turn skeptical if the economy per-
forms poorly (cf. Carlin and Singer 2011). If this is the
case, the curvilinear relationships between presidential
powers and satisfaction should change shape as economic
conditions worsen or improve. We test this by interacting
each presidential powers index with economic growth
(Tables A3 and A4). The models indicate no consistent
conditioning impact of economic performance on the
influence of presidential powers for instrumental support
either for regime principles or performance.
Next, though we theorize less regime support where
very strong presidents dominate policymaking, citizens
may plausibly express more support under vast presi-
dential powers if they greatly trust the president. To test
this proposition, we interact the presidential powers
indices with trust in the presidency and trust in Congress
(Tables A5 and A6). Again, we find no conditioning
effect of trust on the relationship between presidential
powers and instrumental support for regime principles
or performance.
Finally, we consider the observable implications of
reverse causality. As discussed above, all eighteen Latin
American countries began their post-authoritarian peri-
ods with new or heavily amended constitutions stipulat-
ing, and often revising, formal presidential powers. In
many cases, these rules were considered temporary or
expedient and were thus subsequently changed. If reverse
causality is at work, comparatively low levels of regime
support should precede reforms that pushed presidential
powers toward the extremes (high and low), and com-
paratively high regime support should precede reforms
that moderated powers. Of the three cases we can use to
test this proposition, only Ecuador in 1998 is partially
consistent with the notion of reverse causality; the other
two cases (Uruguay in 1996 and Brazil in 2001) are not.9
Ecuadors Constitution of 1998 heavily bolstered the
presidents lawmaking powers. It granted presidents
exclusive initiative in the areas of taxes and public spend-
ing and limited Congresss ability to raise total spending
above the level authorized by the president. It also rein-
forced presidents agenda-setting powers by granting
them the authority to further modify such bills via amen-
datory observations and to promulgate nonvetoed parts of
them in the case of partial observations.10 These new con-
stitutional features raised Ecuadorian presidents legisla-
tive power from middling, by regional standards, to one
of the regions strongestnearly doubling on the legisla-
tive powers index from 42.2 to 82.2 (Negretto 2009, 139).
In December 1997seven months before the constitu-
tions text was adoptedEcuadorians instrumental sup-
port for democratic principles (preference for democracy)
was more than a standard deviation below the sample
mean (see Figure A8) and, thus, in line with the reverse
causality hypothesis. Instrumental support for regime
performance (satisfaction), however, is quite close to the
mean, which augurs against reverse causality (see Figure
A9). Taken together, evidence of reverse causality is
clearly mixed in this case.
While the bulk of Uruguays 1996 constitutional
reforms were electoral, some raised the presidents
Singh and Carlin 13
already formidable formal powers in two ways.11 First,
they shortened how long Congress has before it must take
action on bills the president sends for urgent consider-
ation. Second, they facilitated the presidents formation
of legislative blocs to prevent vetoes from being overrid-
den. In July of 1996, five months before these reforms,
support for democratic principles and performance were
well above the mean level in Latin America (see Figures
A8 and A9). Hence, the Uruguayan case presents no evi-
dence that low levels of regime support spurred reforms
to strengthen the presidents lawmaking powers, as the
reverse causality hypothesis holds.
In Brazil, formal presidential legislative power tapered
somewhat (though remained high) when President
Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Congress agreed to
amend constitutional Article 62 governing the use of
provisional measures (medidas provisrias) in in the process fuel discontent with democracy and under-
September 2001. While not stripping presidents of their
ability to legislate by decree, the amendment doubled
from thirty to sixty days, the period by which these
decrees must be converted into law before lapsing,
allowed presidents to reissue a lapsed decree only once
rather than indefinitely, and declared a host of issue areas
off-limits to decrees.12 If this moderation in power was
(reverse) caused by attitudes in the public, it would have
been preceded by high levels of regime support. But this
was not the case. The percentage of Brazilians that
believed democracy was the best form of government in
the quarter preceding the amendment was nearly two
standard deviations below the sample mean (see Figure
A8). At the same time, a low-to-middling percentage of
Brazilian respondents were satisfied with how democ-
racy was functioning (see Figure A9).
In all, any evidence across these three cases that is
consistent with the reverse causality hypothesis is over-
whelmed by evidence consistent with the null hypothesis
of no reverse causality. To more systematically examine
whether regime support affects presidential powers, we
construct time-series cross-sectional models of our three
powers and prowess variables as a function of the average
level of support for, and satisfaction with, democracy in
the preceding year. The results reported in Tables A11 to
A13 again show no evidence of the reverse causality
dynamic in our data.
Conclusion
A long theoretical tradition stretching from Weber, Dahl,
Lipset, Easton, and Linz to more recent empirical work
posits political systems that legitimize themselves to their
citizens, both through the outcomes they produce and the
inputs they use to produce them, have greater long-run
stability and quality. While scholars have debated at
length the relative merits of competing models of
democracy for fostering these outcomes, the advantages
and disadvantages of the varieties of presidentialism for
ensuring regime support have nevertheless received little
attention. This study tests whether executive lawmaking
power and prowess affect citizen support for democratic
regimes across Latin Americas presidential systems.
The basic theoretical proposition advanced here is that
the relationship between presidential lawmaking power
and regime support is best represented by an inverted-U-
shaped parabola. Our findings are consistent with the
hypothesis that citizens are happiest with, that is, most
supportive of and satisfied with, democracy where presi-
dents enjoy a happy medium of lawmaking power. They
also suggest that although presidents with vast formal
powers and/or broad majorities in the legislature can
avoid gridlock and fluidly implement their agendas, they
mine its legitimacy. The same is true, but to a lesser
extent, if the presidents every attempt to effect legisla-
tion is thwarted. Instead, Latin American citizens express
the greatest regime support where presidents reside in a
happy medium between ineffectual and almighty
lawmakers.
