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This paper provides an explanation of changes in tax policy centralization taking the Argentine and Brazilian experiences during the 1980s and 1990s as the cases of analysis. We make use of two different measures of centralization: central government taxation weight and level. The former gauges the relevance of the central government with respect to the total amount of taxes collected; while the latter gauges at the capacity of the central government to collect taxes with respect to the economy as a whole. We base our explanation on a contingent application of veto players theory. This paper scopes the differential advantage, but not exhaustion, of central governments and partisan leverage in taxation matters in Argentina and Brazil during the 1980s and 1990s. It underscores the complexity of the subject of study and becomes suspect of automatic a priori expectations. Therefore, it strives to underscore relevant interaction and contingent characteristics (e.g., partisan alignment, discipline, and strength and leadership characteristics) embedded within a general theoretical framework. We demonstrate that a reduction in the number of veto players occurred in Argentina (1989) and Brazil (1986-88), which help us explain the concurrent behavior in taxation in both cases. Thus, by underscoring the prevailing interests during the reform events, executive-central government (Argentina) vis-୶is legislative-sub-national governments interests (Brazil), we are able to explain the greater Brazilian decrease weight-, but greater Argentine increase level-wise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are federalism and decentralization similar phenomena? Do they necessarily correlate? Do they have an “elective affinity”? Or can they work in opposition to one another? Specifically, does decentralization to any level of subnational government favor all levels of subnational government, or do municipalities differ from higher levels of subnational government (usually “federal” entities such as states or provinces) in meaningful ways? In this paper, I argue that central governments often use the rhetoric and practice of municipal decentralization as a way to weaken federal units at the intermediate level of government. In a “three-level game”, central governments decentralize to the local level in order to strengthen the center’s position in negotiations with the states/regions/provinces. I demonstrate this by examining three case studies: Brazil, South Africa, and Peru. The causes of such occurrences are eminently political: increases in the electoral strength of opposition parties at the intermediate level are the triggers for municipalization. The paper focuses on an important political point too often overlooked in the literature on intergovernmental relations: most countries of interest have not two, but three interacting levels of government. The salience of each of the three levels of government – central, local, and an intermediate tier alternately called state, provincial, or regional – varies from country to country. Most academic studies of intergovernmental relations, federalism, and decentralization focus on dynamics between two layers of government, a dyadic set of political interactions. These approaches, however much they may simplify certain issues and make certain questions more tractable, often miss out on the crucial ways in which the three levels of government can interact. In particular, scholars have a tendency to lump local governments together with other subnational governments. Implicit assumptions are that what is good for one level of subnational government is good for the other. In fact, however, the preferences of municipalities may conflict with those of intermediate levels of government. Central governments, in many circumstances, find allies in the form of local governments. Decentralization to municipalities may actually run counter to some of the central principles of federalism. This paper will examine this possibility, using three quite different polities as case studies. In examining federal Brazil, quasi-federal South Africa, and unitary Peru, I will show that center-local political links can lead to an “hourglass” structure of government with a missing middle (as argued by Junaid Ahmad), reinforcing the center and localities at the expense of the intermediate layer of government. This case selection demonstrates that the strategic choices made by the center can have effects that are robust across different points on the federal-unitary spectrum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to understand how political ambition plays out in Mexico's federal system where incumbency does not exist because of the constitutional prohibition against consecutive reelection. Using a unique dataset of the prior career paths and ex- post political positions of almost 1,000 federal deputies, this paper finds that Mexico's federal system is much more like that of Argentina and Brazil, and much less like that of the United States in that political ambition (constrained by the nation's formal rules and informal relations) leads the professional politician to begin her political career in the local and state political arenas, and then return to her state when the single three-year term in the Chamber of Deputies concludes. Our empirical analysis estimates the effect of deputies' personal features, prior positions, district types, party labels, and electoral calendar on two types of career choices: the type of position (elected, bureaucratic, or party post) and the position level (municipal, state or national) with multinomial regression models. Results indicate that younger deputies from plurality seats systematically seek elected offices at local levels of government. Experience in local or national positions correspondingly leads to bureaucratic positions in the same political arenas. Partisan affinity with state governors affects the likelihood of getting a non-elected position but not its level, whereas local election calendars affect the future position levels but not its type. PAN deputies are more likely to get bureaucratic and national level appointments than PRI deputies. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will examine the politics of land reform in South Africa, Brazil and Zimbabwe to illustrate the unique dynamics of land reform processes initiated from different directions in society [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the evolution of Brazil's New Unionism in the context of regime consolidation. Changes in democratic practice are understood as by-products of factional responses to challenges posed by broad economic and political transitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows why Cardoso was able to change the Brazilian federalism in a way that put an end of the so-called governor's politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What explains Argentina’s and Brazil’s paths out of fixed exchange regimes at the turn of the century? Both countries faced similar imbalances in the late ‘90s. While Argentina adjusted in 2001 by financial crash, Brazil was able to transit more orderly toward a flexible exchange rate regime in 1999. My argument is that successful transitions toward a new set of macroeconomic institutions requires incumbents to craft a political coalition able to control the relevant institutional veto players. The paper explains incumbents’ capacity for crafting these coalitions by focusing on partisan dynamics within federal institutions. Based on the case studies, I challenge the conventional wisdom on the role of nationally integrated parties in overcoming perverse fiscal incentives in federations. In presidential systems with divided government, the fragmentation of the party system may contribute to governance by multiplying the number of potential legislative partners the executive can choose. On the other hand, when the national executive faces only few nationally integrated opposition parties, the costs of coalition building and the probability of legislative deadlock increase. Brazil and Argentina illustrate each one of these patterns. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the real impact of women's representation on policy changes in Latin American countries? This essay will focus on one country- Brazil- and look at the impact of low representation in the implementation of policies targeted directly to women's rights. In the case of Brazil, the critical mass literature does not explain why we see some success in certain aspects of women's rights legislation, while seeing almost no change in other areas. In order to explore women's rights issues this paper focus on two specific policy debates that have been widely discussed in Brazil in the recent years: domestic violence and reproductive rights, more specifically, abortion rights. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a quantitative assessment of court productivity in Brazil, based on a novel database, containing production indicators of nearly nine thousand state judges of first instance for a period of eight months. Court productivity is measured by standard indicators including clearance rate, congestion rate, backlog index (time to resolve a case), resolved cases per judge and pending cases per judge. Dakolias (1999) compares those indicators across countries. Using a fixed-effects, panel-data model I explain court productivity by the use of inputs (number and status of judges and staff); judge characteristics (tenure, age and gender); and court characteristics (caseload, nature of cases handled, size of the judicial district â€" which obeys a nationwide classification). Results suggest that the number of resolved cases per judge increases with tenure and titularity of the judge and with the size of the judicial district. Larger districts rely on a larger infrastructure of judicial and extrajudicial services which enhance court performance. Total factor productivity is not normal in most states, suggesting that unobserved features of the administration of state justice systems are important in explaining court performance. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the United Nations, among the fourteen most unequal countries in the world, half are in Latin America and the other half in Sub-Saharan Africa. Nine of them, including the top three, have been considered democratic for at least the past fourteen years. In this paper I propose a theory to understand the circumstances that are likely to make policies that promote higher equality difficult to arise in new democracies. I develop a theoretical model linking voters' preferences to representatives' policy choices where the ideological position of newly formed parties is not known to the public. This entails a learning process for voters that can slow down the adoption of effective inequality reducing policies. This includes the often observed pattern of poor voters electing non-left wing representatives. The model's implications for the evolution of different candidates' constituencies are empirically tested using individual level data for presidential elections in Brazil since democratization. Results suggest that the sorting out of voters into constituencies for specific incumbents is indeed a gradual process most likely shaped by the retrospective evaluation of policies adopted in practice. