coalition and erosion and instability in ecuador

Coalition Erosion and PresidentialInstability in Ecuador

Andrs Meja AcostaJohn Polga-Hecimovich

ABSTRACT

This article advances the idea that coalition formation and mainte-nance in highly fragmented presidential regimes is not only crucialto overcoming policy deadlock, but in some cases, critical to ensur-ing government survival. To advance this argument, the articlelooks at the formation and demise of legislative coalitions inEcuador between 1979 and 2006. The empirical data suggest thatparadoxically, government coalitions became more difficult to sus-tain after the adoption of institutional reforms intended tostrengthen the presidents legislative powers. The adoption of thosereforms, it is argued, undermined the legislative incentives to coop-erate with the government and helped to accelerate coalition ero-sion. Not only did the reforms fail significantly to avoid policy dead-lock, but in some cases they contributed to the early termination ofpresidential mandates. This article contributes to the study of coali-tion survival and how it is linked to policymaking.

The formation of legislative coalitions in presidential democracies,especially in the context of highly fragmented systems, has receivedmuch scholarly attention (Altman 2000; Amorim Neto and Santos 2001;Morgenstern and Nacif 2002; Morgenstern et al. 2008; Raile et al. forth-coming). Most of this work has focused on the constitutional and parti-san sources of presidential strength needed to overcome legislative frag-mentation and produce policy change. However, there are fewcomprehensive accounts of what factors contribute to coalition durationand what factors explain why some coalitions are stable while othersrapidly erode over time. This article seeks to address that lacuna bylooking at the case of Ecuador, one of the most highly fragmented pres-idential democracies in Latin America.

Ecuador is a unique case for analyzing patterns of coalition dura-tion. Traditionally known for its volatile and highly fragmented partysystem and its chronic inability to form government majorities in Con-gress, the country underwent a sequence of institutional and constitu-tional reforms between 1995 and 1998 that sought to strengthen thepresidents ability to influence the legislative agenda and produce policychanges. Paradoxically, these reforms, which gave presidents greatercontrol over the legislative agenda, did not significantly improve their

2011 University of Miami

poor record of legislative success but instead increased the costs ofcoalition formation (Meja Acosta 2009). Here we argue that these insti-tutional reforms also contributed to the rapid erosion of governmentcoalitions in Congress.

The article analyzes the patterns of coalition duration between 1988and 2006. It finds that government coalitions were more likely to erodewhen alliances were formed with pivotal legislators instead of partisanmajorities, and with the advent of new elections. Nonlegislative factors,such as street conflicts or increasing inflation rates, also underminedcoalition duration. The data confirm our main hypothesis, that coalitionshave tended to be shorter in the post-1996 era. We find no evidence thatdecreasing job approval ratings for the president undermine coalitionduration.

The article proceeds as follows. The first section surveys the existingliterature on coalition formation in Latin America and identifies the needto explain the factors leading to coalition erosion. This section alsoexplores the linkages between coalition erosion, policy deadlock, andpresidential instability. The second section explains how the adoption ofinstitutional reforms in Ecuador undermined the legislative incentives tocooperate with the government, and thus affected the duration of leg-islative coalitions. The next section analyzes the duration of governmentcoalitions formed in Congress between 1988 and 2006. It shows thatcoalitions tend to erode when there are more party switchers, when elec-tions approach, and when there are more street conflicts and higherinflation rates. The fourth section expands the argument to explore threecases in which fickle government coalitions contributed to regime insta-bility. The last section offers a reflection about the connection betweencoalition duration and government survival in presidential regimes.

COALITION FORMATION AND DURATIONIN LATIN AMERICA

The existing literature on coalition formation in presidential systems hasfocused on the executives ability to promote power-sharing agreementsand distribute selective benefits to coalition partners. Inspired by the par-liamentary experience, the first set of explanations has focused on thegovernments ability to invite opposition parties to be part of the cabi-net. The premise is that cabinet membership tends to reflect and cementideological and programmatic affinities between the government andopposition parties, thus minimizing the need for policy compromisebetween the presidents ideal preferences and those of allied parties(Amorim Neto 2002). Cabinet membership contributes to coalition sta-bility because it allows the opposition to influence policymaking andmakes it accountable for the governments policy successes. Coalition

88 LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY 53: 2

stability is higher when the oppositions legislative strength is propor-tionally represented in the cabinet (Amorim Neto 2006; Negretto 2006).

A second set of coalitional tools refers to the governments ability todistribute and allocate selective incentives or investments (pork) to indi-vidual legislators to secure their willingness to form and sustain legislativecoalitions. Contrary to conventional accounts, which dismissed this typeof payments as inefficient and dishonest (Ames 1995; Mainwaring 1999),alternative approaches suggest that the distribution of clientelistic pay-ments in exchange for legislative support may effectively contribute tocoalition formation (Pereira and Mueller 2004; Raile et al. forthcoming).For example, Brazilian party leaders often bargained budgetary alloca-tions from the executive in exchange for policy support in other areas,but presidents retained the ability to make payments ineffective if legisla-tors defected from government coalitions (Alston et al. 2009).

A third set of explanations explores the question of when legislativepartners are most likely to form coalitions. According to Carey andShugart (1995), legislators are more inclined to cooperate when theirown political future is directly linked to the governments survival andpolicy success. This is true for legislators who are interested in seekingimmediate legislative re-election (as in Brazil or Chile) or other politicaloffice in the national or subnational government (as in Mexico or CostaRica) (Taylor 1988; Lujambio 1995; Carey 1996; Samuels 2003). Con-versely, incentives to form government coalitions decrease as new elec-tions approach, especially if the executive faces term limits (Coppedge1994; Altman 2000). The presidents own popularity ratings, reflected byjob approval scores, offer a good barometer for evaluating legislatorsincentives to cooperate or abandon the government (Calvo 2007; Prez-Lin 2007).

