Search

The purpose of this paper is to develop a deeper understanding of the dynamics and possible consequences of this leftist trend in Latin American politics considering the interplay between democratic transitions and market policies implementation.Latin American politiesâ??political parties, social movements or networksâ??have in recent times moved towards different forms of leftist options, whether in discourse or in policy making. Although the initial transitions from authoritarian to democratic régimes were coupled by more center-to-right régimes, the present leftist trend should come as no surprise. Democracy was reestablished almost at the same time as pro-market policies following the then dominant Washington consensus were implemented. Almost two decades after these policies were launched, their basic promise of increased welfare for all citizens has not been fulfilled. Although social, economic and cultural inequalities are deeply rooted in Latin American societies and were already notorious well before the Washington Consensus, it is more or less a generalized impression that neoliberal policies have aggravated these inequalities. Even if there is still debate on their precise impacts on inequality, poverty and economic growth, what can be said beyond contestation is that strengthening democracy has made social inequalities more apparent, public policy responses more transparent, and hence political representation more accountable. Secondly, expectations concerning high rates of economic growth have not been met in any country in the region, except for Chile. The public's impression of policies largely failing to respond to increasingly visible social inequalities has triggered a shift of political preferences towards the left, which is evidenced by recent elections as well as the general discourse in the political debates throughout the region. The purpose of this paper is to develop a deeper understanding of the underlying logic and possible consequences of this leftist trend in Latin American politics. In doing so, I address the current debate on populism and the extent to which it poses a threat to democracy. This debate has been obscured by extreme views that either condemn all forms of policies that seek to confront inequalities or hail such policy efforts blindly. I argue that this debate needs a more nuanced examination of the specific institutional characteristics of populism in contemporary Latin American democracies. As Alexis Tocqueville works remind us, during times of changeâ??even radical onesâ??there are important strings of continuity that ought to be considered because they are crucial determinants of potential restorations. The de facto governance structures in modern Latin America are often shaped by traditional relationships between members of the oligarchy rather than by recent political reforms. Culture and its norms continue to shape interactions in contemporary Latin American politics. Various paths are being pursued to overcome the crises related to governance structures, the vulnerability of governing coalitions, and mechanisms of representation in Latin America. However, success in pursuing these paths requires addressing the major issue of inequality. This takes us back to another of Tocqueville's main concerns. As Vincent Ostrom put it, "Tocqueville's task in Democracy in America was to understand the American efforts to organize a republican system of government and to determine whether it offered a promise of maintaining liberty under conditions of equality." ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper tackles the conditions under which, ethnic parties and social movements intersect in Latin American's reality. The case of Bolivia presents an appealing case for analyzing the features of the rise of ethnic movements in the region, their capabilities of canalizing into political parties and their ability of transforming formal and traditional institutions. This research will build on institutionalism and social movement's literature in order to explain institutional change and ethnic party formation in Bolivia. As mainstream literature has noted, the conditions that arose in Latin America after the implementation of neoliberal policies of the Washington Consensus have led to an upsurge of ethnic movements, demands for political inclusion and active participation in the decision making process. The analysis contributes to the literature in focusing on the connection of the understudied phenomenon of ethnic parties in the region, and their linkage to social movements and institutional change. Finally, the paper attempts to shed light over Latin America's politics of dealignment that eroded traditional bases of support and opened new avenues for 'informal institutionalization' of social movements and ethnic parties in the region. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have suggested that indigenous social mobilization in Latin America has largely been a result of shifting citizenship regimes, from corporatist to neo-liberal, in which a lack of state capacity has resulted in a loss of indigenous peoples' rights to social support and their subsequent reactions. Variation in levels of indigenous mobilization among countries has then been attributed to a country's unique historical factors such as a lack of resources, a country's undemocratic context, or an absence of political entrepreneurship to make an ethnic identity politically salient. Yet, the contemporary context matters. This paper argues that the changing international context, and specifically technological change, is more important in explaining variation in levels of indigenous mobilization. The spread of new information and communications technologies (ICT), computer-mediated communications (CMC), and small media proliferation across the globeâ??has increased the capacity of indigenous peoples to mobilize in Latin America. In other words, in cases where there was sufficient technological globalization at the time of citizenship regime shift, and indigenous peoples were able to utilize these technologies, the pre-existing inter-community networks and the burgeoning international networks were more effective in increasing indigenous capacity for mobilization. This paper will demonstrate with the cases of Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru that where the extent of technology development in rural areas was sufficient, (some) indigenous movements were able to take control of this technology to increase the capacity of their movements to pose a strong challenge to the state; conversely, where the extent of rural technology diffusion was stunted, indigenous activists were unable to successfully utilize new forms of technology and indigenous mobilization was less successful. