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Electoral contests in Latin America are often characterized by attempts by political parties to sway the outcome of elections using vote buying—a practice that seems to persist during elections throughout the region. This article examines how clientelist parties’ use of vote buying is jointly shaped by two voter traits: poverty and partisanship. We hypothesize that clientelist parties pursue a mixed strategy, broadly targeting their core voters but also poor swing voters. While most of the existing evidence comes from single-country studies, this study adds cross-national evidence from multilevel regressions of survey data from 22 Latin American countries. Empirically, we find that poverty matters mainly for swing voters. For partisans, the effect of poverty on vote buying is weaker. These results suggest that poverty plays an important role in vote-buying strategies—but also that partisanship moderates clientelistic parties’ vote-buying strategies during electoral campaigns.

Since 2002, government nationalizations and contractual breaches in general around the world have surged. South America has witnessed a wave of nationalizations of private enterprises, mostly foreign. Some analysts contend that this trend is shaped by the left-wing ideological orientation of the governments, whereas others argue that a more robust explanation is the combination of economic pressure and constraint factors. This article contributes to the debate by using a nuanced institutional analytical framework based on the concept of company versus government opportunism, applied to the recent nationalization of previously privatized companies. It examines Argentina, a country that in the last two decades has seen radical policy reversals, from sweeping privatization of state-owned enterprises in the 1990s to a renationalization effort with some of the same companies in the early 2000s.

Do economic conditions drive voters to punish politicians that tolerate corruption? Previous scholarly work contends that citizens in young democracies support corrupt governments that are capable of promoting good economic outcomes, the so-called trade-off hypothesis. We test this hypothesis based on mass surveys in eighteen Latin American countries throughout 2004–2012. We find that citizens that report bribe attempts from bureaucrats are always more likely to report presidential disapproval than citizens that report no such attempts, that is, Latin American victims of corruption are not duped by good economic performance. However, we find some evidence for a weaker form of the trade-off hypothesis: presidential disapproval among corruption victims might be more pronounced in contexts of high inflation and high unemployment.

This study provides micro-level evidence for the new theories of accountability under globalization. We analyze the micro-level logic that underpins political accountability in democratic countries with highly globalized economies. We contend that voters discount current economic conditions in evaluating incumbent leaders if they perceive the incumbent leader moving the country in the right direction. We test this argument with survey data from eight European countries in 2012, while controlling for potential alternative explanations associated with pocketbook, sociotropic, and clarity-of-responsibility factors. We find that valence considerations related to future directions in the country sustain positive evaluations of leaders’ performance even in the face of negative evaluations of the economy.

Electoral contests in Latin America are often characterized by attempts by political parties to sway the outcome of elections using vote buying – a practice that seems to persist during elections throughout the region. Much of the literature on this subject focuses on how party machines use vote buying at election time and whether they target partisans or swing voters. However, it takes for granted the root of the problem: poverty. In this article we address this gap in the literature by assessing the importance of poverty in breeding vote buying. Specifically, we examine how partisanship shapes the effect of poverty on vote buying. We hypothesize that party machines pursue a mixed strategy, broadly targeting their core voters, but also poor swing voters. Using survey data from 22 countries in Latin America, our results support the mixed strategy hypothesis, and suggest that poverty matters mainly for swing voters. For partisans, the effect of poverty on vote buying is weaker. These results suggest that poverty plays an important role in vote buying strategies – but also that partisanship moderates clientelistc parties’ vote buying strategies during election campaigns.