While these explanations help identify the moment when some pres-idents are more likely than others to form partisan cabinets or to securecooperation with particularistic or programmatic incentives, they offerlittle explicit discussion about the stability and duration of coalitions. Withfew exceptions (e.g., Pereira and Mueller 2004), the literature on presi-dential systems has not considered the dynamic dimensions of coalitionmanagement beyond the so-called tyranny of the electoral cycle. There-fore, we argue, it is relevant to understand when some government coali-tions are more stable than others and which factors lead to the stability orerosion of government coalitions. We assert that the coalition stabilitydepends on the governments ability to distribute a range of collective andselective incentives to legislative allies that remain valuable over time.

A first condition refers to the nature of coalition incentives; that is,whether political agreements between the executive and the oppositionare cemented around programmatic or ideological concessions (such aspower-sharing arrangements), or whether these are sustained with ad

MEJIA ACOSTA AND POLGA-HECIMOVICH: ECUADOR COALITIONS 89

hoc particularistic payoffs made to individual (often pivotal) legislators.In principle, power-sharing agreements have greater potential to sustaincooperation efforts over time than the distribution of particularistic pay-offs. However, the number of cabinet portfolios is limited, and the pres-idents bargaining power is subsequently reduced every time he or shehas to renegotiate coalition agreements with new partners. Thus, anincrease in cabinet volatility may indicate the negotiation or renegotia-tion of a coalition.

A second dimension relevant to understanding coalition durationhas to do with the expected value of cooperation incentives accordingto legislators own preferences. At the start of the presidential mandate,coalition incentives offered by the government are more valuable toparties and legislators (since discount rates are lower), but that valuedeclines as new elections approach and legislators face higher discountrates. This is especially true when legislators or presidents face termlimits. Therefore, we argue that government majorities are likely tobreak apart when legislative agents perceive no concrete cooperationbenefits, either because valuable cooperation incentives become scarceor because the value of existing incentives has depreciated.

To evaluate this hypothesis, this study looks at coalition-making pat-terns in Ecuador since 1979. It argues that constitutional reformsapproved in the mid-1990s reduced available coalition incentives andincreased legislators discount rates, thus leading to rapid coalition ero-sion and increased policy deadlock. In some cases, recurrent legislativestalemate directly contributed to regime instability and the fall of presi-dents Abdal Bucaram (1997), Jamil Mahuad (2000), and Lucio Gutir-rez (2005).

INSTITUTIONAL REFORMS, WEAK COALITIONS,AND ERODING COOPERATION IN ECUADOR

A permanent challenge for policymakers in Ecuador has been tostrengthen presidents abilities to promote durable and programmaticpolicies. Due to its extremely fragmented multiparty system (Conaghanand Malloy 1995; Snchez Lpez 2008)and, some would argue, to thepresence of presidential runoff elections (Pachano 2007)no Ecuado-rian president since 1979 has enjoyed a congressional majority, whichhas made the government susceptible to recurring executive-legislativedeadlock.1 Since the mid-1990s, multiple institutional reforms to theelectoral system, political parties, and balance of powers have beenadopted with the hope that presidents would be better equipped tointroduce policy changes.

The adoption of institutional reforms produced two distinct coali-tion-making periods. The first one, which lasted from the countrys tran-


sition to democracy until the end of the Durn Balln administration(197996), was characterized by a relative availability of coalition-making incentives whose value was nonetheless constrained by theshort time horizons imposed by the electoral calendar. During this time,presidents enjoyed an ample coalition-making toolbox for assemblinglegislative coalitions, including the distribution of cabinet portfolios,government jobs, and diplomatic postings; policy concessions; and highdiscretion for awarding selective incentives to potential partners. Politi-cal actors, by contrast, faced term limits and frequent elections, whichsignificantly depreciated the long-term value of coalition currencies.

The second period, which endured from the start of the Bucaramadministration until the end of the Gutirrez-Palacio administration(19962006), was characterized by longer time horizons but fewer cur-rencies for political actors. The distinctions between the two coalition-making scenarios and their implications for policymaking have beenexplored elsewhere (Meja Acosta et al. 2008). Here we focus on howthe different institutional configurations affected coalition-making pat-terns, and particularly how coalitions became shorter and more volatilefrom the first period to the second.

The Making of Ghost Coalitions, 19791996

An apparent paradox of this period is that presidents effectively managedto form governing coalitions with political parties and individual legisla-tors despite the highly contentious nature of the policymaking game inEcuador. This unexpected empirical evidence comes from the observa-tion that presidents used a wide array of formal and informal mecha-nisms to overcomeeven if temporarilythe high levels of legislativefragmentation and the short-term local interests of coalition partners.

Presidents used their decree or veto authority to promote policyreforms, as predicted by the existing literature, but they also engaged in(parliamentary-style) allocation of cabinet positions and offered valu-able government postings to opposition parties, and in the more infor-mal and particularistic (yet often legal) use of discretionary spending(gastos reservados) to finance legislators individual development proj-ects. Although these incentives encouraged opposition parties to formpart of the governing coalition, two-year legislative terms and midtermelections often limited the long-term success of these coalitions.2

Toward the end of their mandates, parties and legislators preferred toprotect their future electoral ambitions by distancing themselves fromany cooperation with the outgoing government (Snchez Lpez 2008).

During this time, policymaking agreements between the governmentand the legislative opposition were cemented around ghost or clan-destine coalitions. Through this mechanism, the government distributed


incentives to the opposition in exchange for legislative support, althoughall parties involved maintained a discourse of political independence toavoid possible electoral liabilities (Meja Acosta 2009). Although thisinformal practice did not necessarily produce long-term or programmaticexchanges, it enabled politicians to break policy deadlock and promotesignificant reforms. Coalitions were sustained thanks to a series of infor-mal checks and balances that were used to enforce compliance withagreements. Such sanctions included legislative threats to impeach gov-ernment officials and government dismissal of opposition officials.