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public opinion and foreign policy in Latin America has been sparsely studied in its own right. This paper seeks to test hypotheses drawn from the study of American and comparativist politics. Since the 1920s the impact of public opinion on American foreign policy has been a point of both optimism and dismissal. Liberals have argued that public opinion has the potential to promote peace while pessimists have questioned the stability of public opinion and the ability of the public to make decisions toward foreign policy. Within Latin America, the study of public opinion and foreign policy has been largely overlooked as the emergence of the scientific study of public opinion occurred during a period of authoritarian rule. The rebirth of democracy and liberal economics in Latin America began within the "lost decade" of economic crises of the 1980s. Democratic and structural adjustment reforms since the 1990s have changed the region dramatically making issues of trade a potential touchstone for every citizen. This makes the present the opportune moment to study the public opinion and foreign policy nexus within the Latin American context. Specifically, this paper asks whether public opinion toward economic integration can be predicted by established hypothesis. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the electoral success of the 'new left' in Latin America, privatization and nationalization have once again returned to the political agenda in the region. However, this raises a number of issues. Very few cross-national studies of the determinants of privatization have been conducted and we still do not truly know why states privatize. This paper examines the determinants of privatization for 14 Latin American states over the period 1975 to 2003. This is the first cross-national study of privatization in Latin America with a full range of partisanship, institutional, economic and international variables. The pressures of globalization and the international financial institutions appear to have had no effect on privatization in Latin America. Rather, privatization is a product of domestic factors. It is more pronounced in wealthier, macroeconomically stable states. Domestic politics also matters. Partisan governments appear to have some impact on privatization, while the fragmentation of the political system serves as a barrier to reform. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research closely examines 220 pro-democracy contentious political challenges that occurred between 1981 and 1995 in seven Latin American countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. The data show that pro-democracy challenges tend to be large, nonviolent (especially using demonstrations), and organized by political parties. The main question addressed in this paper is the effect of pro-democracy protest on democratization processes. The clearest type of potential effect would be what I call the "democracy now" effect, in which pro-democracy challenges lead to regime change, but it is difficult to find clear evidence of this. Another way of looking at the effect of pro-democracy contentious challenges on democratization is to look for smaller reforms. There were twenty cases in which governments did grant concessions to pro-democracy contentious challenges, including loosening certain repressive measures, annulling controversial state and local elections, or reforming electoral procedures. A quantitative analysis showed that less authoritarian regimes were more likely to grant such concessions, as were governments that were weaker and more dependent on foreign aid and investment. Furthermore, challengers could increase the likelihood of gaining concessions by organizing contentious challenges that are longer, have larger participation, and utilize nonviolent yet disruptive tactics. One of the strongest factors was focusing demands on more concrete subnational issues, such as questionable local and state elections, rather than demanding "democracy now." ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The desire to promote remittances is commonly used as an explanation for why migrant-sending countries choose to adopt policies designed to reach out nationals living abroad. This paper tests several arguments about the ability of home state migration policy to increase the flow of migrant remittances using data from thirteen Latin American countries for the years 1986-2004. I find that the implementation of migration policy does lead to an increase in remittances, but that when other remittance determinants are included as controls, only one type of migration policy encourages greater remittance flows. These findings are conistent with the general arguments in the migration policy literature, but they raise questions about the ways that political and economic conditions interact with different types of migration policies. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many of the leading theories of collective action discount the role of different types of grievances in the mobilization process. However, the manner in which individuals evaluate the costs and benefits of taking action to resolve the grievance is mediated by the nature of the grievance itself, and different grievances may have a greater capacity to facilitate collective action than others. That is to say, certain grievances might be "easier" than others to rally around, just as certain issues in conventional politics are easier for voters to evaluate than others. This paper tests this proposition by examining the effect of a common grievance experienced by many people in the developing world—corruption victimization—on an individual's protest participation using survey data from 19 Latin American countries. The analysis shows that being a victim of corruption is one of the most consistent predictors of protest participation even when taking into account other factors that influence mobilization. The results suggest that corruption victimization may be a grievance that lowers the costs of collective action due to the manner in which corruption victimization facilitates the blame attribution process. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many Latin Americanist scholars have described large scale protests, in which indigenous people have been noticeably present, as part of the larger phenomena of indigenous social movements which started in the late 1960s and have grown in prominence with governmental attempts to adopt new liberal economic reforms (Brysk 2000, Lucero 2008, Postero and Zamosc 2004, Yasher 1998, Van Cott 2003). However, while many of the protests described by these authors did have a large number of indigenous participants and were organized by self-proclaimed indigenous organizations, these organizations chose to frame their struggles against neo-liberal economics in two different and sometimes contradictory ways. For example, The Confederation of Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), began as an indigenous organization dedicated to protecting indigenous culture, and first gained national prominence by protesting for cultural rights, such as the right to bilingual education. However, when the President entered into serious negotiations with the IMF in 1999, CONAIE once again took to the street, but this time the organization's platform held no mention of cultural rights. Instead of being framed as a protest for indigenous rights, the CONAIE framed the 1999/2000 protests as struggles for the rights of workers against neoliberal economic reforms imposed by the working class. The framing of the protests as a protest for workers' rights is particularly striking given the history of racism and discrimination that indigenous peoples have historically suffered at the hands of the working mestizo class. On the other hand, AIDESEP, a regional indigenous rights organization in the Peruvian Amazon, has continued to emphasize indigenous cultural rights even in the face of neoliberal economic land reforms. This paper will therefore look at case studies from Ecuador and Peru to determine why some indigenous organizations framed protests against the adoption of neoliberal economic reforms in terms of workers' rights, while others were framed in terms of indigenous cultural and land rights. In the end I find that the Peruvian organizations had weaker domestic networks than the Ecuadorian movements, and therefore relied heavily on the internationally salient frames of indigenous rights and environmental protection, while the Ecuadorian organization CONAIE was free to adopt more nationally salient frames. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we analyze transitions to democracy (and semi-democracy) and democratic breakdowns in 20 Latin American countries between 1945 and 2005. We argue that domestic conditions cannot explain the region-wide wave of democratization that took place in 1978-95. Our transition models control for standard socio-economic predictors as well as for domestic institutional conditions (including the nature of the authoritarian regime in transition models, and the type of party system in breakdown models). We include a battery of additional predictors to capture the impact of international factors, including measures of diffusion (using spatial lags, and distinguishing short-term and long-term effects) and an original indicator of US support for democracy. Our results indicate that political leaders tend to emulate transitions in neighboring countries in the short-run, even though there is no evidence of a long-term equilibrium effect at the regional level. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few scholars have used a clear systematic analysis to examine the relationship between regional integration and foreign direct investment in Europe and Latin America. Debate remains on the direction of the causal relationship between foreign direct investment and regional integration. In an effort to resolve this debate, this study will analyze regional integration in Europe and Latin America and each state’s respective level of foreign direct investment for the time period 1990-2004. Event history analysis is employed to test the hypothesis that those countries with high levels of foreign direct investment will integrate into regional economic agreements at a faster pace. Forty-one Central/Eastern European and Latin American countries are included in this study. All countries in Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America, which have complete data available, are used for study in this paper. Because of the potential for an endogeneity problem, it is necessary to control for the following variables: gross domestic product per capita, trade openness, and the level of democracy for each state. A Cox regression shows that we should expect Latin American countries to integrate at a faster pace. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does denominational affiliation or the civic association role of the church best explain different levels of political participation among Latin Americans? Examining Latino political participation in the United States, Verba, Schlozman, and Brady (1995) and Jones-Correa and Leal (2001) arrive at divergent conclusions. The former suggest that Latino political participation is affected by civic skill development through membership in associations, namely church, and denominational affiliation matters. The findings of Jones, Correa and Leal (2001) suggest that the relationship between religion and political participation is best explained by church attendance rather than denominational affiliation. The tremendous growth in protestant adherents in once Catholic dominated Latin America provides a new opportunity to examine the role of religion in political participation. Previous works examining this growth in Central America have highlighted some important differences between these protestant followers and Catholics. Using original data from surveys conducted in Honduras, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua (n=3000, Year = 2007), this paper seeks to examine the competing theories outlined above in a comparative setting. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary Latin America is experiencing a region-wide violent crime epidemic, the political consequences of which are largely unknown. Many commentators imply that the crime wave bodes ill for democracy in the region, causing disillusionment with government, reducing mass political participation, and increasing popular support for authoritarianism. This paper questions the micro-foundations of that conventional wisdom. Analysis of survey data indicates that crime victimization may cause increased political participation at the individual level. Rather than becoming cynical, disenchanted, or disempowered, Latin American crime victims are actually more politically active than their non-victimized peers. Crime victimization has an ambiguous impact on opinions about democracy and dictatorship; further research will be needed before firm conclusions about this relationship can be drawn. The results are robust to specification checks and multiple different quantitative methods, and they are based on data from multiple years of the LAPOP and Latinobaómetro surveys. