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ECPR Joint Sessions, Granada, 14-19 April 2005

Workshop proposal

« Elections and democracy in Latin America »

Co-directors

Olivier Dabène Fátima García-Díez

Institut d’Études Politiques d’Aix-en-Provence

Centre de science politique comparative (CSPC)

25, rue Gaston de Saporta

13625 Aix-en-Provence, cedex 1, France

Tel : 33 4 42170543

Fax : 33 4 42170542

E Mail : o.dabene@wanadoo.fr

Universidad de Salamanca

Área de Ciencia Política y de la Administración

Campus Miguel de Unamuno

37007 Salamanca

Tel : 34 923 294400/4500, ext.1675

Fax : 34 923 294688

E Mail : fatima@usal.es

Outline

Since the publication of the seminal work Elections without choice, by Hermet, Rose and

Rouquie (Macmillan, 1978), Latin America has proven to be a very productive area for

electoral and regime studies. The way non competitive elections were used to legitimize

authoritarian regimes and the crucial role played by more open elections during the transitions

to democracy have both been systematically explored (O’Donnell, Schmitter, 1986).

Nevertheless, the way electoral processes determine the quality of democracy or are

responsible for destabilization of democracy, have received much less academic attention.

This workshop intends to fill that gap.

Over the last twenty years, several opinion polls have shown an impressive degree of

disappointment with the quality of democracy in Latin America (Latinobarómetro). Most

notably, the rate of electoral participation is declining in almost every country.

There are, of course, differences between countries concerning those two points. Satisfaction

with democracy varies from a low 8% (Argentina) to a high 75% (Costa Rica)1, and electoral

apathy is very different from one country to another and from one election to another.

Nevertheless, there seems to be a widespread feeling that elections are becoming a game

played among a closed elite group that make unsustainable promises and defend so similar

programmes that citizens find them almost indistinguishable. The Latin Americans have a

very poor image of the politicians they contribute to elect and nourish no hope that the

decisions they take while in office will in anyway benefit them. As a reaction, participatory

practices of democracy have flourished, and are casting doubts about the relevance and

legitimacy of elections as a core institution of representative democracy.

Does this mood of post-transition Latin American public opinion rely in any objective

evolution of the democratic regimes? If it is true that democracies have been consolidated on

contradictory social bases, negating the principal of “social equality equals citizen equality”

(Dabène, 1997), than is there any sense of talking of representative democracy, even if

referring to “actual democracies” as opposed to “ideal democracies” (Dahl, 1989)?

But in what sense do we think of representation in Latin America today? Do the Latin

Americans adhere to the eighteenth century’s idea of delegative democracy, a regime where

1 This percentage corresponds to the answers « very satisfied » and « fairly satisfied » for the year 2002 (see :

Marta Lagos, « A road with no return ? », Journal of democracy, 14(2), april 2003.

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the elected conform to what the electorate think, or to the contrary O’Donnell’s version where

the electorate delegates the country’s ruling? (O’Donnell, 1992)

This workshop will try to answer these fundamental questions, as it intends to actualize our

knowledge of elections in Latin America focussing on the way they shape the nature and

quality of democracy. In this sense, the representative character of Latin American democracy

will be evaluated by focussing on three main dimensions.

- Electoral rules, firstly, can induce patterns of participation and representation. It would be

for instance interesting to evaluate the impact of the different constitutional provisions that

have been put in force in Mexico or Andean countries in order to guarantee a fair

representation of ethnic minorities.

- Electoral participation, secondly, must be measured thoroughly and comparatively, for

different social categories and geographical regions, and explained, testing the theories

elaborated for traditional democracies: deficit of social capital (Putnam, 2001), deficit of

political education (Milner, 2002), institutional settings (Lijphart, 1996, 1997), voter’s

rational choice, etc.

- Finally, the study of electoral behaviour allows to propose hypotheses about the social

categories that are supporting the democratic processes, and the type of political forces they

trust to embody the regime.

