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When do Voters Weaken Checks and Balances to Facilitate Economic Reform?

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  • Alvaro Forteza
  • Juan S. Pereyra

Abstract

Strong checks and balances aimed at protecting citizens from government abuse of power are key features of well‐performing democracies. Nevertheless, some presidents have enjoyed strong and often explicit popular support when they undermined these controls. We present a formal model of the trade‐off between control on the executive and delegation to analyse voters’ decisions on the strength of checks and balances. We argue that voters may support their loosening, even when this allows rent extraction, if they are convinced that checks on the executive are blocking necessary reforms. We discuss several cases of strong presidents in Latin America who, alleging that radical reforms were necessary, obtained popular support that allowed them to loosen checks on the executive. Some of these presidents had a pro‐market and some an anti‐market reform agenda so, as our model suggests, voters’ willingness to remove checks and balances can emerge under both right‐ and left‐wing executives.

Suggested Citation

  • Alvaro Forteza & Juan S. Pereyra, 2019. "When do Voters Weaken Checks and Balances to Facilitate Economic Reform?," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 86(344), pages 775-800, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:econom:v:86:y:2019:i:344:p:775-800
    DOI: 10.1111/ecca.12290
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    Cited by:

    1. María Clara Arroyo, 2018. "The Effect of Executive Constraints on Reform Implementation: An Empirical Analysis," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 0118, Department of Economics - dECON.
    2. Forteza, Alvaro & Mussio, Irene & Pereyra, Juan S., 2024. "Can political gridlock undermine checks and balances? A lab experiment," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    3. Hans Gersbach & Oriol Tejada & Julia Wagner, 2022. "Policy Reforms and the Amount of Checks & Balances," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 22/373, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.
    4. Alvaro Forteza & Irene Mussio & Juan Pereyra, 2019. "Does political gridlock undermine checks and balances? A Lab Experiment," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 0519, Department of Economics - dECON.
    5. Kwabi, Frank Obenpong & Boateng, Agyenim & Wonu, Chizindu & Kariuki, Charles & Du, Anna, 2023. "Political uncertainty and cross-border equity portfolio allocation decisions: International evidence," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).

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