But, isn't the gist of TRS to supply the president elect with more legitimacy? Up to now, Bolivian presidents have take office in a state of chronic weakness. If a president is elected with more than 50% of the votes, it demands a bit of respect.

I think, in the case TRS is implemented, it would change the dynamics of the game in government. I am asking myself right now, if that is the case, would the 'two legitimacies' argument apply? Would Congress and the Executive start a more conflict-prone relationship?

What would happen in Congress? Would the distinct forces not distance themselves from the President? It would seem to me that even the President's party would start feeling a bit of rivalry, since they did not get so many votes as the incumbent.

My take is, were the President be elected with a TRS and Congress using PR, the President would have, to start, a comfortable position vis-a-vis the legislature. He would also have to establish a working relationship with Congress, since the power distribution is so even, as in the case you cite above. The President would not only depend on his party, but on the opposition too (to a certain extent). The cabinet of course would be all from the President's preference. This he would not have to negotiate. However, since he has an incentive to build a relationship with Congress, who knows, maybe he'd even decide to include some people from other parties.

On the side of Congress, since, in essence, all parties are a minority, broader alliances would have to be sought. This would push most parties towards the center and would isolate the extremist. I suspect, coalition building in Congress would be stronger in this case.

In essence, I think this would strengthen the President and maybe even help him build a better relationship with Congress.

Actually, I disagree. Yes, TRS would provide a president w/ *popular* legitimacy, but not necessarily *legislative* legitimacy. And in a presidential democracy, it's unclear which of the two branches has "real" legitimacy—the legislature or the executive—since both were popularly elected. This is the problem Linz identified as "dual legitimacy" (which you alude to).

Another problem, of course, is that TRS winners are not necessarily Condorcet winners. Take the recent French election, for example. Most polls showed that in a two-way race, Bayrou (the third place candidate) would have beat *either* Royal or Sarkozy (making Bayrou the likely Condorcet winner). Had there bee no TRS, it's likely that Bayrou might have been able to convince either the UMP (Sarkozy's center-right party) or the Socialists (Royal's party) to join him in a centrist alliance. Otherwise, a UMP-Socialist alliance (similar to the 1989 ADN-MIR alliance) might have prevailed.

One of the problems w/ presidentialism is that popularly elected presidents believe they have a "popular mandate"—which often leads them to attack legislatures. This is the kind of democratic practice O'Donnell refers to as "delegative democracy" (he wrote that based on the experiences of Menem, Fujimori, and Collor de Mello). Popularly elected presidents in Latin America have tended to not work w/ the legislature, but rather to simple rule by decree—often unconstitutionally.

Another example from France (since TRS is often called "French runoff") on how TRS can produce exagerated mandates:

In the 2002 French presidential elections, Chirac was a very weak (and very unpopular) incumbent. He won less than 20% of the popular vote in the first round. But the surprise was that Jospin (the Socialist candidate) didn't place second—instead, the second place candidate was Le Pen (the ultra-right semi-fascist candidate of the National Front, w/ less than 17%). Thus, French voters were given a choice between a far right challenger & a center-right unpopular incumbent. Nearly 60% of the voters in the first round had voted for candidates to the left of either of these two options. But voters held their noses, voted for Chirac against Le Pen, and gave the president a "mandate" of 80%.

One thing I am thinking of is the traditional weakness of Latin American presidencies. As you well know, Latin American presidents have often come to power having just weak support in Congress, having to rely on also weak coalitions. (Here I am thinking of Linz and Valenzuela) Confronted with that, they have attempted to assert their power vis-a-vis Congress. That is why it has turned conflictive, I think. After all, why not use your decree powers when Congress does not want to give you support.

Whereas, if the president comes into office with a solid 50%+1 voter support. Don't you think that President will have more weight and will look at Congress on equal footing?

But why would the president look at the legislature on equal footing, if he/she was elected independently by a popular majority? I think often presidents have ignored their legislatures precisely because they (presidents) believe they represent the people against an "illegitimate" legislature.