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on 2008 public opinion surveys in eighteen Latin American countries, the paper investigates the parameters of the gender gap in political participation and finds evidence that it is modest. It then explores the relative effects of political context, resources, agency, and political attitudes on women's and men's political involvement. Separate regression equations for women and men allow for investigation of whether different social processes influence the kind and extent of political engagement undertaken by the two sexes. The study utilizes data from the Latin American Public Opinion Project which surveys public opinion and behavior in the Americas. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As Latin America democratizes, ordinary citizens appear less enthusiastic about democracy. What explains this paradox? This paper attempts to fill in the gap between disparate literatures on corruption, urban violence, and democratic orientations by presenting a causal relationship between victimization, corruption, and democratic values. I argue that the increase in criminal activity and perceptions of corruption throughout Latin America may explain part of the variation in democratic orientations and that victims of crime express negative feelings toward democracy and are often have less confidence in political institutions. Using survey data from the 2005 Latinobarometro, I find that victims are indeed less likely to support both democracy as an ideal as well as the political institutions in place while respondents who perceive high levels of corruption are more likely to support democracy but are significantly less likely to support political institutions. Analyses from ordered logit models demonstrate that these results hold across Latin America. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to offer insight into the potential and limits of civil society as a vehicle for deepening democratic values in newer democracies. I analyze a large cross-national survey of Latin American citizens in 18 countries to examine the question: Is civil society in Latin America nurturing democratic values or breeding authoritarian sentiments? A multidimensional analysis of civil society brings nuance to our understanding of the relationship between civil society and democratic values. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an institutional explanation for the growth, organizational transformations, and decline of the piquetero social movement in Argentina, developed from a comparative perspective based on Latin America. I show which institutional arrangements, political actors, and configurations of power contributed to the success and decline of the piqueteros. Applying the basic principles of the rational choice approach, I find that the success, decline, and transformation of the organizational structures of the piquetero movement were mainly produced by a political cycle of deep political division within the ruling party (the Peronist party). Other socio-economic explanatory factors were the over-regulated Argentine labor market, and the exogenous impact of the Argentine economic crisis through high unemployment rates. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an empirical evaluation of the budget institutions literature in Latin America that finds that budget rules only affect a small portion of overall fiscal expenditures and that empirical studies that suggest otherwise misspecify the dependent variable and produce misleading results. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a theory of the political calculus behind macroeconomic policymaking in a financially globalized world. It seeks to explain a fascinating puzzle: why has much of Latin America's left maintained a commitment to macroeconomic orthodoxy? Employing elections as my unit of analysis, I challenge the conventional claim the chief executives engineer an economic boom to win elections. Rather, I argue that in a financially globalized world, politicians face greater policymaking constraints that stem from their exposure to international debt markets and an increasingly sophisticated electorate. They often prefer to use macroeconomic discipline to signal their competence to both investors and the electorate, particularly in light of past hyperinflation and debt crises. Ironically, politicians who presumably face fewer institutional checks and balances, constrain their own executive power to demonstrate macroeconomic policy accountability. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is there a gendered pattern to the qualifications needed for cabinet appointments? Are female cabinet ministers appointed to portfolios in which they have credibility? We explore whether cabinet recruitment is gendered by comparing across portfolio assignments and across countries. We utilize data from five presidential democracies - Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and the United States - in current and recent presidential administrations to explore the qualifications needed for different types of cabinet portfolios and then whether female appointees are held to the same standards of experience and qualifications as their male colleagues. This paper thus contributes to the comparative literature on executives and to the study of women in politics and gendered institutions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the remarkable rise in the number of women in Latin American legislatures over the last decade, a significant amount of research has questioned the effect of this increase on the descriptive and substantive representation of women. The reactions of traditionally dominant male legislators to the female newcomers have been of particular interest. For instance, Heath, Schwindt-Bayer, and Taylor-Robinson (2005) argued that legislators' committee assignments could be an important indicator of how traditionally dominant groups respond to legislative newcomers, particularly female legislators. Using new data on the most recent committee assignments of both male and female members of ten Latin American legislatures, this paper will attempt to address these questions. Specifically, I argue that the likelihood of women being isolated to less powerful committees will depend on the importance of constituency interests. In candidate-centered systems, "plum" committee assignments may be more valuable to legislators, increasing the incentives that male legislators have to isolate women from the powerful economics and defense committees that serve particularistic constituency interests. In addition to these and other institutional factors, I will consider the role of individual-level characteristics, such as the margin of victory, legislative seniority, political ideology, and membership in the governing coalition on women's legislative committee assignments. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the adequacy of the collective action framework in the literature on market reforms, and shows that many underlying assumptions are not warranted in the actual processes, thus creating an ontological obstacle to theorization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Party system change, particularly the transformation of the core components of a party system, is likely to have significant implications for the nature and endurance of democratic contestation. Until recently, much of the research on party system change has focused either on fluctations within an existing party system structure, without examining transformations in the structure itself, or has focused on individual parties within a system, without explaining dynamics at the system level. This paper contributes to an emerging body of research that explores the fundamental changes in political contestation that result from significant structural changes in systems of political parties. Specifically, the paper examines the radical changes in the Venezuelan party system that produced the 1998 collapse of the country's formerly stable 2.5-party system. Using 30 years of public opinion data together with content analysis of both legislation and news coverage, this paper examines the factors that contributed to the collapse of the party system. The analysis here indicates that the policy responsiveness provided by the traditional party system failed as the parties neglected substantive representation of Venezuelans' major policy concerns. Other components of the project demonstrate that further aspects of representation also failed as the party system neglected the incoporation of significant emerging groups into the system and became increasingly reliant upon a decaying clientelistic network. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For decades, it was widely assumed that the reasons behind the poor performance of Latin American governments were the absence of democratic elections or the problems of an overgrown state. Yet, recent experience in Latin American democracies suggest that it is plainly wrong to assume that regime change or market reforms lead automatically to improved governance, and therefore it is necessary to understand the determinants of the quality of government. This paper is an attempt to move forward the discussion by analyzing two of the most relevant variables identified in this literature with time-series, cross-sectional data for the Latin American region, and employing data on quality of government that includes three dimensions of the quality of government (professional bureaucracy, lack of corruption and law enforcement). The empirical analysis shows that we can have a richer understanding of how democracy and structural adjustment improve the quality of government if we look at how their components affect our dependent variable. We now know that regime change or economic reform involve different mechanisms, and that each of these mechanisms behave differently, and it should not be assumed that they will follow the same dynamics.Thus, the main argument of this paper is that, behind those broad aggregate indicators, there are specific components at work. In the case of democracy, it shows that political participation has a negative effect on the quality of government, political constraints on the executive have a significant positive effect, and free press and electoral competition have no significant impact. For structural adjustment, this study suggests that neither government size nor fiscal discipline have an effect on the quality of government once "openness to the world economy" is included in the specification. Is this latter variable what explains variation in the quality of government in the region. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper demonstrates the need for greater conceptual clarity in studies broadly termed analyses of party system change. To address this issue, the paper proposes the application of a conceptual distinction between system-maintaining change, defined as changes that occur within the structure of a stable party system, and system-transforming change, defined as the transformation of the party system structure itself that produces a shift from one system type to another (Mair 1997). Additionally, party system collapse is shown to be a particular form of party system transformation. Then this conceptual difference is operationalized, and its validity is tested through its application to understanding of changes in the Venezuelan party system over the past fifty years. This application demonstrates that the distinction between the different types of party system change is useful in understanding the Venezuelan case, providing an accurate classification of the changes undergone in this party system. Furthermore, the analysis suggests that this approach to understanding party system change serves to bring conceptual clarity and theoretical consistency to this field of study. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [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]

Until now, politics of foreign affairs and defense in Latin America have been controlled almost exclusively by the executive power and some other organizations such as the Institute of National Defense. This presenter introduces the synthesized vision of the actors and the working systems related to the Chilean legislative agenda, and proposes some initiatives in order to facilitate a discussion of how to strengthen the legislative function and promote major intervention by society in the determination of foreign policy. It will offer detailed descriptions on the legislative agenda in Chile, the actors who participate and so forth, based on primary sources (interviews, surveys, etc). Furthermore, the German system will be used as a model for ways to improve the professional work and the quality of output of Chilean Congress in foreign relations and defense. This presentation will introduce new discussions on the proposal to adapt standards, work forms and tools observed in the parliamentary system and possibly adapted to the presidential system, namely the proposal to improve the performance and effectiveness of foreign policy by increasing intervention by the National Congress and the civil society. ..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]

