Gendered Incentives, Party Support, and Viable Female Presidential Candidates in Latin America

2021 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 331-355
Author(s):  
Catherine Reyes-Housholder ◽  
Gwynn Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Chief Executive ◽  
Presidential Candidates ◽  
Electoral Campaigns ◽  
Female Candidates ◽  
Signal Change ◽  
Negative Case ◽  
Party Support ◽  
New Framework

Women hold less than 10 percent of chief executive positions worldwide. Understanding how women democratically access these posts requires theorizing how they gain resources from established parties to mount viable electoral campaigns. We argue that in stable regimes marked by representational malaise parties respond to gendered incentives and nominate female candidates. Drawing on Latin American cases, we show how diverse parties nominated women in order to signal change or novelty, to credibly commit to "feminine" leadership and issues, and to mobilize female voters. A negative case depicts how a lack of representational critiques can fail to incentivize parties to back women instead of men. Our focus on gendered incentives provides a new framework that places political parties at the center of questions about women's electoral opportunities.

Political Parties, Candidate Selection, and Quality of Government

2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 783-810 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fernando M. Aragón
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Candidate Selection ◽  
Presidential Candidates ◽  
Electoral Incentives ◽  
Latin American Countries ◽  
Robust Evidence ◽  
Shed Light

Abstract This article explores empirically the relation between political parties’ institutions and quality of government. I focus on procedures used to nominate presidential candidates given the importance of candidate selection in party politics. Using a panel dataset of Latin American countries, I find robust evidence of a positive relation between the use of democratic procedures, such as primaries, and quality of government. To shed light on the mechanism, I examine why parties use primaries. I find evidence suggestive that the results are mostly driven by the increase in political competition and candidates’ pre-electoral incentives.

scholarly journals Populism, Religion, and Social Media in Central America

2021 ◽  
pp. 194016122110328
Author(s):  
Ignacio Siles ◽  
Erica Guevara ◽  
Larissa Tristán-Jiménez ◽  
Carolina Carazo
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Religious Discourse ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Presidential Candidates ◽  
Electoral Campaigns ◽  
Multimodal Discourse ◽  
The People ◽  
The Relationship

This paper analyzes how presidential candidates Fabricio Alvarado and Nayib Bukele used Facebook during the elections in Costa Rica (2018) and El Salvador (2019) respectively to develop a particular style of communication that blended populist elements and religious discourse. This style of communication extended traditional modes of populism that have prevailed in Latin America since the turn of the century (emphasizing the notion of the hero who comes to rescue “the people”) but expressed them in an explicitly religious way (stressing the role of a “messiah” who comes to alter the established political order). We conducted both content and multimodal discourse analyses of 838 posts made by these candidates on Facebook during their respective electoral campaigns. We argue that the study of these campaigns would be incomplete without accounting for the relationship between populism, religion, and social media. While populism gave political validity to religious discourse, a religious imaginary provided populism with charismatic and messianic authority. This populist/religious reason found an ideal expression in Facebook and, simultaneously, was resignified by this platform's affordances. In this way, we assess how fundamentalist Christianity has become a legitimating force of knowledge and politics in the context of epistemic tensions that shape contemporary Latin-American societies.

scholarly journals Why Pre-Electoral Coalitions in Presidential Systems?

2015 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 391-411 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marisa Kellam
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Presidential Candidates ◽  
Electoral Coalitions ◽  
Secure Access ◽  
Policy Goals ◽  
Presidential Systems ◽  
Government Benefits

Why do political parties join coalitions to support other parties’ presidential candidates if presidents, once elected, are not bound to their pre-electoral pledges? This article argues that policy agreements made publicly between coalition partners during the campaign help parties pursue policy goals. However, parties cannot use pre-electoral coalitions to secure access to patronage, pork and government benefits under the control of presidents because they cannot hold presidents accountable to these agreements. Quantitative analysis of Latin American electoral coalitions demonstrates that political parties are more likely to form presidential electoral coalitions as the ideological distance between them decreases. Yet presidential electoral coalitions tend not to include non-programmatic political parties, even though such office-oriented parties are unconstrained by ideological considerations.