Two countries that have used TRS in Latin America are Peru & Ecuador. Things haven't worked out well for them. Again, TRS can *manufacture* majorities where they don't really exist.

The nice thing about Bolivia's system is that it tied presidents to the legislature, since they only became presidents w/ the support of a multi-party coalition. In a country w/ a multiparty system (like Ecuador), TRS can actually make for weaker presidents, not stronger ones.

As you argue in your paper, the Bolivian election of presidents and legislatures are not separate. The fused ballot provides for the simultaneous election of the president and the entire legislature. This, says to me, the legitimacy is attributed at the same time and not separately. The dual legitimacy argument does not hold (in Bolivia).

Also, if the president is smart, she will know she has to work with the legislators to pass any laws she wants. In this manner, the president will tend to look at the legislature with respect because she knows she has to manage support. She may not look at the legislature on equal footing but she will have respect for it.

I know I am qualifying here, but that is the argument. :-)

I see what you're getting at. And, yes, technically the Bolivian constitution links (or fuses) the legislature & executive. But I think these changes would "de-link" the two. Also, I think the second part of your argument depends on executives being smart (or some other "good" character). I'm not sure we can count on executives (Bolivian or otherwise) to be that. But I am especially fond of "parliamentarized presidentialism". ;-)

Parliametarized presidentialism seemed to work good, but now I am having my doubts. It is funny that at one point in time, it was seen as a possible model. But, now I am not so sure. Of all things, combined with democracia pactada seems to have negative effects. I am just writing a paper on failed presidencies, trying to analyze the Bolivian case. Why do those presidents failed. One of my arguments is that democracia pactada was one reason.

I still think parliamentarized presidentialism can work better than presidentialism w/ TRS, all things being equal. But you're right, there were some problems. I think it would require adopting a vote of no confidence measure, such as what exists in regular parliamentary systems. Though it's never been used, such a provision exists in Botswana.

Democracia pactada might be a failure, of course. But it's also hailed (though less frequently now than before) for the democratic stability in much of continental Europe (Lijphart's "consociational" democracy). Overall, I think multiparty coalitions work.

But, again, a safety valve of a vote of no confidence would be useful. Imagine if parliament could have just voted Goni out of office in February 2003. How would things have progressed differently?

I do make a difference though between Lijphart's consociationalism concept and democracia pactada. While they might be similar in theory, in practice they are quite different.

Consociationalism entails cooperation among the elites to form a government with (roughly) equal representation (of the groups in play). That is, considering he had 'divided societies' in mind. To my understanding, these agreements are mainly based on values or even goals (such as repair damage from ethnic conflicts).

Democracia pactada, in turn, was carried out with the same definition in mind, but different practical aims. What Bolivian elites did was to divide the pie among themselves. No aim, goal or values in between, just pieces of the pie. Pure power politics.

As for the safety valve, I think presidentialism already has one. It's called, line of succession. Of course, I would not be opposed to either a popular recall or to a vote of no confidence.

Good point. Yes, Lijphart is referring to "grand coalitions" that include most of the respective divisions w/in a society. Although some of his cases include those (like Beligium & Holland) in which the major parties have explicitly excluded certain others (particularly ethno-nationalist [racist] parties).

I also agree that Bolivia's "pacts" were probably more about elite contrivance (or "juntuchas") than real issues. But. I think Fernando Mayorga is onto something when he points out that the "systemic" parties (the term used by Rene Mayorga for MNR, ADN, MIR) had come to agree to some key values: particularly, neoliberal economic policies. So I think in that regard the politics of Bolivia sort of fits the consociational model, even if not perfectly (though Lijphart's model was developed exclusively for Western Europe, so it's unclear how it would "travel" to other regions).

Part of the problem w/ the idea of Latin American clientelism is that it's often poorly specified. Don't all multiparty coalitions share spoils? Don't all the German, Dutch, and Swiss parties get "something" (ministries & other positions) from being in the coalition? No doubt there's a difference of degree. But I am convinced that at least some (though by no means all) of the political elites in the systemic parties really did believe in their policies. Now whether those policies were good or bad, is, of course, another matter altogether.

