The view that minority governments are anomalies in the Parliamentary system has been abandoned for some time. However, in Presidential systems, minority governments are still seen as problematic, especiallywhen combined with unilateral Presidential agenda-setting powers. This article analyzes the formation of governments (or cabinets), defined by their party composition and not by Presidential mandates, in 14 Latin American countries from 1979 to 2011. We test various hypotheses on the impact of institutional and political factors on the formation of minority governments. Our findings contradict predictions based on the prevailing theories. Specifically, we observed that the probability of minority governments increases proportionally with the strength of the President's veto power. We also observed that the President's agenda-setting power and party fragmentation both have a negative effect on the formation of minority governments.
minority governments; formation of cabinets; coalitions; Presidentialism; Latin America
