Democracy,economic crisis and the problem of governance: The case of Bolivia

This article examines the political context within which the Bolivian government of Víctor Paz Estenssoro (1985–1989) launched, implemented, and sustained a draconian neoliberal economic stabilization program. The article argues that the key to the successful economic program was the political skill and leadership of President Paz, in particular, his ability to negotiate a political pact with the main opposition party. Finally, the article ponders the tensions and contradictions between neoliberal economic policies and the process of consolidating democracy in a context of extreme economic crisis. James M. Malloy is professor of political science and research professor, University Center for International Studies, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260. He is the author of a number of books and articles on Latin America politics, includingAuthoritarians and Democrats: Regime Transition in Latin America (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1987). He is presently working on issues of regime transition, economic adjustment, and the role of private sector interest groups in Latin America.     

Democracy and Development in a Globalized World: Thinking About Latin America from Within

The choice among paths that countries should follow has been a staple of political debates in Latin America and, over the past 40 years, Fernando Cardoso has brought his analysis to bear on these debates. This article summarizes and then assesses Cardoso’s argument about the choice of paths faced by Latin American countries, the consequences for democracy and development of following different paths, and the political position that is supported by this analysis of choices and their consequences. Though Cardoso explicitly supports the path of globalized social democracy over an anti-globalization option in the current period, I suggest that the current state of knowledge does not offer unequivocal support for the argument that choosing to follow the path of globalized social democracy—or that of anti-globalization—is the best political option for all countries in Latin America. Different countries might very well be doing what is best for them, given their circumstances, by following different paths.     

Path-Dependent Explanations of Regime Change: Central America in Comparative Perspective

This article explores the application of ideas about path dependence to the study of national political regime change. It first reviews the central components of pathdependent explanation, including the concepts of critical juncture and legacy. This mode of explanation is then employed in the analysis of diverging regime trajectories in Central America during the 19th and 20th centuries. The article argues that the 19th-century liberal reform period was a critical juncture that locked the Central American countries onto divergent paths of long-term development, culminanting in sharply contrasting regime outcomes. A final section puts the argument about Central America in a broader comparative perspective by considering other pathdependent explanations of regime change. James Mahoney is assistant professor of sociology at Brown University. He is the author ofThe Legacies of Liberalism: Path Dependence and Political Regimes in Central America (2001). His current research focuses on long-run development and the legacy of Spanish colonialism in Latin America. For helpful comments and criticisms on an earlier draft, I would like to thank David Collier, Gerardo L. Munck, and the anonymous referees.     

Patterns of political instability: Affiliation patterns of politicians and voters in post-communist Estonia,Latvia, and Lithuania

In contrast to established party systems, the transformation of post-communist party systems is not only shaped by shifts in electoral preferences, but also by the changing organizational loyalties of politicians. Post-communist politicians pursue a wide range of organizational strategies such as party fusions, fissions, start-ups, and interparty switching. By focusing on the interaction between these organizational strategies and voters’ electoral preferences, we argue that the seeming instability of post-communist party systems actually reveals distinct patterns of political change. The article develops an analytical framework, which incorporates politician-driven interparty mobility and voter-induced electoral change. It uses this framework to show that the apparently inchoate party systems of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania actually follow definable modes of transformation. Marcus Kreuzer is assistant professor of political science at Villanova University. His work focuses on how electoral and legislative institutions shape the organizational and electioneering practices of parties in interwar Europe and post-communist democracies. He also is studying the origins of liberal democracy in nineteenth century Europe. He is author ofInstitutions and Innovation—Voters, Politicians and Interest Groups in the Consolidation of Democracy: France and Germany, 1870–1939 (2001). Vello Pettai is lecturer in political science at the University of Tartu, Estonia. He specializes in comparative ethnopolitics and party politics. He has published previously inNations and Nationalism, Post-Soviet Affairs, East European Politics and Society, andJournal of Democracy. We would like to thank for Artis Pabriks and Darius Zeruolis for sharing their knowledge of Latvian and Lithuanian party politics as well as John T. Ishiyama, Scott Desposato, and two anonymous SCID reviewers for commenting on an earlier draft. Funding for this research came from an Estonian Science Foundation grant, nr. 4904. We gratefully acknowledge their support.     

