Doomed to disagree? Party-voter discipline and policy gridlock under divided government

2010 ◽  
Vol 17 (6) ◽  
pp. 801-822 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Fernández-Albertos ◽  
Víctor Lapuente
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
One Dimension ◽  
Veto Players ◽  
Divided Government ◽  
Policy Reforms ◽  
Low Degree ◽  
The Status ◽  
Party Institutionalization

This article explains the existence of policy gridlock in systems with divided government, even when there are policies that are universally preferred to the status quo. It is shown analytically that one dimension of party institutionalization (the degree of party-voter discipline) may create incentives for veto players to block policies that, ideologically, they might like. This is the case because when party attachments dominate voters' behaviour across different electoral arenas, veto players in the opposition might find it in their electoral interests to prevent popular policies from being adopted. We illustrate our argument by analysing the recent experiences of two Latin American democracies living under divided government but with opposite levels of party-voter discipline: Mexico and Brazil. Contrary to the received wisdom, the low degree of party institutionalization in Brazil may have helped the passing of comprehensive policy reforms, whereas strongly institutionalized parties in Mexico might have been partly responsible for the persistence of policy gridlock.

Old Tools and New Movements in Latin America: Political Science as Gatekeeper or Intellectual Illuminator?

2009 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara C. Motta
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Popular Politics ◽  
Politics Of Representation ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Political Analysis ◽  
The Status ◽  
State Form

AbstractThis article argues that social democratic and orthodox Marxist conceptualizations of politics are unable to “engage in solidarity” with many new forms of Latin American popular politics. Such movements challenge the politics of representation, the market economy, and the state form by reinventing territorialized experiments in self-government, which politicize place, subjectivities, and social relations. Developing a critique of these frameworks of political analysis, this article argues that conceptual categories combining the insights of autonomist or open Marxism and poststructuralism and the critical reflections and theorizations by Latin America's newest social movements enable a deeper engagement with such movements. This critique challenges academics committed to progressive social change to reexamine long-held notions about the nature and agents of social transformation and the epistemological categories that orient our research. It argues that if we fail to do this, then we risk becoming gatekeepers of the status quo.

Policy Gatekeepers in Latin American Legislatures

2006 ◽  
Vol 48 (03) ◽  
pp. 125-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eduardo Alemán
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Steering Committee ◽  
Institutional Structure ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Status ◽  
Advantageous Position

Abstract Legislators who control the congressional agenda have a significant advantage over the membership at large. Policy gatekeepers can restrict change to outcomes they prefer over the status quo and can use this prerogative to keep a legislative party or coalition unified. This article examines agenda-setting rules in 26 Latin American chambers, shows why the institutional structure is theoretically relevant, and reveals some implications for policymaking with evidence from Argentina, Chile, and Mexico. Majority leaders in the Argentine and Chilean lower chambers have successfully blocked passage of legislation opposed by most of their fellow partisans despite the lack of codified gatekeeping rights. Since 1997, none of the major Mexican parties has benefited from the gatekeeping rights established in the rules. Instead, the benefits have come from the parties' advantageous position with respect to the other parties on the steering committee setting the plenary agenda.

scholarly journals Veto players, policy change, and institutional design

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 205316801772270
Author(s):  
Tiberiu Dragu ◽  
Hannah K. Simpson
Keyword(s):  
Incomplete Information ◽  
Policy Change ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Veto Players ◽  
Policy Outcome ◽  
Equilibrium Outcome ◽  
Institutional Structures ◽  
Ideal Policy ◽  
The Status

What institutional arrangements allow veto players to secure maximal welfare when all agree on both the need for and the direction of policy change? To answer this question, we conduct a mechanism design analysis. We focus on a system with two veto players, each with incomplete information about the other’s policy preferences. We show that the unique welfare-maximizing mechanism is the mechanism that implements the preferred policy of the player whose ideal policy is closer to the status quo. We provide examples of institutional structures under which the unique equilibrium outcome of this two-player incomplete information game is the policy outcome implemented by this mechanism, and argue that our result can be used as a normative benchmark to assess the optimality of veto player institutions.

