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1. Social Policy Expansion and Retrenchment After Latin America’s Commodity Boom

Author:
Sara Niedzwiecki and Jennifer Pribble
Publication Date:
05-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
The literature on social policy expansion and retrenchment in Latin America is vast, but scholars differ in how they explain the outcomes, arriving at different conclusions about the role of democracy, left parties, favorable economic conditions, and social movements in shaping reform. What can welfare state developments since the end of the commodity boom teach us about the theoretical power of these arguments? This paper engages this question, seeking to explain recent incidents of social policy reform in 10 presidential administrations in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay. Using a combination of crisp-set qualitative comparative analysis (csQCA) and case studies, we identify multiple paths toward social policy expansion and retrenchment that involve the absence and presence of electoral competition, economic resources, party ideology and linkage mechanism, social movement pressure, international pressure, and legacies. The results show that while both parties of the left and right expanded social programs, only the right engaged in retrenchment, yet partisanship alone is insufficient for explaining reform outcomes, as the variable must appear in combination with other factors depending on the party’s linkage mechanism. The results provide new insight into the politics of social policy reform in Latin America, showing the relevance of complex forms of causality.
Topic:
Health, Poverty, Social Movement, Democracy, Inequality, Public Policy, and Political Parties
Political Geography:
Brazil, Argentina, South America, Uruguay, Latin America, and Chile

2. Democracy and Urban Political Culture in Spanish South America, 1810-1860

Author:
Paula Alonso and Marcela Ternavasio
Publication Date:
07-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
“Democracy,” a word seldom used in public debate at the start of the nineteenth century and negatively associated with tumult, disorder, and direct rule, in a few decades became linked to representative government and increasingly employed with positive connotations. This paper argues that these conceptual changes should be explored in their political and social contexts, since the term “democracy” was invoked to (de)legitimate certain political practices and social sectors. Therefore, in exploring this non-linear process in Spanish America, these pages focus on the interactions between the emerging language of democracy and its varied meanings and uses in urban politics. These interactions were part of the factional disputes on how to implement the principle of popular sovereignty. Starting with an overview of selected emerging political practices during the Independence period, the paper then focuses on Lima and Buenos Aires, two regions with contrasting colonial pasts, responses to Spanish crises, and post-independence paths, showing how the concept of democracy could be put to varied uses according to different contexts and political objectives.
Topic:
Civil Society, Governance, Culture, Democracy, Citizenship, and Institutions
Political Geography:
Argentina, South America, Latin America, and Peru

3. Toxic Conflict: Understanding Venezuela's Economic Collapse

Author:
Juan Carlos Fernández-Rodríguez
Publication Date:
11-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
This paper discusses the causes of Venezuela’s recent economic collapse, the largest in modern Latin American economic history and one of the largest in modern world history outside of wartime. I argue that Venezuela’s economic implosion is a combination of two crises. The first one reflects the standard unraveling of a populist macroeconomic cycle fed by overspending during a resource boom, while the second one reflects the severing of the country’s trade and financial links with the global economy. This severing is the consequence of the decision by political actors to adopt “scorched earth” strategies with large negative aggregate economic spillovers in their fight for power. I argue that the inability of Venezuela’s high-stakes, winner-take-all political system to deal with the large negative 2014–16 trade shock precipitated the change in political strategies and the descent into economically destructive political conflict.
Topic:
Development, Political Economy, Democracy, Economic Growth, Conflict, Institutions, and Peacebuilding
Political Geography:
South America and Latin America

4. Paraguay's Compliance With The Inter-American Human Rights System

Author:
Aníbal Pérez-Liñán, Madeline Soiney, and Andrés Hernández
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
Why do new democracies comply with international human rights obligations? We analyze Paraguay’s compliance with all reparation measures requested by the Inter-American Human Rights System over the past two decades. In contrast to most studies, which focus on reparation measures ordered by a single organ in the system, our study covers all orders resulting from friendly settlements, reports published by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and rulings by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. We provide a novel classification of human rights cases, and evaluate three competing explanations for compliance: legal factors, international pressures, and domestic political will. Our analysis of 1,426 reparation-years underscores the importance of changes in political will over time.
Topic:
Human Rights, Democracy, Rule of Law, and Institutions
Political Geography:
Latin America, Paraguay, and Global Focus

5. Violence in Post-Revolutionary Mexico

Author:
Gema Kloppe-Santamaría
Publication Date:
05-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
Despite the formal end of civil war and armed conflict, Mexico continued to experience significant levels of violence during the 1930s and 1940s. This period has traditionally been associated with the process of pacification, institutionalization, and centralization of power that enabled the consolidation of rule in post-revolutionary Mexico; a process epitomized by the marked national decline in levels of homicide that began during the 1940s and continued throughout the second half of the twentieth-century. However, the dynamics of coercion and resistance that characterized state-society relations during this period, particularly at the regional and local levels, reveal that violence pervaded all aspects of society and that it was perpetrated by a multiplicity of actors, including vigilantes, pistoleros, private militias, lynch mobs, military, police, and others, including violent entrepreneurs. Violence was used both as a means to contest the legitimacy of the post-revolutionary state project and as an instrument of control and coercion on behalf of political elites and local power brokers. Conversely, violence superseded the realm of traditional politics and constituted a central force shaping Mexican society. Violence against women in both the public and private sphere, violence driven by economic interests, and violence incurred in citizens’ attempts to control crime and social transgressions, reveal that citizens—and not only state actors—contributed to the reproduction of violence. Although violence in post-revolutionary Mexico was neither centralized nor exercised in a top-down manner, impunity and collusion between criminal and political elements were central to the production and perpetuation of violence, both within the Mexican state and within civil society. When examined in light of these two decades of the post-revolutionary period, the character and levels of violence in contemporary Mexico appear less as an aberration and more as the latest expression of a longer historical trajectory, uneven and nonlinear, of decentralized, multifaceted, and multi-actor forms of violence.
Topic:
Security, Religion, Culture, Peacekeeping, Democracy, Conflict, and Violence
Political Geography:
Latin America, North America, and Mexico