The Emperor’s new clothes: Labor reform and social democratization in Chile

This article analyzes the relationship between political and social democratization in recent democratic transitions by illustrating how the two processes were at odds in the case of labor reform in Chile (1990–2001). Labor reform served simultaneously to consolidate political democracy and slow down the momentum of social democratization. It was a tool for signalling policy change to legitimate the democratic regime, but at the same time leaving the liberal economy intact. The Chilean case calls into question the thesis of a natural progression from political to social rights prevalent in democratic theory, and allows us to generalize about the way marketization places limits on democratic deepening. The article first discusses what would be appropriate criteria of social democratization considering contemporary labor issues and labor relations in Chile. It then investigates the political process of labor reform. Ongoing legal debates through the 1990s show the extent of path dependence set in motion by the timid nature of the first social reforms in Chile’s new demoncracy and their muting effect on citizenship. Louise Haagh obtained her doctorate from the University of Oxford (St. Antony’s College) in 1998, and for the next three years held a British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the College. In 2001 she began a lectureship at the University of York.     

Investment penetration,agrarian change,and political conflict in developing countries

This research employs a cross-national design to explore the association between direct foreign investment in agriculture, changes in the agricultural labor force, and political conflict and violence in developing countries. The results reveal different patterns of relationships for Latin American, African, and Asian societies. In Africa, foreign agricultural investments are related to higher employment in the agricultural sector, which in turn is associated with lower levels of political protest. In Latin America, Foreign agricultural investments were directly related to more protest, suggesting a xenophobic nationalist reaction to foreign penetration in this sector. There were no apparent relationships between these variables among Asian states. These results challenge the often-found contention that economic disturbances in the agricultural sector are a fundamental cause of violent uprisings and rebellions. John M. Rothgeb, Jr. is a professor in the Department of Political Science at Miami Univeristy in Oxford, Ohio 45056. He is the author ofDefining Power: Influence and Force in the Contemporary International System (St. Martin’s Press, 1993),Myths and Realities of Foreign Investiment in Poor Countries (Praeger Publishers, 1989) and numerous articles in professional journals. His current research interests include the study of the international and domestic implications of interdependence and the analysis of how economic resources may be used to exercise power in international relations.     

Trade and development policies in Colombia: Export promotion and outward orientation, 1967–1992

As developing democracies implement programs of economic adjustment and trade liberalization, we need to examine the relationship between the state and society in the making of foreign economic policies. This article examines trade and development policies in Colombia, one of Latin America's more institutionalized democracies. Colombia was one of the first countries in Latin America to begin a major reorientation away from full dependence on ISI as a strategy of development. The research shows that domestic political institutions and actors have had a decisive impact on the character and direction of foreign economic policies. The study also illustrates how state capacity for economic management is enhanced by bureaucratic insulation and institutional reform. Carlos E. Juárez is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research focuses on the politics of trade liberalization in Latin America, government-business relations in developing democracies, and comparative political economy. He was a visiting researcher and lecturer at theUniversidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia from 1991–1992. For 1993–1994 he will be a visiting research fellow with the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at the University of California, San Diego.     

Monetary mismanagement and inadvertent democratization in technocratic Mexico

Conclusion The interplay between political and economic reform in Mexico has atken a path not fully predicted by neomodernization theorists or their critics. The Mexican events during these last few years demostrate that economic growth and market reform are not necessarily correlated neatly with the advance of democratic practices, During the Salinas and Zadillo administartions, political opening was not the “ultimate consequence of economic opening” as two analysts of Mexican economics and politics argued several years ago.⁵⁶ It was not the case that an expansion of individual initiative and greater economic choice accompanying market opening led to the accelaration of democratic reforms in Mexico. Rather, limited democratic reforms were offered as the price of public asquiescence to the economic pain associated with Mexico’s recent cycle of economic crisis and reform. The gradual expansion of democracy in Mexico was not the consequence of market reforms but instead was the mechanism enabled the implementation of these reforms. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at Southern Methodist University conference on the Economic and Political Challenges of Market Reform in Latin America, Dallas, TX, October 1997 and the XXI International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, Chicago, IL, 24–26 September 1998. The author would like to thank the participants of the SMU conference and Philip Oxhom for their comments.     

Exchange Rate Regime,Central Bank Independence,and Political Business Cycles in Brazil

This article examines policy consequences of electoral cycles and exchange rate regime choices in Brazil. The literature on opportunistic political business cycles maintains that governments adopt expansionary economic policies before elections to mobilize voters’ support. However, research findings in Latin America based on the theory has been inconclusive. I argue that the lack of conclusive evidence in Latin America stems from measurement errors common in the use of cross-national aggregate data. Using Brazil’s monthly data from 1985 to 2006, this article shows that there are electorally induced fiscal cycles under fixed and crawling peg exchange rate regimes and electorally induced monetary cycles under floating exchange rates only when the nation’s central bank is not independent. Indeed, accounting for Brazil’s unique economic contingencies and longitudinal variations in the de facto central bank independence, its public policy behavior remarkably resembles that of the more affluent, economically stable OECD countries.

