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AbstractThis article introduces the State Executive Approval Database, a dataset of gubernatorial approval ratings that updates and adds to data previously collected by Beyle et al. In addition to the survey marginals, the dataset presents continuous quarterly and annual measures of the latent level of governor approval that are amenable for time series analysis. After evaluating how survey data availability varies across states and over time, I use the data to evaluate whether governors receive a honeymoon. While new governors do not have higher than expected levels of approval, the public expresses comparatively low levels of disapproval for new governors. This honeymoon is largely restricted to their first quarter in office and only occurs when they are elected to their first term. Governors who take office after their predecessor resigned get a slightly longer and more sustained reprieve from disapproval. Governor approval is also significantly shaped by unemployment levels in their state. These data will provide scholars with new opportunities to study accountability and representation at the state level.

Democracy is weakened when citizens and elites do not criticize actions or actors that undermine its principles. Yet this study documents a widespread pattern of partisan rationalization in how elites and the public evaluate democratic performance in Latin America. Survey data show that those whose party controls the presidency consistently express positive evaluations of the current state of democratic competition and institutions even when democracy in their country is weak. This pattern emerges in both mass survey data and among elected elites. These data have a worrying implication: if only the political opposition is willing to publicly acknowledge and sound the alarm when democracy is under attack, public pressure to protect democracy is likely to be dramatically reduced.

ABSTRACTThe association between how citizens perceive economic performance, insecurity, or corruption and how they evaluate the president varies systematically across Latin American countries and within them over time. In particular, while presidential popularity reflects these outcomes in the average Latin American country, survey data from 2006–17 confirm that the connection between government performance and presidential approval is generally stronger when unfragmented party systems or single-party majority governments make assessments of political responsibility easier. While these results suggest that the region's citizens do not blindly blame the president for outcomes where political responsibility should be shared, they also remind us that there are many countries in the region where fragmented party systems weaken the conditions for effective political accountability.

AbstractEconomically vulnerable voters are expected to hold politicians accountable for their management of the economy because these voters are more likely to be personally affected by economic shocks and less able to cope with the resulting dislocation. Evidence from the informal sector in Argentina, where the lack of formal registration increases income volatility and denies unemployment benefits, is consistent with this hypothesis. Data from Argentina from 2005 to 2006 show that the association between evaluations of the economy and evaluations of President Néstor Kirchner was stronger among those working without formal employment guarantees. The implication is that the electoral support of Latin America's many informal workers may very well be fickle and dependent on economic performance.

Argentina held midterm elections for its two legislative chambers in October 2013. The lower chamber, the Chamber of Deputies, consists of 257 members serving four-year terms, with half up for renewal every two years. The Senate consists of 72 members serving 6 year terms, with a third up for renewal every two years. Because the seats being renewed were filled at different points in the past, the dynamics of the two races were somewhat different. The Senators up for reelection had been elected during presidential elections in 2007 and thus, in the case of the ruling Victory Front Party (FPV by its initials in Spanish), they were candidates who had benefited from President Christina Fernandez de Kirchner's coattails in that race (Singer and Fara, 2008). In contrast, the 2009 midterm elections had been conducted against a backdrop of a slow economy and widespread social conflict over agricultural tax policy which led to a large drop in support for the FPV in that election (Lupu, 2010). Thus anything less than a dominant showing would result in a loss in ruling party representation in the Senate while anything other than a historically weak showing in the lower chamber elections would not reduce the ruling party's representation in that chamber from the low baseline set in 2009. Expectations for the ruling party were high after President Fernandez de Kirchner's reelection in 2011. Yet her popularity has fallen in the past 2 years as the economy has stumbled, inflation continues to be a problem, and crime remains high. Thus the campaign focused on alternatives to the FPV from within the Peronist tradition and without. The election resulted in a very small shift in the legislative balance of power; the FPV remains the largest party in both chambers and the most popular party nationally. Yet the ruling party lost in the largest districts and the election was widely perceived as a defeat for the incumbent. No clear alternative to the ruling party emerged out of a divided opposition, however, and thus the various factions have already begun jockeying for attention in what is likely to be a fragmented election for the presidency in two years. [Copyright Elsevier Ltd.]