1993/07/01 by SCOTT MAINWARING, Scott Mainwaring · 941 citations
Social Sciences · #Computer science #Deadlock #Democracy #Electoral Systems and Political Participation #Ideology #Law #Law and economics #Legislature #Political economy #Political science #Politics #Politics and Society in Latin America #Populism, Right-Wing Movements #Presidential system #Public administration #Sociology
paper · doi:10.1177/0010414093026002003
published in Comparative Political Studies 26(2), 198-228 (SAGE Publishing)
openalex publication_date 1993/07/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/02
Starting from recent analyses that have argued that presidentialism is less favorable for building stable democracy than parliamentary systems, this article argues that the combination of a multiparty system and presidentialism is especially inimical to stable democracy. None of the world's 31 stable (defined as those that have existed for at least 25 consecutive years) democracies has this institutional configuration, and only one historical example—Chile from 1933 to 1973—did so. There are three reasons why this institutional combination is problematic. First, multiparty presidentialism is especially likely to produce immobilizing executive/legislative deadlock, and such deadlock can destabilize democracy. Second, multipartism is more likely than bipartism to produce ideological polarization, thereby complicating problems often associated with presidentialism. Finally, the combination of presidentialism and multipartism is complicated by the difficulties of interparty coalition building in presidential democracies, with deleterious consequences for democratic stability.