Representation And Effectiveness In Latin American Democracies

Legislatures, the judiciary and civil society are important actors in representative democracies. In what ways and how well do they represent? And how effectively do they carry out their institutional and social roles? Both questions refer to the key dimensions of democracy analyzed in this book: representativeness and effectiveness, respectively. While they have been developed separately in scholarly work on institutions and regimes, there is little work considering them simultaneously, and on their interaction. Using quantitative and/or qualitative methods, contributions from top scholars in the field of legislatures, the judiciary and civil society examine these two concepts and their relationships in four Latin American countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico. Designed to guide the reader through the complexities of this debate, each expert engages in a larger set of theoretical debates about different approaches to representation in each sphere. In doing so, they debate how effectively these spheres carry out their roles in each country: whether a congress is institutionalized, its accountability, and its performance as a lawmaker; whether a judicial system is independent, carries out oversight, and protects citizen rights; and the role of civil society in a representative democracy. Representation and Effectiveness in Latin American Democracies is a timely and welcomed contribution to the to the growing debate about the quality of democracy in Latin America, and the developing world more generally.

Against a broader backdrop of globalization and worldwide moves toward political democracy, The New Politics of Inequality in Latin America examines the unfolding relationships among social change, equity, and the democratic representation of the poor in Latin America. Recent Latin American governments have turned away from redistributive policies; at the same time, popular political and social organizations have been generally weakened, inequality has increased, and the gap between rich and poor has grown. Hanging in the balance is the consolidation and the quality of new or would-be democracies; this volume suggests that governments must find not just short-term programmes to alleviate poverty, but long-term means to ensure the effective integration of the poor into political life. The New Politics of Inequality in Latin America bridges the intellectual chasm between, on the one hand, studies of grassroots politics, and on the other, explorations of elite politics and formal institution-building. It will be of interest to students and scholars of contemporary Latin American politics and society and, more generally, in the vicissitudes of democracy and citizenship in the late twentieth-century global system.

Public opinion and political behavior experts explore voter choice in Latin America with this follow-up to the 1960 landmark The American Voter

This book discusses the current tendencies in women’s representation and their role in politics in Latin American countries from three different perspectives. Firstly, the authors examine cultural, political-partisan and organizational obstacles that women face in and outside institutions. Secondly, the book explores barriers in political reality, such as gender legislation implementation, public administration and international cooperation, and proposes solutions, supported by successful experiences, emphasising the nonlinearity of the implementation process. Thirdly, the authors highlight the role of women in politics at the subnational level. The book combines academic expertise in various disciplines with contributions from practitioners within national and international institutions to broaden the reader’s understanding of women in Latin American politics.

This book shows how the introduction of intermediation is relevant in studying political and public policy processes, as they are increasingly accompanied by grey spaces in public and non-public arenas that cannot be categorized as purely representative or purely participative. Instead, ‘hybrid’ mechanisms are developing in the policy-making process, which bring in new actors who either are unelected while being required to represent or advocate for the common good of others or are directly elected but challenged by identity/rights-based issues of the people they are required to act in the best interest of. By proposing a conceptual frame on intermediation and addressing five different Latin American countries and a wide range of case studies —from human rights, labour relations, neighbourhood management, municipal bureaucracies, social accountability, to complex national systems of citizen participation—this volume shows the versatility and validity of a tridimensional frame, the “cube of political intermediation” (CPI) as a tool for analysing public policy and understanding contemporary democratic innovation in Latin America.

This edited volume examines malaise with democracy within three middle-income Latin American countries - Chile, Argentina and Uruguay. In particular, the book focuses on the gap within public opinion on democratic system within the context of crisis of representation and breakdowns of democracy. Based on a study using comparative and systematic survey data, the contributors of this volume provide a solid analysis on the state of democracy in three Latin American countries, whose lessons are useful for all types of democracy, in the north and the south.

Annotation. Against a broader backdrop of globalization and worldwide moves toward political democracy, this collection of essays examines the unfolding relationships among social change, equity, and the democratic representation of the poor in Latin America.-;Against a broader backdrop of globalization and worldwide moves toward political democracy, The New Politics of Inequality in Latin America examines the unfolding relationships among social change, equity, and the democratic representation of the poor in Latin America. Recent Latin American governments have turned away from redistributive policies; at the same time, popular political and social organizations have been generally weakened, inequality has increased, and the gap between rich and poor has grown. Hanging in the balance is the consolidation and the quality of new or would-be democracies; this volume suggests that governments must find not just short-term programmes to alleviate poverty, but long-term means to ensure the effective integration of thepoor into political life. The New Politics of Inequality in Latin America bridges the intellectual chasm between, on the one hand, studies of grassroots politics, and on the other, explorations of elite politics and formal institution-building. It will be of interest to students and scholars of contemporary Latin American politics and society and, more generally, in the vicissitudes of democracy and citizenship in the late twentieth-century global system.

This book critiques the conventional definition of a political party and assesses parties' role in contemporary democracies.