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Existing theories of change in campaign strategies predict cross-national convergence in terms of candidates' linkages to voters and the degree of policy focus and cleavage priming in their appeals. However, the prevailing national patterns of electioneering in Chile, Brazil, and Peru have actually diverged from one another since their transitions from authoritarian rule. This paper develops a theory of success contagion that can explain the evolution of presidential campaign strategy in these countries as well as other third-wave democracies. I argue that the first politician to combine a victorious campaign with a successful term as president establishes a model of electioneering that candidates across the ideological spectrum are likely to adopt in the future. Such contagion can occur through imitation as well as the consolidation of norms among campaign professionals. Strategic convergence is less probable in cases of repeatedly poor governing performance, such as Peru. Instead, candidates are likely to choose strategies through an inward-oriented process of reacting against previous errors. This paper draws upon content analysis of television advertising, interviews with campaign staff, and case studies of specific elections in Chile, Brazil, and Peru. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A significant portion of international relations scholarship over the last two decades has focused on the democratic peace hypothesis that democratic states do not go to war against each other. But one category of coercive policy that has been omitted from the debate and which poses certain caveats for democratic peace claims is that of covert action. Nixon’s policies toward Chile and Peru in 1969-1970 provide an interesting contrast that is difficult for democratic peace theorists to explain. Both states were implementing nationalization policies that threatened US economic interests, but Chile was an established democracy while Peru was under military rule. The democratic peace thesis would predict that Washington would try to negotiate and compromise with Chile and be more aggressive with Peru. Yet, the Nixon administration did the exact opposite, attempting to subvert Allende’s election in Chile, while negotiating with Peru. Using original documents and a process tracing approach, and evaluating factors at the systemic, domestic, and individual levels, this paper will illuminate the causal mechanism(s) behind the administration’s decisions in these two cases, shedding light on why it reacted so differently to substantially similar events in the two states and on whether their respective regime types played any role in the policy decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes how legislative rules structure amending behavior in the lower chambers of Argentina, Chile and Mexico. The article emphasizes the theoretical relevance of voting agendas, order of voting, status quo position and sequence of amending moves by committees and floor challengers. It shows that although individual deputies can get improvements by introducing floor amendments, committees are usually able to mitigate the effects of unwanted changes. It also shows that in Chile (unlike Argentina or Mexico), the executive has procedural rights that allow him to respond to committee reports with amendments of his own, and that he uses these prerogatives often to successfully protect presidential bills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the influence of human rights advocacy networks in post authoritarian countries, focusing on Argentina and Chile. I specifically study the role of advocacy networks that seek to protect individuals’ physical integrity from police abuse. This includes studying groups’ influence on legal reforms to guarantee a fair treatment at the moment of a citizen’s arrest and groups’ influence in reducing practices of police violence. The case studies reveals two findings: first, because most analyses have studied the influence of human rights groups on authoritarian regimes, the conclusions have tended to overemphasize their importance. When facing fragile established democratic regimes, advocacy networks confront new strategic challenges that have not been explored properly. The case studies prove that even if alliances between domestic and international advocacy networks work, the domestic configuration of power and the way the topic of citizens’ rights is framed strongly determine whether incumbents are willing to address the issue of police reforms and police brutality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many developing countries around the world and in Latin America have made a costly trade-off: rapid economic development in exchange for environmental decline. Now as these countries begin to approach higher levels of development, social movements are calling out for better environmental policies and sustainable development. How can these organizations be most effective in their political context? This paper examines the case of the Chilean environmental movement and specifically addresses the factors influencing social movement effectiveness in developing countries following a democratic transition. I argue that neither tactics nor political opportunity alone is a sufficient explanation of social movement outcomes. Instead, we need to examine how political opportunities condition the effectiveness of different tactics. To empirically examine this theory, I analyze quantitative time series data on the activities of two environmental organizations and corresponding government policies between 1994 and 2000. I find strong empirical support for the proposed theory and conclude that as the Chilean public becomes less confident with democracy, the effectiveness of contentious tactics increases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the new left in Taiwan and South Korea and the renewed left in Brazil and Chile. I contend that the left can no longer best understood in terms of antiquated sociological or economic categories. The new left in East Asia and Latin America is a political project and its politics are embedded in the processes of democratic transition. My argument is simple: (i) Democratization, a variable process of change, leads to different patterns of new left organization. (ii) Meanwhile, the introduction of democracy, a form of governance with universally shared features (irrespective of how the transition to democracy took place), promotes the moderation of the new left across all four cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bilateral investment treaties and investment chapters in preferential trade agreements have become popular measures to guarantee investor-friendly policies. While they reassure multinational firms, they also constrain host country authorities in regulating markets to stimulate competition. These problems are widespread in service industries characterized by significant economies of scale. This paper presents case studies of the difficulties the Chilean regulatory authorities faced in regulating the financial services, telecom, and energy industries. It concludes that able regulators are necessary, but that internationalagreements need to also leave enough policy freedom. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we present a statistical estimator for calibrating the influence of the spatial characteristics of bills that recognizes the continuous nature of the dependent variable: the speed with which committees attend to bills. Our empirical model blends techniques from survival analysis, with scaling techniques that are more commonly applied to the analysis of voting behavior, to estimate spatial attributes of the voting decision. Spatial characteristics are frequently observed to influence legislators' dichotomous decisions to vote in favor of or against bills, but to our knowledge they have not been applied to continuous data on the amount of time bills spend waiting to pass to the next stage of the legislative process. We use our estimation technique to analyze the trajectories of over a thousand bills considered by Committees of the Congress of Chile between 1993 and 2005. Our analysis presents evidence that the length of time that passes before a legislative committee reports on a bill that has been referred to it is influenced by the the spatial characteristics of the committee and of the bill. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For those who study democratic institutions, Chile's institutional configuration should be among the least conducive to successful democratization and governability. Yet post-Pinochet Chile is one of South Americas great democratic success stories. Employing Helmke and Levitsky's (2004) framework, this paper argues that a series of informal accommodating institutions ameliorated the potentially negative effect of Chile's awkward institutional structure, and in large part, explain this success. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The decline in urban popular movements in Chile during and after the transition to electoral politics in 1989 can be explained on the basis of changes in the political institutional environment under which the urban poor were operating and changes in the role played by political parties. This article examines the conditions under which the popular movement protests were strong during the authoritarian regime and the current relations between the government and the popular sectors in the area of housing policy to explain the decline in urban popular movements. Despite state repression during authoritarian period the solidarity among squatters, the support from political party activists, and the Catholic Church as organizing venue allowed for mobilization of urban popular sectors. Mass protests of 1983-86 were fueled by economic grievances as a consequence of neo-liberal reforms. At the time the authoritarian regime was a unifying national target for the protests. Starting in 1986, in context of deteriorating economic and political conditions of the regime, moderate political parties started refocus on Constitutional provision allowing for transition to electoral politics in 1989. Following the transition, the urban sector continued to experience economic problems, yet protest did not reemerge. While the grievances of urban popular sectors did not decline during or after the transition from authoritarian rule, popular mobilization declined significantly after 1986. This can be attributed to the marginalization of the urban popular sector during the negotiations between the authoritarian regime and the moderate political parties. There was the lack of a unifying target following the transition. Political parties started to focus on electoral politics rather than the grassroots mobilization of the urban popular sectors and local groups or NGOs started to articulate the needs of the popular sectors to the government bureaucracies that treat housing and poverty as a technical matter rather than a political one. Post transition policies made by government individualize the housing problem and discourage collective action among the urban popular sectors. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Distrust in political parties is considered widespread in manycountries, but the concept is under-theorized, poorly measured,and its implications unclear. I offer a working conceptualizationof distrust in political parties and analyze it in Chile using Qmethodology. The analysis suggests that distrust in parties isprominent in Chile and takes Active, Alienated, and Skepticalforms, each with distinct demographic, socialization, behavioral,and partisan correlates. Such evidence questions the possibilityof trust in political parties as a collectivity. Despite distruston other issues, when parties are not seen as corrupt and asworking for the common good, distrust does not generalize beyondparties into other political institutions. Finally, the researchsuggests fruitful operationalizations of distrust for use inpublic opinion surveys. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses candidate selection processes and women's representation in Chilean municipalities. One of the obstacles to women's political representation which come into play in the process of turning aspirants into candidates is self-nomination. Primaries may also pose a significant challenge to women's political incorporation. A brief description of political parties in Chile is provided.

ABSTRACT With the return to democratic government in Chile in 1989, after 17 years of military dictatorship, a “democratic” indigenous policy was developed by the new government, producing important changes in the traditional political structure of the indigenous communities. These changes are a product of both the incorporation of Pehuenche communities into the economic globalization process as well as State action and policy in the communities. After characterizing the new indigenous policy, this study characterizes and analyzes the changes produced by this policy in the traditional Pehuenche leadership structures in Alto Biobio, Southern Chile. The results are based on a series of interviews with Pehuenche community leaders. The most important change in the Pehuenche leadership structure consists in the loss of the traditional figure of “lonko” as the spiritual and political authority in the community. The interviewees attributed the changes in many aspects of its traditional authority due to the outside influences of western religions, the formal education system, and the relations with the Chilean government and internally due to community divisions. The second change found is the instrumentalization of the leadership position, where the leader’s capacity to relate with non-Pehuenche actors has become especially important. The third transformation is a generational change towards younger leaders, when traditionally Pehuenche leaders had been older community members. Pehuenche identity is being redefined with respect to the State and other “Chileans” and with respect to its monetary value in tourism. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]