This article highlights an important paradox: in Argentina between 2003 and 2013 the center-left Peronist government's approach to governance mirrors that of the center-right Peronist administration of the 1990s. While the latter centralized authority to pursue neoliberal reforms, the former have centralized authority in the name of ex- panding government intervention in the economy. In both cases, corruption has tended to go unchecked due to insuffi cient government accountability. Therefore, although eco- nomic policies and political rhetoric have changed dramatically, government corruption remains a constant of the Argentine political system due to the executive branch's ability to emasculate constitutional checks and balances. The scholarship on democratic governance postulates that if countries in emerg- ing markets want to create competitive capitalist economies it is necessary to build strong democratic institutions based on checks and balances, which foster political accountability and economic transparency. Guillermo O'Donnell's (1994) work in this regard paved the way for many empirical analyses that stressed how the neo- liberal policies adopted throughout the region during the 1990s failed in part pre- cisely because they were implemented in a way that undermined the democratic process. In turn, this allowed serious abuses of public trust, resulting in crony capitalism and/or outright corruption, which in the end undermined the reputa- tion of neoliberalism in the region. Likewise, these abuses contributed to major economic crises in countries that in the early 1990s were hailed as poster children of the neoliberal experiment: Mexico (1994-1995) and Argentina (2001-2002). For many pundits the popular disappointment with neoliberalism contributed to the election of protest candidates throughout South America, starting with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez in 1999. Indeed, during the past decade socialist and left-wing populist administrations were elected in the region. This phenomenon spurred a debate as to the ideological and policy differences within the new "left" in Latin America. Broadly speaking, academic analyses of this trend use a di- chotomy whereby the administrations in Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay are depicted as the "pragmatic" left as opposed to the "populist" left-wing governments ruling in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela (Castaneda 2006). Within this context Weyland, Madrid, and Hunter (2010) and Levitsky and Roberts (2011) have argued that Argentina under Nestor Carlos Kirchner (2003- 2007) and Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (2007-present), constitutes an interme- diate case. This is because in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela populist presidents

This article addresses an issue often neglected by the current literature on political corruption: Why do citizens support corrupt governments? The authors argue that people in countries where government institutions are weak and patron-client relationships strong are more likely to support a corrupt leader from whom they expect to receive tangible benefits. Using a cross-national analysis of citizens in 14 countries, the authors find statistical evidence consistent with the hypothesis, which also complements some of the recent works on clientelism and institutional development. This has important implications for scholars and practitioners working on accountability and good governance issues because its shows that as long as corrupt leaders can satisfy their clientelistic networks by manipulating government resources, they are likely to retain political support. This, in turn, questions the assumption that a few administrative reforms can weed out corruption in countries where formal and informal institutions provide opportunities for this phenomenon to thrive.

Book review of: Alison E. Post: Foreign and Domestic Investment in Argentina: The Politics of Privatized Infrastructure. Cambridge, 2014. 266 p. ISBN: 9781107048041

Economists have recently underscored that the failure of market reforms in producing sustained growth in emerging markets is the result of poor advice from the International Monetary Fund, as well as of erroneous macroeconomic policies of domestic decision makers. This article proposes a complementary hypothesis. If market reforms are enacted in a political system with weak accountability institutions, then one should expect the executive to manipulate such reforms in pursuit of such old-fashioned practices as collusion between government and business, political patronage, and corruption. This, in turn, ends up depriving a given economy of potential advantages that could have accrued had the reforms promoted true competition rather than i reallocating monopolistic rents and squandering a large amount of resources.

Many liberal economists hail market‐oriented reforms as a means to combat corruption in emerging Latin American democracies with state‐led economies. Such arguments assume that reforms like privatization and market deregulation by definition will eliminate the politicians’ ability to use state enterprises and government regulations to their own personal advantage. However, there has been little academic scrutiny of how these reforms have been actually implemented in Latin America. In this article, we contend that, unless market reforms are pursued in a context of transparency, they can be used as new means to pursue old corrupt ends. We begin by constructing an actor‐centered model of corruption as a function of willingness and opportunity. We then develop two hypotheses regarding die influence of economic reform on the opportunity structure for corruption: executive discretionary power will increase, and the modalities of corruption will adapt to put the economic reforms to corrupt use. An analy...

The article analyzes the privatization program carried out under the Carlos Menem administration in Argentina between 1989 and 1995. It shows how, on many occasions, the divestiture of government-owned assets was often carried out within a very weak legal framework which, in turn, opened windows of opportunities for corrupt behavior and collusive practices involving high ranking government officials and private corporations. Based on their findings, the authors stress the crucial role that transparency plays for effective results to take place after government selloffs. Indeed, the Argentine case shows that there is a strong correlation between the legal and regulatory problems that often arise in the aftermath of state divestitures and privatizations that have been carried out hastily and under a cloud of corruption allegations.

