Conventional wisdom suggests Chile's party system is highly institutionalized. However, recent declines in participation and partisan-ship have begun to raise questions about this veneer of stability. This article assesses the current... more
Conventional wisdom suggests Chile's party system is highly institutionalized. However, recent declines in participation and partisan-ship have begun to raise questions about this veneer of stability. This article assesses the current state of the Chilean party system, analyzing its ability to provide linkage. We specify a theoretical framework for identifying challenges to linkage and constraints on necessary adaptation. We then use this framework to evaluate linkage in the contemporary Chilean system, emphasizing how its representational profile has changed since the democratic transition. The analysis suggests the two partisan coalitions no longer present clear policy alternatives and programmatic representation increasingly depends on policy responsiveness and relics of old ideological divides. Significant institutional constraints impede parties' ability to incorporate demands from emerging social groups, and clien-telism remains a complementary but not core linkage mec...
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El desarrollo académico en América Latina enfrenta desafíos propios de países del Tercer Mundo: la influencia excesiva del régimen político, la insuficiencia de recursos financieros, la ausencia de patrones de profesionalización... more
El desarrollo académico en América Latina enfrenta desafíos propios de países del Tercer Mundo: la influencia excesiva del régimen político, la insuficiencia de recursos financieros, la ausencia de patrones de profesionalización claramente establecidos, entre otros. La Ciencia Política, como una de las disciplinas de ciencias sociales más jóvenes, no ha estado ajena a estos retos. Los casos latinoamericanos –varios de ellos reseñados en el presente volumen– dan cuenta de la diversidad y heterogeneidad del desarrollo de la disciplina y del impacto de la academia norteamericana como referente inevitable –para bien o para mal– para la reflexión del futuro de ciencia política en la región.
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resuMen se ha caracterizado la dinamica politica peruana como una gran continuidad tanto a nivel de regimen politico y economico, como de los factores que la condicionan: gobernabilidad como resultado de un equilibrio de baja intensidad... more
resuMen se ha caracterizado la dinamica politica peruana como una gran continuidad tanto a nivel de regimen politico y economico, como de los factores que la condicionan: gobernabilidad como resultado de un equilibrio de baja intensidad compuesto por ejecutivos debiles pero sin oposiciones vinculadas con la movilizacion social. administraciones tanto pro- establishment como reformistas (como la reciente de Ollanta Humala) aparecen “atrapados por la historia”. se privilegia el “piloto automatico” tanto en sectores con resultados exitosos (economia, relaciones internacionales), como no (seguridad publica). sin embargo, recientes cambios institucionales (en la tecnocracia de las politicas sociales) permiten identificar indicios para hacer de este tipo de modelo de gobernabilidad mas popular que sus antecesores. Palabras clave: peru, democracia, conflictos sociales, gobernabilidad, revocatoria. AbstrAct Peruvian political dynamics has often been characterized as an enduring continuity. ...
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Three different constituencies are becoming increasingly common across Western European electorates: mainstream voters, non-voters and populist voters. Despite their distinct behaviours in electoral politics, we have limited empirical... more
Three different constituencies are becoming increasingly common across Western European electorates: mainstream voters, non-voters and populist voters. Despite their distinct behaviours in electoral politics, we have limited empirical knowledge about the characteristics that distinguish these three groups, given the typical underrepresentation of non-voters in surveys and the relative recency of large-scale research on populist voters. To address this gap, we analyse novel survey data from contemporary Germany that oversamples non-voters and includes a sizeable share of both populist radical left and populist radical right party supporters. Two main findings with broader implications stand out. First, populist voters resemble their mainstream counterparts in their expectations about democracy but correspond more closely to non-voters regarding (dis-)satisfaction with democracy. Second, non-voters and populist voters seem to reject mainstream democratic politics in distinct ways, thr...