This informal but functional coalition-making equilibrium came toan end during the Durn Balln administration. Having won the 1992general election, President Sixto Durn Balln led a conservative gov-ernment composed of the Republican Union Party (PUR) and theEcuadorian Conservative Party (PCE). Ironically, the PUR-PCE alliance,which held only 18 of the 77 congressional seats, sought the support ofthe presidential runner-up party, the conservative Social Christian Party(PSC), which held 21 seats. For the next two years, the conservative pactpromoted an ambitious agenda of market-oriented reforms, includingthe Public Sector Budgets Law, tax reform, the State Modernization Law,deregulation of the intellectual property rights law and foreign invest-ment regimes, reform of the financial system, a Capital Markets Law, aHydrocarbons Law, and an Agrarian Reform Law. In exchange, the PSCdemanded access to state resources, including budgetary allocations inexcess of $100 million for the PSC-controlled provinces of Guayas,Manab, Los Ros, and Esmeraldas, and direct cash transfers from theexecutives discretionary spending fund to PSC legislators. The PSC alsoplayed a prominant role in the congressional nomination of SupremeCourt judges and members of the Electoral Tribunal (Dahik 1995; MejaAcosta 2006).

By 1995, Vice President (and chief coalition manager) Alberto Dahikbelieved that PSC demands had vastly exceeded the contents of theoriginal, secret agreement and argued that government resources werenot a bottomless pit (Dahik 2006). After conversations to renew theterms of the alliance with the PSC failed, Dahik decided to go publicby suggesting during an interview that Supreme Court justices linked tothe PSC had sought bribes from the executive to rule in favor of gov-ernment interests. The strategy backfired, and the PSC filed a legalaction against Dahik, accusing him of the illegitimate use of millions ofdollars in government funds to purchase legislative loyalties, ironicallyfrom the PSC itself (NotiSur 1995a). Dahik survived the subsequentimpeachment proceedings, however, when the PSC was unable tomuster enough votes in the congress.3 The fallout was heavy: the vicepresident resigned shortly thereafter, and the corruption scandalseverely damaged the PSCs performance in the 1996 general election.4


Throughout the development of the corruption scandal, the gov-ernment actively promoted constitutional reforms (approved throughreferenda in 1994 and 1995) to curb legislators ability to demand andchannel budgetary allocations to their provinces; to reduce the presi-dential use of discretionary off-budget spending accounts (gastos reser-vados); and to allow legislators to seek consecutive term re-election,which had previously been banned.

The adoption of constitutional changes created an ambiguous set ofpolitical incentives that obstructed coalition making and accelerated leg-islative erosion in the following years. On the one hand, presidents andlegislators had access to fewer coalition currencies. A constitutionalreform approved through a plebiscite in 1995, for example, shifted theallocation of budgets from territorial districts (provinces) to program-matic sectors. This reduced legislators incentives to bargain with theexecutive for budgetary allocations, since they could no longer benefittheir constituencies (Meja Acosta et al. 2009). On the other hand, theabolition of term limits for legislators but not for presidents expandedlegislators time horizons and created greater incentives for long-termcooperation among themselves, but not necessarily with the govern-ment.5 This constitutional reform was also approved through aplebiscite in 1995. New coalition dynamics were the result.

Failed Institutional Reforms and Increased Coalition Erosion, 19962006

The second period of coalition making is defined by an interesting par-adox. The institutional reforms adopted in the aftermath of the Dahikcorruption scandal not only failed to effectively reduce incentives forcorruption, but eliminated key legislative currencies that helped policy-makers overcome policy deadlock. While legislators could now developlong-term loyalties with their constituencies thanks to the re-electionrule, they now had very little leverage to bargain for specific budgetallocations on their constituents behalf. These contradictory reformsseverely undermined the political parties ability to represent and deliverpublic goods, thus increasing the incidence of corruption scandals andaffecting their electoral performance. Some observers (e.g., Freidenberg2008) even consider this to be the beginning of an antiparty momentin Ecuadors recent democratic history.

A subsequent round of institutional reforms, approved as part of anew constitutional overhaul between 1997 and 1998, sought tostrengthen the presidents policymaking ability by increasing hisagenda-setting powers, protecting the cabinet from legislative impeach-ments, and removing legislators who defected from their parties or werefound guilty of peddling political influences. However, these reforms


frustrated presidents, who were unable legally to entice support fromthe legislature, and created disaffected congressional parties, whichwere less able to influence the policymaking process (Meja Acosta2009). In some cases, presidents and legislators revived informal andclandestine coalition-making practiceslike party switchingto avoiddeadlock and approve significant pieces of economic reform, such asthe adoption of a significant dollarization law package and subsequentfiscal responsibility laws. These new coalitions, however, arguably weresignificantly shorter and more fickle than coalitions formed during theprevious period.6

ASSESSING THE EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE:INSTITUTIONAL REFORMS AND COALITION DURATION

To evaluate the impact of institutional reforms on the duration of coali-tions, it is useful to make both a comparative analysis of coalitions inEcuador before and after 1996 and an OLS regression analysis of leg-islative coalitions between 1988 and 2006.

In the volatile Ecuadorian context, we adopt an operational defini-tion of a legislative coalition as a formal or informal agreement madebetween the president and opposition parties around a specific agendaof policy reforms, as reported by the press.7 These political alliancesmay include but are not necessarily defined by long-term policy agree-ments, and they entail no explicit distribution of cabinet positionsamong opposition parties. Some of these alliances are publicly acknowl-edged and recognized by the relevant parties (such as the explicitalliance between Gutirrezs PSP and Pachakutik in 2002), whereasother political alliances are repeatedly denied by legislative partners,although widely acknowledged by the media and other political actors(such as the alliance between Gutirrezs PSP and the Social ChristianParty from 2003 to 2004). This study also takes the fallout of coalitionpartners from media reports and codes it as the dissolution of that spe-cific coalition. Cases of fallout and renegotiation are coded as distinct,so the Durn Balln administrations pact with the PSC in 1992 is codedas ending in 1994 when the PSC dropped out. The renegotiation ofterms and subsequent reformation of the PUR-PSC coalition is thereforecoded as a separate event.

The available data show that the average coalition lasted about 12months until the end of the Durn Balln administration in 1996, but theaverage fell to just 3.32 months after that period. Conversely, the aver-age number of coalitions per year had a drastic increase from 0.63 peryear before 1996 to 1.73 per year after that time.

