Collaborative Research: On the Electoral Link Between Presidents and Assemblies: Presidential Coattails Comparative Perspective

本项目评估了世界上总统制民主国家总统尾部效应的制度来源。虽然在美国对尾效应进行了广泛的研究，但实际上没有关于这一主题的比较研究。研究美国政治的学者们一致认为，总统竞选会影响立法机构席位的平衡，从而更普遍地影响行政立法关系。我们建议从比较的角度来探讨这一动态。著名的比较主义者，如Arend Lijphart， Juan Linz和Arturo Valenzuela，认为总统制不如议会制，因为部门间谈判的必要性打开了行政立法僵局的可能性。僵局在巴西、秘鲁和俄罗斯等国最近的危机中表现突出，为这些观点提供了证据。在最温和的情况下，学者们认为，僵局可能会阻止政府对迫在眉睫的危机做出反应，比如在国际冲击之后进行必要的财政调整。在较为温和的情况下，僵局可以阻止政府实施更深层次的政治变革，如社会保障改革或私有化，而在最极端的情况下，行政立法僵局甚至可能导致民主崩溃。虽然学者们已经探索了僵局的一些制度根源，也认为行政选举可以影响立法选举，但没有人收集到必要的数据，并提出假设来解释在总统制民主国家中没有或存在尾巴效应。美国国家科学基金会（National Science Foundation）要求提供支持，以收集31个总统制民主国家的选举结果、选举法和政党的选区数据。建立了一个数据库，并确定了总统的附带程度——以直接投票的程度来操作。统计分析用于检验与总统尾巴强弱相关的显著制度变量的假设。以下制度变量被假设会影响总统竞选的强度：选票结构、地区规模、不同职位的选举时间、地方行政选举的存在和时间、政党制度化程度、中央党对立法机构提名程序的控制程度，以及中央党对竞选资金和媒体准入的控制程度。这项研究对于总统制和民主治理的学生来说是至关重要的，因为与现有的工作相比，它确定了促进或阻碍现任总统和立法机构成员之间强有力的选举联系的制度配置，而不是纯粹的制度联系，如法令和否决权。这反过来又为未来的工作提供信息，了解行政立法僵局出现的条件，以及民主总统制何时或多或少可能顺利运作、崩溃或巩固。简而言之，这项研究为总统制下的民主治理文献提供了大量补充。该研究项目产生的数据库也为研究选举、选举制度和立法行为的学生提供了独特的资源。正如Gary Cox在《选票计数》（Making Votes Count）一书中所指出的，选举制度研究的未来在于对地区层面数据的分析，不幸的是，在少数几个国家，这些数据尚未以系统的方式收集。从这个项目中产生的这本书，以及学者们使用我们的数据的未来工作，将导致对政治制度对民主治理的影响的学术理解的实质性改进。

This project assesses the institutional sources of presidential coattail effects in the world's presidential democracies. Although coattail effects are studied extensively in the United States, virtually no comparative work exists on the subject. Scholars of American politics agree that presidential coattails can affect the balance of seats in the legislature and, consequently, can influence executive-legislative relations more generally. We propose to explore this dynamic in comparative perspective. Prominent comparativists, such as Arend Lijphart, Juan Linz and Arturo Valenzuela, argue that presidentialism is inferior to parliamentarism because the necessity of inter-branch negotiations opens the possibility of executive-legislative deadlock. Deadlock figures prominently in recent crises in countries such as Brazil, Peru and Russia and lends credence to these views. In its mildest form, scholars argue that deadlock can prevent governments from responding to immediate crises, such as needed fiscal adjustment following international shocks. In its more moderate form, deadlock can prevent governments from implementing deeper political changes, such as social security reform or privatization, and, in its most extreme form, executive-legislative deadlock even can lead to democratic breakdown. Although scholars have explored some of the institutional sources of deadlock, and also have argued that executive elections can affect legislative elections, none have gathered the requisite data and developed hypotheses to explain the absence or presence of coattail effects in presidential democracies. National Science Foundation support is requested to gather constituency-level data on election results, electoral laws and political parties in 31 presidential democracies. A database is constructed, and the degree of presidential coattails -- operationalized as the degree of straight-ticket voting -- is determined. Statistical analysis is employed to test hypotheses about the salient institutional variables associated with stronger or weaker presidential coattails. The following institutional variables are hypothesized to affect the strength of presidential coattails: ballot structure, district magnitude, the timing of elections for different offices, the presence and timing of subnational executive elections, the degree of party institutionalization, the extent of control by the central party over the nomination procedure for legislative office, and the level of central party control over campaign finance and media access. This research is vital for students of presidentialism and democratic governance generally, because in contrast to existing work, it identifies the institutional configurations that foster or impede strong electoral links between the incumbent president and members of the legislature, as opposed to purely institutional links such as decree and veto powers. This, in turn, informs future work about the conditions under which executive-legislative deadlock emerges and when democratic presidential systems are more or less likely to function smoothly, break down, or consolidate. In short, this research provides a substantial addition to the literature on democratic governance in presidential systems. The database that emerges from this research project also represents a unique resource for students of elections, electoral systems, and legislative behavior. As Gary Cox notes in Making Votes Count, the future of electoral systems research lies in the analysis of district-level data, data which unfortunately have not been collected in a systematic manner for more than a handful of countries. The book that results from this project, as well as the future work by scholars using our data, will lead to a substantial improvement in scholarly understanding of the consequences of political institutions for democratic governance.