Search

Since 1998, several Latin American presidents have attempted to create constituent assemblies, rewrite constitutions, and fundamentally shift power relations with varying levels of success. I argue that two variables have determined executive success. These are mobilizational leverage, or the ability to rally popular support behind the reform agenda, and institutional leverage, or the ability to convince the Judiciary or Electoral Council to allow a referendum to form a Constituent Assembly and sanction its supreme power. I examine this argument through process tracing cases of success (Chávez in Venezuela, Morales in Bolivia, and Correa in Ecuador) and a case of failure (Zelaya in Honduras), drawing on data from 118 elite interviews in Bolivia and Ecuador. This article contributes to the literature on executive-legislative relations and presidential power, explaining a process that allows presidents to navigate the institutions of democracy and enact ambitious reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Military coups d'état have become dramatically less frequent in Latin America over the past 20 years, leading many analysts to conclude that the risk of coups in the region today is negligible. Yet we observe that a particular subset of presidents in the region—namely, those commonly associated with the radical left—pursue a wide range of “coup-proofing” behaviors, primarily in the way that they manage relations with their militaries, but also in their political rhetoric. Our goal in this article is to explain why some Latin American presidents spend precious resources on coup-proofing. First, even as we demonstrate that coup activity is significantly diminished across the region as a whole, we offer evidence to suggest that coup risk is quite real in countries with radical left presidents. Second, we identify several specific strategies that these presidents have pursued to minimize coup risk. We explain the coup-proofing rationale behind each of these strategies and document their use in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador. Third, we show that no similar set of strategies or policies has been pursued by moderate leftist or more conservative presidents in the region. We infer from these empirical patterns that radical left presidents have undertaken substantial efforts to maintain military allegiance and to mitigate coup risk precisely because they recognize the possibility of military intervention. In our conclusion, we suggest that these strategies may confer a short-term benefit for the presidents who implement them, but they are likely to have negative consequences for the long-term stability of democratic institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on comparative democratization has recently expanded its focus to issues of institutional quality: clientelism, corruption, abuse of executive decree authority, and weak checks and balances. However, problems of institutional quality are so different from those involved in regime transitions that it is unproductive to treat them as part of the same macro-process, democratization. Whereas regime transitions are changes in the form of access to power, problems of institutional quality involve the exercise of power. Abuses in the exercise of power affecting institutional quality are best characterized not as indicators of authoritarianism and deficiencies in democratization but as reflecting—in Weberian terms—patrimonialism and failures in bureaucratization. Moreover, struggles over the exercise of power involve causes, mechanisms, and actors that can be quite distinct from those at play in conflicts over access to power. The proposed analytical framework centered on the distinction between access and exercise enhances conceptual clarity and provides a stronger theoretical basis for tackling fundamental questions about politics in Latin America, including the failure of democratization to curb clientelism and foster other improvements of institutional quality, and the prospects of democratic stability under patrimonial administrations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of countervailing external pressures on labor rights in 17 Latin American countries. On the one hand, these countries have been urged to reform their labor laws and practices to comply with international labor standards, including protections for the collective rights of workers. On the other hand, they have been pressured to adopt more flexible labor markets, which often undermine collective labor organization. After dividing the countries by the type of political regime that prevailed when the pattern of relations between labor and the state was being established, the paper presents and explains the results of indices created to measure two outcomes: labor standards and labor market flexibility. It then analyzes the impact of four types of external actors (the ILO, national governments pursuing trade agreements, multinational corporations, and international financial institutions) on these outcomes, both de jure and de facto. The paper's main finding is that these actors have had an impact on labor outcomes in the region, but that their influence is heavily mediated by domestic factors, particularly historical legacies of state-labor relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the limitations of rational-choice institutionalism on the politics in Latin America. Neglectedness on the impact of electoral rules and the process of legislative decision making; Overestimation on formal rules; Presence of static image on political development.

