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Scholars of Latin America have recently begun to apply the bellicist approach to state building to the region, the central claim of which is that wars are a great stimulus to centralizing state power and building institutional capacity. This paper argues that current applications of these models of state building are too narrowly specified to be of much use in Latin America or elsewhere in the developing world. Replacing the focus on interstate war with the more general phenomenon of interstate rivalry, alongside the consideration of intrastate rivals, allows us to account for the impact of both external and internal forces on the development of the state. The paper demonstrates the utility of this approach through several time-series analyses that provide evidence that external and internal rivals affect the Latin American state in a manner consistent with the general nature of bellicist theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper expands the notion of the ‘right to choose’ and views it as a two-dimensional concept, one which involves not only the choice to prevent and terminate pregnancies, but also the choice to become a mother regardless of social and economic circumstances. The paper focuses on a particularly vulnerable social group: single women/mothers. The first dimension includes access to information on and reproductive health services. The second dimension includes analysis of the extent to which a woman’s economic well-being is curtailed by the choice to become a mother. I have collected preliminary data on both indicators across a group of advanced countries and a group of Latin American countries, and theorize the major independent variables that affect both dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While social welfare expenditures in Latin America tend to be more circumscribed than in other regions of the world, policies intended to govern the relationship between workers and the state are nonetheless central to national and local political dynamics. In the case of workers who might be considered "informal," such as street traders and microenterprise owners, government efforts to regulate small-scale commercial activities have generated persistent and intractable conflict in certain urban settings. This paper explores such efforts to govern street markets in Gamarra, Lima’s dynamic garment district. It examines two specific cases of policy failure in the district, and explores society-centered and state-centered sources of such failures. The paper argues that a lack of policy coherence at the national level contributes significantly to weak regulatory capacity at the local level. This weak regulatory capacity, in turn, feeds the types of conflict that are commonly understood to make the Peruvian capital "ungovernable." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Executive discretion vis-à-vis the legislature varies extensively across time and countries. The literature on the topic abounds, yet it has not provided compelling explanations that can account for these wide empirical variations. This paper presents such a framework. This paper approaches executive discretion from the perspective of a comparative theory of the internal organization of legislatures. Based on an insight in Diermeier and Myerson (1999) it contends that the level of executive discretion is a direct result of the organizational choice conducted by a majority of legislators. This choice arises endogenously and is driven by a feature of the legislators? political careers: the frequency with which they switch between chambers. The paper tests the main empirical implications of this theory measuring executive discretion as the degree of detail in the budget legislation. This gets beyond the ?who does what implies who is powerful? perspective and brings a more analytic one of trying to see, in a complex interaction, who can influence whom to do what. The idea is that the lumpier the allocation of the public monies by the legislature is, the more discretion the executive has to influence policy outcomes. This approach generates an indicator that can be compared across polities. Empirical tests are conducted in the form of analytical narratives for a sample of Latin American countries and as a statistical test for the 50 US states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a theoretical argument for conducting inter-regional comparisons of social mobilisation in Eastern Europe and Latin America within the broader scope of democratization theory. Theoretically, the paper examines how two schools: one of Transitology and the other of Democtratisation or Democratic Development have assigned themselves regional boundaries (the first Post-Soviet Eastern Europe and the second Post Authoritarian Latin America).‘Transitologists’ such as V.Bunce (1995,1997) have fiercely defended the isolation of their study of ‘transition’ in EE from the study of democratic development or democratization in LA basing their theory in the perceived explanatory power of 'legacies' (communist or colonial). More a game of intellectual wordplay then empirical substance, the two schools used different terms and frameworks to discuss the same processes..x000d.Based on initial empirical research, I find that there are similar types, trajectories and developments of social movements in LA and EE, and thus that historical legacies (cultural, political or economic) are not sufficient explanatory variables in predicting participation and mobilization (both understood to be necessary for democracy). ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to explore the overall role of the U.S. Foreign Policy's consequences for democratization in Latin America, in an era when Latin America has democratically elected left presidencies, and when new-born democracies (in most cases at least) are supposed to become consolidated. After a historical overview of the U.S. foreign policy towards Latin America during the 20th century; showing that doubts consistently could be raised on the issue of U.S. democratic assistance and Latin America; the paper moves into three main parts. In the first part cases when the United States promoted democratic development and liberal democracy with capitalism is explored. In the second, cases when the United States defeated democratic left-wing rule with strong anti-capitalism is explored. Finally, the third part deals with the question that this paper conclusively attempts to address - what implications the U.S. historical democratic record toward Latin America might have for democratic development and democratic setbacks when the region once more is facing the reality of democratically elected left presidents? ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper uses survey data from 2004 from eight democracies in Central America, Mexico and Colombia from the Latin American Public Opinion Project to explore political legitimacy and its links to political participation. Theory argues that political legitimacy is multidimensional; this proves empirically correct, producing six legitimacy dimensions. Six modes of political participation are also identified empirically. Prior research on Costa Rica had suggested that some legitimacy-participation functions are U-shaped, such that citizens with very high and very low legitimacy norms would take part in politics more than those with intermediate legitimacy norms. This paper employs OLS regression analysis to test for the effects of legitimacy upon participation, modeling the effect of both linear and quadratic forms of political legitimacy to test for the curvilinear relationships, as well as the influence of multiple intervening and control variables. By far the predominant form of relationship revealed is indeed U-shaped. The paper explores the implications of this finding for both the legitimacy research and for the potential stability of democracies. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research identifies sources of interpersonal trust in Latin America by exploring why the most developed countries in the Americas, namely Canada and the United States, show higher levels of interpersonal trust than their neighboring countries. The findings of this paper suggest that Latin America's high economic inequality poses a challenge to democracy because it triggers interpersonal mistrust. This paper also finds that in Latin America interpersonal trust, rather than civic participation, ideology or trust in government, promotes citizens' support for the implementation of public policies aimed to close the gap between rich and poor. Taken together, the results suggest a vicious circle between Latin America's historically high economic inequality, low interpersonal trust, and low support for redistributive policies within certain segments of the population, especially the well-off. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

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]

This paper traces the political and sociological significance of the unprecedented expansion of Christianity in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a model to explain regional variation in the decentralization processes across Latin America from a unique explanatory framework, presents statistical evidence (for countries between 1982-2000), and discusses some limitations. [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]

This paper uses institutional analysis to explore why some countries in Latin America have been able to overcome longstanding rivalries to develop cooperative relations over the last twenty years, while others failed in similar efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores two competing hypotheses about voting behavior of poor people in Latin American democracies. The first is the long-established hypothesis that people of a higher socioeconomic status are more likely to vote than people of a lower SES. The competing hypothesis is that in clientelistic settings voter turnout will be higher among poor people. Using sub-national level data from 13 countries, we find that the relationship between aggregate poverty indicators and voting behavior in some countries conforms to the expectations of the SES hypothesis, while in other countries it conforms to a clientelism hypothesis. These findings can help explain why in cross-national analysis using national-level data SES variables do not have a discernible effect on turnout. They also highlight the usefulness of examining diverse contexts to explore when it is rational to vote because the expected benefits exceed the costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose of this paper is to explore the regional dynamics of IGO participation and constuction in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the collapse of Soviet power in the Eastern bloc and the upheaval of the debt crisis in Latin America, the political agenda in both regions was dominated by struggles over creating free market economic systems. Just as striking, those economic experiments were accompanied by a wave of political opening in both parts of the world. Such simultaneous transitions naturally spawned investigations into how these processes might be causally related. Scholars, however, have encountered a number of difficulties in exploring that link. First, many studies, especially the more common small-N analyses, have had trouble distinguishing between the effects of economic liberalization and other, often collinear, potential influences on political outcomes. Second, large-N studies of a cross-sectional nature are unable to evaluate the expectation of many scholars that the short- and long-term effects of economic liberalization on politics are quite