Presidentialism, impeachment and the decline of democratic linkage in Latin America
Abstract
Impeachment processes are oversight instruments used by a democratic elected institution over another democratic elected institution. What kind of clues democratic theory gives to analyze this legitimacy clash? Impeachment processes influence democratic linkage among representative and represented as it prevents elected representatives to act and no citizen participation is required in the process. Notwithstanding whether there are constitutional well-founded causes to remove the president, impeachment processes are in tension with the democratic principle that establishes suffrage as the only mechanism for the selection of rulers, their government programs and as the main mechanism of democratic control of their administration. Moreover, impeachment processes affect democratic linkage in different ways. When these processes end in a party rotation with important programmatic switches as recently occurred in many Latin America countries, they represent a decline in programmatic mandate.
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