You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Public opinion and political behavior experts explore voter choice in Latin America with this follow-up to the 1960 landmark The American Voter
Parts one and two offer an excellent recap of the "state of play" in 2012; part three analyzes why Mexicans voted as they did; and part four considers the election's implications for Mexico's political system more broadly.--Francisco E. González, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, author of Creative Destruction? Economic Crises and Democracy in Latin America "Party Politics"
This book examines why people vote in the newly consolidated democracies of Africa, Latin America, East Asia, and Central and Eastern European countries. It addresses the question of how well models or theories of electoral participation, initially developed in established democracies, "travel" to new democracies. Based on recent cross- national survey data, it provides the first systematic and comparative evaluation of this topic. Drawing on political science, sociology, and psychology approaches, it reveals what is distinctive about voting in new democracies and how they compare between themselves and with more established democracies. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of political participation, public opinion, voting behaviour, electoral politics, and political parties as well as to international organisations and NGOs working in the field of democracy promotion and in emerging democracies.
The “great dichotomy” between left and right has been a feature of pluralist politics since its emergence in modern times. Left and right are also central to the understanding of the political history of the twentieth century and may be gaining renewed visibility in the context of the current economic crisis, both in Europe and beyond. Should scholars think, once again, with and within the dichotomy, or can they think better beyond its strictures? The contributions to this volume provide answers to these and other questions in ways that are theoretically sound and empirically informed.
"A typical presidential election campaign in Latin America sees between one-third and one-half of all voters changing their vote intentions across party lines in the months before election day-numbers unheard of and rarely seen in older democracies. This book proposes a new theory of Latin American voting behavior, examining how votes are truly up for grabs in democracies where political parties and mass partisanship are not deeply entrenched. The book argues that political discussion among peers causes volatility, and ulimately explains final vote choices. Describing and examining social networks of political discussion, the authors propose that everyday social communication is the hidden a...
Voting in Old and New Democracies examines voting behavior and its determinants based on 26 surveys from 18 countries on five continents between 1992 and 2008. It systematically analyzes the impact on voting choice of factors rooted in the currently dominant approaches to the study of electoral behavior, but adds to this analysis factors introduced or reintroduced into this field by the Comparative National Elections Project (CNEP)—socio-political values, and political communication through media, personal discussion, and organizational intermediaries. It demonstrates empirically that these long-neglected factors have significant political impact in many countries that previous studies hav...
Politics and the Pink Tide investigates the ways in which protest varied across five Latin American countries that elected leftist presidents during the Pink Tide. Kathleen Bruhn compares the differences in protest that occurred under the new leftist governments to their conservative, neoliberal predecessors, offering a wide-angle view into the complex relationships between neoliberalism, political party structures, and protest. Using individual and event-level data from Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Venezuela, and Ecuador, Politics and the Pink Tide shows how economic policy choices and the links between leftist parties and social movements affect patterns of protest. For example, although more orthodox neoliberal approaches did motivate more economic protest, the book demonstrates that neither more radical nor more socially linked leftist governments were better able to contain protest—or to do so without resorting to police violence. Politics and the Pink Tide proposes a sweeping exploration of protest, one that is controlled by economic policy and grievances, the social embeddedness of political parties, and the norms surrounding protest tactics within public life.
Brazil, Land of the Past scrutinizes the ideological roots of the so-called New Right in Brazil. The book traces the continuity and resilience of a system of thought based on the idea of a God-given hierarchical order to be defended against any social contract and modernizing relativization. It explains in detail how today a diverse movement — which includes actors ranging from the authoritarian Bolsonaro wing to economic liberals to the military to both Catholic and evangelical religious conservatives – assumes unanimously the ideas of this tradition as underlying premises of their political action. Though not always explicitly, this drives the self-declared “liberal-conservative” but rather anti-modernist reaction which claims to liberate an imaginary authentic “Brazil” from an aberrant “State” – and in so doing intends to preserve inherited privilege in an extremely unequal society.
Voting behavior is informed by the experience of advanced democracies, yet the electoral context in developing democracies is significantly different. Civil society is often weak, poverty and inequality high, political parties ephemeral and attachments to them weak, corruption rampant, and clientelism widespread. Voting decisions in developing democracies follow similar logics to those in advanced democracies in that voters base their choices on group affiliation, issue positions, valence considerations, and campaign persuasion. Yet developing democracies differ in the weight citizens assign to these considerations. Where few social identity groups are politically salient and partisan attachments are sparse, voters may place more weight on issue voting. Where issues are largely absent from political discourse, valence considerations and campaign effects play a larger role. Campaigns and Voters in Developing Democracies develops a theoretical framework to specify why voter behavior differs across contexts.
The 2021 volume of the benchmark bibliography of Latin American Studies.