distinct. Finally, studies focused on a single geopolitical region cannot say which of their findings will travel to other parts of the world. In this paper we seek to overcome these challenges in two ways. First, we use a time-series/cross-sectional framework, which allows us both to evaluate the short- and medium-term effects of economic liberalization on democratization and to hold constant the influence of international pressures, the weight of the agrarian sector, and the level of socioeconomic development. Second, we evaluate the generality of our findings by conducting parallel analyses in two distinct geopolitical regions: Latin America and the formerly communist countries of the Soviet bloc. Our approach yields four preliminary findings. First, we find that the establishment of free markets has little to do with the consolidation of democracy. We find no relation between the two in the short run, and we argue that the positive medium-run relationship in Latin America is a function of the way that free-market reforms undermine the ability of material losers from liberalization to organize. Second, we find that a large agrarian sector impedes democratization in both regions, even controlling for other factors. Third, on questions of international influence, we find that generic linkages between a developing country and industrialized democracies have no discernible effect on democratization. By contrast, the explicit and consistent democratic conditionality attached to EU accession appears to have a very strong (and positive) influence on political liberalization. Finally, while our analysis is not aimed at evaluating the much-debated modernization thesis linking socio-economic development and democracy, our results are consistent with recent work that has called into question a causal link between these two phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

(Proposal for Panel: Electoral Rules and Electoral Change in Latin America) This paper examines the influence of national and local forces on voting behavior in Latin America. Using methods appropriate for analyzing compositional data (Tomz, Tucker and Wittenberg 2002)), we adapt Bartels’ (1998) model of electoral continuity and change to a multiparty framework. We measure the relative strength of national and subnational electoral forces across parties and elections in six Latin American countries in the current democratic period. While most work on Latin American party systems examines electoral change at the national level, our analysis explores the relationship between district level swing in the vote and shifts in national partisan support. Comparing the extent of nationalization in the direction of electoral change, we suggest that when legislators’ electoral fates are tied together incentives to pursue parochial policy proposals are diminished and overall discipline is enhanced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the appointment of women to presidential cabinets in Latin American governments. Using data from all Latin American countries between 1980 and 2003 we examine the number of women in the cabinet and the types of ministerial portfolios they receive. First, we consider how factors such as the education level of women, the percentage of women in the legislature, and size of the president’s party’s seat share in the legislature affect both when women first appear in presidential cabinets and changes in their numbers over time. Then we examine the types of cabinet posts women receive, to explore when and whether women are limited to ministries dealing with “women’s issues” (e.g., women, children, families). We are particularly interested in cases where women are appointed to portfolios controlling social issues that are commonly thought to be in women’s areas of expertise (e.g., education, health), because of the large budgets and pork barrel resources these ministries typically control. Finally, we examine the circumstances under which women obtain traditional “power” ministries, such as finance, defense, and foreign affairs. Our analysis sheds light on the factors that lead to women gaining both increased visibility and increased political power within the executive branch. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the present paper is to propose an analytic framework to identify the major sources of recent social unrest and political instability in some countries of Latin America. Specifically, I wish to provide an alternative methodological schema and propose the use of new measures to determine under which conditions high levels of income inequality?or the ?alleged? increasing income concentration after nearly two decades of structural economic reform?by fueling social discontent, could bring about political instability, thus constituting an important risk for democratic consolidation in the region. In order to elucidate the proposed relationships, I will briefly make reference to two quite interesting and, in some way, contrasting experiences: Brazil and Venezuela. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The involvement of citizens in public issues plays an important role during and after transitions to democracy, as it leads to contacts of citizens with political institutions that may or may not be responsive to their demands. In this paper, I look at the paradoxical relation between citizens political activism, intense distrust in institutions, and relatively stable evaluations of democracy in eight Latin American countries (Chile, Peru, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Dominican Republic and Peru). Using data from the World Values Survey 95/97, I use simultaneous equation modeling to uncover the nature and extent of the relationship between the three variables. The findings show that participation engenders more institutional distrust and less belief in democracy’s effectiveness, yet higher levels of distrust and democratic effectiveness generate higher participation. This suggests that the greater trust and confidence in democracy that should be the result of higher participation is not occuring. At some point in the connection between participation and institutions, the expected relationship fails to materialize. This study examines explanations for this result and for subtle country differences in the three variables examined [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Before the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in the months after the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Afghan Taliban government was facing military challenges from a number of factions seeking to replace it. While these factions had largely ethnic patrons who were historically in conflict with one another, they nonetheless formed a military alliance in order to rid the country of Taliban rule. In the civil war for Algerian independence, Berber and Arab insurrection groups joined forces in order to free the country of French rule, temporarily putting aside long-standing ethnic and cultural divisions. Likewise, the Somali independence campaign was characterized by cooperation among otherwise unfriendly groups that were deeply divided along clan and other familial distinctions. We see such ?alliances? between groups unfriendly to each other in Chad, Lebanon, Indonesia, and often in Latin America as well, and a natural question is ?when do groups in conflict cooperate with each other in the context of civil strife?? In looking for an answer to this question, one searches the family of theories and models of cooperation or alliance formation, and (at least if they have been trained in IR) quickly come to the revised question ?to what extent are general models of bandwagoning in international conflict applicable to intra-state conflict?? In the following paper, I take a first cut at the larger question (i.e., cooperation among enemies in the domestic context) and explore the second one by adapting a simple, rational, power-centered model of bandwagoning in international relations to general cases of civil war. Through it, I make the case that the decision to bandwagon by domestic insurrection groups is in many ways analogous to states? decisions to do so in the international realm, insofar as actors are concerned with the probability of success of any challenge, as gauged by power, as well as the spoils the conflict provides to the winners. The importation of such models is not without problems, however, and I explore the potential ways in which the model might not account for behavior at the intra-state level, and propose alterations of the standard IR model, accordingly. Finally, I will conclude with a plausibility test of the model by comparison of domestic bandwagon cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The third wave of democracy (Huntington 1991) ushered in a substantial dedication to the discovery of factors promoting democratic consolidation in developing nations. One of the many factors which has been theorized to contribute to democratic consolidation and stability is the extent to which political parties are institutionalized. Samuel Huntington (1968) noted the necessity of political institutionalization in promoting political stability. Early research such as Ruhl (1975) examined the role of executive and legislative institutionalization in assessing the empirical accuracy of Huntington’s gap hypothesis. Recent research, including but not limited to McDonald and Ruhl (1989) and Mainwaring and Scully (1995) has focused on the importance of political parties as institutions, though often in a much less systematic methodological manner. This paper proposes to examine the validity of Huntington’s gap hypothesis using political party institutionalization as the relevant measure of political institutionalization. The data collected on political parties (Janda 1980), which is employed to test this hypothesis pertain to the second wave of democracy in Latin America. Specifically, factor analysis is used to create multifaceted measures of party institutionalization, distribution, and social mobilization. These factor scores are then subsequently analyzed through Ordinary Least Squares Regression. The results suggest the relevance of party institutionalization, given a relatively small n, support the relevance of parties in past democratic experience of Latin America and encourage future systematic collection of data related party institutionalization in the more recent wave of democracy in Latin America. However, economic measures are have a much greater impact on levels of instability [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]

This paper will explore the ways that globalization â€" conceived primarily as the spread of market-oriented economies around the world â€" has contributed to changes in the ways that political parties link downward, both to voters and to non-party social organizations. When and why do some party systems respond to these forces with party system collapse and reformulation while others are able to accommodate the changes in social organization and voter behavior that accompany economic liberalization? What role do social movements protests against neoliberalism play in this process? My primary set of empirical cases will be the South American countries and Mexico. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The quantitative studies of social spending in OECD (Organization for Economic and Cooperation and Development) and Latin American countries (LACs) have produced conflicting results. In this paper I will test a synthesized model of social spending in East Asia to see if the findings of studies on OECD and Latin American countries mach with findings in East Asia. This work will be different from previous works on social spending in three respects; firstly, it will be the only comprehensive study of the link between social spending and globalization in East Asia; secondly, it is the first and the only study of link between democratization and social spending; finally, unlike previous studies this work includes data from communist countries. Previous studies have not comprehensively tested social spending theories on East Asia and they have only focused on the link between democracy and social spending, but not that of democratization and social spending. As none of the OECD or Latin American countries was communist, previous studies do not provide any insight about their behavior. ..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]

