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Executive-Legislative Deadlocks in the Dominican Republic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Leiv Marsteintredet
Leiv Marsteintredet*
Affiliation:
Department of Comparative Politics, University of Bergen. leiv.marsteintredet@isp.uib.no
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Abstract

This study analyzes the causes of executive-legislative deadlocks in the Dominican Republic in the period 1978–2005. Deadlocks are considered a pernicious element in (presidential) democracies. The study applies a combination of simple statistical techniques and process tracing to test four institutional hypotheses, which argue that certain institutional and party system constellations increase the probability of deadlocks. The hypotheses point to necessary causes of deadlocks, but their predictions are imprecise. Presidents' persuasive powers and coalition building have helped alleviate the deadlock problem. Analysis of the deadlock periods shows that the additional triggering or sufficient causes for deadlocks are either exogenous to the political institutions or related to the instability of coalitions in the nation's nonideological party system, which consists of three almost equal-sized parties.

Type
Research
Information
Latin American Politics and Society , Volume 50 , Issue 2 , Summer 2008 , pp. 131 - 160
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 2008

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