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ABSTRACT Democracy is under threat today and scholars agree that the main challenge is not sudden regime breakdown, but rather the gradual erosion of key institutions and norms because of growing public support to political forces with... more
ABSTRACT Democracy is under threat today and scholars agree that the main challenge is not sudden regime breakdown, but rather the gradual erosion of key institutions and norms because of growing public support to political forces with illiberal tendencies. In the case of Western Europe, the major threat comes from the populist radical right. Although it is true that the latter has been gaining votes in Western Europe, scholars have not analysed the extent to which a sizeable share of the electorate dislikes this party family. Nevertheless, recent studies reveal that it is important to consider both those who feel close to and those who reject political parties, i.e. positive and negative partisanship. To address this research gap, in this contribution we rely on original survey data for 10 Western European countries to examine negative partisanship towards the populist radical right. The empirical analysis reveals that a large section of the Western European electorate has an aversion to this party family and this finding should be seen as an important sign of democratic resilience. In fact, those who dislike the populist radical right are strong supporters of both democracy per se and the liberal democratic regime.
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This chapter deals with how populist parties reacted and engaged with the pandemic in Italy, one of the European countries most affected by the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The main argument of this chapter is that populist actors are... more
This chapter deals with how populist parties reacted and engaged with the pandemic in Italy, one of the European countries most affected by the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The main argument of this chapter is that populist actors are successful in profiting from a crisis when they can credibly frame it as a failure of representation. The case of Italy, which has been defined as a “country of many populisms” (Tarchi 2008), is particularly insightful. Since the outset of the pandemic at the end of February of 2020, there were two populist parties in the system , both on the right of the political spectrum: the League (former Northern League) and Brothers of Italy. After a first period known as “rally around the flag” the two parties' strategy was somehow similar until they started to diverge substantially in February 2021. In general terms, we can say that—until the breakdown of the second Conte government—the League discursively attacked the government on managing the pandemi...
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Political identities are crucial for understanding electoral behavior: individuals who identify with a political party behave as loyal supporters who would hardly vote for competitors old or new. Although this is an obvious observation,... more
Political identities are crucial for understanding electoral behavior: individuals who identify with a political party behave as loyal supporters who would hardly vote for competitors old or new. Although this is an obvious observation, it has received little attention in the study of populism—a set of ideas that not only portrays established political parties as corrupt and self-serving entities but also depicts “the people” as a homogenous and virtuous community that should run the government. In this contribution, we develop a novel theory that claims that populism can thrive only when an antiestablishment political identity exists. This identity denotes an emotional and rational repulsion toward all established political parties in a given country. We test our theory by analyzing original survey data from contemporary Chile. The empirical analysis reveals not only that a limited segment of the electorate holds an antiestablishment political identity coalesced by populism but als...
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How do parties target intimidation and vote-buying during elections? Parties prefer the use of carrots over sticks because they are in the business of getting voters to like them and expect higher legitimacy costs if observers expose... more
How do parties target intimidation and vote-buying during elections? Parties prefer the use of carrots over sticks because they are in the business of getting voters to like them and expect higher legitimacy costs if observers expose intimidation. However, their brokers sometimes choose intimidation because it is cheaper and possibly more effective than vote-buying. Specifically, we contend that brokers use intimidation when the cost of buying votes is prohibitively high; in interactions with voters among whom the commitment problem inherent to clientelistic transactions is difficult to overcome; and in contexts where the risk of being denounced for violence is lower. We probe our hypotheses about the different profile of voters targeted with vote-buying and intimidation using two list experiments included in an original survey conducted during the 2011 Guatemalan general elections. The list experiments were designed to overcome the social desirability bias associated with direct qu...
