Over the past two decades, many countries in Latin America have operated under a system of coalitional presidentialism. Almost all of the existing literature has approached the study of coalitional presidentialism from the perspective of the executive. This paper reverses the analytical lens and looks at the system of governance from the perspective of national legislators. Using original data from the Coalitional Presidentialism Project (CPP), we examine how politicians in Latin America understand the practice of the system and assess their level of satisfaction with coalitional governance. The research is based on face-to-face interviews with 110 national legislators in Brazil, Chile, and Ecuador, in which respondents were asked 10 structured and 12 semi-structured questions concerning various qualities of coalitional presidentialism. We also test if national histories and trajectories have an impact on legislators’ overall assessment of coalitional governance. This is the first comparative study to probe the attitudes of national legislators toward coalitional governance in Latin America and it will serve as a springboard for a larger cross-regional study of coalitional presidentialism.
