Legislative Parties and Political Coalitions in Latin America (1925-2019)

In this research note we introduce an original database covering almost a century of legislative political parties (1925-2019) and reconstruct in the long term the evolution of the president's parliamentary support and coalition formation in Latin America. We identify some long-term perspectives that show that presidentialisms in the region have undergone transformations towards a greater fragmentation of the party system, with smaller presidential parties in Congress and the presence of legislative coalitions as a support base. The evidence highlights the importance of coalitional presidentialism in the third democratic wave and has implications for the literature on the factors that explain political stability in the region.