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Qualitative studies of vote buying find the practice to be common in many Latin American countries, but quantitative studies using surveys find little evidence of vote buying. Social desirability bias can account for this discrepancy. We... more
Qualitative studies of vote buying find the practice to be common in many Latin American countries, but quantitative studies using surveys find little evidence of vote buying. Social desirability bias can account for this discrepancy. We employ a survey-based list experiment to minimize the problem. After the 2008 Nicaraguan municipal elections, we asked about vote-buying behavior by campaigns using a list experiment and the questions traditionally used by studies of vote buying on a nationally representative survey. Our list experiment estimated that 24% of registered voters in Nicaragua were offered a gift or service in exchange for votes, whereas only 2% reported the behavior when asked directly. This detected social desirability bias is nonrandom and analysis based on traditional obtrusive measures of vote buying is unreliable. We also provide systematic evidence that shows the importance of monitoring strategies by parties in determining who is targeted for vote buying. C lientelistic electoral linkages are characterized by a transaction of political favors in which politicians offer immediate material incentives to citizens or groups in exchange for electoral support. 1 Vote buying, which is a more particularized form of clien-telism involving the exchange of goods for votes at the individual level (Stokes 2007), has generated numerous ethnographies and surveys to measure its incidence and test-related hypotheses. While qualitative research routinely finds vote buying to be pervasive in the developing world (e.g., Auyero 2001), individual-level surveys often uncover low levels of such exchanges (e.g., Transparency
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El artículo plantea una contribución a las explicaciones acerca del comportamiento electoral en Colombia. Las interpretaciones previamente desarrolladas han empleado marcos teóricos que enfatizan en el carácter explicativo de factores... more
El artículo plantea una contribución a las explicaciones acerca del comportamiento electoral en Colombia. Las interpretaciones previamente desarrolladas han empleado marcos teóricos que enfatizan en el carácter explicativo de factores como ingreso, características psicosocia- les y evaluación retrospectiva, expresados en el análisis de los vínculos programáticos, clien- telares y personalistas que se establecen entre partidos y electores. La literatura existente tiene un vacío que este artículo propone saldar a partir del planteamiento de un modelo de gobernabilidad como criterio que asumen los electores en el momento de definir sus preferen- cias. El hecho de que algunos candidatos sean percibidos con mejores o peores condiciones para asegurar la gobernabilidad política de Colombia, debido a sus vínculos con los actores con poder de veto, constituye un criterio adicional en la selección del candidato presidencial, junto con factores decisivos (e.g., ideología). La evidencia empírica original, basada en el análisis de datos originales de una encuesta nacional, confirma la hipótesis sugerida.
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RESUMEN - El 2016 fue un año complejo para el Ecuador. En el frente económico, el país cayó oficialmente en recesión. El terremoto de abril de ese año agudizó la emergencia económica. En el plano político, la popularidad presidencial... more
RESUMEN - El 2016 fue un año complejo para el Ecuador. En el frente económico, el país cayó oficialmente en recesión. El terremoto de abril de ese año agudizó la emergencia económica. En el plano político, la popularidad presidencial entró en declive por el impacto de la recesión. En este contexto dio inicio la campaña electoral para fijar la sucesión de Rafael Correa: el oficialismo barajó varias opciones para definir su candidato presidencial y la oposición no forjó una candidatura unitaria. A partir del cambio inminente de mando, se anticiparon algunas evaluaciones preliminares del legado de Correa. El artículo hace notar el híperpresidencialismo ecuatoriano —tanto en su diseño institucional como en su práctica autoritaria— así como el deterioro de la calidad de la democracia y su legitimidad.
ABSTRACT - In many respects, 2016 was a complex year for Ecuador. On the economic front, the country officially fell into recession. The earthquake that took place in April exacerbated the economic emergency. In the political realm, presidential approval declined due to the recession. In this context, the electoral campaign for the succession of Rafael Correa started: pro-government forces considered several options for their presidential bid and the opposition did not forge a united candidacy. Considering the imminent presidential change, some initial assessments of Correa’s tenure were anticipated. This article highlights Ecuadorian hyper-presidentialism —both in its institutional design and in its authoritarian practice— as well as the deterioration of the quality of democracy and its legitimacy.
ABSTRACT - In many respects, 2016 was a complex year for Ecuador. On the economic front, the country officially fell into recession. The earthquake that took place in April exacerbated the economic emergency. In the political realm, presidential approval declined due to the recession. In this context, the electoral campaign for the succession of Rafael Correa started: pro-government forces considered several options for their presidential bid and the opposition did not forge a united candidacy. Considering the imminent presidential change, some initial assessments of Correa’s tenure were anticipated. This article highlights Ecuadorian hyper-presidentialism —both in its institutional design and in its authoritarian practice— as well as the deterioration of the quality of democracy and its legitimacy.