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper supports the claim that multinational corporations respond to changes in political and institutional environments by analyzing the evolution of FDI patterns in Brazil since the 1980s and recent firm survey responses. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a general comparative framework to interpret the changes in the patterns of territorial governance in democratic Brazil, Spain and South Africa as a consequence of their respective processes of decentralization and federalization. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a unified model of individual abstention and vote choice to examine policy-based abstention in multy-candidate elections, studying the 2002 presidential race in Brazil. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking advantage of panel survey data, I pursue two goals in this paper. First I present an assessment of the amount of strategic voting found in the last two presidential elections in Brazil. Second, I develop an analysis of its causes. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In June 2003, India, Brazil, and South Africa inaugurated the IBSA Alliance, which aimed to become what South African President Thabo Mbeki hailed as a "G-8 of the South." The three nations would try to expand the permanent membership of the UN Security Council, modify the TRIPS laws, and impel the US and EU to eliminate agricultural subsidies. The countries also agreed to cooperate in agricultural research, IT, trade, and defense (among other issues). This paper asks four broad questions: 1. Can the paradigms of international relations (e.g., realism, pluralism, Marxism, etc.) explain the IBSA alliance? 2. Will IBSA be able to accomplish its stated goals? 3. Has the IBSA alliance modified the foreign policies of the participant states? 4. Is the creation of IBSA emblematic of a new global architecture? I argue that none of the IR paradigms alone can explain IBSA; IBSA may achieve success in its clearly stated goals but will be unsuccessful in its other goals; the alliance has slightly modified the countries' foreign policies; the creation of IBSA does indeed represent a change in the world political-economic system. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I analyze shareholder attitudes towards corporate governance regulation and argue that in deciding to adopt more stringent governance standards, shareholders face a trade-off between the private benefits of control and access to external finance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I examine central bank reform efforts in Brazil, Thailand, and Mexico, arguing that more veto players inhibit reform and that competition over the benefits of policy innovation can prevent reform, even if most players agree it would be beneficial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments will have more freedom to implement trade liberalization over the objections of societal actors when three conditions are present. First, smaller selectorates give governments more possible combinations of coalitions from which to choose from. Second, the ability to offer selective incentives allow governments to organize, and thereby empower, preferred coalition partners, while offering side payments to potentially powerful opponents. Third, greater capacity to control information increases the time needed for prospective opponents to discover the negative effects of a liberalizing trade policy, during which a few will succumb to the rigors of competition. Governments taking credible liberalizing acts, such as free trade agreements, can further solidify their coalition as societal actors assessing a low probability of government retrenchment will adjust to the new environment. In the Ricardo-Viner framework, this requires capital to be allocated from uncompetitive to competitive sectors; in the IRS framework, this requires firms to merge and form international ties. The latter scenario poses less of a burden to firms, so governments acting in a society where IRS cleavages predominates will need less room for maneuver before being able to undertake self-sustaining credible commitments. Trade liberalization in Mexico during the de la Madrid and Salinas administrations is examined under this framework, while brief discussions of the politics of trade liberalization in Brazil in China is discussed as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Often, scholars ask, “What factors determine aid distribution?” They target macro level national variables, such as poverty, population size, military expenditures, and human rights records, as being possible determinants of the distribution of foreign aid. Yet there is always a portion of distribution left unexplained. I argue that in order to explain this extra portion, we must ask a different set of questions, one that addresses the micro level decision making process of those involved in aid distribution. Individual donor agencies decide which organization will receive a given aid project or package, but what criteria do they use? Meanwhile, prospective recipients are competing in hopes that their organization will win an aid package – what strategies do they employ? In short, what does the organizational structure of a prospective aid recipient have to do with how much foreign aid it receives, and do those structures vary between countries? I present a formal signalling