Table 1 compares the average coalition duration and the averagenumber of coalitions formed per year with two proxy indicators for


coalition presence: cabinet turnover rate and party-switching rate. Thecabinet turnover rate, measured by the average change in the numberof ministers per month, shows the share of ministers who abandonedoffice either because they were impeached by Congress, resigned, orwere removed by the president.8 The turnover rate is used as an indi-cator of coalition volatility: a higher turnover reflects more frequent bar-gaining with opposition parties. Consistent with predictions, the datashow that the ministerial turnover rate increased 11.5 percent, from 0.52ministers per month pre-1996 to 0.58 ministers per month post-1996. Itis relevant to note that cabinet ministers tenure did not become morestable even when the 1998 constitutional reforms introduced provisionsto protect government ministers from being impeached and dismissedby Congress.

A second proxy indicator for coalition stability is party switching.We expect that the incidence of party switching should be inverselyassociated with stable coalitions and that more volatile coalitions shouldbe accompanied by higher rates of party switching. We calculated thisby taking the number of congress members who switched parties overthe total number of deputies for each year; the period and total rates areaverages of each yearly rate. It is interesting to note that when trackedyear by year, the highest levels of party switching tended to occur whenthe president had the weakest legislative support, especially OsvaldoHurtados government in 1982, Durn-Ballns from 1992 to 1994, andGustavo Noboas in 2000 (see Meja Acosta 2009).

At an aggregate level, the total of 218 defections over a 23-yearperiod means that approximately 10 percent of Ecuadorian legislatorsswitched parties per year. When dividing party switching into the twoperiods of study, the rate of camisetazos (party switchers) decreasedfrom 12 percent of legislators per year from 1979 to 1996 to 9 percentin the following period. The relatively small decrease in party switching,even though 1998 reforms sought to eliminate it altogether, illustrates


Table 1. Coalition Duration and Proxies by Time Period, 19792006

Success SuccessAverage Rate RateCoalition Cabinet Party Without withDuration Coalitions Turnover Switching Executive Executive

Period (months) per Year Ratea Rateb Decree Decree

19791996 12 0.63 0.52 0.12 0.41 0.7219962006 3.32 1.73 0.58 0.09 0.39 0.73Average 6.3 1.07 0.54 0.11 0.40 0.72

a 19962003b 19962002

that the use of informal coalition practices, such as voting with inde-pendent legislators, continued to be a relevant way to compensate forthe lack of partisan support and cement government coalitions withindividual supporters.

Table 1 also looks at the proportion of executive-initiated bills thatwere approved by Congress. Although this measure is not unproblem-atic, it is a nonetheless reasonable proxy to measure the extent to whichreforms effectively enabled presidents to influence the policy agenda.9

In general, we find that the presidents ability to push more bills throughCongress did not dramatically increase, even though institutionalreforms granted the executive greater agenda-setting powers, includingstronger veto and decree prerogatives after 1998. When we parse thebill success rate according to the use of executive decree authority, weobserve that the success rate of nondecree-issued bills decreased from41 percent to 39 percent, whereas the success rate of executive-decreedbills increased from 72 percent to 73 percent.

These indicators belie a change in executive strategy: presidentsrelied on decrees in only 64 of 212 bills proposed in the pre-1996 eraand 33 of 66 bills brought before Congress in the post-1996 era. Thesedata illustrate that, ceteris paribus, presidents before and after the 1996reforms were equally successful in promoting their agenda of reforms,but coalition formation and maintenance became much more expensiveafter 1996. The particular set of constitutional reforms made presidentsresort more often to the use of decrees and exert greater effort inmaking multiple but short-lived coalitions with votes from individualparty defectors and cabinet reshuffling.

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS

An OLS regression further supports this argument.10 The dependentvariable is the duration of a government coalition, measured in monthssince formation. If the coalition was formed on October 1, then Octo-ber is coded as 0 and November is coded as 1. We use the lagged valueto predict the impact of political and other variables on the duration ofthe next months coalition. The units of analysis are government coali-tions per month between the Borja and the Palacios administrations(August 1988December 2006) for a total of 221 cases.11

Three types of variables were tested. The first type relates to thecomposition of Congress and legislative dynamics. As described in theprevious section, these variables include the share of seats held by thepresidents party, the coalition seat share, and the party-switching rate.We find that the first two are positively associated, but not highly cor-related with the dependent variable (.36 and .41, respectively), suggest-ing that larger partisan coalitions tend to last longer. Conversely, the


measure of party switching (coded as the number of registered partydisaffiliations per month) tends to be associated with shorter govern-ment coalitions. We take the party-switching rate as a proxy to repre-sent the purchase of legislative support through clientelistic or particu-laristic incentives.

The second type of variable explores the impact of the time factoron coalition duration. A first measure is to look at the time remainingbefore the end of the legislative term; this is measured as a proportionalshare of months left in the presidential mandate.12 We also created adummy variable to evaluate whether government coalitions becamemore unstable after 1996. This is to test one of our most importantclaims: that the introduction of constitutional and institutional reformsdiminished the availability and value of legislative incentives to cooper-ate with the executive. We also control for the effect of specific admin-istrations through dummy variables.

A third type of variable operationalizes factors that could negativelyinfluence coalition duration outside the legislative realm, including theperception of an economic crisis (measured by inflation rates), fallingnet job approval ratings for the president in Quito and Guayaquil, andan increasing number of street conflicts.13 The logic is that legislativeactors will interpret these negative street signals as a deterrent to form-ing and sustaining cooperation agreements with the government.

As table 2 shows, the empirical analysis supports the explanationthat coalition duration is positively affected by the presence of largerpartisan contingents in favor of the president, whether the presidentsparty or the size of the coalition itself, and that coalitions tend to lastlonger the closer they are to the beginning of the presidents term. Con-versely, the factors that negatively affect the duration of coalitionsinclude a larger share of party switchers, the proximity of new elections,higher inflation rates, and the number of street protests. We also findempirical support for the main hypothesis that the nature of coalitionincentives changed after 1996, thus making coalitions more fickle andless durable in subsequent years.

Surprisingly, we find that the reported presidents net job approvalratings have a significant but negative impact on coalition duration,meaning that higher popularity ratings help explain shorter coalitions.This counterintuitive result remains consistent even when we disaggre-gate approval ratings from two Ecuadorian cities to control for signifi-cant regional differences. Since net approval rating (positive minus neg-ative) is biased toward negative values, we also ran the models withpositive approval rating. However, the significant and negative relation-ship with coalition duration remains.

