https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8251-5598
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ABSTRACT
Thirty-one presidents from every Latin American country – excluding Mexico – who were governing from 1945 to 2012 tried forty times to change the constitution of their countries to overstay in office. These attempts often caused severe political instability. Current explanations of the variability of term limits have centred on the context in which presidents govern despite the protagonism of the leaders in the constitutional changes. I argue that the personality traits of presidents are an important driver of their overreaching behaviour. Centred on the paradigm of the “Big Five,” I propose hypotheses about a causal relationship between each of the five core personality factors – openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism – and the presidents’ attempts to alter their term limits. To test the theory, I use data about presidents who governed from 1945 to 2012. The results of a discrete-time duration analysis show that three of the Big Five are associated to the likelihood of observing a president changing term limits. I conclude by discussing how this research agenda should be extended to uncover how the uniqueness of the leaders explains relevant outcomes in executive politics.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Kouba, “Party Institutionalization”; Penfold, Corrales, and Hernández, “Los Invencibles.”
2 Penfold, Corrales, and Hernández, “Los Invencibles”; Corrales, “Can Anyone Stop.”
3 Ibid.
4 Kouba, “Party Institutionalization.”
5 Marsteintredet, “Presidential Term Limits”; Klesner, “The Politics of Presidential.”
6 Rhodes-Purdy and Madrid, “The Perils of Personalism.”
7 McCrae and Costa, “Personality Trait Structure”; Benet-Martínez and John, “Los Cinco Grandes”; McCrae, “The Five-Factor Model.”
8 Arana, “The Personalities of Presidents.”
9 Arana, “Cómo Evaluar.”
10 Corrales, “Can Anyone Stop.”
11 Kouba, “Party Institutionalization.”
12 Corrales, “Can Anyone Stop.”
13 Negretto, Making Constitutions.
14 Lucardi and Almaraz, “With a Little.”
15 Negretto, Making Constitutions.
16 Lucardi and Almaraz, “With a Little.”
17 Kouba, “Party Institutionalization.”
18 Ibid.; Negretto, Making Constitutions, 87.
19 Klesner, “The Politics of Presidential.”
20 Lijphart, Patterns of Democracy.
21 Martínez-Barahona, “Constitutional Courts”; Kouba, “Party Institutionalization.”
22 Ibid.; Corrales, “Can Anyone Stop”; Arana, “What Drives Evo’s.”
23 Baturo, Democracy, Dictatorship.
24 Guliyev, “End of Term Limits.”
25 McCrae and Costa, “Personality Trait Structure”; McCrae, “The Five-Factor Model.”
26 Corr and Matthews, The Cambridge Handbook.
27 McCrae and Costa, “Personality Trait Structure.”
28 Costa and McCrae, “Normal Personality.”
29 Gerber et al., “Personality and the Strength”; Mondak, Personality and the Foundations; Mondak and Halperin, “A Framework.”
30 Rubenzer, Faschingbauer, and Ones, “Assessing the U.S. Presidents”; Rubenzer and Faschingbauer, Personality, Character, and Leadership; Arana, “The Personalities of Presidents”; Arana and Guerrero, “Executive-Legislative Relations.”
31 Arana, “The Personalities of Presidents.”
32 Caprara and Zimbardo, “Personalizing Politics.”
33 Costa and McCrae, “Normal Personality”; McCrae and Costa, “Personality Trait Structure.”
34 Dollinger, Leong, and Ulicni, “On Traits and Values”; Swickert, “30 Personality.”
35 Swickert, “30 Personality.”
36 DeYoung and Gray, “Personality Neuroscience.”
37 Best, “Does Personality Matter”; Caprara et al., “Personalities of Politicians.”
38 Mondak and Halperin, “A Framework”; Mondak, Personality and the Foundations.
39 Mondak and Halperin, “A Framework.”
40 Rubenzer, Faschingbauer, and Ones, “Assessing the U.S. Presidents.”
41 Arana, “What Drives Evo’s.”
42 Oreg and Berson, “Personality and Charismatic.”
43 Swickert, “30 personality”; Chamorro-Premuzic and Furnham, “Personality Traits.”
44 DeYoung and Gray, “Personality Neuroscience.”
45 Chamorro-Premuzic and Furnham, “Personality Traits.”
46 Mondak, Personality and the Foundations; Mondak and Halperin, “A Framework.”
47 Pervin and John, Handbook of Personality.
48 Costa and McCrae, “The NEO Personality”; Swickert, “30 Personality.”
49 McCrae and Costa, “Personality, Coping.”
50 Russell et al., “Personality, Social Networks.”
51 Hibbing, Ritchie, and Anderson, “Personality and Political Discussion.”
52 Gerber et al., “Personality and the Strength.”
53 Caprara et al., “Personalities of Politicians.”
54 DeYoung and Gray, “Personality Neuroscience.”
55 Swickert, “30 Personality”; DeYoung and Gray, “Personality Neuroscience.”
56 Swickert, “30 Personality.”
57 Mondak and Halperin, “A Framework.”
58 Webster, “It’s Personal.”
59 Joly, Soroka, and Loewen, “Nice Guys Finish.”
60 DeYoung and Gray, “Personality Neuroscience.”
61 Ibid; Swickert, “30 Personality.”
62 De Raad and Schouwenburg, “Personality in Learning.”
63 Mondak and Halperin, “A Framework.”
64 Best, “Does Personality Matter.”
65 Schoen and Schumann, “Personality Traits.”
66 A total of 302 presidents governed in this period, but expert assessments were only obtainable for 152 leaders. The study excludes the six juntas in which no member acted as president and the 76 transient leaders who governed for less than six months.
67 Sources are presented in the online appendix. Research assistants coded the biographies.
68 Arana Araya, “Presidential Database.”
69 The survey was emailed to 911 experts and the response rate was 40%.
70 Rubenzer and Faschingbauer, Personality, Character, and Leadership, 319.
71 Benet-Martínez and John, “Los Cinco Grandes.”
72 Steenbergen and Marks, “Evaluating Expert Judgments.”
73 There are no observations for years in which there was no Congress.
74 Kouba, “Party Institutionalization”; Corrales, “Can Anyone Stop”; Negretto, Making Constitutions.
75 The data are taken from Pérez-Liñán, Schmidt, and Vairo, “Presidential Hegemony.”
76 Negretto, Making Constitutions.
77 Coppedge et al., V-dem Dataset v11.1.
78 Ibid.
79 World Bank, “Indicators.”
80 Carter and Signorino, “Back to the Future.”
81 Martínez i Coma and Van Ham, “Can Experts Judge”; Rubenzer and Faschingbauer, Personality, Character, and Leadership.
82 The other variable is the experts’ sympathy toward the leaders, which correlates at .81 with the experts’ approval.
83 Heckman, “The Common Structure.” The first stage model is presented on the online appendix.
84 Boix, Miller, and Rosato, A Complete Data Set.
85 This data is taken from Mainwaring and Pérez-Liñán, Democracies and Dictatorships.
86 Psetizki, “Uruguay.”
87 Oreg and Berson, “Personality and Charismatic.”
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Ignacio Arana Araya
Ignacio Arana Araya is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Institute for Politics and Strategy at Carnegie Mellon University. He specializes in presidential behavior and in the comparative study of political institutions in Latin America.