Survey after survey finds Latin Americans trust political parties less than any other political, economic, and social institution or actor. Do the low marks citizens give political parties come chiefly from concerns over integrity, competence, or responsiveness? Stated in pedagogical terms, what “rubrics” do citizens employ to evaluate the trustworthiness of political parties? To appreciate the consequences of low party trust in Latin America we must know more about the criteria upon which citizens in the region judge party trustworthiness. This study maps the subjective rubrics of party trustworthiness of over 180 subjects in Chile and Argentina using a Q-methodological approach. Considering the distinct paths of party system development in the two cases, one would expect little empirical overlap in the way these subjects judge parties. Nonetheless, in each case three distinct rubrics of party trustworthiness are found, and these rubrics exhibit a high degree of cross-case congruence. The MPSA conference is a crucial step towards the dissemination and publication of this research, defended as part of my dissertation in 2008. The paper would fit well on panels on political culture in Latin America or political trust more broadly. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of the new Left in Latin America have generally neglected the evolving nature of conservative or right-wing actors. Following Arditi's (2008) approach to analyzing the conceptual grid of the contemporary Latin American Left(s), this paper analyzes the conceptual grid of conservative elites in Ecuador in response to the emergence of a powerful indigenous peoples' social movement in that country. I conclude that three inter-related principles (liberal democracy, a market economy, and "authentic multiculturalism") form the core of the conservative conceptual grid in response to indigenous political activism. Although the political praxis of the Right frequently diverges from this idealized set of principles, the principles themselves have served as a powerful brake on the political impact of the Ecuadorian indigenous movement. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1970s, indigenous movements in Latin America have framed demands for cultural recognition, political representation and economic redistribution in a language of human and indigenous rights. They sought to transform international law and pressure states to implement domestic reforms. However, the construction of favorable international political opportunity structures cannot account for the widespread institutionalization of indigenous rights. In Bolivia, interaction between international and domestic opportunity structures provided social movements with tactics they used to pressure the state to reform in the 1990s. While these reforms were closely linked to neoliberal restructuring and failed to eliminate exclusionary social and economic structures, I argue that they opened political space and allowed social movements to transform norms of indigenous rights. In this paper, I highlight the changing role of the state in the adoption of international norms and in response to neoliberalism. I argue that a nuanced examination of the relationship between domestic social movements, transnational actors and neoliberal reforms is needed to understand how social movements are making rights claims in an era of neoliberalism. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presidents across Latin America have alternately been cast as ‘imperial executives’ (see O’Donnell 1994) or sacrificial lambs, subject to the follies of circumstance and unable to act decisively to break stalemates (Linz 1990). The effect of presidential power on the stability of democracy, especially across crisis-prone states, is of utmost theoretical and practical importance. We examine whether strong presidents undermine democratic accountability, by weakening independent oversight agencies. We will look at how institutions and agentsâ€"such as the judicial court systems, ombudsmen office, attorney general, etc…â€"are impacted when states’ constitutions allow the executive certain powers. Since the main purpose of these agencies are to create accountability and check the executive branch, this paper examines executive influence over these institutions as a potential cause of democratic deterioration within Latin American presidential governments. We use data for the region from 1900-2004 and employ event history models to disentangle the effects of presidents on democracy. ..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 cabinet departments were set up to link key sectors of the economy and other types of interest groups to government (e.g., Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Ministry of Labor, Ministry of Women’s Affairs). Yet that does not guarantee that key sector interest groups, or groups that speak for other sectors of society (such as women's groups), will have known links to the people who presidents appoint to head a ministry. Many factors influence presidents’ appointment calculus and some times presidents want to be insulated from a sector’s influence rather than to create a link to the sector. This paper uses data about the interest group links of cabinet ministers from presidential cabinets in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and the U.S. to examine which groups are likely to have a direct link to the policy-making process through the members of the presidents’ cabinets. We also explore whether appointees with interest group connections are appointed to head portfolios in which they have policy expertise, or if ministers with some types of group connections typically receive cabinet appointments outside their areas of policy expertise and thus are policy outsiders. ..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]