Analyzing the data in more detail, table 2 reports different modelspecifications. Model 1 finds that the remaining time in the term has a



Table 2. Determinants of Coalition Duration in Ecuador, 19882006

Independent Variable Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4(Robust SE) (Robust SE) (Robust SE) (Robust SE)

Presidents share 4.992 2.697 4.992(4.642) (4.808) (4.642)

Coalition share 10.636*** 9.161***(2.153) (2.719)

Time remaining 5.278*** 3.672*(1.108) (1.974)

Post-1996 3.924*** 3.793*** 2.844**(0.900) (0.790) (0.972)

Approval rating 0.046*** 0.043***(0.012) (0.013)

Social protest 0.031 0.032* 0.088* 0.037*(0.020) (0.019) (0.029) (0.021)

Inflation 0.613** 0.528* 0.742**(0.183) (0.192) (0.197)

Party switching 16.370** 10.704*(5.651) (6.080)

Durn Balln administration 5.027***(1.308)

Bucaram administration 3.868*(1.835)

Alarcn administration 0.894(1.604)

Mahuad administration 0.917(1.613)

Noboa administration 1.657(1.056)

Gutirrez administration (dropped)

Palacio administration (dropped)

Constant 4.177*** 4.090*** 7.458*** 4.177***(1.150) (1.148) (1.206) (1.150)

N 186 186 173 173

R2 0.363 0.352 0.341 0.436

*p .1, **p .01, ***p .001

positive and significant impact on the lagged coalition duration, whereasincreased number of protests and growing inflation rates have signifi-cant and negative effects on duration. The electoral cycle also influencescoalition duration: a coalition formed at the beginning of a presidentsterm is likely to last an average five months more than a coalitionformed at the end of the presidents term. By contrast, an increase in tenprotests per monthwhere the mean is 30.9 per month in the timeperiod covereddecreases the average coalition duration by .3 months,and a two-point increase in inflation rates decreases the coalitions dura-tion by one month. The model also supports the idea that post-1996 leg-islative coalitions tended to be shorter-lived than previous ones, withthe average post-1996 coalition lasting four months less on average thatthe pre-1996 ones.

Model 2 finds that the size of the government coalition has a posi-tive impact on duration. A 10 percent increase in the share of the gov-ernments legislative coalition is likely to increase the life of the coalitionby a little over a month. Although we have no evidence to prove thisexact causal link, we believe that larger coalitions are usually formedaround more programmatic agreements between parties, as opposed tothose formed around the distribution of particularistic incentives. Model3 corroborates this notion by showing that an increased share of partyswitchers in a given month will have a negative and significant impacton the duration of the coalition. A 10 percent increase in party switchingdiminishes the life of the coalition by 1.6 months. Model 3 also controlsfor the impact of specific administrations. These fixed-effects variablessupport the idea that coalitions were longer during administrationsbefore 1996 (such as Durn Balln), compared to those after the reformswere approved (Mahuad and Noboa administrations). All models showa significant impact of the number of street protests and higher inflationrates on the diminished duration of coalitions.

Model 4 reports the combined impact of the most significant vari-ables on coalition duration. As in other specifications, all variablesexcept presidents party share in Congress are statistically significant toconventional levels. The coefficients for coalition share and timeremaining are only slightly smaller than in model 2, and all variablesmaintain their signs across models. The only variable that has a signifi-cant but negative impact on coalition duration is the presidents averagenet approval rating.

The relevance of these empirical findings can be illustrated with abrief discussion of how and when rapid coalition erosion in the post-1996 era contributed to institutional crises and the early termination ofpresidents mandates.


COALITION EROSION, POLICY DEADLOCK, AND PRESIDENTIAL OUSTINGS

The regression analysis illustrates how the adoption of institutionalreforms intended to strengthen the presidents ability to initiate policiesactually weakened legislators incentives to sustain partisan coalitionswith the executive. We also suggest that shorter legislative coalitionsafter 1996 were also associated with a higher probability of policy dead-lock, or at least required greater effort on the executives part to assem-ble and maintain legislative support.

Rapid coalition erosion in Congress and the ensuing policy dead-lock also contributed to presidential crises in Ecuador after 1996. Thecomparative literature has offered sound explanations of presidentialcrises in country-specific political contexts and in interaction with othercritical variables, such as social movements and independent media(Prez-Lin 2007; Llanos and Marsteintredet 2010). The argument herefocuses on the contributing role played by Congress in initiating thegovernments demise or eventually legitimating its collapse. This sectiondiscusses specific examples of presidential crises in contemporaryEcuador.

The Bucaram Crisis, 19961997

Abdal Bucaram, the traditional leader of the Roldosista party (PRE),was ousted from office in early 1997, only seven months after beinginaugurated, by a congressional resolution that declared his mentalincapacity to govern (Freidenberg 2003). Because his party hadobtained only 25 percent of the congressional seats, the president wasforced to seek legislative support from the most cohesive and largestparty in Congress, the conservative PSC. The legislative alliance, whichPSC leaders dismissed as a favorable coincidence, gave them an activerole in the selection of Supreme Court judges and joint approval of anElectric Sector Regime Law.14

The implicit alliance collapsed after only three months, however,after the PSC challenged the governments plan for raising taxes andending value added tax exemptions in the 1997 fiscal budget. Yet, as pre-viously noted, by 1996 the president could no longer negotiate districtbudgetary allocations to entice the support of coalition members. Insteadof seeking a broader alliance with the PSC or any other opposition partyduring the budgetary process, Bucaram preferred to make particularisticconcessions to individual legislators. His 1997 budget proposal obtaineda favorable report from six of seven members of the Budget Committee(Comisin de lo Tributario, Fiscal y Bancario) and won approval bysimple majority in the 35-member Plenary Chamber (plenario de las


comisiones legislativas), where his party held eight seats and the supportof another ten independent legislators (Albornoz et al. 2009).

