Citizens of the United States, heirs to two centuries of democratic government, tend to believe that presidentialism - rather than parliamentarism - is the political system that best ensures a stable democracy. In Latin America, however, where many governments have been modelled on that of the United States, presidentialism has had mixed success. In The Failure of Presidential Democracy, Juan Linz and Arturo Valenzuela bring together leading scholars to examine the question of whether presidentialism or parliamentarism offers the best hope for stable government and democratic continuity.