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.