Doctoral Dissertation: Party System Regionalization and Coalition Stability in Latin America

本论文探讨政党制度结构如何影响拉丁美洲总统联盟的稳定性。学者们认为，一些拉美国家不连贯和不稳定的政党制度导致了该地区治理不善、经济不稳定和民主脆弱。本文试图解释国家内部的地区利益差异如何影响其政党制度中冲突的维度和联盟的稳定性。它将表明，虽然在一些拉丁美洲国家存在有利于将地方和区域利益集中到稳定的政党或多党联盟中的条件，但在其他国家却没有。虽然我们有一个理论上的期望，即在寻求控制政府时，政治家和他们所代表的利益将形成长期的多数政党或联盟，但本文将认为，对于某些类型的地区利益聚集到地区政党和总统而言，短期联盟往往具有政治意义。那些最关心自己选区利益的地方政党，以及与左右政策维度无关的政策，只能满足他们的选民。需要成为总统联盟的一员。因此，他们在任何意识形态色彩的联盟中激烈竞争席位。这种竞争往往会降低总统为吸引联盟伙伴而付出的代价，并在不同政党争夺席位时导致联盟不稳定。在对这一论点的实证调查中，研究人员期望发现，即使考虑到可能影响联盟建设的不同制度和历史因素，寻求地区特定和分配政策的政党的存在与较短的总统联盟有关。这项研究将涉及对一些国家次国家一级的社会和选举数据的深入审查，以及对当前民主时期大多数拉丁美洲国家的跨国实证分析。调查将衡量政党在每个国家不同地区获得的投票份额的变化程度，并确定以地区为基础的政党所代表的利益类型。它将利用人口普查和其他社会经济数据，将地方利益映射到不同类型政党的投票份额上；政党的意识形态定位和政策目标数据显示，部分地区政党不符合标准的左右政策维度；关于总统内阁、立法联盟和第二轮总统选举联盟长度的数据表明，区域化的政党制度与较短的联盟有关。更广泛的影响：本论文项目的结果将使政治学家更好地了解拉丁美洲的选举格局，以及在这些国家中，狭隘的、以区域为基础的政党在国家政治中发挥重要作用的条件。这些发现将解决在高度不平等和地域异质性的社会背景下，广泛或多样化的代表权与稳定的政府之间的关系或权衡。

This dissertation examines how the structure of party systems affects the stability of presidential coalitions in Latin America. Scholars believe that the incoherent and unstable party systems in several Latin American countries contribute to poor governance, economic instability, and the fragility of democracy in the region. This dissertation seeks to explain how regional interest differences within countries affect the dimensions of conflict and the stability of coalitions in their party systems. It will show that although conditions conducive to the aggregation of local and regional interests into stable parties or multiparty coalitions exist in some Latin American countries, they are absent in others. Although we have a theoretical expectation that in seeking to control government, politicians and the interests they represent will form long-lived, majority parties or coalitions, this dissertation will argue that for some types of regional interests aggregated into regional parties and for presidents, short coalitions often make political sense. Regional parties that care most about pork for their districts and policies orthogonal to the main left-right policy dimension can only meet their constituents. needs by becoming part of the president's coalition. Consequently, they compete fiercely for places in coalitions of any ideological coloration. This competition tends to drive down the price presidents have to pay to attract coalition partners and to lead to coalition instability as different parties jockey for places. In the empirical investigation of this argument, the researchers expect to find that the presence of parties seeking region-specific and distributive policies is associated with shorter presidential coalitions, even after taking into account different institutional and historical factors that might influence coalition building. The research will involve both in-depth examinations of social and electoral data at the sub-national level in some countries and cross-national empirical analyses for most of Latin America in the current democratic period. The investigation will measure the extent of variation in the vote shares parties receive in different regions of each country, and identify the types of interests represented by regionally-based parties. It will use census and other socio- economic data to map local interests onto vote shares for different kinds of parties; data on the ideological positioning and policy goals of parties to show that some regional parties do not fit onto the standard left-right policy dimension; and data on the length of presidential cabinets, legislative coalitions, and alliances across second-round presidential elections to show that regionalized party systems are associated with shorter coalitions. Broader Impact:The results of this dissertation project will give political scientists a better understanding of the electoral landscape in Latin America and the conditions under which narrow, regionally-based parties survive to play an important role in national politics in some of these countries. These findings will address the relationship, or trade-off, between broad or diverse representation and stable government in the context of highly unequal and territorially heterogeneous societies.