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

本论文旨在探讨政党制度的结构如何影响拉丁美洲总统联盟的稳定性。 学者们认为，一些拉美国家的政党制度不连贯和不稳定，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冲突的规模和政党体系中联盟的稳定性。 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聚集成稳定政党或多党联盟的条件，但在其他国家则不存在。 虽然我们有一个理论上的期望，在寻求控制政府，政治家和他们所代表的利益将形成长期的，多数党或联盟，本文将认为，对于某些类型的区域利益聚集到区域政党和总统，短期联盟往往是政治意义。 最关心其选区猪肉和与主要左右政策维度正交的政策的地区政党只能满足他们的选民。成为总统联盟的一部分。 因此，他们在任何意识形态色彩的联盟中激烈竞争。 这种竞争往往会压低总统为吸引联盟伙伴而必须支付的价格，并导致联盟的不稳定，因为不同政党都在争夺席位。 在对这一论点的实证研究中，研究人员希望发现，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，即使考虑到可能影响联盟建设的不同制度和历史因素。 这项研究将涉及深入审查一些国家国家以下一级的社会和选举数据，以及对拉丁美洲大多数国家在当前民主时期的跨国经验分析。调查将衡量各国不同地区政党获得的选票份额的变化程度，并确定地区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选票份额上;关于政党的意识形态定位和政策目标的数据，表明一些地区政党不符合标准的左右政策维度;以及总统内阁、立法联盟、以及第二轮总统选举中的联盟，以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科学家更好地了解拉丁美洲的选举格局和条件下，狭隘的，以区域为基础的政党生存在国家政治中发挥重要作用，在一些国家。 这些研究结果将探讨在高度不平等和地域多样性社会中广泛或多样化代表性与稳定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.