Democracy and Economic Crisis: The Latin American Experience

1990 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 315-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen L. Remmer
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Debt Crisis ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
New Democracies ◽  
Economic Decline ◽  
American Experience ◽  
Liberal Democratic

The debt crisis has raised serious concerns about the future of democratic governance in Latin America. The prevailing assumption is not merely that economic decline undercuts prospects for democratic consolidation; because of their vulnerability to popular political pressures, democracies—particularly new democracies—have been seen as incapable of mounting effective policy responses to critical economic challenges. A comparative study of policy outcomes in Latin America since the outbreak of the debt crisis challenges this assumption. If we control for the magnitude of the debt burden at the outbreak of the crisis, no statistically significant differences emerge between democratic and authoritarian regimes, or between new democracies and more established regimes. The findings suggest that the conventional wisdom about democracy and economic crisis exaggerates the relationship between political regime characteristics and policy choice, and fundamentally misconstrues the strengths and weaknesses of liberal democratic forms of governance.

Crisis and Democracy in Latin America

1991 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 608-634 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter H. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Debt Crisis ◽  
The Political ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Political Impact ◽  
The Relationship

Democratization in Latin America took place throughout the 1980s within a context of acute economic crisis, thus posing a sharp challenge to established theory. This essay examines alternative explanations-economic, political, institutional, international-for this paradoxical outcome. It is argued that the political impact of the debt crisis differs for the short, medium, and long terms. The analysis also devotes considerable attention to the concept of “democratization” and to the quality of Latin American democracies, which tend to contain pervasive authoritarian features. Careful reading of these phenomena can lay the foundation for new and enduring theoretical frameworks about the relationship between macroeco-nomic transformation and political change.

Crisis in the Eye of the Beholder

2007 ◽  
Vol 41 (9) ◽  
pp. 1179-1211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grigore Pop-Eleches
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Debt Crisis ◽  
Partisan Politics ◽  
Economic Crises ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Policy Responses ◽  
International Environment ◽  
Cross Country ◽  
International Monetary Fund Program

This article analyzes the interaction between economic crises and partisan politics during International Monetary Fund program initiation in Latin America in the 1980s and Eastern Europe in the 1990s. The author argues that economic crises are at least in part in the eye of the beholder, and therefore policy responses reflect the interaction between crisis intensity and the government's partisan interpretation of the crisis, which in turn depends on the nature of the economic crisis and its broader regional and international environment. Using cross-country statistical evidence from the two regions, the article shows that certain types of crises, such as liquidity shortfalls, elicit similar responses across the ideological spectrum and regional contexts. By contrast, debt repayment and domestic crises are more prone to divergent ideological interpretations, but the extent of partisan divergence is context sensitive in that it occurred during the Latin American debt crisis but not in the post-communist transition.

Economic Crisis, Incumbent Performance and Regime Support: A Comparison of Longitudinal Data from West Germany and Costa Rica

1989 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 329-351 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven E. Finkel ◽  
Edward N. Muller ◽  
Mitchell A. Seligson
Keyword(s):  
Costa Rica ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Decline ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Democratic Systems ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Regime Support

While much is known about the effects of the economy on the popularity and electoral fortunes of political leaders, political scientists know very little about how economic decline and political performance influence support for the political regime and the stability of democratic systems. We use three cross-national longitudinal surveys to address this issue: two collected in Costa Rica in the midst of a severe economic crisis in the late 1970s and early 1980s; and one in West Germany during the recession of the mid-1970s. We show that in both countries, overall support for the political regime remained extremely high during the economic decline, while satisfaction with incumbent performance fluctuated much more sharply. Moreover, at the individual level, changes in satisfaction with incumbent performance were only weakly related to changes in regime support. These results provide strong evidence suggesting that if democracies enter economic downturns with initially high levels of regime support, they will be able to withstand even severe, prolonged crises of economic performance.

