Report from the Editor (2017)
In: Latin American research review, Volume 52, Issue 3, p. 300-303
ISSN: 1542-4278
Report presented at the meeting of the Executive Council of the Latin American Studies
Association in Lima, Peru, April 27, 2017.
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In: Latin American research review, Volume 52, Issue 3, p. 300-303
ISSN: 1542-4278
Report presented at the meeting of the Executive Council of the Latin American Studies
Association in Lima, Peru, April 27, 2017.
In: Latin American research review, Volume 55, Issue 3, p. 407-412
ISSN: 1542-4278
Report presented at the meeting of the Executive Council of the Latin American Studies Association (online session), May 22–23, 2020.
In: Latin American research review, Volume 54, Issue 3, p. 556-559
ISSN: 1542-4278
In: Perspectives on politics, Volume 16, Issue 4, p. 1101-1102
ISSN: 1541-0986
Among the many scholarly attempts to reckon with the causes and consequences of Donald Trump's rise, few have attracted popular attention on the scale of Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt'sHow Democracies Die.Seldom do books by political scientists make it onto theNew York Timesbest sellers list, but this one has, a testament to its broad influence. Levitsky and Ziblatt situate Trumpism within a broader comparative and historical context in order to assess its similarities to and differences from democratic breakdowns elsewhere, particularly in Europe and Latin America. Their broad argument is that modern slides into authoritarianism are not the result of revolutions or military coups, but rather the consequence of a steady erosion of political norms and the assault on such fundamental democratic institutions as an independent judiciary and a free press. In short, contemporary democracies die not as a result of men with guns attacking from outside the system, but rather because elected leaders from inside that system slowly undermine them. Judged from this standpoint, the authors argue that American democracy is now in real danger, and they offer a range of suggestions for saving it. How convincing is Levitsky and Ziblatt's analysis of democratic breakdown, and how well does it apply to the American case? How useful are the solutions that they offer for rescuing American democracy? We have asked a range of prominent scholars from across the discipline to consider these questions in the present symposium.
The age of military coups has ended, but democracy still confronts major challenges in the early twenty-first century. What are the new threats for democratic survival? Is impeachment a functional equivalent to old-fashioned military coups? Using comparative data for Latin America, this paper shows that the institution of impeachment has been "stretched" for political purposes and that the social conditions that triggered military coups in the pasttrigger impeachments in the contemporary era. However, the paper argues that impeachments should not be confused with coups and presents a surprising result: even though legislators often manipulate the impeachment process to undermine elected presidents, the most common threat to democratic survival does not originate in legislatures, but in the executive branch. Concentration of power by the executive has undermined democracy in Latin Americaand elsewhere.
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In: Latin American research review, Volume 52, Issue 1, p. 1-2
ISSN: 1542-4278
Editor's foreword
In: Journal of Latin American studies, Volume 46, Issue 3, p. 608-609
ISSN: 1469-767X
In: Journal of Latin American studies, Volume 46, Issue 3, p. 608-609
ISSN: 0022-216X
In: Latin American politics and society, Volume 56, Issue 1, p. 34-54
ISSN: 1531-426X
In: Latin American politics and society, Volume 56, Issue 1, p. 34-54
ISSN: 1548-2456
AbstractThis article analyzes the conditions that facilitate the ousting of Latin American presidents and the mechanisms that prevent their downfall. Drawing lessons from the impeachment of Paraguayan president Fernando Lugo, it extends previous arguments about the "legislative shield" to show that the same forces that sometimes conspire to terminate an administration at other times work to resist its demise. The argument underscores the interaction between legislators and social movements, two prominent actors in the literature on presidential instability. The article presents a two-level theory to identify possible configurations of mass and legislative alignments, and tests some implications of the theory with data for 116 Latin American presidents over 28 years. Multiple comparison tests based on random effects logistic models show that popular protests can be neutralized by strong support in Congress, and hint at the possibility that legislative threats can be neutralized by loyal demonstrators in the streets.
In: Latin American politics and society, Volume 56, Issue 3, p. 182-185
ISSN: 1548-2456
América Latina ha desarrollado una rica tradición de litigio constitucional que combina tanto instituciones extranjeras adaptadas a las circunstancias locales como instituciones nacionales diseminadas en la región. No obstante, esta tradición no ha ido a la par de un compromiso con el constitucionalismo. Sobre la base de un reciente estudio histórico en diecisiete países entre 1900 y 2010, el presente artículo demuestra que no basta el establecimiento de instrumentos legales o de salas judiciales especializadas para el desarrollo del constitucionalismo. Los gobiernos, de manera frecuente, han utilizado las reformas legales como excusa para tomar el control de la judicatura, impidiendo, de este modo, la consolidación de la independencia judicial.
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In: Public administration: an international quarterly, Volume 89, Issue 4, p. 1688-1691
ISSN: 0033-3298
In: El estado de la Ciencia Política en América Latina: Desafíos y oportunidades de la docencia y la investigación en perspectiva comparada, Fundación Global Democracia y Desarrollo, Dominican Republic
SSRN
In: Latin American politics and society, Volume 51, Issue 4, p. 174-178
ISSN: 1548-2456