model of donor-recipient interactions, and test it with qualitative evidence gathered in interviews in Brazil and the United States during the summer of 2003. I find that the organizational structure of potential aid recipients is directly related to their ability to fill out aid applications correctly, and that these applications serve as a signal to prospective donors that the applicants fit a certain prototype. Further, organizations that meet these criteria tend to be based or founded in the United States; organizations headquartered in Brazil have greater difficulties in meeting the criteria to acquire aid, unless they assume the characteristics of a prototypical US organization. I then generate a survey based on this evidence, and present preliminary results of a large-N study of recipient organizations. In studying the organizational structure of aid recipients in the US and Brazil, this research contributes to three important literatures: foreign aid, organizational managament and capacity, and the politics of developing nations. It speaks to the literature on foreign aid by seeking to isolate a previously unexamined variable in explaining aid distribution. It contributes to the study of organizational management by examining organizational structures of potential recipients (both successful and unsuccessful at acquiring aid) and donors, and highlighting relationships between organizational capacity and aid acquisition. And it addresses the politics of developing nations by comparing aid acquisition strategies and organizational structures in Brazil to those in the US, and illuminating the variations in context, culture, and practice that travel across borders through the distribution of international aid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several Latin American countries have experienced the recent emergence of neopopulist political candidates who eschew ties to traditional parties and orient their campaigns toward the atomized poor. In this article I examine the role of television in the electoral success of these politicians. Using survey data, I assess the impact of television in three cases of anti-party neopopulism: the 1989 election of Fernando Collor in Brazil, the 2000 election of Alberto Fujimori in Peru, and the 2001 election of Alejandro Toledo in Peru. Statistical analysis confirms our theoretical expectations about media effects in the first two elections (where coverage of the campaign was biased in favor of the winner) but not in the third (where coverage was balanced). These findings suggest that control of the media is the most reliable predictor of television?s impact in Latin American elections, rather than the presence of a neopopulist candidate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Author examines the evidence linking the corporate governance literature and financial market development. Through an analysis of recent reforms in Brazil, the author suggests that the prescriptions of the large N studies are not appropriate when taken to the country level. Although the Brazil case confirms much of the large N literatures? results, it links important variables with their causal paths. This case also demonstrates the political practicality of adopting the literature?s prescriptions for market development. The result is that statistically less-significant changes are often more easily implemented than those with stronger support in the large N studies. Finally, this case suggests an innovative solution to market development amidst strong interest-group opposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysis of panel data from Brazil, Mexico, and Russia suggests that presidential campaigns have ambiguous effects on inequalities in mass-level political knowledge. In all three campaigns, the gap in political knowledge between individuals with fewer socioeconomic resources and those with more resources stayed the same or widened. At the same time, less affluent, less educated citizens who paid a great deal of attention to the campaign learned more than equally attentive high-status citizens. These findings suggest that electoral campaigns have the potential to mitigate the knowledge gap, even if they fail to do so in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While scholars have studied how state formation contributes to movement development, these studies have examined western democracies (Tarrow: 1998) or indigenous movements (Yashar: 1996). Neither account theorizes how state development combined with neoliberal restructuring creates spaces for movements to continuously develop. I understand neoliberal reforms as what Peck and Tickell call ‘roll-out’ and ‘roll-back’ neoliberalism (2002). ‘Roll-back’ neoliberalism’s emphasis on removing the state from the economy and ‘roll-out’ neoliberalism’s incorporation of state agencies and NGO’s under the rubric of World Bank initiatives create spaces for movements to claim autonomy from the state, develop their own institutions and allows them to constantly negotiate their presence with the state. I argue these points through my case study of the MST (Landless Workers Movement) in Brazil. My study juxtaposes the development of neoliberal social programs within Brazil through current neoliberal reforms with the MST’s institutional development. Neoliberal reforms have created spaces where the movement’s financial system, as in their cooperatives, and representative institutions have grown while the Brazilian state’s effective reach has lessened. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whether one is concerned with economic growth, the consolidation of democracy or the reduction of poverty and inequality, human capital development is always a prominent issue. Countries in Latin America are notorious for lagging behind in human capital enhancement and the equity of its distribution among the population, especially when compared to other countries at similar levels of income per capita. Human capital is particularly low among the poor. This has led most studies to search for an explanation on the inadequate supply of human capital development policies resulting from deficiencies in the way democracy works in these countries. In particular studies argue that the rich hold disproportionate influence over policy decision driving actual policies away from the interests of the poor. In this study I explore the opposite and complementary side of the story: the demand. I look at differences in the regional efficiency of human capital enhancing policies already adopted, thus controlling for the elite ability to shape government policy decision. Results suggest that the same determinants of low demand for education are also associated with lower levels of provision and lower efficiency of educational policies. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though participatory governance institutions have been examined as spaces for deliberation among civil society and the state, fewer scholars have empirically tested the ability of these institutions to enhance government accountability. In this study, I first use data from the Brazilian government to test whether the presence of municipal level councils for housing increases the likelihood of programs to address social housing needs within the municipality. Within these councils, generally at least 50% of the members are from civil society. I argue that the councils provide civil society organizations with a high degree of transparency, which in turn allows them to hold the government accountable for continuing problems and lack of investments. The ability of civil society to hold governments accountable, however, is contingent on several contextual factors, including the ideology of the political leadership, the rules of the institution, inequality among residents, and whether civil society is highly mobilized to make demands. To assess these contextual factors I also undertake case study analysis of six Brazilian cities. The case studies reveal a diversity in capacity and motivation, and the influence of the federal government. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This manuscript demonstrates that voters have nothing to be afraid of when new hard budget constraint legislation is implemented. Our claim is that this kind of legislation reduces the asymmetry of information between voters and incumbents over the budget and, as a consequence, the latter have incentives to increase the supply of public goods. As a nationwide institutional innovation, the Fiscal Responsibility Law (FRL) is exogenous to all municipalities; therefore, there is no self-selection bias in its implementation. We show that public goods expenditure increases after the FRL. This increase occurs in municipalities located in the country's poorest region. Our findings can be extended to the supply of public goods because the higher the expenditure with health and education, the greater the probability of incumbents being re-elected. Finally, there exists a "de facto" higher supply of public goods in education (number of per capita classrooms) after the FRL. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More and more, elections around the world seem to be won or lost on the basis of the candidates’ personal qualities rather than their policies. Such candidate-centered voting has long characterized established democracies, and now it appears to be characterizing Third Wave democracies as well. This is a matter of both normative and practical concern, as I shall argue, to the quality of democratic governance. Yet we still know very little about what explains candidate-centered voting, particularly in new democracies. I argue that candidate-centered voting is primarily a function of voter ability to cognitively engage policy debates. I test this argument using individual-level panel survey data from the 2002 Brazilian presidential election. I employ two types of vote decision models; the first focuses on choice while the second focuses on utilities. In developing and estimating both models, I pay special attention to endogeneity issues, which I treat as both methodologically and substantively important to understanding vote decisions. My discussion focuses on evaluating my argument as well as the implications for broader political outcomes in new democracies like populism, delegative democracy, and party system structures. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do differences in electoral systems affect voter participation at the local level? There is an established literature on what drives differences in voter turnout cross-nationally, and the consensus is that institutional factors, including variation in electoral systems, are important determinants of voter turnout in advanced democracies. There is much less consensus on what drives voter turnout in less developed democracies, and even less on how the lessons learned from legislative and presidential elections might be applied to municipal elections. In this project, we use new sub-national data from municipalities in Bolivia and Brazil to explore voter turnout in a novel way, comparing local variation from two countries with very different local electoral systems. This approach allows us to utilize variation in over 5500 municipalities to test the effect of differences in electoral systems (PR and indirectly elected mayors vs. directly elected mayors), number of political parties, income, literacy, urban-rural differences, competitiveness of the election, and a number of control variables on voter turnout. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brazil's political system has long been considered to have two fundamental features: a high level of decentralization and a weakly institutionalized party system. I explore the interaction between these two phenomena by studying the incumbency advantage of political parties in Brazil's municipal mayor elections using a regression discontinuity design. Comparing municipalities where a party barely lost the 2000 mayor elections to municipalities where the party barely won, I find evidence of a strong negative effect of incumbency on both the vote share and the probability of winning in the following election. This is in sharp contrast to findings for the U.S., where the overall effect of incumbency has generally been found to be nonnegative. The results are robust to different specifications and estimation strategies, with excellent balance in observable characteristics. A decomposition of the overall effect suggests that the disadvantage is mostly explained by municipalities with lame-duck mayors. A possible interpretation of these results is that weak parties cannot control the rent-seeking behavior of their politicians, and voters punish the party for the behavior of the last incumbent ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brazil (1964-1985) and Peru (1992-2000) maintained a uniqueness in Latin America in terms of the structuring of authoritarian regimes which allowed the presence of formal institutions of democracy (political parties, legislative, electoral system), however The process of finalizing the authoritarian differed in that the processes that defined the nature of the political transition, were characterized by the extensive and predictable political transition in Brazil, in contrast to the swift and precipitous political transition in Peru. .x000d..x000d.In that sense, this essay aims to contribute to the understanding of the role that developed the legislative institution in the process of political transition in Peru (1995 - 2001) and in the political transition in Brazil (1974 - 1990), from where a comparative analysis highlights the influence of political institutions, placing greater emphasis on the centrality with which the legislature, in a joint, tensions, progress, and restrictions under the rules of authoritarianism preserved, contributed to defining the nature of the transition and in the process of democratic consolidation. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although unions are a traditional constituency of leftist parties in Brazil, leftist deputies have increasingly voted for legislation that counters unions' interests. What accounts for this disparity in representation? I argue that institutions shaped leftist deputies' decisions at both the electoral and congressional level. Leftist deputies had institutionally-induced electoral incentives to support fiscal adjustment policies that were favored by business firms who had become important new financial contributors to leftist deputies' campaigns. They also faced institutionally-induced congressional incentives to vote with the governing coalition, regardless of how reform affected traditional allies, or face sanction by the party and President. Analyzing leftist deputies' votes in the 51st (1999-2003) versus 52nd Congresses (2003-2007), I show that both campaign contributions from corporations and membership in the governing coalition play a significant role in determining leftist deputies' anti-union votes. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using survey data carried out in Salvador, Bahia, I find that Afro-Brazilians who listen to hip hop music tend to believe in black racial group identity more than those who do not listen to hip hop music. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using panel survey data to deal with the endogeneity of political attitudes, we test spatial theories of voting in both the first (multinomial) and second (binomial) rounds of the 2006 presidential election in Brazil. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a dataset with all constitutional amendments introduced in Brazil from 1991-2004, I show why presidents prefer the use constitutional amendments, despite the need of a larger supermajority, even in policies that could be dealt with in bills. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research focuses on whether policies and practices of international and domestic law in Brazil can serve as a model for other areas in addressing the dilemmas of environmental sustainabilty and the betterment of citizens' lives. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This dissertation project explores a new method of measuring political clientelism: the systematic qualitative method. The approach combines the comparability and reproducibility of a quantitative study, with the detail and depth of a qualitative study. Quantified interview data on exchange relations and network structure in Argentina and Brazil is compared with findings in the literature to demonstrate the validity and usefulness of this new method. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neoliberal economic and global-trade ideas became policy in many Latin American countries in the 1980's and 1990's. As State Socialism ended in Eastern Europe, even Cuba implemented policies of limited market reform. These policies sought foreign investment, and included reduction of tax-based barriers to the international movement of capital.More recently, many countries have elected leaders vowing to implement decidedly anti-neoliberal reforms. What began with Venezuela's election of Hugo Chavez also includes the Lula election in Brazil and the election of Socialist President Bachelet in staunchly pro-market Chile. Although references to justice, sovereignty and other notions may vary from country to country, the constructs of historical institutionalism appear to offer analytic value in identifying and describing economic policy adoption processes in Latin America. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won the 2006 second-round Brazilian presidential election with a vote share identical to that in 2002, despite dramatic changes in his profile as a candidate and that of his party, the PT. However, nationwide figures hide important changes in electoral shares at the state and district level. Until now, though, no scholar has persuasively addressed the question of who exactly defected from Lula and who joined him between 2002 and 2006. Taking advantage of a unique longitudinal data set, we develop a transition model illuminating the demographic and socioeconomic factors and political attitudes leading 2002 Lula and Serra voters to stick with their party's candidate or to defect to the opposition. We find that different factors affected the 2006 electoral choices of people who voted for Lula in 2002 as compared to those preferring the PSDB candidate in 2002. Our results confirm the importance of taking into account prior Lula voting when we assess the electoral meaning of the 2006 Brazilian presidential election. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are corrupt politicians in Brazil punished at the ballot box? To answer this question I examine the 2006 Brazilian congressional elections and compare it to previous research on U.S. congressional elections. I argue that, as in the case of U.S. incumbents accused of corruption, Brazilian members of Congress will also lose a substantial number of votes, in the face of corruption allegations. Indeed, contrary to the U.S., more will lose their seats because they cannot afford any vote loss given the Brazilian electoral system. I will also argue that access to information is a key element in determining if voters punish corrupt politicians, especially in the Brazilian political environment, and that Brazilian election rules will make campaign spending a key element for re-election. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An analysis over the airspace crisis in Brazil. An overview of the airspace public policy core based in a non-projection of predictions and careless of the public policy and the consequential events that generated a airspace crisis in Brazil. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is two-fold. First, it assesses the extent to which Brazilian and Colombian legislatures are populated by career politicians Second, it analyzes the effects of institutional features of the electoral system on the politician’s ability to get reelected. Theories of legislative behavior in the US assume that politicians are careerists and want to get reelected. This assumption has important implications to understand the structure of the legislature (i.e. its degree of institutionalization) as well as the behavior of politicians. Levels of reelection in Latin America vary widely yet few explanations for why this may be the case have been offered. In this paper, we explore the determinants for reelection in two countries characterized by high levels of intraparty competition. We argue that incumbents have better chances on their reelection bids for reasons similar to incumbents to the US congress (i.e. name recognition, access to office perquisites, etc). We also suggest that the chances of electoral success are affected by competition at the district level that arises from the utilization of list-PR and nomination of multiple candidates by each party. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper re-examines the categories of “class” and “struggles over class formation” by drawing on qualitative research on the World Social Forum and the global social forum process it is becoming. Since the first World Social Forum meeting in 2001 in Porto Alegre (Brazil), this process emerges as a novel attempt on various levels (from the local to the global) to bind autonomous movements and groups - ranging from labor movements and ecological groups to women and landless peasant movements - into novel resistance formations. Social forums seek to create “open spaces” and communication networks for the production of pro-active strategies and for broader convergences. Informed by the re-appropriation of the new media, the social forum process leads to the forging and thickening of linkages between various movements. The paper examines the understudied social forum phenomenon by re-conceptualizing the concepts of class and struggle over class formation. I suggest that the social movement literature should pay renewed attention to the capitalist structures and class relations to better understand contemporary social movement-based opposition. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to explain how judicial review influence the intergovernmental political dynamics in Brazil, Colombia, and Spain. The argument is developed in light of two questions: (i) How supreme courts have established themselves as pivotal institutions for intergovernmental dispute settlement, and (ii) How national and subnational politicians use judicial reviews in order to enhance their own interests. A comparison between the judicial review processes in federal Brazil, quasi-federal Spain, and unitary Colombia will provide an answer to these questions. Though the selected countries present important differences among themselves that are not limited to the territorial organization, they all have common mechanisms for intergovernmental dispute settlement to initiate a process of judicial review. Accounting for the differences in territorial organizations and systems of government among these countries, the paper proposes to assess the patterns of subnational originated judicial reviews. Findings suggest that courts affect the interaction between national and subnational politicians in the three country-cases. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the mid-1990s, Brazil and Mexico created innovative policy alleviation programs, known as conditional cash transfers (CCTs). These programs provide cash-grants to mothers on the condition they monitor their children’s school attendance and health. Since then, CCTS have become a new educational and developmental paradigm for the developing world and have spread across to countries in Latin America and Africa. While these programs reflect a new development norm, their spread is surprising given that some emulating countries lack the basic education and health infrastructure to support increased demand from beneficiaries. This paper draws on a policy diffusion framework to explain the spread of CCTs. I contrast domestic preconditions (e.g. political ideology and poverty levels) with international pressure (e.g. norm-creation and inducements by international organizations) to uncover the diffusion of CCT emulation. In order to elucidate the mechanisms that drive diffusion processes, this paper draws on mixed-methods to uncover learning and emulation among actors. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coalition-building is a permanent feature of Brazilian politics. Past presidents have chosen different paths to governing ranging from ad hoc to stable multi-party coalitions. The current government is atypical in that the president’s party (Partido dos Trabalhadores, PT) has an ideological program and internal discipline unusual in Brazilian parties. The purpose of this paper is to understand Pres. Lula’s legislative coalition strategy and gauge its effect on inter-branch relations. The PT’s internal discipline and trajectory as an “outsider” party could be expected to result in less willingness to share power, as suggested by the initial distribution of cabinet seats. An empirical assessment of Pres. Lula’s cabinets (2002-07) relative to the distribution of seats in the legislature will confirm whether the first PT government succeeded in maintaining a limited power-sharing coalition. The paper will also use measures of statutory delegation to assess coalition effects on policy production and inter-branch relations. Existing theories predict more delegation in the presence of inter-branch conflict. A comparison of statutory delegation levels across administrations will shed light on the dynamics of Lula’s government. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I show that ideal points estimated from observed legislative behavior in Brazil reveal a pro vs. anti government dimension rather than an ideological cleavage. I then propose a method to retrieve ideological positions from survey data and discuss how ideology and observed behavior relate to each other. The paper documents the relative stability of the ideological structure of Brazilian parties, but also shows that ideology has wanned as a determinant of legislator behavior. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the impact of bicameral politics on pension reform in Brazil. Using Presidents Cardoso’s and Lula’s pension reforms, I test two hypotheses. First, bicameral incongruence of policy preferences increases the likelihood of legislative gridlock. I draw upon the career profiles of the members of each house and their partisan composition to locate the Senate and the Chamber on the pension policy spectrum. The passage of reform should be less difficult when both houses favor pension reform than when at least one of the houses objects to it. Second, legislative delay is inversely related to the actors’ levels of impatience. Since the problem of the Brazilian pension system has been mainly considered a problem of public finance, the nation’s economic conditions are likely to influence the degree of legislators’ patience with additional delays in the passage of the reform. The deterioration in economic conditions (or expectations thereof) should elevate impatience, which is likely to lead to the reform’s passage. Evidence for this paper was gathered through archival research and interviews in the Brazilian Congress. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares the political development and neoliberal reform of welfare in Mexico, Argentina, Brazil and Chile in the 20th centry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the Catholic Church?s role in promoting social justice and democracy in a the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Norte. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will examine the role of religion, here broaderly defined to include not only catholicism but also all other religious belief in Brazil, and its function as a factor in national, state, and local elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]