From a legislative perspective, Bucarams bold move challenged thetraditional budget-making consultations with political parties. In early1997, the alienated opposition formed a Patriotic Front to challenge thepresidents fiscal austerity measures and vetoed price increases on basicgoods (electricity, gas, and phone services). The economic situation,coupled with multiple accusations of government corruption and nepo-tism, triggered social reaction and popular protest demanding the pres-idents resignation. Congressional parties, led by the PSC, lacked therequired two-thirds majority to impeach and dismiss the president, sothey instead passed a legislative resolution to unilaterally declare hismental incapacity to govern, 44 votes to 34. Bucaram was ousted fromoffice on February 6, 1997, and the sitting president of Congress, FabinAlarcn, was declared interim president in the midst of constitutionalcontroversy (Prez-Lin 2007).

The Mahuad Crisis, 19982000

After the Bucaram crisis, a constitutional reform process was set up toimprove governance conditions in Ecuador. Paradoxically, the constitu-tional reforms further strengthened presidential power and prerogativesover the legislature while limiting Congresss policymaking abilities(Andrade 2005). The new institutional setup did not protect president-elect Jamil Mahuad from facing another political crisis, which eventuallyremoved him from office.

Like those of his predecessors, Mahuads Christian Democracy Party(DP) held a minority of seats in Congress (35 of 123), and he sought thePSCs support to secure a governing coalition. The DP-PSC coalition, orsteamroller (aplanadora), as it was known in the media, reflectedMahuads vision of market-based economic reforms while offering a dis-ciplined and reliable source of party support in the legislature (Mahuad2002). The power-sharing agreement was reflected by the joint appoint-ment of the attorney general; the peoples attorney, or ombudsman; thebanking superintendent; and the director of the Electoral Tribunal. In itssix-month existence, the coalition contributed to the ratification of anEcuador-Peru peace treaty in October 1998, the adoption of a 1 percenttax on all financial transactions (ICC, impuesto a la circulacin de cap-itales), and the governments tribute and finance reform, which includedimportant fiscal, budgetary, and financial reforms (Meja Acosta 2009).

The coalitions breakdown was triggered when the governmenttried to push for further fiscal reforms, such as a VAT increase from 10percent to 15 percent to finance a mounting fiscal deficit (partly due toa dramatic fall in oil prices). The imminent collapse of the Ecuadorian


banking system polarized policy differences inside the coalition and putadditional pressures on it. The presidents decision to declare a bankholiday in March 1999 and to impose a yearlong freeze on accounts toavoid the collapse of the banking system alienated the governmentsPSC allies, and the steamroller disbanded.

Although the collapse of the first coalition was driven largely byexogenous policy choices, it had a negative effect on the formation andsustainability of subsequent alliances. The government had already allo-cated scarce and important government posts in the courts and the Elec-toral Tribunal to the PSC, and no other party wanted the liability ofaccepting a cabinet office from an unpopular government. In the after-math of financial collapse, Mahuad sustained a two-month coalitionwith left partiesthe indigenous Pachakutik and Democratic Left (ID)to regulate the banking system and restore balance to public finances.By the end of 1999, the president was resorting to making last-minutealliances with catch-all parties, such as Bucarams PRE, in exchange forparticularistic concessions, but could not gather sufficient support toadopt a long-term package of economic reforms.

In only 18 months in office, Mahuad had bargained with and alienatedevery party in Congress. In the context of a perfect storm of political,social, and economic crisis, the indigenous CONAIE movement and a fac-tion of military officers took over the congressional building and chal-lenged the presidents authority on January 21, 2000. The congressionalmajority gathered in the port city of Guayaquil to approve a resolution toaccept a nonexistent resignation from Mahuad and, following article 168of the 1998 Constitution, appointed Vice President Gustavo Noboa as hisconstitutional successor until new elections were held in 2003.

The Gutirrez Crisis, 20032005

In government, Lucio Gutirrezs PSP Party reproduced the same coali-tion it had formed with the indigenous Pachakutik Party and the leftistMPD to overthrow Mahuad three years earlier. The power-sharing coali-tion lasted about eight months before disintegrating when Gutirrezadopted a market-oriented approach that ran against the coalitions elec-toral promises. His new policy agenda, including pledges to the Inter-national Monetary Fund to privatize the petroleum sector, electricity,and telecommunications and to undertake fiscal reforms, hinted at apossible agreement with the PSC.

The PSP-PSC coalition, which lasted nearly 15 months, promotedthe negotiation of a bilateral free trade agreement with the United States,the approval of the 2004 fiscal budget (Diario Hoy 2003), and a PSC-ledreshuffling of Supreme Court judges. Then a series of corruption scan-dals and mutual embezzlement accusations between the presidents


cousin Renn Borba and PSC leader Len Febres Cordero put a strainon the available coalition currencies and the terms of cooperation.15 Theantigovernment mood in the wake of the 2004 municipal elections alsoaccelerated the demise of the PSC coalition. After the election, and fol-lowing a formula similar to that of previous crises, the PSC led an oppo-sition coalition (with Pachakutik and the ID) to begin impeachment pro-ceedings against Gutirrez for corruption and jeopardizing state security,in November 2004.

Ironically, the governments remedy turned out to be worse than thedisease. Even though the congressional opposition lacked the two-thirdsmajority required to dismiss the executive, Gutirrez sought to form a leg-islative shield with the support from Bucarams PRE and Alvaro NoboasPRIAN parties.16 To secure the new loyalties, Gutirrez had to reallocatepayoffs, and on December 9, 2004, the PSP-PRE-PRIAN alliance removedall of the Supreme Court justices (including some alleged PSC judges) andreplaced them with its own political cronies. The coalition also reorgan-ized the Constitutional and Supreme Electoral Tribunals.

Not surprisingly, the new president of the Supreme Court droppedcorruption charges against former president Bucaram in March 2005 andallowed Bucaram to return from exile. The sequence of constitutionalviolations and blunt manipulation of the judicial system angered citizensand provoked urban protests. Opposition parties convened an emer-gency congressional session on April 20, and, with a 600 vote (withtwo abstentions), falsely declared that the president had abandonedoffice and proceeded to replace him with his constitutional successor,Vice President Alfredo Palacio (Freidenberg 2008).

