Collaborative Research: The Architecture of Accountability in 21st Century Latin America

拉丁美洲的一些公职人员经常在法律之外行事，侵犯宪法权利，参与腐败，无视司法裁决。这种非法行为破坏了法治，削弱了民主，并抑制了在该地区的投资和增长。该项目审查了自2000年以来拉丁美洲18个国家的“问责架构”--负责追究公职人员对法律责任的机构。这项研究解决了三个问题：(1)这些国家存在哪些问责机构，它们是如何设计和改革的？(2)如何解释这些机构的设计和改革的差异？(3)如何解释拉丁美洲政府官员被问责的效率差异？我们使用定量和定性的分析方法来检验假设，这些假设是关于政治动机和利益如何影响这些机构的设计和改革，以及它们的设计如何影响自本世纪初以来拉丁美洲公职人员被问责的程度。研究人员将设计、构建和部署一个开源工具，该工具将系统地监测该项目所利用的在线来源，并在这些来源发生变化时向该项目发出警报。该项目将大大促进对拉美国家的运作和功能障碍以及该地区法治薄弱的了解。这项研究将产生一个广泛传播的大型数据集。通过扩大对关键政治和法律机构数据的获取并使其民主化，该项目使原创的、高质量的跨学科和跨美国研究成为可能。通过展示问责机构在多大程度上促进了拉丁美洲的政府问责，以及哪些体制属性影响了它们的影响力，该项目为体制设计提供了信息，并应对拉丁美洲的政府透明度和政府问责产生持续和积极的影响。最后，该项目将开发的监测工具承诺不仅促进该项目的工作，而且促进其他数据收集项目和数据库的工作。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Some public officials in Latin America routinely act outside the law, violating constitutional rights, engaging in corruption, and ignoring judicial rulings. Such unlawful behavior undercuts the rule of law, weakens democracy, and inhibits investment and growth in the region. This project examines the “architecture of accountability” – the sets of institutions charged with holding public officials accountable to the law – in 18 Latin American countries since 2000. The research addresses three questions: (1) What accountability institutions have existed in these countries and how have they been designed and reformed? (2) What explains variation in the design and reform of these institutions? (3) What explains variation in how effectively Latin American government officials have been held accountable? We use quantitative and qualitative analytic methods to test hypotheses about how political incentives and interests affect the design and reform of these institutions, and how their design influences how well Latin American public officials have been held to account since the turn of the century. The researchers will design, build, and deploy an open-source tool that will systematically monitor the on-line sources on which the project draws and alert the project when those sources have undergone change.The project will significantly advance understanding of the functioning and dysfunction of Latin American states, and the weakness of the rule of law in the region. The research will produce a large dataset that will be widely disseminated. By broadening and democratizing access to data about critical political and legal institutions, the project empowers original, high-quality interdisciplinary and trans-American research. By demonstrating to what degree accountability institutions have contributed to government accountability in Latin America, and what institutional attributes affect their influence, the project informs institutional design, and should have a sustained and positive impact on government transparency and government accountability in Latin America. Finally, the monitoring tool that the project will develop promises to facilitate the work not only of this project, but of other data-collection projects and databases as well.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.