David Altman, Juan Díaz, Eduardo Engel, Benjamín Peña
{"title":"Citizens’ Stability of Electoral Preferences in Chile Since the Social Upheaval","authors":"David Altman, Juan Díaz, Eduardo Engel, Benjamín Peña","doi":"10.1177/1866802x231213885","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1866802x231213885","url":null,"abstract":"A strong oscillation of electoral preferences took place in Chile between the election of the members of the Constitutional Convention in May 2021 and the election of the members of the Constitutional Council in May 2023. This is surprising because, until the national-scale social uprising in 2019, there was a broad consensus that Chile was a highly institutionalised party system where political preferences tended to be stable. In this research note, we study how the electoral choices made by citizens shifted between both elections, using the ecological inference approach based on a Bayesian hierarchical model developed elsewhere. We find that a vast majority of the new voters that resulted from the compulsory voting policy implemented between both elections opted for centre-right to right-wing candidates. However, this evidence is insufficient to determine whether these new voters predominantly align with right-leaning ideologies or hold anti-systemic viewpoints.","PeriodicalId":44885,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Politics in Latin America","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136351291","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Assessing Congressional Institutionalization and Political Elites’ Renewal in Latin America Through Legislative Amateurism","authors":"Gabriel Levita, Cristian Márquez Romo","doi":"10.1177/1866802x231212571","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1866802x231212571","url":null,"abstract":"Legislative experience, one of the various indicators of both congressional institutionalization and political elites’ renewal, has been mostly measured by either turnover or reelection. However, in regions such as Latin America, with more volatile and less institutionalized party systems, where most careers are not stable and ambitions are not mostly static, turnover and reelection may not be accurate measures of legislative experience. This paper aims to fill this gap by assessing parliamentary experience in Latin America by means of a more accurate indicator: legislative amateurism. Using a novel dataset comprising eighteen national single or lower-chamber legislatures over almost three decades, we find that legislative amateurism is a consequence of party system institutionalization, electoral volatility, and newly implemented gender quotas. Overall, our findings suggest that weak political parties and certain electoral rules may become fertile ground for amateur legislatorś landing in Congress.","PeriodicalId":44885,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Politics in Latin America","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135286407","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jennifer M. Piscopo, Gwynn Thomas, Peter Siavelis, Magda Hinojosa
{"title":"Lessons from a Late Adopter: Feminist Advocacy, Democratizing Reforms, and Gender Quotas in Chile","authors":"Jennifer M. Piscopo, Gwynn Thomas, Peter Siavelis, Magda Hinojosa","doi":"10.1177/1866802x231210568","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1866802x231210568","url":null,"abstract":"Many Latin American and other Global South countries adopted gender quotas during democratic transitions. What explains late-adopting cases like Chile? We analyze two instances: the 2015–2016 electoral reforms, which finally introduced a 40-percent gender quota, and the 2020–2023 constitutional process, which introduced gender parity. Using a qualitative analysis that draws on 39 elite interviews, we posit that efforts to redesign national political institutions in order to address democratic deficits create transition-like moments. In turn, these moments create windows of opportunity for quota advocates. We show how quota advocates in the parties, congress, and civil society leveraged growing voter discontent to pressure their resistant colleagues and ultimately secure gender quotas (and later gender parity) as part of larger reform efforts. Our analysis of the Chilean case elevates two factors explaining quota adoption: the long arc of democratization and women's role as protagonists in electoral reforms.","PeriodicalId":44885,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Politics in Latin America","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135725974","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"How Presidents Answer the Call of International Capital","authors":"Christian Arnold, David Doyle, Nina Wiesehomeier","doi":"10.1177/1866802x231210581","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1866802x231210581","url":null,"abstract":"How do governments manage expectations from international capital keen on pressuring them into adopting market-oriented economic policies during times of crises? Studying executive communication in 267 annual state-of-the-union speeches in 12 Latin American countries between 1980 and 2014 reveals two broad options for strategic position-taking on economic policies. First, when times are dire, presidents not only talk more about the economy and less about social policy, but they also attempt to repurpose other policies as an investment in development. Second, economic turmoil encourages presidents to signal policies, which are appealing to international capital owners. However, while currency crises exert more enduring pressure, the effects of loan crises are more fleeting. Our results are particularly relevant to all who seek to understand how governments use public statements to address pressures from financial markets.","PeriodicalId":44885,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Politics in Latin America","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135321680","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The 2019 Chilean Social Upheaval: A Descriptive Approach","authors":"Loreto Cox, Ricardo González, Carmen Le Foulon","doi":"10.1177/1866802x231203747","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1866802x231203747","url":null,"abstract":"In 2019, student protests over an increase in subway fare in Chile escalated into violence and a leaderless nationwide social upheaval. This research note takes a descriptive approach that goes beyond the protester/non-protesters dichotomy, because we believe we need a richer understanding of the “what, who, and how” of citizens around this outbreak. Based on a survey fielded amidst the upheaval, we distinguish protesters by intensity, and non-protesters by their position towards the upheaval. As expected, protesters tend to be young and educated. Strong protesters are more left-wing, interested in politics, and more participative, including electorally. They endorse democracy but are critical of its functioning, and more likely to justify illegal/violent actions as a means for social change. Inequality appears as a cross-cutting concern, even among opponents, but strong protesters are more distrustful of its sources and of the rich themselves. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings.","PeriodicalId":44885,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Politics in Latin America","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135147045","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"State Responses to Autonomy Demands: Indigenous Movements and Regional Threats in Bolivia and Ecuador","authors":"Carla Alberti, S. Mattiace","doi":"10.1177/1866802X231183453","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1866802X231183453","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, we examine the political factors that explain state responses to demands for indigenous territorial autonomy in Ecuador and Bolivia. Specifically, we aim to explain why the 2009 Bolivian constitution limited indigenous territorial autonomy to the departmental level, not allowing indigenous peoples to establish autonomous regions that lay beyond a single departmental jurisdiction, whereas the 2008 Ecuadorian constitution allows indigenous jurisdictions to exceed provincial boundaries. We argue that, in Bolivia, a strong conservative autonomy movement led by the country's eastern departments forced state officials to negotiate with regional elites, thus limiting the window of opportunity for indigenous movements and their allies to demand territorial autonomy. In the absence of a strong territorialized threat in Ecuador, indigenous movements and their allies had larger windows of opportunity to press their claims for territorial autonomy. This study contributes to comparative research on how states have simultaneously affirmed and limited indigenous autonomy.","PeriodicalId":44885,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Politics in Latin America","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-07-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42068468","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Direct Democracy in the Hands of the Opposition Under Alternating Ideological Coalitions in Uruguay (1985–2022)","authors":"F. Antía, D. Vairo","doi":"10.1177/1866802X231183454","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1866802X231183454","url":null,"abstract":"Uruguay stands out as an exceptional case for having a vibrant party system, stable democracy, and frequent use of direct democracy mechanisms (MDDs). Previous research has explained the use of MDDs as a means of opposing centre-right governments, but it has failed to explain the subsequent use of these mechanisms during the period of alternation between the major ideological blocs in government after 2005. We make an empirical contribution by describing the practice of direct democracy actions and explaining their fate through a qualitative comparative analysis that assesses how well the theoretical expectations proposed by Altman are borne out in the Uruguayan case in the latest period. We conclude that the politics of direct democracy change when ideological blocs alternate in government and that direct democracy initiatives fail due to the lack of lobbying power, high government approval rates, or non-concurrency of the vote with the presidential election in the context of a positive economic environment.","PeriodicalId":44885,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Politics in Latin America","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48286604","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From Economic to Political Power: Economic Elites and Policymaking During Times of Crisis","authors":"L. García-Montoya, P. Manzi","doi":"10.1177/1866802X231180897","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1866802X231180897","url":null,"abstract":"The shared crisis brought on by COVID-19 offers an opportunity to study how economic elites attempt to shape policy responses. In this article, we inquire about the conditions under which economic elites shaped containment and business support measures in Latin America. We argue that wealthier and better-organised elites are more likely to shape policies because they have increased access to policymakers. To test this, we combine regression analysis with three case studies: Chile, Mexico, and Peru. Our quantitative findings align with our expectations regarding containment measures and present mixed results for pro-business policies. Case studies illustrate how elites attempted to influence policy, highlighting the centrality of access to the Executive and the importance of distinguishing between institutionalised or personalised access. The degree to which policy responses aligned with elite preferences varied according to the nature of the ties: ranging from the most alignment in Chile to the least in Peru.","PeriodicalId":44885,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Politics in Latin America","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48247618","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Edgar FRANCO-VIVANCO, Cesar B. Martinez-Alvarez, I. F. Martínez
{"title":"Oil Theft and Violence in Mexico","authors":"Edgar FRANCO-VIVANCO, Cesar B. Martinez-Alvarez, I. F. Martínez","doi":"10.1177/1866802X231176572","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1866802X231176572","url":null,"abstract":"Around the world, non-state armed actors have been linked to the illegal extraction of energy resources. This research note explores the case of Mexico. Anecdotal evidence suggests that criminal groups have been gaining control of energy infrastructure across the country. At the same time, oil tapping has been directly associated with criminal violence. Yet, there has not been a systematic effort to causally identify the relationship between illegal extraction and criminal violence. In this research note, we use the exogenous variation in international oil prices—as a measure of potential profits—to assess the effect of access to energy infrastructure on criminal-related violence. Our results show that increases in oil prices are associated with higher levels of homicide rates in municipalities with pipelines and in neighboring municipalities. Specifically, a standard price increase during this period is associated with approximately 20% more homicides per year in municipalities with gasoline pipelines. A locality-level analysis suggests a non-linear distance effect. Finally, we also explore criminal fragmentation as the mechanism connecting access to resources and violence. We find that access to pipelines is associated with higher presence of organized crime groups, but not necessarily with more fragmentation.","PeriodicalId":44885,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Politics in Latin America","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41592289","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Questioning Resilience: An Examination of the Effects of and Responses to the Covid-19 Pandemic in the Peripheries of Brazil","authors":"R. Maschietto, A. Tomesani","doi":"10.1177/1866802X231160801","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1866802X231160801","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, we assess the effects of and responses to the Covid-19 pandemic in the Brazilian peripheries by relying on resilience theory and the experiences of peripheral actors during the first year of the pandemic. We consider these experiences to examine whether the initial responses to the crisis had the potential to bring about long-term positive change. We rely on thematic analysis of 80 interviews with leaders of grassroots organizations of different nature all over the country between October 2020 and January 2021. We argue that we cannot speak of resilience and system change unless we engage with the voices of those most affected by adversity. While in its first year the pandemic brought important traces of structural violence to the surface, providing an opportunity for structural change, peripheral views at that moment cast doubts about the extent to which those changes could lead to long-term structural changes.","PeriodicalId":44885,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Politics in Latin America","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-03-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43344342","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}