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Despite the integral role of the judiciary to democracy, and the importance of judicial trust for judicial system performance, we know relatively little about the bases of public trust in this institution. How does institutional quality affect judicial trust? We explore this question in the context of Latin America, using a multilevel data set comprising survey data spanning 2001 to 2016 and country-level institutional and economic factors. We find that the effects of institutional quality on judicial trust are highly circumscribed. Factors like rule of law and corruption impact the judicial trust of only the best-educated survey respondents. Among the broader public, however, judicial trust is shaped more strongly by individuals' subjective economic and regime evaluations, as well as one's personal experiences with the judiciary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today it is rare to find a political scientist who rejects that "ideas matter"—at least in the abstract. But if ideationally inclined theorists have gained seats at the disciplinary table, their approaches still occupy disadvantaged positions. Ideational theories typically must confront nonideational alternatives to achieve salient publication, but nonideational theorists routinely design and publish research without considering ideational alternatives. This is even true on topics where all scholars seem to agree a priori on the importance of ideas. Erratic attention to ideas appears to be justified by widespread views that even if ideas plausibly "matter," they are too intractable to address in concrete research: too difficult to measure empirically, to relate in explanatory ways to action, or to connect to goals of theoretical generalization. This article first highlights major problems with these views in the abstract, and then illustrates them in the example of early Latin American constitutional design. On this terrain, there are good reasons to think that an ideational account connects in more concrete ways to available evidence than leading nonideational hypotheses about constitutional choice. Political science should move toward better balanced debates between plausible explanations, upgrading the rigor of the discipline overall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Universitas, Revista de Ciencias Sociales y Humanas is the property of Universidad Politecnica Salesiana and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Universitas, Revista de Ciencias Sociales y Humanas is the property of Universidad Politecnica Salesiana and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Two apparently contradictory features have characterized the group of left-wing populists who have come to power in Latin America in recent years. First, these leaders share a tendency to centralize power in their own hands. Yet at the same time populist regimes have created new opportunities for ordinary citizens to participate directly in politics through the sponsorship of participatory governance programs. These apparently contradictory tactics have led to an intense debate whether the participatory programs sponsored by the populist regimes represent true attempts to deepen democracy or simply another mechanism for reinforcing the hegemony of populist leaders. This paper aims to transcend this contradiction by analyzing participatory fora created in Venezuela under Hugo Chávez. Neither a personalistic conception of populism nor pure participatory democracy conform to the actual design and practices of Venezuelan participatory organizations. I propose a new framework, which I call participatory populism, for analyzing the role of participatory fora in the broader political strategy of Chávez’s movement. Using qualitative analysis and public opinion data, I show that local-level participatory self-governance is used to meet the regime’s promises of popular inclusion and empowerment, thus justifying hegemonic politics at the national level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of América Latina Hoy is the property of Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Populism is an enduring feature of Latin American electoral democracies. Within the past decade, scholars have witnessed the political ascendancy of populist politicians from both the left and right of the ideological spectrum. This naturally raises the question as to why populism has proven resilient in some Latin American democracies, whereas in others political forces have remained relatively moderate and institutionalized. This article argues that this phenomenon can be explained by varying levels of public trust in the traditional political institutions of liberal democracy across the region. Specifically, where public trust in political institutions is low, voters will be attracted to candidates who portray themselves as radical “outsiders,” crusading against the established political order. This hypothesis is tested on a new data set of 48 presidential elections, across 18 Latin American countries, between the years 1996 and 2008. The statistical results provide strong support for this argument. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article offers a comparative examination of the quality of Latin American democracies through the use of an aggregate indicator generated by factorial analysis. The data reflect very notable differences among the countries, but also indicate a degree of stability in the level of democratic quality during the 2000-2008 period. The regression analysis performed indicates democratic experience as the main explanatory factor for such differences --a finding that coincides with recent studies--. But this is not to say that the issue is framed in terms of institutional determinism or path dependence. The analysis also reveals some points of discrepancy with the theses offered in the literature, especially in connection with the explanatory ability of social capital --not verified here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the authors argue that where institutions are strong, actors are more likely to participate in the political process through institutionalized arenas, while where they are weak, protests and other unconventional means of participation become more appealing. The authors explore this relationship empirically by combining country-level measures of institutional strength with individual-level information on protest participation in seventeen Latin American countries. The authors find evidence that weaker political institutions are associated with a higher propensity to use alternative means for expressing preferences, that is, to protest. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Researchers widely recognize that economic crises have important political consequences, yet there is little systematic research on the political factors that make nations more or less susceptible to economic crisis. Scholars have long debated the economic consequences of party systems, executive powers, and societal interest groups, but their relationships to crisis proclivity are poorly understood. We assess the political correlates of economic crisis using a cross-sectional time-series analysis of 17 Latin American countries over nearly three decades. Crises are measured along two dimensions-depth and duration-and disaggregated into three types: inflationary, GDP, and fiscal crises. Statistical results suggest that political institutions have a modest, and often unexpected, correlation with crises. More important than institutional attributes are social organization and the nature of party-society linkages, particularly the existence of a densely-organized trade union movement and/or a powerful leftist party. Strong unions and powerful parties of the left are associated with more severe economic crises, though there is some evidence that the combination of left-labor strength can alleviate inflationary crises. The results demonstrate the need to disaggregate the concept of economic crisis and incorporate the societal dimension when studying the political economy of crisis and reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a pervasive trend towards state retrenchment in Latin America since the 1980s, there remains significant variation in the levels of privatization across the region. However, 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. I contend that privatization is best conceptualized as a two-stage process involving an initial decision to privatize, followed by a subsequent decision concerning the extent and intensity of privatization. In addition, privatization cannot be simply explained by either international or domestic level-variables. Rather, endogenous and exogenous variables will have different impacts at different stages of this process. The results of the statistical tests yield two important insights. Firstly, the initial decision to privatize is primarily shaped by international factors, in particular, international diffusion, while variation in the level of state divestiture across the region can primarily be explained by domestic economic and political conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

After three decades of governments elected by universal vote, Ecuador shows serious deficiencies in constitutional and social dimensions of democracy. Although Ecuador holds free and transparent elections, the disrespect to democratic institutions, the weak rule of law, and strong social asymmetries, characterize the low performance of its democratic regime. Though President Correa has had all conditions to change the dynamics of political system, the caudillismo, the disrespect for the law, and patronage are essential features of political life in Ecuador yet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political leadership style is one of the most important traits of local governance. This used to show the character of local political societies as rules-in-use of socio-political processes and dynamics. In this framework, the 'New Political Culture' (NPC) is a new leadership style against the classical 'Class Politics' showing different policy preferences and different interaction patterns with civil society. Socio-economic and cultural change, as well as institutional factors, are driving the growing and spread of the NPC among local political actors. Using surveys from the Fiscal Austerity and Urban Innovation Project, this article tries to show the presence of the NPC among mayors in European, North American and Latin American countries. The comparison among them could show the importance of socio-economic, cultural and institutional factors explaining the spread of the NPC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article develops a structural and institutional framework for exploring the prospects for stable democracy in Latin America and Eastern Europe. Its guiding premise is that democratic consolidation hinges on the willingness of societal actors to use the party system as their primary medium of interest articulation. The structural analysis examines how the resources of agents in different socioeconomic systems influence their affinity for party or non-party strategies. The institutional component assesses how party and state institutions reshape actors' strategic incentives. Integrating the two logics leads to the following argument: market structures in the developing capitalist countries of Latin America encourage economic elites to circumvent the democratic process. Structural conditions in Eastern Europe's transitional socialist countries induce a wider range of actors to employ party strategies, but place anti-democratic elements in a favored position within the electoral arena. Democratic consolidation in the two regions necessitates the building of party and state institutions capable of overcoming these structural impediments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After more than a decade of political and economic reform in Latin America it has become painfully obvious that good ideas and good policy recipes are not enough to achieve development goals. The policymaking process of designing, adopting and implementing good policies is equally important. Policymaking involves a variety of actors --from the president and political parties to labor unions and business groups-- interacting in different arenas --the cabinet, the legislature, the street. The key players, their roles and incentives, the characteristics of the arenas in which the game is played and the nature of the transactions the players engage in, while having common elements, vary considerably from country to country and help explain the variety of reform experiences in the region in recent years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]