Discussion

The cases of regime instability in Ecuador show that the rapid erosion oflegislative coalitions was a factor contributing to the early removal of threepresidents, in 1997, 2000, and 2005. Recent scholarly accounts of presi-dential crises have focused on the separate and combined range of factorsleading to presidential falls, including the mobilization of the public andorganized (ethnic) groups, moderate cases of military intervention, anincreasingly proactive role of investigative journalism, and governmentefforts to adopt neoliberal economic reforms (Hochstetler 2006; Prez-Lin 2007; Llanos and Marsteintredet 2010). While these factors helpexplain instances of presidential instability in Ecuador, we find that in thiscountry, intense congressional opposition is the most important recurrentfactor leading to the ousting of presidents. More important, this decisiverole of the Ecuadorian Congress was identified more than 30 years ago byPyne (1976), who shows how the legislature became a delegitimating forcein the presidential crisis that produced the collapse of the fourth Velasco


Ibarra government in 1961. Instead of merely acting as a rubber stamp forthe executive, Pyne argues, the congress exercised considerable influencewithin the political system and was a major arena in which the struggle tooverthrow the executive was successfully concluded.

A most commonor conventionalsource of presidential instabil-ity is reportedly the presence of a severe economic crisis, but it isunclear whether this is the case in Ecuador. Only the adverse politicalimpact of a simultaneous financial, fiscal, and banking crisis at the endof 1999 and 2000 directly undermined Mahuads political capital, erodedpeoples confidence in government, and contributed to cementing a uni-fied antigovernment feeling among multiple social and political actors.Yet the fall of Gutirrez in 2005 took place in a moment of relative oilbonanza, stable policymaking, and moderate economic success. In thecase of Bucaram, the link between economic and political crisis wasvery weak. It was the generalized fear among elites about his manage-ment of a possible economic crisis that triggered the presidents fall.

The case for explicit military interventiona very common occur-rence in past decadesis weak in the context of recent presidentialcrises. The military occupation of Congress during the Mahuad crisis isdismissed by J. Samuel Fitch as an exception rather than a rule (Fitch2005, 56). Given the institutions growing professionalization and itsgeneralized democratic conviction, the military is unlikely to have astake in civilian affairs. Instead, it plays a rather passive role in allowingpresidential removals by announcing its withdrawal of support for thepresidents office.

Nor has the presence of organized urban and ethnic groups inEcuador, including the indigenous movement, been the sole cause of apresidential crisis (Pachano 2005; Pallares 2006) but a reflection of it(Yashar 2006). Although the indigenous CONAIE was the central protag-onist of the 2000 coup, the indigenous protest and mobilization was oneof many voices demanding the dismissal of Bucaram in 1997 and Guti-rrez in 2005. Therefore, although all these factors are relevant to the fallof presidents, rapid coalition erosion is likely to enhance the politicalimpact of a military insurrection, the perception of or reaction to an eco-nomic crisis, and the demands and anger of organized social groups.

EPILOGUE AND CONCLUSIONS

This article aims to contribute to the understanding of coalition forma-tion and duration in presidential regimes. Much of the existing literaturehas focused on the political and institutional factors that determine thepresidents ability to form government coalitions in the legislature, espe-cially in situations of minority government. A survey of coalitioninstances in Ecuador, a country known for its high legislative fragmen-


tation, shows that there are significant variations in the average durationof legislative coalitions across different administrations, and that rapidcoalition erosion is a contributing factor to policy deadlock and regimeinstability. Furthermore, an analysis of the circumstances surroundingthe formation and erosion of coalitions in each government reveals apattern of coalition cycling, where each subsequent coalition in a gov-ernment tends to be shorter and less cohesive than the previous one.

This study argues that government coalitions are likely to break apartwhen legislative agents do not perceive any concrete cooperation bene-fits, either because valuable cooperation incentives become scarce orbecause the perceived value of existing payoffs depreciates over time. Inthe first place, coalitions are best sustained when political actors havewell-defined political or ideological incentives to cooperate and developlong-term expectations of receiving future coalition benefits. Conversely,the formation of ad hoc pacts based on particularistic payoffs to individ-ual parties is likely to result in a shortened duration. Consistent with theexisting literature, this study finds that the electoral calendar also plays asignificant role in predicting the duration of government coalitions inEcuador, where upcoming electoral events actually decrease the value ofavailable coalition incentives for potential allies.

Ecuador offers an ideal testing ground to assess the validity of theseclaims. Traditionally portrayed as a difficult nation to govern, given itshigh legislative fragmentation, the country underwent significant politi-cal reforms between 1995 and 1998 to improve the presidents ability toinfluence policies. Some of these reforms strengthened presidential pre-rogatives to influence the legislative process through increased vetopowers and gave the president greater powers to initiate fast-track leg-islation. At the same time, reforms curbed the presidents ability to useand distribute available coalition incentives to legislative partners,including the ability to transfer budget allocations to friendly con-stituencies. As this study shows, even though constitutional reformsexpanded the time horizons of legislative actors and the agenda-settingpowers of the president, the scarcity of coalition incentives underminedthe duration of government coalitions after 1996.

The empirical analysis, utilizing comparative statistics as well as OLSregressions, supports this argument. In general, it finds that when con-trolling for other factors, a higher incidence of party defection, the prox-imity of new elections, a greater number of social conflicts, and the per-ception of an economic crisis measured in terms of higher inflation ratesall undermine the duration of government coalitions. Although the rel-evance and direction of explanatory variables is similar to those factorsexplaining coalition formation, factors like job approval ratings are con-sistently shown to have a role in the formulation but not duration ofcoalitions. In other words, a decrease in presidential popularity seems


to undermine legislative incentives to form coalitions with the president,but it does not affect their incentives to sustain such coalitions.

A critical contribution of this article is to document how patterns ofcoalition duration are related to government survival. Through a briefqualitative analysis, it illustrates that rapid coalition erosion in the legis-lature was a critical factor in the fall of three presidents. Furthermore, itshows that alternative explanations to presidential crises, such as indige-nous or military intervention or the presence of social unrest due to eco-nomic crises, were influential but not systematic factors across all cases.