Spitzenkandidaten beyond Westminster: Comparing Chancellor Candidates in Germany and Austria

2019 ◽  
Vol 73 (4) ◽  
pp. 808-830
Author(s):  
Ludger Helms
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
The Political ◽  
Strategic Choices ◽  
Opportunity Structures ◽  
Empirical Assessment ◽  
Electoral Campaigns ◽  
Female Candidates ◽  
Post War

Abstract Top candidates of political parties are increasingly identified as a preeminent factor in electoral campaigns and with regard to winning governmental office; yet they have always been important to a deeper understanding of party competition. This article looks into German and Austrian post-war chancellor candidates, that is, the parties’ lead candidates reaching out for the top job in the executive branch. The more particular focus is on the political profiles and track records of non-incumbent candidates challenging a sitting chancellor. The study proceeds from a brief discussion of German and Austrian ‘peculiarities’, judged against the established parameters of Westminster-style politics, to a comparative empirical assessment. Of the four hypotheses developed (relating to constitutional features, parties and party families, opportunity structures for female candidates and ‘personalisation’), only one is supported by our empirical findings. However, the notable problems of relating empirical patterns to theoretical propositions may not all be caused by political contingency. To some extent, it seems, they rather reflect the strategic choices of challenging parties specifically designed to generate the impression of ‘freshness’, and to take incumbents by surprise.

Electoral Rules and Democracy in Latin America

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cynthia McClintock
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Latin American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Primary Concern ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
New Parties ◽  
Political Exclusion ◽  
Number Of Parties ◽  
Freedom House

During Latin America’s third democratic wave, a majority of countries adopted a runoff rule for the election of the president. This book is the first rigorous assessment of the implications of runoff versus plurality for democracy in the region. Despite previous scholarly skepticism about runoff, it has been positive for Latin America, and could be for the United States also. Primarily through qualitative analysis for each Latin American country, I explore why runoff is superior to plurality. Runoff opens the political arena to new parties but at the same time ensures that the president does not suffer a legitimacy deficit and is not at an ideological extreme. By contrast, in a region in which undemocratic political parties are common, the continuation of these parties is abetted by plurality; political exclusion provoked disillusionment and facilitated the emergence of presidents at ideological extremes. In regression analysis, runoff was statistically significant to superior levels of democracy. Between 1990 and 2016, Freedom House and Varieties of Democracy scores plummeted in countries with plurality but improved in countries with runoff. Plurality advocates’ primary concern is the larger number of political parties under runoff. Although a larger number of parties was not significant to inferior levels of democracy, a plethora of parties is problematic, leading to a paucity of legislative majorities and inchoate parties. To ameliorate the problem, I recommend not reductions in the 50% threshold but the scheduling of the legislative election after the first round or thresholds for entry into the legislature.

Divergent Paths of Inequality in Turkey and Spain

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ekrem Karakoç
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Household Income ◽  
Party System ◽  
Social Programs ◽  
Social Policies ◽  
Unemployment Benefits ◽  
Social Security Systems ◽  
Security Systems ◽  
Electoral Campaigns ◽  
Key Sectors

Using most similar design and process-tracing methodology, this chapter investigates the divergent outcomes in income inequality in Turkey and Spain. Even though social-security systems in both countries have been hierarchical, benefiting civil servants, the security apparatus, and workers in key sectors and others in formal sectors at the expense of the rest, they have adopted different social policies over time. This chapter discusses how Turkish governments, with a focus on 1983 to the present time, have designed contributory and noncontributory pensions, healthcare, and other social programs that have affected household income differently. In democratic Spain, however, pension-related policies and unemployment benefits have been dominant forms of social policy, but the Spanish party system has not created major incentives for political parties to utilize these policies in electoral campaigns until recently. This chapter ends with a discussion of how social policies in Turkey and Spain have affected inequality since the two nations transitioned to democracy.

scholarly journals Simultaneous Elections and the Rise of Female Representation in Indonesia

2021 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-72
Author(s):  
Luky Sandra Amalia ◽  
Aisah Putri Budiatri ◽  
Mouliza KD. Sweinstani ◽  
Atika Nur Kusumaningtyas ◽  
Esty Ekawati
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Elections ◽  
Institutional Innovation ◽  
Presidential Candidate ◽  
Female Representation ◽  
Legislative Elections ◽  
Women Candidates ◽  
Presidential Candidates ◽  
Female Candidates ◽  
Election Results ◽  
Legislative Election

