Survival of Ministers and Configuration of Cabinets in Chile and Uruguay

This book analyzes ministerial recruitment, dismissal, and survival in Chile and Uruguay, two Latin American countries with high democracy indexes and stable presidential systems. It covers the periods before and after democratic transitions, providing valuable insights into cabinet formation and ministerial turnover in Latin America.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 144 pages
Publication date: 17 February 2023
Publisher: Springer Nature Switzerland AG

This book delves into an in-depth analysis of ministerial recruitment, dismissal, and survival in the context of government formation, the process of dismissal, and the longevity of cabinet ministers in Chile and Uruguay. These two countries, renowned for their high democracy indexes and stable presidential systems in the Southern Cone of Latin America, serve as valuable cases for comparison both within and between them.

The cases analyzed in this book are small countries with a shared history of democratic breakdowns, allowing for temporal comparison. Additionally, due to the common factors that triggered these processes, both cases are typically studied together. For the pre-coup democratic periods, the cases encompass the governments of Chile between 1933 and 1973 and Uruguay between 1943 and 1973. This research excludes the analysis of the military coup regimes in both countries, resuming the period in the democratic transitions for both cases, namely 1985 for Uruguay and 1990 for Chile.

While literature on ministerial cabinets' survival typically focuses on parliamentary regimes from the Global North, this relatively new phenomenon in presidential democracies has rapidly gained academic recognition. Research on cabinets and ministers in Latin American presidential systems tends to concentrate on the post-1980s periods, with limited knowledge of the pre-coup periods. By presenting a comprehensive study of two presidential systems from the Global South, Survival of Ministers and Configuration of Cabinets in Chile and Uruguay, this book will be a valuable resource for political and social scientists interested in exploring cabinet formation and ministerial turnover in Latin America, whether through case-study research or broader comparative analysis.

Weight: 250g
Dimension: 235 x 155 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9783030928049
Edition number: 1st ed. 2022