Increasing the president’s constitutional powers allows them to make policies unilaterally, and sometimes recklessly — and gives them no incentives to compromise with political opponents. What does Latin America teach us about whether the United States will continue to avoid a constitutional crisis? Part of the answer depends on how we think about the extent of presidential power in the United States. If that is true, then there are at least two ways that the difficult combination that underlies constitutional crises in Latin America might eventually emerge here. Because partisan support in presidential systems is inherently fragile, limiting the president’s constitutional powers helps downgrade the potential for the sorts of constitutional crises that often beset presidential systems in other parts of the world.

Source: Washington Post April 25, 2017 11:03 UTC