I investigate the origins of federalism by contrasting constitutional decisions to form unitary and federal states in the countries that formed from the dissolution of Gran Colombia: Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador. I argue that the spatial distribution and despotic power (Mann 1984) of economic elites, not military power (Riker 1964) or infrastructural power (Ziblatt 2005) is central in determining the outcome of bargaining in the decision to centralize or federalize. For many countries, the state form alternated between the two types before reaching a final state. I go beyond studies of the origins of a single federation (Riker 1964; Gibson and Faletti 2004) to study failed federations and unitary state outcomes. The post-independence countries in Gran Colombia provide us a common point of departure in investigating institutional choice: countries previously united by in a centralized federation with a common colonial heritage diverged in the extent to which they became federal or unitary. I argue that disparate economic networks and elites produced differing institutional outcomes that persisted past the end of state formation. Cross-case comparison allows me to trace a common bargaining framework for all three cases. ..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]

This chapter examines brokers' strategies to mobilize clients. It shows how brokers can employ several strategies. Authoritarian strategies include monitoring, threatening, and punishing clients while democratic strategies use persuasion through relationships of loyalty and mutual trust. There are alternatives like switching parties and factions to get a following. I study these practices of electoral mobilization in political rallies and primary elections in Buenos Aires. By using qualitative, quantitative, and archival data, I measure how popular and effective are these practices in getting brokers elected as municipal officials. My findings show that although successful brokers employ mixed strategies, authoritarian strategies are significantly more effective than democratic. This finding has important implications for the success of local democracies in the developing world. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces and develops the concept of party non-systems, defiened as those party universes characterized by a fundamental absence of inter-temporal continuity in the identity of the main parties. It then applies it to Latin America. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the historic negative perception of female political participation, many of these women have been essential to the freedom of their nations from authoritarian and dictatorship regimes. The Dominican Republic's relationship to Latin America and the African Diaspora makes it a great country in which to explore this very idea. Through coursework, independent research and interviews, female political representation in the Dominican Republic was investigated using modern & traditional political science research methods from August 2005 until July 2006. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A great deal of scholarly attention has been focused on the role of the Catholic Church in leading the fight against authoritarianism in Latin America and elsewhere, a direction that prompted many of these churches to leave their traditional, conservative roles behind and move in a more politically progressive direction. However, there has been relatively less attention paid to how churches have responded to different kinds of authoritarian regimes and how confrontational church strategies have changed over time. Focusing on the contemporary case of the Cuban Catholic Church, I use evidence gathered from extensive fieldwork in Cuba to create a new set of definitions that distinguishes between strategies of direct confrontation and indirect confrontation and offer a new theoretical framework for comparative theory about religion and contentious politics.I argue that the Cuban Church has formulated a strategy of indirect confrontation that has allowed the church to engage in contentious politics while protecting its institutional interests and continuing its mission of evangelization. Placing the Cuban Church in comparative analysis with the national churches of Brazil, Chile, Nicaragua, Poland, and Venezuela, I argue that a combination of regime type, institutional church reforms, and the world-historical time period during which the church began its contentious activities have a direct influence on the church's choice of confrontational strategy. Churches that became confrontational under right-wing authoritarian regimes during the 1960s and 1970s were more likely to pursue strategies of direct confrontation than churches facing left-wing authoritarian regimes from the 1980s to the present, which were more likely to pursue strategies of indirect confrontation. Progressive church leaders that began confronting right-wing regimes in the 1960s and 1970s had in liberation theology a politically contentious theology that called for direct confrontation against the ideology of "the national security state" promoted by the military dictatorships that ruled their countries. The Vatican's turn toward more conservative politics under the papacy of John Paul II in the 1980s influenced churches to pursue indirectly confrontational strategies against leftist authoritarian regimes where liberation theology could not serve as a viable confrontational ideology and autonomous grassroots political mobilization declined as a pastoral activity. ..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]

Why do political parties adopt primary elections? This study develops a theory of party democratization. It is motivated by the recent proliferation of primary elections in Latin America, which has been well documented but not fully explained. The explanation in this paper consists on making two claims. First that primaries select more electable but less loyal candidates. This claim is made precise with a decision-theoretic model whose predictions are consistent with the main empirical findings of the existing empirical literature. And second that the incentives for party leaders to select electable candidates have increased in the past quarter century. This claim is based on some historical trends in Latin American politics, namely the increased penetration of television, a more investigative journalism, and a decrease in electoral fraud. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the consequences of political knowledge for citizens' participation in politics and for political tolerance and preference for democracy in Mexico. The findings show that political knowledge is a resource more abundant among the more educated and the wealthier Mexicans. While it is positively associated with participation in national politics, its effects on local participation are uncertain. The more politically knowledgeable are also more tolerant, and they prefer democracy in greater degree than their less aware fellow citizens. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose that voters consider not only whether the absolute state of the economy has improved under an incumbent, but also include the distribution of economic benefits as an important basis for evaluating the competence of incumbent policy-makers. The extant literature on economic voting has largely only focused on questions of growth, unemployment, and inflation, but has overlooked how voter perceptions of inequality shape voter choices. In this paper, we outline the rationale for including changes in the distribution of wealth into voter evaluations of incumbents. We then model incumbent approval as a function of differences in voters' perceptions of levels of income inequality after controlling for known economic and social determinants of voting, using survey data collected in Argentina and Mexico. In both cases, voters were more likely to support incumbent presidents if when they perceived that economic inequality was diminishing. These preliminary results confirm that perceived inequalities are politically consequential. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explanations for voter decision-making during the process of party-system collapse in Peru (during the1980s) and Venezuela (during the 1980s and 1990s) raise two major questions about party organizationaldynamics. Why did traditional parties fail to shift their ideological appeals in such a way as to end apattern of ideological under-representation that drove voters to embrace outsider parties? Why weremany of the traditional parties in Peru and Venezuela unable to prevent corruption perceptions fromeroding party identification?This paper uses evidence from a new survey of local political party leaders in Argentina, Peru,and Venezuela to argue that the answers to these two questions lie in patterns of party organization.Electorally suboptimal ideological positioning can be explained by the relatively high intra-party powerof often ideologically extremist local leaders in the collapsed parties. Differences in the vulnerability ofparties' identifiers to corruption concerns, in turn, are explained by whether the party channels patronageprimarily through the state apparatus or through the party organization. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Latin American democracies are often referred to as superpresidential systems. Executives dominate the political arena and legislatures are historically weak and unable to act as a consistent check on the executive. In this paper, I argue that unconstrained executives are detrimental to economic growth. I make a contribution to a developing literature in the area of political institutions and economic. Contrary to expectation, I find that less constrained executives are good for the economy; whereas, more constrained executives are not. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper claims that differences in the agricultural production system (plantation-style agriculture based on cheap hired labor versus small-plot farming based on family work) might be made accountable for the educational differences between Asia and Latin America. The main idea is that landlords curtailed the expansion of especially secondary education to impede the political mobilization of rural workers, thereby assuring the supply of a cheap labor force and the monopoly over the political decision making process. Moreover, it is argued that family farming led to a greater willingness to substitute labor for capital, introducing new agricultural technology and enhancing individuals' demands for more post-basic schooling. Econometrical evidence shows that the export of crops grown on large plantations substantially decreases secondary education attainment figures as well as governments' investments in secondary schooling. At the same time, these types of crops seem to further higher education. The presented statistical evidence is complemented by several historical examples of rural interest groups hampering broadly-targeted educational policies within Asian and Latin American countries. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to explain the shift from majoritarian to PR electoral systems in Latin America, and the introduction of adjustments - both before and after the reform - to the degrees of proportionality. I argue that PR systems were introduced when the electoral arena changed significantly and threatened the permanence in power of the dominant party. The shift from one system to the other was an effort by the established party to retain partial power under a PR system. Majoritarian systems remained in place when the incumbent party believed that it would be able to gain a plurality of the votes despite an increase in the voting population and the emergence of new parties. An em-pirical analysis of twenty countries over 104 years (1900-2004) provides support for this argument. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In addition to political and economic transitions in Latin America beginning in the 1970s, a third transition involves a marked increase in violent crime. The problem has reached the point that surveys in the region typically rank public insecurity among the top two or three issues of concern to respondents. This paper explores the relationships between violent crime and democracy in Mexico, which is a deviant case in the region. In all the other cases examined, violent crime increased with democratic transitions, but in Mexico the homicide rate actually fell substantially between 1993 and 2001. We find that violent crime is correlated with support for democracy at the attitudinal level. While we can link attitudes with behavior in some respects, we are unable to connect attitude with behavior with respect to voter abstention. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to consolidate their power as well as to maintain regional stability major states extend their influence over other countries. Advancing democracy can be understood as a mechanism to achieve such goals. In transforming the domestic institutions of other countries, big actors guarantee both ideological alliances of new regimes as well as a diminution in the possibility of conflict. For these reasons democratization seems to be a successful enterprise. Historically two mechanisms have been used in enhancing democracy: military intervention and foreign aid. Although several scholars explored each of these strategies, it is not clear which policy option is the most effective. The literature in this regard is diverse, and authors have reached dissimilar conclusions about the effect of these strategies on democracy. However, academic studies have focused on either analyzes of foreign aid or military intervention. The existing literature has failed to look at these policy options in a comparative context. This lack of research has to be filled. In an attempt to fill this gap, using statistical tools, this paper will compare the impact that U.S. military intervention and foreign aid had on democracy between 1945 and 1996. This will clarify which strategy has been more effective. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An ongoing debate in political science concerns the impact of negative campaign messages in US politics. One argument is that negative campaigning is detrimental for democracy, detering participation and alienating voters. An alternative position is that negative campaigning has the opposite effects, mobilizing voters, increasing turnout, and providing useful information for voters. Whatever the impact of negative campaign messages, the magnitude of that impact should be greater in new democracies where voters have less information, weaker partisan identities, and less-developed ideological frameworks than in consolidated democracies. In this article, I present results from an experiment conducted in Brazil prior to the 2006 Senate elections. The experiment uses random assigment of subjects to watch one of three identical environmental documentary videos, which differ only in the inclusion of a positive, negative, or no political advertisement. Result show powerful and class-differentiated impacts of message tone on participation and vote choice. The magnitude of these treatment effects varies from as much as 60\% for less sophisticated voters to 10\% for more sophisticated participants. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research provides in depth analysis of the policymaking processes within individual Latin American nations. These studies give insight into how certain institutional variables or powers of particular veto players affect policy stability within individual countries. However, they do not quantitatively consider cross-country variation in the number and strength of veto players. In other words, a model of the stability of public policies across multiple Latin American nations is yet to be constructed. This study constructs such a model, predicting policy stability as a function of a nation's veto players and institutional arrangements. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important consideration regarding policy change is the choice of legislative instruments used to enact policies. I argue that the choice is a function of the allocation of decision rights throughout the lawmaking process, as well as of politicians' valuation of those rights. The model suggests that where policy change may be enacted by means of executive decree, we should expect decrees to always be the favored instrument for policy change. Only when policies cannot validly be enacted by decree do other instruments enter consideration. The enactment of statutes is a logical alternative, but also, decrees may be enacted that are unconstitutional. The extent to which unconstitutional decrees are enacted is fundamentally a function of politicians' valuation of their decision rights, i.e., their 'institutional commitment'. The model suggests that at higher levels of institutional commitment, the costs associated to the enactment of unconstitutional decrees increases. Likewise, statutes will only be enacted when doing so is less costly than the enactment of unconstitutional decrees. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work examines the causes of corruption in eighteen Latin American countries from 1994 to 2005. With Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index as the dependent variable, this study utilizes a pooled cross-sectional times series design to link corruption levels with a number of explanatory variables. There is evidence that economic development, inequality, trade, structural reforms, democracy, federal structure, and ethno-linguistic fractionalization have significant effects on corruption. However, resource exports, age of democracy, and public sector size do not appear to affect corruption levels. This investigation draws on previous research on corruption but differs substantively through having an exclusively Latin American focus and drawing on data from the most recent time period. Methodologically, this study differs from previous works through its use of a time series design and multiple random imputation of some missing data points. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contrast with the leftist tsunami that some analyst predicted for Latin America, most of the leftist candidates that campaigned on an anti-neoliberal ticket have demonstrated a high degree of continuity with the economic policies of their much-criticized predecessors. In this article I assess whether leftist governments in the region have conducted economic policies consistent with the economic project that they promised to implement during the campaign. I first present an overview of the degree of antineoliberalism articulated by leftist candidates during the campaigns and compare it with the extent to which orthodox economic policy has been conducted once the left reached power. Next, I analyze in detail the three leftist governments that have completed a full term in office-Brazil, Chile, and Venezuela. I look into the coincidences and discrepancies between their party manifestos and government programs on the one hand, and their economic policies on the other. I find variation regarding how closely their economic policies follow their campaign manifestos, and argue that, by and large, the left has maintained high continuity with the neoliberal economic policies of their non-leftist predecessors. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2006 Peruvian election was another illustration of the weakness of the country's party system. Nevertheless, the comeback of the traditional parties, which had begun in 2001, continued in 2006. In particular, widespread fear of the anti-system candidate, Ollanta Humala, enabled Alan Garcia to reclaim the presidency despite memories of his disastrous first administration. Garcia did a masterful job of staking out the center ground in the runoff, moving somewhat to the left on domestic issues while using polemical exchanges with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to appeal to conservative voters. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]