But I don't know if the line of succession is enough of a safety valve. Especially since the president has to first agree to step down. A popular recall is good, but it can also be devisive and further aggravate the crisis. So my preference is still for a vote of no confidence measure.

Thanks for engagin in this discussion, btw. I think it's quite fruitful!

Well, like I said, I am just 'busying' myself with the same questions. Which btw, I might present them next year in MPSA.

Yes, I see. It might be that the systemic parties might have agreed on some 'values' (as you call them). Neoliberal policies sounds like a good example. However, it is not clear (to me at least) that it was an agreement. My inclination is to think they were reluctant participants because otherwise they would have not gotten their piece. Furthermore, to me, they did not have common values which bonded them.

You mentioned Europe, in Germany, for what I've been able to observe, coalitions are built based on values and policies. For example, the greens would ally with the social democrats or with the christian democrats, but would never go with the free democrats. A thing of values, as they put it. Granted, that right now, there is a grand coalition in government (the social democrats and the christian dems), they would never choose to build a government under normal circumstances. Even though, the current coalition has a contract signed on the agenda the government is supposed to follow. The bases of it are the common values.

In the Bolivian case, whereas values might have played some kind of role, the main purpose was power. For example, MIR, whose supporters also suffered under the Banzer dictatorship, allied with ADN. Another example is the problem of transfugas, which was pretty wide spread. Politicians there, up until recently, did not have a problem of changing parties several times during a legislative period. No compromise with values there.

So as you can see, alliances were not solid because there was little to hold them together. I think that is one reason why they did not last.

But, don't get me wrong. I am not arguing that coalitions do not work. I am simply saying that the democracia pactada might not have been a well designed exercise.

The problem might be what you say. There is a false idea among Bolivian political elites of what consociationalism means.

The line of succession seems to be working in Bolivia. I might argue that partly because of that the Bolivian democracy is still alive. It proved to be useful. And the president, as we've seen, does not need to be willing to resign. He can be pressured by Congress or the people.

I agree. But I'm cautious about hindisght-based condemnation of previous stability. I do think that even the MIR-ADN alliance (which you rightly point to as "odd") could be explained both by clientelism (your explanation) or by a more policy-based pact or convergence (an alternate explanation). Since both explanations produce the same observable result, it's hard to know which is which.

One could point to Chile's Concertación alliance. What keeps the Socialists & the Christan Democrats together? Other similarly odd alliances have been made in other countries.

But, yes, I agree that Bolivia's political elites were probably more clientelistically driven than politicians in other countries. I'm just not ready to assume that this is universally true (I don't think you are either) simply based on the post-2003 crisis. If you get a chance, look for Fernando Mayorga's "Discurso y Politica" and J. Antonio Mayorga's "Gonismo, discurso y poder". They allude to a kind of "convergence" by political elites around a certain common discourse.

I think the problem (from my perspective) is twofold: The pacts were more clientelistic than they should have been. But the pacts weren't "ideologically pure" enough for many Bolivians. I think many Bolivians still see politics as a zero-sum game, whereas some of the political elites had abandoned that for comprimise & barganing.

One other thing: I think that MIR didn't change too much over the years. MIR was from the start influenced by both Marxism (but the West European social democratic kind) and Christian democracy. Jaime Paz Zamora's brother was more Marxist (the one who died as a guerrilla), but he himself was more on the Christian democracy side.

Remember that JPZ distanced himself from Siles Zuazo in 1984, in part because Siles Zuazo was moving to far to the left. MIR is still technically a member of the Socialist International. But so is Tony Blair's Labour Party. I don't find it too hard to fathom that it's possible that MIR (and later MBL, too) came to accept liberal economic policies, as did many European socialists by the 1990s.

I agree. I think we are getting into 'not so clear' territory here. As you say, it would be difficult to point out which was which, either clientilism or consociationalism. I guess more work for us, hu? :-)

Have a nice afternoon!