A deficit of democratic authenticity: Political linkage and the public in Andean polities

The article argues that Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela are political systems suffering from an acute deficit of democratic authenticity, that is, a loss of substance in democratic processes. The deficit in democratic authenticity is a product of malfunctions in the mechanisms of political linkage and multiple barriers that inhibit effective citizen participation in public life. Rather than acceding to minimalist interpretations of democracy that deemphasize the importance, of active citizen participation, the author stresses the importance of maintaining a rigorous normative definition of democracy as the standard by which to assess the state of democractic political development. Catherine M. Conaghan is a Queen’s National Scholar and professor of political studies at Queen’s University. She is the author ofRestructuring Domination: Industrialists and the State in Ecuador (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1988) and co-author ofUnsettling Scatecraft: Democracy and Neoliberalism in the Central Andes (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994).     

Patents and pills,power and procedure: The North-South politics of public health in the WTO

Developing countries have limited control over the distributional and substantive dimensions of international institutions, but they retain an important stake in a rule-based international order that can reduce uncertainty and stabilize expectations. Because international institutions can provide small states with a potential mechanism to bind more powerful states to mutually recognized rules, developing countries may seek to strengthen the procedural dimensions of multilateral institutions. Clear and strong multilateral rules cannot substitute for weakness, but they can help ameliorate some of the vulnerability that is a product of developing countries’ position in the international system. This article uses the contemporary international politics of intellectual property rights (IPRs) as a lens to examine North-South conflicts over international economic governance and the possibilities of institutional reform. Lacking the power to revise the substance of the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), developing countries, allied with a network of international public health activists, subsequently designed strategies to operate within the constraining international political reality they faced. They sought to clarify the rules of international patent law, to affirm the rights established during the TRIPS negotiations, and to minimize vulnerability to opportunism by powerful states. In doing so the developing countries reinforced global governance in IPRs. Ken Shadlen is lecturer in development studies at the London School of Economics. He is the author ofDemocratization without Representation: The Politics of Small Industry in Mexico (Penn State University Press, 2004). His work on the politics of intellectual property has appeared inWorld Economy, and is forthcoming inInternational Studies Quarterly, Journal of International Development, andReview of International Political Economy. In preparing this paper I have benefited from discussions of the material with a number of people, including Tom Callaghy, Meghnad Desai, Tim Dyson, Christopher Garrison, Marcus Kurtz, Susan Martin, Christopher May, Monique Mrazek, Andrew Schrank, and Robert Wade. I also wish to thank the journal’s reviewers for their helpful and constructive comments. Financial support was provided by STICERD, LSE.     

Institutions and growth in East Asia

Institutions have played a central role in political economy explanations of East Asia’s growth, from the developmental state to the micro-institutions of industrial policy. A review of these institutional explanations finds that few if any of the postulated institutional explanations involve either necessary or sufficient conditions for rapid growth. This finding suggests two conclusions. First, there are multiple institutional means for solving the various collective action, credibility, and informational problems that constitute barriers to growth. The search for a single institutional “taproot” of growth is likely to be a misguided exercise, and more attention should be given to understanding the varieties of capitalism in East Asia. Second, institutions are themselves endogenous to other political factors that appear more consequential for growth, including particularly the nature of the relationship between the state and the private sector. Stephan Haggard is the Lawrence and Sallye Krause Professor at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California, San Diego. He is the author ofPathways from the Periphery: The Political Economy of Growth in the Newly Industrializing Countries (1990) andThe Political Economy of the Asian Financial Crisis (2000). He is the co-author (with Robert Kaufman) ofThe Political Economy of Democratic Transitions (1995) and (with David McKendrick and Richard Doner)From Silicon Valley to Singapore: Location and Competitive Advantage in the Hard Disk Drive Industry (2000). Also with Robert Kaufman, he is co-editor ofThe Politics of Economic Adjustment (1992). He is currently working with Robert Kaufman on a project on changing social contracts in East Asia, Latin America, and Central Europe. I am indebted to Tun-Jen Cheng, Rick Doner, Cheng-Tian Kuo, Greg Noble, and Andrew MacIntyre, not only for comments but for extended discussion of these issues over the years.     

