Suchergebnisse

During the third wave of democratization, all Latin American countries except Cuba have had competitive political regimes, but the quality or level of democracy has varied significantly across countries and over time. One of the best predictors of this variance across countries and time is each country's experience with competitive politics before 1978. Even controlling for a wide range of other explanations, countries with more democratic heritages before 1978 have higher levels of democracy in the contemporary period. This finding, in turn, raises another question: what accounts for the effects of past levels of democracy on the post-1978 period? A hybrid fixed-effects model shows that democratic trajectories are institutionalized through political parties and judicial institutions. Countries that had institutionalized parties under democracy and supreme court justices who served under democracy in the pre-1978 period have been more able to build high-level democracy in the contemporary period. Adapted from the source document.

In many Latin American countries the executive branch manipulates the composition of the Supreme Court, and judicial independence has remained elusive. Because high courts can exercise judicial review and influence lower courts, incoming presidents often force the resignation of adversarial justices or "pack" the courts with friends. One indicator of this problem has been the high turnover among members of the high courts. In this paper we offer systematic evidence to compare this problem across countries and to place this issue in historical perspective. Our analysis covers 11 Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, and Uruguay) between 1904 and 2006. We model the entrance of new justices to the Supreme Court as a function of "natural" (legal and biological) factors, political conditions empowering the president to reshuffle the Court, and institutional incentives promoting executive encroachment on the judiciary. Adapted from the source document.

In this article, the relationship between modernization and democracy in Latin America from 1945 to 1996 is analyzed on the basis of quantitative data. Three arguments are made. First, it is shown that the level of development had a modest impact on the likelihood of democracy in Latin America from 1945 to 1996. Democracy in Latin America has survived in the face of a low level of development, and it has faltered despite moderately high per capita income. Second, it is shown that per capita income is a markedly worse predictor of democracy in Latin America than in other countries with the same income range or in the world as a whole. A distinctive, nonlinear, functional shape is identified for this relationship in Latin America. Third, some potential explanations for this Latin American exceptionalism are addressed. No existing structural explanation suffices, however; this issue merits further exploration in future research.

Using survey data from Bolivian trial courts, we explore the relationship between judicial decisions, career goals, & hierarchical pressures in continental legal systems. Based on a principal-agent approach, we hypothesize that inferior court judges are more likely to defer to superior courts when they share their interpretation of the law, when they anticipate reversals, & when they fear political manipulation of judicial careers. In turn, superior judges are likely to exercise informal pressures over inferior court judges who deviate from the former's legal views & do not anticipate their preferences. The conclusions emphasize the utility of survey research for the study of strategic compliance in judicial institutions. Tables, Figures, References. Adapted from the source document.

This paper characterizes the evolution of Paraguay's policymaking process (PMP) between 1954 & 2003. We present an overview of the PMP under the rule of Alfredo Stroessner (1954-89) & explore the institutional setting emerging after 1989. We discuss how the Colorado Party progressively broke up into several factions & characterize the distinctive patterns of policymaking that emerged after the adoption of the 1992 Constitution. We hypothesize that the presence of a large number of veto players has made policy change more difficult & that legislators are inclined to pursue particularistic policies. In order to test those hypotheses we rely on a database containing virtually every bill introduced in Congress since April of 1992. Our conclusions suggest that the current Paraguayan PMP may be flexible for the provision of particularistic benefits, but rigid for the approval of broad regulatory or redistributive policies. 7 Tables, 4 Figures, 45 References. Adapted from the source document.

This article is about how political regimes should generally be classified, & how Latin American regimes should be classified for the 1945-1999 period. We make five general claims about regime classification: (1) regime classification should rest on sound concepts & definitions, (2) it should be based on explicit & sensible coding & aggregation rules, (3) it necessarily involves some subjective judgments, (4) the debate about dichotomous vs continuous measures of democracy creates a false dilemma, & (5) dichotomous measures of democracy fail to capture intermediate regime types, obscuring variation that is essential for studying political regimes. This general discussion provides the grounding for our trichotomous ordinal scale, which codes regimes as democratic, semidemocratic, or authoritarian in 19 Latin American countries. Our trichotomous classification achieves greater differentiation than dichotomous classifications & yet avoids the need for massive information that a very finegrained measure would require. 2 Tables, 1 Figure, 47 References. Adapted from the source document.

This paper analyzes constitutional design as it pertains to the powers, composition, selection procedures, and duration of the mandate of supreme courts and constitutional tribunals in 17 Latin American countries between 1900 and 2009. The analysis is based on an original database that contains the text of all constitutional articles in the central organs of the judiciary. The paper relies on this information to demonstrate to what degree the job stability of magistrates can be explained in terms of the institutional conditions that regulate the judicial system. Our analysis emphasizes that the survival of magistrates is determined by the stability of the constitutional framework, rather than any specific legal content. Adapted from the source document.

This paper analyzes the conditions under which presidents dominate the legislative agenda. To address this issue we analyze the governmental period of 30 Latin American Presidents, developing a qualitative comparative analysis (QCA). The analysis highlights that the combination of a favorable institutional design and a division of Congress in different ideological blocs favors the Executive branch. Two other conditions, reliance on a parliamentary majority and the absence of party fragmentation, are combined with the above elements to ensure the predominance of the Executive. The findings of this comparative study are confirmed by a supplementary statistical analysis. Adapted from the source document.

The chapter engages a discussion about the current democracy assistance of the United States since 1990s. USAID (United States Agency for International Development) dispenses funds to boost the economic growth of the countries in need of aid, thus the authors enabled the research and showed the results in four tables included properly in the current article. The following tables are provided: USAID democracy assistance vis-a-vis other types of assistance, 1990-2005 (review of human rights, health, environment, education, etc.); distribution of U.S. democracy assistance by region, 1990-2005 (e.g. Latin America, Africa, Asia, Oceania, North America, etc.); annual distribution of U.S. democracy assistance by region, 1990-2005 (e.g. Africa, Asia, Eurasia, Europe, Cross-regional, etc.); and distribution of U.S. democracy assistance by sector, 1990-2005 (elections, rule of law, governance, and civil society). L. Babiasz