These results reveal a striking embrace of the messy
politics of separation of powers systems in a region often
assumed to harbor a cultural preference for the swift, top-
down rule of despots, strongmen, technocrats, and caudi-
llos (Lagos 1997; Lewis 2006; Vliz 1980; Wiarda 2003).
They also point to an appreciation for the intricacies of
liberal representative democracy that belies the typically
simple and, at times, empty and even pejorative ways in
which Latin Americans define democracy (Canache 2012;
Carrin 2008; Dalton, Shin, and Jou 2007). In this sense,
the present study is optimistic about the prospects for the
attitudinal consolidation of democracy in Latin America.
It also supports the more general conclusion that minimiz-
ing the risk involved in the principalagent relationships
that arise in representative democracy, particularly under
presidentialism, is more critical to mass support for demo-
cratic politics than any particular amount of power the
executive enjoys vis--vis the legislature. Citizens are
contented with presidential democracy when it grants both
presidents and legislators the power to respond to and pro-
tect their interests in the spirit of compromise.
Our study also warns that machinations by Latin
American presidents to strengthen their lawmaking pow-
ers could undercut democracys fragile but strengthening
legitimacy in the region. As presidential powers continue
to swellwhether via new constitutional provisions,
shifting political alignments, deliberately stripping power
from other branches, or other circumstancesany ini-
tially positive gains in democratic regime support may
eventually turn into losses. Considering that both
immense presidential powers and low levels of public
14 Political Research Quarterly 68(1)
support can theoretically accelerate the erosion of democ-
racy, the finding that the two factors are interlinked is par-
ticularly disconcerting for the long-term stability of
democracy in those parts of the region in which presi-
dents actively seek to strengthen their hand. At the same
time, however, it cautions against institutional designs
that leave the presidency completely bereft of power.
On a final note, the idea of a happy medium of presi-
dential power and prowess did not escape the framers of
the U.S. Constitution. For example, while Alexander
Hamilton recognizes the importance of energy in the
executive (Federalist Paper No. 70), James Madison under-
scores the importance of checks and balances for effective
government (Federalist Paper No. 51). As Madison
famously wrote in No. 51, Ambition must be made to
counteract ambition. As contemporary political commen-
tators continue to debate whether presidentialism in the
United States embodies Madisons recommendation, con-
stitutional framers in todays more tumultuous nascent
presidential and semi-presidential democracies, such as
Egypt, Pakistan, and Russia, may consider the benefits of
moderately powerful presidents for mass regime support.
Acknowledgment
The authors would like to thank Gabriel L. Negretto, Sebastian
M. Saiegh, Matthew M. Singer, and Heather Stoll for helpful
comments.
Authors Note
Replication data for this article can be viewed at www.shaneps-
ingh.com.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Notes
1. Presidents nonlegislative powers vary far less across the
region and, taken alone, we find no significant associations
between them and regime support.
2. While the AmericasBarometer also surveys residents
of Latin America, practical reasons limit its usefulness.
Namely, data on our primary country-level independent
variables exist through 2009, but the AmericasBarometer
only encompasses the eighteen Latin American countries
from 2008. Thus, using AmericasBarometer would restrict
the scope of our analyses considerably.
3. As our measures of interest are dichotomous and ordinal,
we calculated tetrachoric and polychoric correlations in
the correlation matrix input into the principal component
analysis.
4. An alternative measure of policy constraints is Checks
from the World Banks Database of Political Institutions
(Beck et al. 2001). Replacing Political Constraints with
Checks in our models returns very similar results (see
Table A2 in the Supplemental Materials, http://prq.sage-
pub.com/supple-mental/).
5. Coverage in 1995 was limited to eight countries total and
the Dominican Republic was surveyed starting in 2004.
There were no surveys in 1999. The ideological proximity
control variable is unavailable for Uruguay and Venezuela
in 1995 and for Nicaragua in 2003. The Latinobarometers
political interest question, which is used to formulate one
of our control variables, was not asked in 2002, 2006, or
2008. The retrospective economic evaluations question
was not asked in 2007. The Checks measure (see Note 4) is
not available for Peru in 1995.
6. Saiegh calculated Legislative Box Scores for the follow-
ing countryyears: Argentina, 19952003; Bolivia, 1996
2000; Brazil, 19952006; Chile, 19952005; Colombia,
19961998; Costa Rica, 19962003; Ecuador, 19962001;
Honduras, 1996; Mexico, 19952002; Panama, 19962001;
Paraguay, 19952002; Peru, 19952002; and Uruguay,
19952002. Not included were El Salvador, Dominican
Republic, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.
7. In plainer terms, there is something about being in Chile in
2004, for example, that affects democratic support differ-
ently than being in Chile in 2001 or Bolivia in 1998 (or any
other countryyear pairing). These effects are captured in
the random intercepts of the multilevel models. Likelihood
ratio tests indicate that the variance in these random inter-
cepts is significantly different from zero across the models,
further justifying our multilevel approach.
8. All predicted values are calculated with the covariates held
at their means.
9. Venezuelas 1999 constitutional change also falls within
our samples domain. But because the closest data point
is twelve months prior (December 1998) to the December
1999 adoption of the language and constitution, we exclude
it from the analysis. Incidentally, middling levels of both
measures of regime support militate against the reverse
causality hypothesis.
10. For a fuller treatment, see Negretto (2013, chap. 7).
11. See Forteza et al. (2003) for fuller treatment.
12. For discussion, see Pereira, Power, and Renn (2005, 184).
The text of the amendment is available at http://www.plan-
alto.gov.br/ccivil_03/Constituicao/Emendas/Emc/emc32.
htm.
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