The 2006 presidential election marked an important turning point inEcuadorian politics. Rafael Correa, an outsider who was not from theestablished political parties, ran his campaign with a promise to end thetraditional parties bad reputation for causing political instability andspreading corruption. Consistent with his campaign promise, Correasparty did not run for congressional seats. More surprising, the presidentbacked the decision of the Electoral Tribunal to dismiss 57 oppositionlegislators (out of a total of 100) on the grounds that they had opposedthe election of a constituent assembly (El Comercio 2007). Not only didcitizens approve of Correas encroachment on the legislature, but theyoverwhelmingly voted to authorize members of the new governmentparty, PAIS, to redraft the constitution in 2008. Consistent with the termsof the institutional analysis here, however, the new constitution has con-centrated in the executive even greater agenda-setting powers and dis-cretionary power over the use of coalition currencies. Still, it is too earlyto predict whether a new era of single-party dominance and stablecoalitions has begun in Ecuador.

Going beyond the Ecuadorian case, this research is relevant to antic-ipating and explaining the consequences of coalition erosion on policydeadlock, and even regime instability. As reality shows, the ubiquity ofthe multiparty system in Latin America does not auger well for single-party majority government. Despite the paucity of literature on coalitiongovernments under presidentialism, many Latin American countriesdepend on some type of coalition to govern, whether that coalition isbased on a shared ideology and ensconced in the electoral formula(Chile) or overlooks ideological differences and relies on particularism(Brazil). While other scholars (Pyne 1976; Prez-Lin 2007) have notedthat legislative support of the president is a key component in ensuringpolicy and regime stability, this study shows that the type and nature ofeach coalition implies different policy and regime outcomes.

NOTES

The authors would like to thank Pablo Andrade, Mariana Llanos, LeivMarsteintredet, and Anbal Prez-Lin for their insightful commentary on pre-


vious drafts of this article, as well as Informe Confidencial for use of its publicopinion data. All errors and inaccuracies remain our responsibility.

1. We find little consensus in the literature regarding the expected effectsof runoff elections (ballotage). Some authors have convincingly argued that suchelections can incentivize voters to vote against the least-desired candidate ratherthan for the most desired one, especially in a weakly institutionalized systemlike Ecuadors (Pachano 1997). From a comparative perspective, other scholarshave argued that the runoff electoral system in and of itself is not a source ofpolitical instability, and that in some cases it may actually reduce the propensityfor governability crises (Prez-Lin 2006).

2. Provincial legislators (85 percent of the congress) were elected for two-year periods, whereas presidents and national legislators were elected for four-year terms, in all cases with no re-election.

3. A pivotal actor for Dahiks survival was Abdal Bucarams RoldosistaParty (PRE), which abstained from the final impeachment vote. When askedabout this decision, party leader Bucaram responded, Dahik should go toprison for corruption, but it is not the political trial that will put him behind bars,it is the criminal trial (NotiSur 1995b).

4. Days after the proceedings, Supreme Court President Carlos SolrzanoConstantine (reportedly a PSC crony) ordered Dahiks preventive detention,citing possible criminal charges for the illegal use of the discretionary accounts.Dahik resigned from his post and sought political asylum in Costa Rica (WeeklyNews Update on the Americas 1995).

5. We understand time horizons as the expected duration of a politi-cians mandate. In a presidential system, the time horizons are usually definedby the specific electoral events, but other constitutional restrictions, such as termlimits, can also influence politicians long-term career choices.

6. Although the availability of the presidents gastos reservados was effec-tively reduced after 1995 and ultimately eliminated after 1998, the abundance ofoil revenues after 2002 partly compensated for the lack of available coalitioncurrencies. The problem with the use of oil revenues was that these were tiedto international commodity markets and therefore were not a reliable source ofcoalitional support in the long run.

7. The information on coalitions has been drawn from firsthand inter-views with legislators; secondary media sources, including Diario Hoy and ElComercio; and independent reports from the Latin American Weekly Report(LAWR) and the Andean Group Regional Report.

8. We tallied the total number of ministerial changes per year and dividedby 12 months, with the exception of 1979, which was a five-month legislativeyear. Not included in this count are ministers who prematurely left office alongwith an ousted president.

9. There is an extensive debate over the relevance of using legislative suc-cess rates because they are a quantitative batting average that does not reflectthe nature of the policymaking process, the bills that were not submitted, or thequality of proposed legislation (Ames 2001).

10. Ideally, we would need to use duration modeling techniques to predictaccurately the impact of political factors on coalition survival, but unfortunatelywe lack the precise date of coalition formation or demise for all our data points.


Furthermore, a conditional frailty model proposed by Box-Steffensmeier et al.(2007) would allow us to control for event dependence and heterogeneity in thecontext of recurrent events. Instead, we have chosen a simple OLS model as aproxy for analyzing this complex process, but we are encouraged neverthelessby the consistency of our results with the existing literature.

11. For the statistical model, we only used post-1988 data because we havea reliable dataset covering this period.

12. In the case of ousted presidents, we calculated the total share of timeremaining until the time of the fall, and recalculated the time share left until theend of the mandate for the interim successor.

13. Presidential approval ratings are from the Ecuador-based public opin-ion research firm Informe Confidential. The social protest data are gatheredmonthly by the Centro Andino de Accin Popular and published in EcuadorDebate using a comprehensive review of the major daily papers El Comercio(published in Quito) and El Universo (published in Guayaquil).

14. On August 30, 1996, the partial veto of the electric law by the PSCwas supported, surprisingly, by the PRE block, which had previously opposedthe move. The partial veto meant avoiding a three-year waiting period in favorof immediate enactment of the privatization law.

15. Borba publicly stated on April 13, [PSC Deputy Xavier] Neira isbehind all petroleum contracts, Pacifictel and Andinatel and accused the PSChierarchy of belonging to a dark circle controlling contract disbursements.Febres Corderos PSC responded with charges of trafficking in influencesagainst Borba in the Constitutional Tribunal (Diario Hoy 2004a).

16. The opposition formed by PSC (25), ID (15), Pachakutik (7), and MPD(3) still lacked 15 more votes needed to censor the president (Diario Hoy2004b).

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