Suchergebnisse

El presente texto resalta la necesidad de medir las diversas cualidades de la democracia. En este sentido, delinea los diferentes tipos de regímenes políticos que se encuentran en la denominada "zona gris"entre la dictadura y la democracia. Asimismo examina las posibilidades de cambio dentro de dicha zona gris. Los autores presentan dos preguntas acerca del cambio político: a) ¿Qué causas hacen que un régimen limitadamente pluralista cambie de curso? b) ¿Cómo podemos predecir la dirección del cambio político en virtud de esa modificación en su curso? Las opciones que se estudian son las siguientes: reequilibrio del régimen limitadamente pluralista, evolución hacia una democracia liberal, adaptación de otra variante dentro de la zona gris y retrogresión hacia el autoritarismo. En este marco, el artículo analiza la caída del régimen punto fijista y el surgimiento de la Quinta República de Hugo Chávez. El análisis sugiere que las crisis en las áreas de distribución y representación mutuamente generan el deterioro político y que el mencionado cambio de curso ocurre si la capacidad reguladora del Estado es débil. La transición hacia una democracia plena puede generarse sólo si las élites gobernantes mantienen un cierto grado de legitimidad. De lo contrario, alguna forma alternativa de la "zona gris" se impone, y su forma depende de la fuerza de la cultura política existente y la existencia de un individuo con autoridad y carisma.Venezuela in the gray zone:From feckless pluralism to dominant power systemAbstractThis paper emphasizes the need to measure the varying qualities of democracy. It delineates subtypes of political regimes that occupy a "gray zone" between dictatorship and democracy, and examines the possibilities for political change in the "gray zone". The authors address two sets of questions about political change: a) What causes a limitedly pluralist regime to unravel? b) How can we predict which direction political change will take in the wake of that unraveling? The options considered are: re-equilibration of the limitedly pluralist regime, evolution into a liberal democracy, movement toward another regime variant within the gray zone, and retrogression to authoritarianism? Demise of Venezuela's Punto Fijo regime and the emergence of Hugo Chávez's Fifth Republic are examined using this framework. Analysis suggests that mutually reinforcing crises in the issue areas of distribution and representation lead to political decay, and that unraveling occurs if the state's regulative capability is weak. Transition to full democracy may take place if the ruling elites retain a quotient of legitimacy. If not, some alternative form of "gray zone" regime takes hold, its form dependent on the strength of the existing democratic political culture and on the availability of an individual possessing charismatic authority.

In this introduction to the volume of collected essays, the editors locate the book within literature of democratic transition that emphasizes the need to measure the quality of democracy to delineate subtypes of democratic & quasi- democratic regimes as the study of "hybrid" regimes placed in "gray zones". The demise of Venezuela's Punto Fijo democracy signaled the end of a limited democracy that suggest transition to a hybrid combining pluralism & authoritarianism, representation & direct democracy, capitalism & statism. The themes of the volume are contextualized in previous literature from the perspective of the normalization of Venezuela's second wave democracy as a limited pluralist polyarchy that illuminates the unraveling of the democracy, the use of the statecraft edition, & political learning. The political economy perspective draws out implications of rentier states unsuitability for boom-bust patterns of single commodity economies, & recent work on class conflict. Although no single approach satisfactorily explains the Punto Fijo experience, this volume draws on structural approaches emphasizing political economy, institutional approaches emphasizing political choices, & cultural explanations emphasizing mediating political orientations & political learning to close with an assessment of whether Venezuela's gray zone political regime represents a new model of participatory democracy or a neo-populist model that may gain currency throughout the regions in situations in which representative democracy has been slow to satisfy basic human needs & lost its legitimacy. References. J. Harwell

Venezuela's contemporary politics poses a problematic different from those predominating in the literature on democratization. Scholarly research in the last decade focused first on the crisis of authoritarian rule and the ensuingtransitionto civilian governments, with the reestablishment of electoral procedures, and, more recently, on the problems of theconsolidationof a democratic regime, including alternation in power, universal acceptance of the rules of the game, and generation of a democratic political culture.The challenges confronting Venezuela are not those of transition or consolidation but, rather, the decomposition — ordeconsolidation— of an established democratic regime. In other Latin American countries in recent decades, longstanding models of statist development developed crises that led, in turn, to complex transformations in the economy and in society. One consequence of these changes was that authoritarian regimes began a transition to more democratic forms of governance.