Social inequalities have deepened in Latin America over the past several decades, yet an erosion of class cleavages has occurred in the political arena. During the era of import-substitution industrialization (ISI), "stratified" cleavage structures based on class distinctions emerged in a subset of Latin American countries where party systems were reconfigured by the rise of a mass-based, labor-mobilizing party. These nations typically experienced more severe economic crises during the transition from ISI to neoliberalism than nations that retained elitist party systems with "segmented," cross-class cleavage structures. They also experienced greater political upheaval, as neoliberal critical junctures produced an erosion of stratified cleavages along their structural, organizational, and cultural dimensions in the labor-mobilizing cases, while leaving the segmented cleavages of elitist systems relatively unscathed. The Latin American experience differs from that of Europe, where strong labor movements and labor-backed parties were associated with superior economic performance during periods of economic adjustment. It also challenges Duverger's notion of an organizational "contagion from the Left," as the dramatic weakening of labor movements and the shift away from mass-based party organizations have caused party systems to converge on elitist organizational models during the neoliberal era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the party systems in Latin America. Nature of the various forms of party-state linkages; Consequences of informal and weakly institutionalized party structures; Important aspects of political process.

This article is about how political regimes should generally be classified, and how Latin American regimes should be classified for the 1945-99 period. We make five general claims about regime classification. First, regime classification should rest on sound concepts and definitions. Second, it should be based on explicit and sensible coding and aggregation rules. Third, it necessarily involves some subjective judgments. Fourth, the debate about dichotomous versus continuous measures of democracy creates a false dilemma. Neither democratic theory, nor coding requirements, nor the reality underlying democratic practice compel either a dichotomous or a continuous approach in all cases. Fifth, dichotomous measures of democracy fail to capture intermediate regime types, obscuring variation that is essential for studying political regimes. This general discussion provides the grounding for our trichotomous ordinal scale, which codes regimes as democratic, semi-democratic or authoritarian in nineteen Latin American countries from 1945 to 1999. Our trichotomous classification achieves greater differentiation than dichotomous classifications and yet avoids the need for massive information that a very fine-grained measure would require. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the approaches for interpreting Latin American politics. Importance of sociology in the analysis of political development; Relationship between social and economic indicators; Elaborations of the original developmentalist concept; Forms and iterations of dependency theory; Role of international lending agencies in reinforcing dependency.

Presents information on data from the Latinobarometro survey in 1995, which investigated citizen confidence in the institutions of their nations and democratic consolidation in Latin America. Institutions which Latin Americans have the most confidence in; How gender difference influence confidence levels in societies; Information on democratic consolidation in Latin America.

Focuses on the history of democracy in Latin America. Origin of the process of democratization; Impact of international forces such as the oil shock of the 1970s and international lending on this process; Importance of other factors such as global political change, receding threat of revolutionary leftist action and international capital markets.

Studies general historical arguments of political change in European and Latin American countries using the POLITY II, a dataset on the authority traits of 155 countries. Focus on shifting balance between democratic and autocratic patterns; Indicators of state power; Coherence; Military power.

Examines the resurgence of populist politics in the democratic transition in Brazil. Origins of populism in Latin American politics; Elements crucial to traditional definitions of Latin American populism; Participants to the industrial revolution.

Discusses reasons contributing to the failure of Latin Americanists to uncover linkages between regime type and political outcomes. Flaws in the basic concepts used to discuss Latin American politics; Rethinking of conventional regime classifications; Distinction between democratic and authoritarian regimes.

Presents an article on the issue of populism in Latin America. Emergence of the populist trends in Brazil in the 1920s; Role of the identification of the nonpolitical processes of unfinished structures of society in the establishment of the nature of populist movements; Trends which made populism a strong and appealing alternative in the political countries in the region.

Focuses on the factors of modernity and political development in five Latin American countries in the 1960's. Different indicators of a modern society; Comparison of modernity levels in Latin America with other internationally developed countries; Components of political development; Ranking of the Latin American countries on the basis of their level of modernization and political development.