{"title":"The Power of Charisma: Investigating the Neglected Citizen–Politician Linkage in Hugo Chávez's Venezuela","authors":"Caitlin Andrews-Lee","doi":"10.1177/1866802X19891472","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1866802X19891472","url":null,"abstract":"Charisma has long been considered a powerful tool for leaders worldwide to rise to greatness. Yet we have given less attention to the way in which charismatic leaders develop deep, unmediated emotional bonds with their followers. I propose a compact theory that explains how charismatic attachments form, overwhelm alternative linkage types, and facilitate the development of powerful and potentially enduring political movements. To illustrate the theory, I turn to Hugo Chávez’s Bolivarian movement in Venezuela. Firstly, the analysis of a 2007 survey from the Latin American Public Opinion Project demonstrates the disproportionate influence of charisma on citizens’ attachments to Bolivarianism relative to competing factors. Next, six original focus groups conducted with Bolivarian followers in 2016 illustrate the mechanisms underlying the followers’ surprisingly resilient loyalty, not only to the leader but also to his overarching movement. The results suggest that affective political attachments can help sustain charismatic movements after their founders disappear.","PeriodicalId":44885,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Politics in Latin America","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2019-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1866802X19891472","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49145059","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}
D. Canache, Matthew Cawvey, Matthew Hayes, Jeffery J. Mondak
{"title":"Who Sees Corruption? The Bases of Mass Perceptions of Political Corruption in Latin America","authors":"D. Canache, Matthew Cawvey, Matthew Hayes, Jeffery J. Mondak","doi":"10.1177/1866802X19876462","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1866802X19876462","url":null,"abstract":"The capacity of citizens to see political corruption where it exists and to link such perceptions to evaluations of public officials constitutes an important test of political accountability. Although past research has established that perceived corruption influences political judgments, much less is known regarding the critical prefatory matter of who sees corruption. This article develops a multifaceted theoretical framework regarding the possible bases of perceived corruption. Experiential factors – personal experience and vicarious experience with bribery – mark the starting point for our account. We then incorporate psychological dispositions that may colour judgments about corruption and that may strengthen or weaken the links between experiences and perceptions. Expectations derived from this framework are tested in a series of multi-level models, with data from over 30,000 survey respondents from 17 nations and 84 regions in the Americas.","PeriodicalId":44885,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Politics in Latin America","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2019-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1866802X19876462","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41889078","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":"Neither Penalised nor Prized: Feminist Legislators, Women’s Representation, and Career Paths in Argentina","authors":"M. Caminotti, Jennifer M. Piscopo","doi":"10.1177/1866802X19876460","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1866802X19876460","url":null,"abstract":"The conventional wisdom holds that party leaders punish women legislators who advocate for gender equality. We test this assumption using the Argentine case, asking two questions. First, who counts as a feminist legislator and how do we know? Second, do feminist legislators have career trajectories that indicate marginalisation or penalisation? We use bill authorship data and expert surveys to identify legislators of both sexes who champion feminist causes and who adopt a gendered, though not necessarily feminist, perspective. Comparing these categories of legislators to those in the general population, we find no meaningful differences in political careers by either legislators’ gender or policy profile. In fact, many feminist champions hold prestigious positions while in congress, but this political capital results neither in punishment nor reward after congress. Women who represent women do not go on to the top posts after congress, but neither do they disappear from public life.","PeriodicalId":44885,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Politics in Latin America","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2019-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1866802X19876460","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48746945","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":"Labor Reform in Brazil, Politics, and Sindicatos: Notes on the General Strikes of 2017","authors":"Davide Carbonai","doi":"10.1177/1866802X19861493","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1866802X19861493","url":null,"abstract":"On July 2017, Brazil’s Senate approved the country’s most extensive labor reform since the emergent 1943’s Consolidation of Labor Law (Consolidação das Leis Trabalhistas, CLT). The aforementioned reform provoked heated debates and its approval faced resistance. Unions, for instance, convened two general strikes: the first, on April 2017, garnered a significant amount of participation, while the latter, on June, ended