Following the “third wave of democratization” expectations regarding democratic strength and electoral dynamism were high among scholars. Particularly, in Latin America by 2000 most of the countries in the region were under democratic rule. Yet, enthusiasm quickly vanished as trust in government eroded and electoral participation started declining..x000d.Some have argued that trust in government is a key ingredient of a healthy democracy. Nonetheless, the relationship between democracy and trust is complex and even paradoxical. The legitimacy of political actors and institutions relies heavily on trust. Yet an intrinsic feature of any democratic regime is a “healthy distrust” or skepticism towards those who detain power on their behalf..x000d.The goal of this paper is to examine the impact that declining trust in government and public institutions has had on turnout throughout Latin America. Using the Latinobarometer 2005 survey we found that interpersonal trust does not influence people’s decision to vote. Trust in government and the institutional setting positively affects turnout. Interestingly, whenever voters have a pessimistic assessment of current political and economic events, the likelihood of voting also increases. ..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]

Does democracy influence social spending? Previous research has generated mixed results on this question. In this study, the author argues that these inconsistent results are due to a lack of attention to the role of societal pressures, specifically, the effect of democracy is conditional on the existence of social groups (predominantly labor) that pressure the government for policy changes. If there is a strong labor force, then democracy does have a positive effect on social spending in comparison to nondemocracies. However, if the country has a weak labor force, then democracy has a negative effect on social spending in comparison to nondemocracies. Using fixed effects models on 14 Latin American countries, this paper demonstrates that democracy results in higher social security and welfare, education and health expenditure when there is a strong labor presence that is pressuring the government for greater social protection. The author also demonstrates that democracy is negatively associated with all types of social spending when there is either no or very little labor pressure. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contrary to recent research, we find an "anti-political" budget cycle in a panel of fifteen Latin American democracies from 1973 to 2000. During the period in which Latin America underwent the most lasting and widespread wave of democratization, elections worked to limit the degree to which incumbents manipulate fiscal policies for electoral advantage. We show that governments undertook fiscal adjustment by reducing spending in the election year and in the inaugural year of the newly elected government. Though the capacity to enact austerity is moderated by the transition to democracy, new Latin American democracies also adhere to fiscal restraint. This paper shows that, at most, the period of democratic transition in Latin America may postpone bitter fiscal adjustments to periods when democratic regimes are stable. ..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]

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]

Though the press has widely proclaimed a recent "turn to the left" across Latin America, it remains unclear whether most Latin Americans at the polls understand or care whether they vote for leftists. In this paper, I ask what leftism means to Brazilians using a six wave panel survey conducted from 2002 to 2006. I argue that we cannot understand ideology without taking into account the fact that many people fail to identify with any position on the left-right spectrum. Moreover, even those who identify with a left-right position often exhibit a level of ideological thinking that is shaky at best. Respondents vary in the over-time stability of their reported ideologies as well as the extent to which they make candidate choices based on ideology. I show that ideological thinking is affected by education and political knowledge, and also by discussions of politics and exposure to news media. Examining predictors of self-identified leftism, I find that among the minority of voters who are highly ideological, leftism is associated with many social and economic attitudes including, surprisingly, support for free trade and opposition to social spending. However, among those who are least ideological, self-identified leftism is affected largely by sociodemographic cleavages. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will compare the origins and evolution of social policy in Chile, Brazil, and Argentina within the context of elite interactions. The resultant implications for present-day welfare policy reform will also be analyzed. ..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 posits that contrary to modernization theory, economic progress does not lead to democratization, rather it leads to a process of de-democratization. A Latin American case study is used demomstrating this thesis. ..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]