Why do presidents fail? Political leadership and the Argentine crisis (1999–2001)

This article explores why Argentine president Fernando de la Rúa (1999–2001) failed to govern and the factors that prevented him from compelting his constitutional mandate. This study draw on current literature about leadership. We argue that President De la Rúa’s ineffective performance was characteristic of an inflexible tendency towards unilateralism, isolationism, and an inability to compromise and persuade. Moreover, we examine how de la Rúas performance, in the context of severe political and economic constraints, discouraged cooperative practices among political actors, led to decision-making paralysis, and ultimately to a crisis of governance This work seeks to make four contributions. First, it conceptualizes political leadership by providing an analytical framework that integrates individual action, institutional resources and constraints, and policy context, thus filling a gap in the literature. Second, it explains the importance of effective leadership in building up and maintaining multiparty coalitions in presidential systems. Third, it complements existing institutional approaches to improve our understanding of a new type of instability in Latin America: the failure of more than a dozen of presidents to complete their constitutional mandates. Fourth, it analyzes the way political and economic variables interact in times of crisis. Mariana Llanos is a researcher at the Institut für Iberoamerika-Kunde (IIK) in Hamburg, Germany, and teaches Latin American politics at the University of Hamburg. Her research focuses on Latin American political institutions particularly to the president-congress relations and the legislatures of the Southern Cone. She is the author ofPrivatization and Democracy in Argentina (Palgrave, 2002), co-author ofBicameralismo, Senados y senadores en el Cono Sur latinoamericano (ICPS, Barcelona, 2005, together with Francisco Sánchez and Detlef Nolte) and co-editor ofControle Parlamentar na Alemanha, na Argentina e no Brasil (KAS, Rio de Janeiro, 2005, with Ana María Mustapic), among other works. Ana Margheritis is assistant professor of international relations and Latin American politics at University of Florida. Her research interests are in international political economy, foreign policy, regional cooperation, and inter-American relations. She is the editor ofLatin American Democracies in the New Global Economy (2003); author ofAjuste y Reforma en Argentina, 1989–1995 (1999); and co-author ofHistoria de las relaciones exteriores de la República Argentina (with Carlos Escudé et al., 1998) andMalvinas: Los motivos económicos de un conflicto (with Laura Tedesco, 1991), as well as of several articles in academic journals and book chapters. The authors are grateful to Vicente Palermo and three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.     

Neoliberalism: From New Liberal Philosophy to Anti-Liberal Slogan

In recent years, neoliberalism has become an academic catchphrase. Yet, in contrast to other prominent social science concepts such as democracy, the meaning and proper usage of neoliberalism curiously have elicited little scholarly debate. Based on a content analysis of 148 journal articles published from 1990 to 2004, we document three potentially problematic aspects of neoliberalism’s use: the term is often undefined; it is employed unevenly across ideological divides; and it is used to characterize an excessively broad variety of phenomena. To explain these characteristics, we trace the genesis and evolution of the term neoliberalism throughout several decades of political economy debates. We show that neoliberalism has undergone a striking transformation, from a positive label coined by the German Freiberg School to denote a moderate renovation of classical liberalism, to a normatively negative term associated with radical economic reforms in Pinochet’s Chile. We then present an extension of W. B. Gallie’s framework for analyzing essentially contested concepts to explain why the meaning of neoliberalism is so rarely debated, in contrast to other normatively and politically charged social science terms. We conclude by proposing several ways that the term can regain substantive meaning as a “new liberalism” and be transformed into a more useful analytic tool.

The United States and Cuba: Future security issues

The purpose of this highly speculative article is to assess a broad range of possible developments in Cuba over the next five to seven years that could directly and adversely affect U.S. interests. By definition, therefore, it does not provide equal treatment to more optimistic and, salubrious scenarios. A key assumption is that the Cuban economy will not sustain a strong rebound to high levels of growth. Specific observations about how security challenges might impact certain U.S. government activities are also included according to the article’s terms of reference. No attempt is made to assign numerical or other probabilities to the counterfactual cases discussed. Finally, the future time frame examined includes treatments of a continuation of Fidel Castro's regime as well as the emergence of one or more successor governments. Brian Latell has been teaching courses on Cuba and Latin America at, Georgetown University for the past twenty-one years. He has written and lectured on Cuba, Mexico, and U.S. Foreign Intelligence Issues. In 1998 he co-editedEye in the Sky: The Story of the Corona Spy Satellites, published by the Smithsonian Press. He served as National Intelligence Officer for Latin America at the National Intelligence Council between 1990–1994. From 1994–1998 he was Director of the Center for the Study of Intelligence at CIA and chaired the Editorial Board ofStudies In Intelligence. Last year he retired from government service, and was awarded the Distinguished Intelligence Medal.     