with participation falling significantly below expectations. Despite the widespread rejection of Temer’s mandate and the content of the law, on June, unions were surprisingly unable to agree on a common strategy regarding a proposal on labor reform. The present research aims to explore this paradox. A survey-based analysis, along with a series of unstructured interviews with union leaders and protesters, establishes a solid empirical base from which to draw hypotheses about the Brazilian state corporatist union model and its evolution.","PeriodicalId":44885,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Politics in Latin America","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2019-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1866802X19861493","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47693260","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 Construction of Indigenous Language Rights in Peru: A Language Regime Approach","authors":"S. Rousseau, Eduardo Dargent","doi":"10.1177/1866802X19866527","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1866802X19866527","url":null,"abstract":"From the 1990s onwards, many Latin American states have adopted constitutional reforms that recognise indigenous peoples’ rights. In this article, we address a much less studied aspect, the emergence of new language rights. Based on field research and process tracing, we study the case of Peru where indigenous language rights were created in the absence of ethnic parties and with a relatively weak indigenous movement. We argue that the country moved slowly away from a monolingual language regime towards the recognition of indigenous languages as official languages and the creation of language rights. We identify key moments of state transformation in the 1970s, the 1990s, and the 2000s as linked to successive building blocks in the creation of a multi-lingual language regime. In particular, the decentralisation reforms of the 2000s created new opportunities for subnational actors to further develop these rights in different regions of the country. We exemplify these dynamics by looking into the adoption of language rights in the regions of Cuzco and Ayacucho.","PeriodicalId":44885,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Politics in Latin America","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2019-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1866802X19866527","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41776692","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":"You Win Some, You Lose Some: Pension Reform in Bachelet’s First and Second Administrations","authors":"S. Borzutzky","doi":"10.1177/1866802X19861491","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1866802X19861491","url":null,"abstract":"This article analyses and compares President Bachelet’s successful efforts to reform the Chilean pension system in 2008 and her failure to achieve the same objective in 2017. The article addresses the impact of electoral promises, policy legacies, policy ideology, presidential power, the role of the private sector, and the role that the government coalitions had in the process of pension reform during the Bachelet administrations. We argue that the 2008 reform was possible because of Bachelet’s personal commitment to reform and the presence of a stable governing coalition that had the will and capacity to legislate. In the second administration, although the policy legacies and ideology had remained the same, the reform did not materialise due to intense conflict within the administration and within the government coalition, as well as conflict between the administration and the coalition. These conflicts, in turn, generated a vicious cycle responsible for Bachelet’s declining popularity, limited political capital, and reduced support for reform. A stagnant economy further undermined these efforts. In brief, this article argues that when assessing success and failure in pension policy reform it is important to analyse not only policy legacies and political ideology but also the strength of the executive, the cohesion of the governing coalition, and the country’s economic performance.","PeriodicalId":44885,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Politics in Latin America","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2019-07-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1866802X19861491","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48782758","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":"Public Costs versus Private Gain: Assessing the Effect of Different Types of Information about Corruption Incidents on Electoral Accountability","authors":"Alejandro Avenburg","doi":"10.1177/1866802X19840457","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1866802X19840457","url":null,"abstract":"Are voters’ attitudes towards corrupt candidates affected by the details they learn about candidates’ wrongdoing? This study examines the effect of including different pieces of information emphasising the public costs or private gain of a similar corruption incident on the probability of support for the incumbent mayor’s re-election. I use three surveys experiments with online convenience samples of Brazilian subjects. The survey experiments use various vignettes presenting a fictitious Brazilian incumbent mayor with antecedents of misuse of public funds, running for re-election. I manipulate the details that subjects learn on those antecedents to assess whether information on the public costs of the corruption incident or on the candidate’s illicit enrichment stimulates a stronger rejection. Additional manipulations are used to test rival hypotheses. Results consistently show that information showing the candidate’s illicit enrichment drives a stronger negative response than every alternative treatment.","PeriodicalId":44885,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Politics in Latin America","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2019-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1866802X19840457","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44564439","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}
