Natalia Ajenjo

Legislative Procedures and Lawmaking in Central America Natalia Ajenjo

The book covers issues of constitutional design, legislative procedures and agenda control fourCentral American cases in a comparative perspective. The results relate to the critical view thatpresidential systems are inherently prone toinstitutional deadlock, deriving from their rigidconstitutional design. My findings suggest thatconstitutional rules only determine broad parametersof variation, and that greater attention should bepaid to the endogenous procedural design of thelegislative process of decision-making in theexplanation of institutional performance andinter-branch dynamics. The work is comparative and bridges quantitative andqualitative analysis. The data employed are originalof lawmaking in one legislative term for the fourcases under analysis. A final set of normative reflections includes ideason the relevance of understanding constitutionalchoice. The theoretical, substantive andmethodological implications of the findings are thusreinserted into a normative view on proceduraljustice and the quality of democracy.