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The paper combines institutional and civil societal explanatory variables to account for the participation of civil society organizations in policymaking in democratizing countries. The paper examines a particular case of civil societal intervention in policy design and advocacy: the campaign for ‘freedom of information’ legislation in contemporary Argentina. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I argue that democratization (suffrage expansion, multiparty competition and the secret ballot) is neither sufficient nor necessary for generating fiscal redistribution (tax burden, progressivity of the tax structure, redistributive government spending). I offer a simple model of democratization as the result of intra-elite conflict that explains why this might be the case. I provide empirical evidence consistent with the model using detailed national and subnational data for the case of Argentina (1880-1950), which I collected during 10 months of archival research. Despite the fact that Argentina enjoyed per capita wealth on par with Canada, was ethnically more homogeneous that the United States, and did not suffer from the landlord-peasant social structure typical of other Latin American countries, the period of democratic rule (1912-1930) did not usher in redistributive taxation and spending as predicted by the workhorse median-voter models. Democratization caused horizontal redistribution across provinces rather than from rich to poor citizens. Strangely, taxation became more progressive and redistributive spending increased with the military coup of 1931. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Privatizations have often been chastised for their pernicious effects on social development and democratization. The main reasons for the negative reputation of privatizations have been downsizing and increased unemployment in the post-privatizations period and lack of transparency and increased corruption during their implementation. This paper looks at the impact of privatizations on democratization by carrying out a comparative study of the transformation of labor unions in the post-privatizations period in Turkey and Argentina. It concludes that labor unions in these two utterly distinct countries and cultures have changed their structure, internal workings and external relations with other governance actors towards more democratic stands. Based on in-depth interviews with over fifty labor union leaders at different levels of union hierarchy, the study concludes that privatizations can democratize institutions by rendering them more active, more collaborative and more competitive in social, political and economic terms. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the process of judicial independence building in democratizing nations from a political science perspective. It addresses the theoretical and empirical paradox: why does a ruling party agree to cede the control over a branch that could limit its future power? Using the cases of Argentina (2003-2006) and Mexico (1994-2004) we argue against two recent theoretical approaches developed to explain the structure of incentives leading governing elites to promote such institutional changes. Both explanations conceive reforms as rational strategies of actors to limit the power of opponents, the future government -according to the electoral incentives approach, and the party in power -according to the divided government approach. We challenge the notions of both approaches for the analysis or our cases and argue that both processes show a strong explanatory power of legitimacy and power building needs as incentives for self-limitation. We also argue that implementation of reforms occurred in these two cases in contexts both framed by a political institutional crisis in conjunction with a crisis of credibility of the courts. The results of this study suggest the existence of perhaps too many domestic contextual factors shaping incentives and strategies of reforming elites regarding judicial independence as to construct a single explanation behind judicial reform in democratizing nations. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Argentina and Turkey are two countries with different historical, cultural and institutional attributes. They are however both examples of new democratic regimes that emerged in the mid-1980s amid economic crisis . They are also two newly emerging markets with middle-income status, which switched to free market economics in the 1980s with accelerating privatization programs in the 1990s. Both of the governments applying these privatization plans have been populist in nature but technocratic and neoliberal in credentials. The initiators of economic reform programs, Ozal and Menem, both used effective coalition-making strategies with strongly clientelistic tones giving rise to rampant corruption. Privatizations, in both cases, were used as effective tools to bring about these outcomes while simultaneously shaping them as they emerged. The cases of Argentina and Turkey pose an interesting puzzle in terms of convergent effects of privatizations on democratization and its corollaries. This study argues that comparable patterns can be observed in the concentration of power, in the executive regardless of the parliamentary versus presidentialist regime divide, in the reaction patterns of labor unions and their development inthe neoliberal era, ispread of patronage links and corruption, and finally, in the fluctation of economic development in the two countries. These and other similar developments are then related to the privatization policies and their implementation. Further research should look at more detail in the direct relationship between privatizations, their implementation and consequences on workers and labor unions, party structures and civil society to determine if similar patterns exist as well in these features of democratization and examine why. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In "The Crisis of Democratic Representation in the Andes," Mainwaring, Bejarano & Pizarro Leongomez define party system collapse as a rejection of not just particular parties but of most parties due to a break in the ties between principal and agent. Argentina experienced a situation that not only can be described in those terms, but that also reached its zenith in the political and economic crisis of 2001-2002. The party system was affected, but did not collapse. Why? This case study argues that the reasons for that outcome are a political culture that still prizes democracy despite skepticism towards parties, the continued influence of Peronism over party politics as exemplified by aspects such as its extensive patronage machinery, and the appearance of partisan alternatives that are palpably weak but provide avenues for representation. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Levels of democracy at the subnational level vary significantly in many federations, especially in developing democracies such as Argentina, Brazil, India, Mexico, Russia and South Africa. Instances of subnational authoritarianism are not uncommon in such nations. The literature on democracy and democratization, however, has mainly focused on regimes at the national level. Using quantitative evidence from the 24 Argentine provinces, I test theories of democracy that have been proposed by the national-level literature, and argue, drawing on rentier and fiscal theories of the state, that a key factor explaining variance in subnational democracy is the extent to which the incumbent in each unit benefits from rents. A burgeoning recent literature has studied the regime effects of natural resource rents (such as those produced by oil), and has suggested that, in very poor countries, foreign aid functions as a form of rent that hinders democracy. I argue that, in middle-income federations such as Argentina, the main source of subnational rents is the redistribution of tax revenues collected by the federal government. Rules and practices that disproportionally allocate these fiscal resources to poorer or smaller units provide their incumbents with generous rents that allow them to restrict democratic competition. Thus, fiscally progressive redistribution often results in politically regressive outcomes. A recursive OLS regression model shows that, in Argentina, the larger the federal fiscal (and oil) rents a province receives, the lower its level of democratic competition, even after controlling for modernization and other alternative theoretical accounts of democracy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the existing literature on Latin American democracies leads us to expect limited civil society involvement in policy making. Scholars tend to emphasize an array of institutional, structural, and other factors that conspire against meaningful citizen participation in the region. However, in the proposed paper, I demonstrate that non-governmental organizations and other civil society groups have managed to exert considerable influence over policy making. In some cases, they have been able to shape the content of policy and pressure legislators to adopt reforms. This finding is puzzling given the received wisdom, which suggests that groups' advocacy efforts will meet with little success. The paper offers a partial explanation of why some civil society organizations are more likely than others to achieve policy influence in democratizing countries. In particular, I identify collective action frames as an important independent variable, arguing that when civil societal actors frame ideas in persuasive ways, they increase their chances of participating in policy agenda setting, formulation, and adoption. An ideational approach helps solve the puzzle of influence in environments where access to the political system is restricted and groups tend to lack resources and political strength. I test the theory with evidence from Argentina and Chile. I perform a comparative analysis of several cases of policy making drawn from two issue areas: children's rights and freedom of information. The paper seeks to address a lacuna in the comparative democratization field, which has neglected civil societal influence on policy and its implications for democratic consolidation. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In democratization which political actors determine the final score of judicial institutional design? This paper will examine three competing theories of institutional design in the context of two Latin American states: Brazil and Argentina. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigate the role that the foreign policies of the United States, the Soviet Union, and other countries played in the process of democratic transitions in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After democratization, courts started to assume a new role in Latin America. We are witnessing a shift from the times when courts were considered irrelevant as political actors, and a place only for privileged people. Argentina presents a case where the judicialization of politics is becoming increasingly relevant and is worth of our attention. In particular, the strategic use of courts by certain disadvantaged groups to advance their policy objectives has been a trend in the last 25 years. As this novel phenomenon is occurring in Argentina, questions become evident in the Law and Society discipline. In particular, analyzing the level of impact of this strategy is essential for an accurate appraisal of the phenomenon. To understand this in the context of a country with serious economic disruptions, periods of political and social instabilityâ??and building on the findings of socio-legal scholars (Epp, 1998; Cannon and Johnson, 1999; Galanter 1974; McCann, 1994)â??I develop the concept of social mobilization. This notion allows us to explain that only groups that have the support to initiate and carry out a sustained litigation campaign will be successful in using courts to advance their policy objectives. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]