In the 2019 election, the proportion of women elected to Indonesia’s People’s Representative Assembly ( Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat, DPR) increased significantly to almost 21 per cent. In this article, we ask whether an institutional innovation – the introduction of simultaneous presidential and legislative elections – contributed to this change. We examine the election results, demonstrating that, overall, women candidates did particularly well in provinces where the presidential candidate nominated by their party won a majority of the vote. Having established quantitatively a connection between results of the presidential elections and outcomes for women legislative candidates, we turn to our qualitative findings to seek a mechanism explaining this outcome. We argue that the simultaneous elections helped women candidates by easing their access to voters who supported one of the presidential candidates, but who were undecided on the legislative election. Rather than imposing additional burdens on female candidates, simultaneous elections assisted them.

scholarly journals Campaigning across continents: how Latin American parties link up with migrant associations abroad

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas Fliess
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Research Design ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Interest Group ◽  
Comparative Research ◽  
Home Country ◽  
Voting Rights ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Party Activists ◽  
Migrant Associations

AbstractEmigrant voting rights have opened new electoral arenas, and many political parties increasingly campaign across borders. Yet relatively little is known about the challenges parties confront when campaigning transnationally and the strategies they have developed in response to these challenges. This paper addresses these shortcomings. First, I investigate the hurdles Latin American parties face in linking up with organized migrant collectives in residency countries for campaigning purposes. Second, I probe into the transnational linkage strategies these parties deploy to tap into migrant associations’ resources and mobilization capacities. This study builds on a comparative research design and draws on almost 40 semi-structured interviews with Bolivian and Ecuadorian party activists as well as association leaders in Barcelona, Spain. Departing from the party interest group literature, I identify three transnational linkage strategies Bolivian and Ecuadorian parties implement: 1) Infiltration, 2) Co-optation, and 3) Cooperation. All parties execute these tactics informally in order to comply with local norms that require associations to remain apolitical. The analysis further demonstrates that differences between home-country electoral systems shape the types of linkage strategies Bolivian and Ecuadorian parties use. This article contributes to the study of migrant politics and political parties in important ways. This study highlights how political parties actively negotiate their entry into the transnational electoral arena, and sheds light on how migrants remain politically connected to their home countries.

Colombian Parties and Political Development

1976 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
John A. Peeler
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Political System ◽  
Traditional Authority ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Authority Relationships ◽  
Latin American Countries

Colombia remains one of a very small group of countries in Latin America which retain competitive, liberal-democratic political institutions at this writing. Indeed, Colombia's civil government, recognizing a modicum of individual liberties and conducting periodic elections, has been shattered on relatively few occasions since the mid-nineteenth century, a record equalled or surpassed by few other Latin American countries. The Colombian political system is still dominated by the two traditional political parties (Liberal and Conservative) which arose in Colombia and elsewhere in the region in the nineteenth century. In almost every other country they have long since passed into oblivion or insignificance. This continued dominance by the traditional parties is commonly attributed to their successful mobilization of mass support, especially among the peasantry. The Colombian parties (unlike their counterparts elsewhere) early moved beyond being mere elite factions by using traditional authority relationships, clientelistic exchanges and ideological appeals to develop durable bases of mass support.

USING SOCIAL MEDIA DATA FOR PROBABLE CALCULATIONS USING SCENARIOUS MODELING METHODS: RESULTS OF ELECTORAL CAMPAIGNS

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-37
Author(s):  
A. A. Azarov ◽  
◽  
A. V. Suvorova ◽  
E. V. Brodovskaya ◽  
O. V. Vasileva ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Random Variable ◽  
Social Media Data ◽  
Scenario Modeling ◽  
Electoral Campaigns ◽  
Modeling Methods ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Political Communities ◽  
Media Data

The article presents the application of scenario modeling methods to assess the potential for scaling electoral support for political parties through digital communications (communities in social networks) based on data obtained from social networks. An analysis of communities in several social networks was carried out, various indicators were downloaded, reflecting the activity of both communities and users of such communities. Based on these data, various aggregates were calculated. Then a software package was developed that implements scenario modeling based on various identified indicators. The scenarios provide for the development of groups in social networks, depending on the activity of these groups. In this case, the activity is given by a random variable with a normal distribution. To test the developed algorithms, indicators of political communities in social networks were used.

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