This article examines the relationship between political institutions and interest group behavior within the context of developing countries, taking Argentina as an example. More specifically, it tries to explore the relationship between the decay of weak governmental institutions and the development of strong distributional coalitions following Mancur Olson's theory of interest group behavior. While integrating the findings of previous works by political scientists and economists, this article advances an explanation that links institutional weaknesses with the failure of Argentina's main distributional coalitions to develop collective action. Lastly, the study analyzes the recent economic reforms of the Menem administration and their impact on the process of democratic consolidation. Drawing upon the theoretical and empirical discussion presented, the article argues that, contrary to the opinion of many pundits, such reforms are likely to strengthen the socioeconomic power of a select number of distributional coalitions. Thus serious doubts exist about the prospects of institution-building in Argentina in the long-run.

Recent literature on regional integration has stressed the key role that emerging trading blocs will have in shaping the world economy of the 21st-century. With the end of the Cold War, policymakers have refocused their attention on economic issues. Economic trends — such as rapid changes in research, technology, capital flow, and trade patterns — have assumed a new importance. Increasing competition in world markets has induced industrialized countries to cluster together in regional economic blocs. This has been the case with the European Community (EC), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) signatories (the United States, Canada, and Mexico), and possibly Japan and its East Asian neighbors. However, these experiments in regional integration differ appreciably in nature. For instance, the EC explicitly seeks an economic and political union, whereas the NAFTA is simply a free trade area whose goal is the eventual elimination of restrictions on investment flows.

The paper is a preliminary attempt to analyze the recent effort of the Italian diplomacy to develop a coherent trade policy toward the most important emerging markets. It describes why in recent years Italy has substantially modified the way it trades policy approach, moving from a decentralized to a centralized decision-making approach, the results achieved up to now, and the lingering challenges.

Argentina's history has been profoundly influenced by the development of its agriculture. It was through the exportation of beef and grain that the country experienced spectacular economic growth between 1880 and 1930. Historically, agricultural and agro-industrial production have made up between 70 and 80% of export earnings.1As a consequence, the sector's dominant interest group during that period, the Argentine Rural Society (Sociedad Rural Argentina– SRA) acquired enormous economic power, which led to political clout as many of its members went on to become presidents of the republic and to staff the most important ministries. Because of the political influence so attained the SRA was soon referred to as one of the keyfactores de poder, or power holders, along with the military, the Church and, later on, labour. This hegemony came to an end in the mid-1940s when industrialisation replaced agriculture as the main contributor to the nation's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and when Peronism removed the landowning elite from control of the levers of power. The agricultural sector continued to take a backseat among the priorities of most of the administrations following Perón's downfall in 1955, because the future of Argentina was perceived to rest upon the promotion of import substitution industrialisation. Agricultural interest groups were never again able to gain the same kind of access to economic policy-making as they had once enjoyed. To make matters worse, the whole rural sector was forced to finance the state-led industrialisation process through a variety of direct and indirect government taxes.

Attempts have been made at Latin American regional integration since the late 1950s, but on each occasion, high expectations have met with disappointing failures. In July 1986, however, a new phase began in the history of Latin American integration as Presidents Raúl Alfonsín of Argentina and José Sarney of Brazil signed the Argentina-Brazil Economic Integration Pact (ABEIP).

This chapter examines how similar institutions in 19th century Latin America and the United States took different paths in terms of their fight against corruption and development of oversight institutions by the end of the 20th century. The divergent paths taken by these two countries resulted from differences in their legislatures’ motives and the courts’ willingness to check and counter executive action. A long continuous period of democratic rule is also essential to developing institutions and attacking corruption. While this occurred in the US, Argentina’s turbulent democratic experience stunted the development of a professional legislature capable of restraining executive abuses and corruption.

Privatization in Latin America has meant that governments have had to redefine their roles as entrepreneurs to those of effective regulators. Are they up to this task, and how have they tackled these new roles? This volume attempts to answer these fundamental questions.