Expansion of the Presidential Center as a Response to Agency Risk: A Comparative Analysis of Coalition Cabinets in Latin America
presidential center; institutional presidency; coalition presidentialism; agency risk; Latin America
The purpose of this work is to explain the size variation of the presidential center in coalition governments in Latin America. The presidential center is the bulk of administrative units directly subordinate to the president and that is officially part of the Presidency of the Republic, performing functions that reinforce presidential power. The main argument developed here is that the president faces a trade-off regarding to presidential center, with incentives to expand it to deal with agency risk arising from divergent preferences among actors within the Executive Branch. The unfolded hypotheses of this argument were tested with data of Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Uruguay through linear regression models for panel data. The results show that ideological amplitude of coalition on government has a positive and statistically significant effect on the presidential center size, but no evidence was found to support the hypotheses of presidential ideological extremism and degree of cabinet partisanship.