6. Beyond a Single Model: Explaining Differences in Inequality within Latin America

Author:
Diego Sánchez-Ancochea
Publication Date:
05-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
This paper studies the determinants of income inequality in Latin America over the long run, comparing them with explanations of why the whole region is unequal. I first show how land inequality can account for differences between Latin America and other parts of the world but how it does not explain within-region differences. Using qualitative comparative analysis, I then consider how political institution and actors interact with the economic structure (i.e., type of export specialization) and with the ethnic composition of the population. The paper has several findings. A low indigenous/afrodescendant population is a necessary condition for relatively low inequality. I identify two sufficient-condition paths, both of which include the role of democracy, political equality, and a small indigenous and afrodescendant population. The first path also includes a favorable export specialization, while the second one includes the presence of leftist presidents instead. The paper calls for more explicit comparisons between our analytical models for the whole region and our explanations of between-country differences. Hopefully, the paper can also trigger more research on how the interactions between ethnicity, politics, and the export structure shape inequality in Latin America.
Topic:
Civil Society, Development, Political Economy, Poverty, Race, Social Movement, Democracy, Inequality, and Ethnicity
Political Geography:
Latin America

7. The Emergence of Democracy in Colombia

Author:
Raúl L. Madrid
Publication Date:
12-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
Although Colombia had many important democratic achievements in the 19th century, this paper argues that democracy first took root there at the outset of the 20th century. Several key developments enabled democratic practices and institutions to take hold. First, the savage Thousand Days War (1899–1902) and the ensuing professionalization of the Colombian military helped bring an end to the cycle of rebellion in Colombia. In their wake, the opposition abandoned the armed struggle and began to focus on the electoral path to power, thereby reducing the government’s inclination to engage in repression. Second, the rise of strong parties also contributed to the emergence of democracy in Colombia. Two powerful parties, the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party, arose in Colombia during the 19th century. From 1886 until 1930, the Liberal Party was in the opposition, and Liberals pushed for reforms to guarantee minority representation and reduce electoral fraud and intimidation. Third and finally, a split within the ruling Conservative Party made the enactment of these reforms feasible. The Liberals did not have sufficient strength or influence to pass the key democratic reforms, but in the early 1900s, some Conservative dissidents broke with their party and allied with Liberals to form the Republican Union party. The Republican Union pushed through the key constitutional reforms in 1910, and it, along with the Liberal Party, helped ensure their implementation in the years that followed.
Topic:
Politics, Democracy, Conflict, Peace, and Political Parties
Political Geography:
Colombia, South America, and Latin America

8. Shared Class as an Electoral Heuristic in Brazil’s Local Elections

Author:
Peter G. Johannessen
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
Do voters use a candidate’s class as an electoral heuristic? And if so, how? Drawing on observational and experimental evidence from Brazil’s local elections (2004–2016), I provide evidence that voters use shared class to draw inferences about a candidate’s type: candidates from different classes receive similar overall levels of support, but receive disproportionate support from voters who share their class. The mechanisms driving this finding vary by a voter’s relative class position: upper-class voters use shared class to draw inferences about a candidate’s quality, trustworthiness, and distributive commitments, but lower-class voters only use shared class to draw inferences about a candidate’s trustworthiness and distributive commitments.
Topic:
Politics, Poverty, Democracy, Inequality, Citizenship, and Identities
Political Geography:
Brazil, South America, and Latin America

9. Comparative Continuismo: Presidential Term Limit Contravention Across Developing Democracies

Author:
Kristin McKie
Publication Date:
12-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
Since presidential term limits were (re)adopted into many constitutions during the third wave of democratization, 207 presidents across Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia have reached the end of their terms in office. Of these, 30% have attempted to contravene term limits whereas 70% have stepped down in compliance with tenure rules. Furthermore, of the presidents who have attempted to alter tenure restrictions, some have succeeded in fully abolishing term limits, others have only managed a one-term extension, while a minority have failed in their bids to secure any additional terms in office. What explains these divergent trajectories? On the basis of a series of statistical analyses, I argue that trends in electoral competition over time are the best predictor of the range of term limit contravention outcomes across the board, with the least competitive elections permitting full term limit abolition and the most competitive elections saving off attempts at altering executive tenure rules. Furthermore, results show that failed contravention attempts are true borderline cases, rather than instances gross miscalculations of success by the president and her party, in that they feature less competitive elections than non-attempt cases but more competitive elections than successful contravention cases. These findings suggest a linkage between political uncertainty and constitutional stability more generally.
Topic:
Democratization, Democracy, Institutions, and Political Parties
Political Geography:
Africa, Middle East, Asia, and Latin America