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What is the effect of constitutional decree authority (CDA) on the policy-making process of a presidential regime? Despite recent efforts to answer this question, there is still much uncertainty in the literature about the extent to which decree powers may allow presidents to control the legislative process. This article argues that in a separation-of powers system, the existence of CDA effectively enhances executives' ability to act as agenda setters. This capacity, however, is not uniform across all cases. Developing a simple spatial model of decree games, the author argues that the bargaining power of an executive to promote legal changes through decrees varies according to three interrelated factors: decree approval rules, the extent of the executive's partisan support in the legislature, and the strength of the presidential veto. These propositions are supported by a comparative analysis of the process of constitutional design and the implementation of decrees in Brazil and Argentina, two cases presenting significant variation in each of the independent variables. Keywords: presidentialism; decree powers; policy making; Latin America; Brazil; Argentina

Why are some democratically elected presidents more likely than others to extend or remove their current term limits? This paper argues that the frequency and type of reforms relaxing executive term limits depend on the relative partisan power of presidents and on inherited institutional constraints. These reforms are more likely when short-term shifts in the distribution of partisan resources significantly favour an incumbent executive vis-à-vis the opposition. Yet partisan imbalances do not fully account for the observed variation in outcomes across presidential democracies. Long-standing institutional legacies also affect whether presidents are willing and able to ease existing term limits. Specifically, the maintenance of effective executive constraints over time reduces the probability that incumbents facing restrictions on consecutive re-election will obtain a one-term extension and makes it extremely unlikely that they will abolish term limits altogether. A statistical analysis of reforms allowing consecutive executive re-election in Latin America between 1978 and 2015 and a comparison between Ecuador and Colombia support these arguments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Observing the destructive impact of the seventeenth century European wars of religion, Thomas Hobbes concluded that man by himself is incapable of preserving peace and order. He assumed that peace [...]

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