Presidential Term Limits in Latin America: c.1820–1985

2019 ◽  
pp. 103-122
Author(s):  
Leiv Marsteintredet
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Term Limits ◽  
Third Wave ◽  
American Experience ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of ◽  
Democratic Rule

Latin America holds a 200-year-long history of presidential constitutions. The region’s constitutional and democratic experimentation throughout history makes it an interesting laboratory to study the origins, development, and effects of presidential term limits. Based primarily on data from constitutions, this chapter provides an overview of presidential term limits in Latin America from independence until 1985. The chapter shows how term limits have varied across countries and time, and that the implementation of strict term limits often came as a reaction to prior dictatorial rules. Whereas both proponents and critics of consecutive reelection invoked arguments of democracy in their favour, the Latin American experience up until the Third Wave of Democracy shows that stable, republican, and democratic rule has only been possible under a ban on immediate presidential re-election.

The Latin American Left's Mandate: Free-Market Policies and Issue Voting in New Democracies

2011 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andy Baker ◽  
Kenneth F. Greene
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Free Market ◽  
New Left ◽  
New Democracies ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
Sectional Analysis

The rise of the left across Latin America is one of the most striking electoral events to occur in new democracies during the last decade. Current work argues either that the left's electoral success stems from a thoroughgoing rejection of free-market policies by voters or that electorates have sought to punish poorly performing right-wing incumbents. Whether the new left has a policy or performance mandate has implications for the type of policies it may pursue in power and the voting behavior of Latin American electorates. Using a new measure of voter ideology called vote-revealed leftism (VRL) and a time-series cross-sectional analysis of aggregate public opinion indicators generated from mass surveys of eighteen countries over thirteen years, the authors show that the left has a clear economic policy mandate but that this mandate is much more moderate than many observers might expect. In contrast to the generalized view that new democracies are of low quality, the authors reach the more optimistic conclusion that wellreasoned voting on economic policy issues and electoral mandates are now relevant features of politics in Latin America.

Military Governments and the Transition to Civilian Rule: The Colombian Experience of 1957-1958

1984 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Hartlyn
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
Latin American Politics ◽  
Military Regimes ◽  
Civilian Regimes ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Coups D'etat ◽  
Shed Light

In the 1960s and 1970s, scholars interested in studying Latin American politics inevitably were drawn to the study of military coups d'etat and their causes. In the 1980s, a number of the countries in Latin America whose civilian political regimes were overthrown by military regimes may undergo or attempt to consolidate processes of democratization or redemocratization. Thus scholarly interest has tended to shift away from seeking to understand the causes for military overthrows of civilian regimes toward the study of prospects and processes of democratization or redemocratization in Latin America. In this context, the reexamination of earlier examples of durable transitions from authoritarian military regimes to civilian regimes may shed light on the relative importance of different factors in determining particular outcomes. This article carries out such a re-examination for the case of Colombia, analyzing the transition from rule by General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla (1953-1957) through the crucial period of the interim military junta (1957-1958) to the consociational National Front political regime.

The gay rights backlash: Contrasting views from the United States and Latin America

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 654-665 ◽  
Author(s):  
Omar G Encarnación
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Gay Rights ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Experience ◽  
Gay Rights Movement ◽  
The Way

This essay examines the conditions that enable a ‘gay rights backlash’ through a comparison of the United States and Latin America. The United States, the cradle of the contemporary gay rights movement, is the paradigmatic example of a gay rights backlash. By contrast, Latin America, the most Catholic of regions, introduced gay rights at a faster pace than the United States without much in the way of a backlash. Collectively, this analysis demonstrates that a gay rights backlash hinges upon organisationally-rich ‘backlashers’ and an environment that is receptive to homophobic messages, a point underscored by the American experience. But the Latin American experience shows that the counter-framing to the backlash can minimise and even blunt the effects of the backlash.

The Chilean Socialist Party: Prolegomena to its Ideology and Organization

1978 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benny Pollack
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Latin American Country ◽  
Common Knowledge ◽  
Socialist Party ◽  
Military Coup ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
The Military ◽  
National Electorate

It is common knowledge that, prior to the military coup of 1973, Chile was the only Latin American country to have strong workers' political parties of the European type. Many reasons have been given for this phenomenon, but it is clear that Chile has been the only country in Latin-America to allow the development of Marxist parties with strong appeal and a strong following, within the framework of what could be called liberal, democratic processes. Up to 1970, the electoral force of the Socialist and Communist Parties in Chile oscillated between 20 and 30 per cent of the total national electorate. This rose to more than 40 per cent during 1975.

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