Latin American Catholicism's Opening to the Left

1973 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul E. Sigmund
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Black Liberation ◽  
Mao A ◽  
The Status

Radio Havana? Quotations from Chairman Mao? A black liberation group pamphlet? Wrong. These are excerpts from Roman Catholic publications in Latin America. Still regarded by many as one of the bulwarks of the status quo, the Latin-American Church has undergone a startling transformation in the last five years which has moved its official thinking and portions of its elite leadership significantly to the left.

Not Quite the Same as It Ever Was

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
William C. Wohlforth
Keyword(s):  
Status Quo ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Peer Status ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
One Dimension ◽  
Rising Powers ◽  
Economic Output ◽  
The Status ◽  
Dominant State ◽  
Hegemonic Transition

The chapter addresses the claim that rising powers will seek to undermine the legitimacy of the current order and establish new rules using the classical Gilpinian framework as well as more recent rise-and-decline scholarship. It argues against this view and points to a more nuanced position: a harder-to-manage world has arrived, but the essential structural imperatives that have operated for twenty years are likely to remain. The chapter grounds this argument in the near certainty that all-out systemic war is off the table as a mechanism for hegemonic transition; the fact that the rising challenger to the system’s dominant state is approaching peer status on only one dimension of state capability, gross economic output; and the historically unprecedented degree of institutionalization in world politics coupled with the central role institutions play in the dominant power’s grand strategy. Each change favors the status quo states and makes revisionism harder.

scholarly journals Contributions of critical thinking as a form of participation and political deliberation

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (27) ◽  
pp. 5-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diego Felipe Arbeláez-Campillo ◽  
Vasyl Ya. Tatsiy ◽  
Magda Julissa Rojas-Bahamón ◽  
Oleg G. Danilyan
Keyword(s):  
Critical Thinking ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Philosophical Essay ◽  
The Status ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Political Deliberation ◽  
Critical Reason

Critical thinking is an attribute of consciousness that can be manifested in all human activities where it is required, as a condition of possibility, in the use of critical reason and deliberation. Consequently, it is in the domains of politics that critical thinking is used more frequently, to discuss the scope and concrete significance of the discourses and practices that, from the exercise of public powers, are deployed on intelligent citizenship and with the minimum necessary of information for peer deliberation. The objective of this article is to deconstruct the most common contributions of critical thinking as a form of participation and political deliberation. Methodologically it is a research of documentary design developed in the coordinates of the philosophical essay, next to the Latin American philosopher and the revision of the most popular political theory. Among the main findings, the idea that critical thinking is not the exclusive patrimony of certain self-defined political and ideological tendencies as progressive in the region stands out. It is concluded that, this way of thinking is uncomfortable per se for all the paradigms that serve as the basis for the status quo, in politics and society.

scholarly journals Fundraising Policy Reform and its Impact on Nonprofits in China: A View from the Trenches

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-236 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ming Hu ◽  
Chao Guo
Keyword(s):  
Nonprofit Organizations ◽  
Nonprofit Sector ◽  
Field Work ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Regulatory Environment ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Policy Reforms ◽  
Metropolitan Cities ◽  
The Status ◽  
New Policies

AbstractAfter decades of strict charitable solicitation regulation, the Chinese government has recently begun to experiment with fundraising policy reforms in some local jurisdictions. In this comparative study of two metropolitan cities, Shanghai and Guangzhou, we examine the nature, content, and scope of the reform and its impact on nonprofit organizations. Our archival analysis indicates that the new policies in both cities helped create a more supportive regulatory environment for the nonprofit sector, though they differed in the extent to which policy change departed from the status quo. Yet somewhat surprisingly, the reform elicited a lukewarm reaction from the nonprofit sector: only a very small fraction of nonprofit organizations actually fundraised under the new policies, and their performance varied remarkably. Our field work further reveals that many nonprofit leaders had reservations about the policy initiatives. Possible reasons for such reservations include fragmented policies on nonprofit registration and taxation, discretionary authorization system, and the weak fundraising capacity of nonprofits.

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