This study examines the case of the Brazilian debt rescheduling agreement of 1988 as a two-level game in which each of the two main negotiators—the Brazilian state and the international bank advisory committee—must satisfy its own constituents while trying to negotiate an international agreement. It is argued that the interaction between the domestic and international levels must be understood in order to explain the outcomes of international debt negotiations. This article draws on Robert Putnam's concept of the two-level game in international politics and on a wider literature concerning the influence of domestic political considerations in international negotiations to demonstrate that such an analysis can explain the process and outcome of the 1988 agreement, where a unitary negotiating level fails to predict the final result. The two-level model explains how domestic constraints and opportunities affect international outcomes, and it highlights the importance of the ratification process.

With recent political developments sparking sharp divisions within democracies, an understanding of the dynamics of polarization is ever more necessary. Yet we still lack the tools necessary for its comparative study at the mass level. Finding that conventional measures of polarization as ideological distance between parties or among voters do not fully capture political polarization, we develop a new index of mass partisan polarization based on support and rejection of political parties by the public. We argue that measuring polarization over political parties allows us to capture divisions over a broader range of identities or issues which parties can represent or take positions on. Using Comparative Study of Electoral Systems data, our empirical validity tests support this argument. It is our hope that this index may facilitate the further comparative study of mass political polarization on a global scale.

Este artículo contiene un análisis sistemático del papel desempeñado por la administración electoral en 19 países de América Latina y de sus efectos sobre elecciones presidenciales democráticas aceptables desde 1980, o bien, a partir de la primera elección transcendental que marcó la transición a la democracia. Se utilizan dos maneras distintas de medir la administración de elecciones, así como otros factores importantes, probando modelos logit ordenados de probabilidades proporcionales parciales para pronosticar la posibilidad de que ocurra un proceso electoral aceptable, defectuoso o inaceptable. Los resultados muestran que los organismos electorales independientes y profesionales desempeñan un papel positivo e importante en los procesos electorales en América Latina, aun controlando para otros factores socioeconómicos y políticos

Este artículo contiene un análisis sistemático del papel desempeñado por la administración electoral en 19 países de América Latina y de sus efectos sobre elecciones presidenciales democráticas aceptables desde 1980, o bien, a partir de la primera elección transcendental que marcó la transición a la democracia. Se utilizan dos maneras distintas de medir la administración de elecciones, así como otros factores importantes, probando modelos logit ordenados de probabilidades proporcionales parciales para pronosticar la posibilidad de que ocurra un proceso electoral aceptable, defectuoso o inaceptable. Los resultados muestran que los organismos electorales independientes y profesionales desempeñan un papel positivo e importante en los procesos electorales en América Latina, aun controlando para otros factores socioeconómicos y políticos

This article provides a systematic cross-national analysis of the role of electoral administration in explaining acceptable democratic presidential elections in 19 countries in Latin America since the year 1980 or the first pivotal, transitional election. The authors provide two alternative measures of election administration, one focused on the degree of partisanship or professional independence and another on formal-legal institutional independence, as well as on other key factors, to test partial proportional odds-ordered logit models predicting the probability of an acceptable, flawed, or failed electoral process. The results show an important positive role for professional, independent electoral commissions on electoral outcomes in Latin America, controlling for other socioeconomic and political factors; formal-legal independence matters when the rules of the game are likely to be respected. In addition, low-quality elections are found disproportionately where incumbents seek reelection and where victory margins are extremely wide rather than narrow. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright 2008.]

This article provides a systematic cross-national analysis of the role of electoral administration in explaining acceptable democratic presidential elections in 19 countries in Latin America since the year 1980 or the first pivotal, transitional election. The authors provide two alternative measures of election administration, one focused on the degree of partisanship or professional independence and another on formal—legal institutional independence, as well as on other key factors, to test partial proportional odds-ordered logit models predicting the probability of an acceptable, flawed, or failed electoral process. The results show an important positive role for professional, independent electoral commissions on electoral outcomes in Latin America, controlling for other socioeconomic and political factors; formal-legal independence matters when the rules of the game are likely to be respected. In addition, low-quality elections are found disproportionately where incumbents seek reelection and where victory margins are extremely wide rather than narrow.