To return or not to return? Politics vs. economics in China's brain drain

This study, based on 273 face-to-face interviews with students, scholars, and former residents of China in the United States in 1993, uses both qualitative and quantitative methods to explain people's views about returning to China. Although less than 9 percent of interviewees had concrete plans to return, over 32 percent were positively disposed to returning in the future. Key background variables that affect that decision are people’s age, sex, social background in China, and their views about returning when they first left China. Concern about children’s future was not significant, but having a wife abroad greatly increased the desire to stay abroad. Why people chose not to return varied significantly between people with children and those who didn't. Even four years after the Tiananmen crackdown, concerns about political instability, lack of political freedom, and a lack of trust that the government would let people who returned leave again were significant reasons for not returning. But economic factors—better U.S. housing and incomes—as well as professional concerns about lack of job or career mobility in China and a poor work environment there were equally important. Given the weight attributed to economic factors and political stability, if China weathers Deng Xiaoping’s succession and the economy continues to grow, significant numbers of Chinese may return. David Zweig is Associate Professor, Division of Social Science, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He is the author ofFreeing China’s Farmers: Rural Restructuring in the Deng Era (forthcoming),Agrarian Radicalism in China, 1968–1981 (1989), co-author ofChina’s Brain Drain to the United States: The Views of Students and Scholars in the 1990s (1995), and co-editor ofChina’s Search for Democracy: The Student and Mass Movement of 1989 (1992) andNew Perspectives on China’s Cultural Revolution (1991). He writes about China’s rural political economy, transnational relations, and domestic politics. He is currently completing a book on the impact of China’s open policy and transnational relations on urban development, rural industry, universities, and recipients of foreign aid.     

Teachers’ strikes in Argentina: Partisan alignments and public-sector labor relations

In a context of increasing teachers’ militancy in Argentina, this article provides the first empirical analysis of teachers’ strikes in all twenty-four Argentine provinces during the 1990s. Using a cross-provincial statistical analysis, it explains the wide variation across provinces and across time of Argentine teachers’ strikes. It demonstrates that political alignments between provincial governors and teachers’ unions explain these patterns better than organizational and institutional variables, which strongly shape public-sector labor relations in other countries. We emphasize the discretion of provincial governors, for both the application of labor regulations and budgetary appropriations in the politicization of provincial public-sector labor relations in Argentina, especially after the decentralization of education resulted in the provincialization of teachers’ protests. Maria Victoria Murillo is associate professor of political science and international affairs at Columbia University. She was previously an assistant professor at Yale University, a Peggy Rockefeller Fellow at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, and a Fellow at Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. She is the author ofLabor Unions, Partisan Coalitions, and Market Reforms in Latin America (Cambridge University Press 2001) and various articles on the politics of market reforms, labor protest, and privatization of public utilities in Latin America. the authors acknowledge the useful suggestions of the editor and three anonymous reviewers, and the comments of Ernesto Calvo, Javier Corrales, Tulia Faletti, Miriam Golden, Frances Rosenbluth, Andrew Schrank, Kenneth Scheve, J. Samuel Valenzuela, James Vreeland; and the participants in the Seminar on Globalization and Labor Struggle at Columbia University, the Latin American Seminar of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University, the seventh annual meeting of LACEA, and the Business School seminar at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella. M. V. Murillo acknowledges the support of the Yale Center for International and Area Studies and the Carnegie Program for the Study of Globalization, and L. Ronconi acknowledges the support of the CEDI at the Universidad de San Andrés.     

Explaining Ethnic Autonomy Regimes in Latin America

Through a systematic examination of nine cases, the author identifies factors that enabled indigenous movements in five Latin American countries to secure formal recognition of politico-territorial autonomy regimes. All nine cases occurred within the framework of a larger regime bargain—either (1) peace talks intended to end armed struggle when the regime faced a serious challenge to maintain political order or territorial control, or (2) a severe crisis of legitimacy and governability that forced political elites to renegotiate fundamental regime structures via the process of constitutional reform. In the five successful cases, changes in the political opportunity structure occurred that favored indigenous autonomy claimants. These changes were the opening of access to decision-making spheres and the emergence of an influential ally. Donna Lee Van Cott is assistant professor of political science at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She is author ofThe Friendly Liquidation of the Past: The Politics of Diversity in Latin America and editor ofIndigenous Peoples and Democracy in Latin America.