Davi Barboza Cavalcanti, Elder Paes Barreto Bringel, Fábio Regueira Jardelino da Costa, Tassiana Moura de Oliveira, Vinicius Rodrigues Zuccolotto
{"title":"Digital Activism and Indignation Nets in Brazil: The Pressure Groups","authors":"Davi Barboza Cavalcanti, Elder Paes Barreto Bringel, Fábio Regueira Jardelino da Costa, Tassiana Moura de Oliveira, Vinicius Rodrigues Zuccolotto","doi":"10.1177/1866802X19840455","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1866802X19840455","url":null,"abstract":"To understand the relevance of the new media in the formation of the indignation nets, this text, of exploratory stamp, debates the digital activism in contemporary Brazil . Methodologically, we will make a discussion on cyberactivism, digital media, and national pressure groups starting from two examples, Movimento Brasil Livre (The Free Brazil Movement) and Vem pra Rua (Come to The Street movement) – these are key movements in the organisation of the big anti-government mobilisation that took place in 2015–2016 in Brazil. The theme is important because it embraces current and future challenges of the digital activism, once that this field faced significant changes in the last decades, with the development of interactive media and the technological convergence.","PeriodicalId":44885,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Politics in Latin America","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2019-06-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1866802X19840455","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42759971","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":"Fuel for Conspiracy: Suspected Imperialist Plots and the Chaco War","authors":"L. Roniger, L. Senkman","doi":"10.1177/1866802X19843008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1866802X19843008","url":null,"abstract":"Conspiracy discourse interprets the world as the object of sinister machinations, rife with opaque plots and covert actors. With this frame, the war between Bolivia and Paraguay over the Northern Chaco region (1932–1935) emerges as a paradigmatic conflict that many in the Americas interpreted as resulting from the conspiracy manoeuvres of foreign oil interests to grab land supposedly rich in oil. At the heart of such interpretation, projected by those critical of the fratricidal war, were partial and extrapolated facts, which sidelined the weight of long-term disputes between these South American countries traumatised by previous international wars resulting in humiliating defeats and territorial losses, and thus prone to welcome warfare to bolster national pride and overcome the memory of past debacles. The article reconstructs the transnational diffusion of the conspiracy narrative that tilted political and intellectual imagination towards attributing the war to imperialist economic interests, downplaying the political agency of those involved. Analysis suggests that such transnational reception highlights a broader trend in the twentieth-century Latin American conspiracy discourse, stemming from the theorization of geopolitical marginality and the belief that political decision-making was shaped by the plots of hegemonic powers.","PeriodicalId":44885,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Politics in Latin America","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2019-06-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1866802X19843008","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45507138","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":"Labor Divides, Informality, and Regulation: The Public Opinion on Labor Law in Latin America","authors":"S. Berens, A. Kemmerling","doi":"10.1177/1866802X19843362","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1866802X19843362","url":null,"abstract":"While scholarship on the politics of labor market divides and labor law in Latin America has bloomed in recent years, this literature rarely looks at the role of public opinion. Using data on public attitudes towards labor law for 18 Latin American countries, we start filling this gap. We follow the literature on labor market divides to see how far those at the margins of the formal labor market differ in their opinions from the formally employed. We find that large segments of the people perceive labor law as protective for workers, but there are also important divides: Whereas formal sector workers indeed assess the protective function of labor law positively, informal sector workers are more sceptical. Moreover, we find feedback effects of labor law on these differences of opinion. We conclude with a discussion how these divides in attitudes also have political effects, especially on voting behavior.","PeriodicalId":44885,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Politics in Latin America","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2019-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1866802X19843362","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45095734","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}