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

博士论文：拉丁美洲政党制度区域化与联盟稳定性

• 批准号: 0417396
• 负责人: Barbara Geddes
• 金额: $ 1.19万
• 依托单位: University of California-Los Angeles
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2004
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2004-08-01 至 2006-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0417396&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Party; System; Regionalization

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.

本文考察了拉丁美洲政党制度结构如何影响总统联盟的稳定性。学者们认为，一些拉美国家缺乏连贯和不稳定的政党制度，导致了该地区治理不善、经济不稳定和民主的脆弱性。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的冲突维度和联盟的稳定性。它将表明，尽管一些拉丁美洲国家存在有利于将地方和区域利益汇聚成稳定的政党或多党联盟的条件，但在另一些国家却缺乏这些条件。尽管我们有一个理论上的预期，即在寻求控制政府、政客和他们所代表的利益的过程中，将形成长期的、占多数的政党或联盟，但本文将论证，对于某些类型的地区利益聚集成地区政党和总统来说，短期联盟往往具有政治意义。最关心自己选区的猪肉和与主要左右政策维度垂直的政策的地区性政党只能满足他们的选民。需要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席位。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，并导致联盟不稳定，因为不同的政党在争夺席位。在对这一论点的实证调查中，研究人员预计会发现，寻求特定地区和分配政策的政党的存在与总统联盟的缩短有关，即使在考虑到可能影响联盟建设的不同体制和历史因素后也是如此。这项研究将涉及对一些国家国家以下一级的社会和选举数据的深入审查，以及对当前民主时期拉丁美洲大部分国家的跨国经验分析。调查将衡量政党在每个国家不同地区获得的选票份额的差异程度，并确定以地区为基础的政党所代表的利益类型。它将使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；关于政党的意识形态定位和政策目标的数据，以表明一些地区性政党不符合标准的左右翼政策维度；以及关于总统内阁、立法联盟和第二轮总统选举期间的联盟的数据，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学家更好地了解拉丁美洲的选举格局，以及狭隘的、以地区为基础的政党在其中一些国家的国家政治中发挥重要作用的条件。这些调查结果将探讨在高度不平等和地域异质的社会背景下，广泛或多样化的代表权与稳定的政府之间的关系或取舍。