In addition, the co-directors invite participants to tackle two transversal issues.

- Firstly, the articulation of local and national politics. The “proximity” variable is often

neglected, while it can account for a great deal of comprehension of the way the electorate

apprehends its relationship with the elected. This issue concerns primarily large countries like

Brazil or Argentina, but also small ones where localism and parochialism are important

(Costa Rica). In all of them, decentralization politics have brought about changes which

impact on electoral behaviours remains to be studied.

- Secondly, the representation of minorities (ethnic, gender, religious) and other excluded

social categories. Again we can expect differences between countries according to the degree

of social inequalities (Brazil / Uruguay for instance), or to the proportion of ethnic minorities

(Guatemala, Andean countries / Argentina for instance). Do these minorities participate? Do

they elect representative among them? Is there an Indian, or a feminist vote? These are a few

questions that deserve to be raised and empirically / comparatively answered.

This workshop is a follow up of the one organized in Edinburgh by Manuel Alcántara and

Roberto Espíndola in 2003 (“Political parties and democratic consolidation in Latin

America”).

Types of papers

The co-directors wish to attract empirical and comparative as well as theoretical studies.

Ideally, papers could look at case studies, but not in a purely descriptive way. They should

include some comparisons and engage into theoretical debates. The papers could also

emphasize legal and historical factors, and use intermediary variables such as political

clientelism.

Concerning the contents of the papers, we expect them to refer to one of the three entries

mentioned above:

Electoral rules

Electoral participation

Electoral behaviour

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Furthermore, we will give priority to the papers dealing with the transversal issues also listed

above:

Articulation of local and national politics

The representation of minorities (ethnic, gender, religious) and other excluded social

categories As far as methodological approaches are concerned, we welcome papers using qualitative as

well as quantitative approaches, and we are especially interested in methodological

innovations.

Bibliography

Robert Dahl, Democracy and its critics, Yale university press, 1989

Guy Hermet, Richard Rose, Alain Rouquié, Elections without choice, MacMillan, 1978.

Marta Lagos, « A road with no return ? », Journal of democracy, 14(2), april 2003.

Arend Lijphart, Carlos Waisman (ed.), Institutional design in new democracies : eastern

Europe and Latin America, Westview press, 1996

Arend Lijphart, « Unequal participation democracy’s unresolved dilemma », American

political science review, 91, 1997.

Henry Milner, Civic literacy : how informed citizens can make democracy work, University of

New England, 2002

Guillermo O’Donnell, Philippe Schmitter, Transitions from authoritarian rule. Tentative

conclusions about uncertain democracies, The John Hopkins university press, 1986.

Guillermo O’Donnell, Delegative democracy ? Kellog Institute, Working paper n°172, march

1992

Robert Putnam, Bowling alone : the collapse and revival of american community, Simon and

Schuster, 2001

The directors

Olivier Dabène is Professor of political science, Director of the doctoral programme in

comparative politics and Director of the Center of comparative political science (CSPC) at the

Institut d’Études Politiques in Aix-en-Provence, France. His current research interests are the

quality of democracy in Latin America, and local politics in Brazil. Most recent publications :

Amérique latine : La démocratie dégradée (Complexe, 1997), La región América latina :

Interdependencia y cambios políticos (Corregidor, 2001), América latina no século XX

(EDIPUCRS, 2003).

Fátima García-Díez is full Professor of political science at the University of Salamanca. Her

current research interests are elections, electoral systems and electoral reform processes in

Latin America. Most recent publications : « Panama », en Manuel Alcántara y Flavia

Freindenberg (coord.), Partidos políticos de América latina. Centroamérica, México y

República Dominicana, México, Fondo de cultura económica e Instituto federal electoral,

2003 ; « The emergence of electoral reforms in contemporary Latin America », Working

paper 19/2001 ; Institut de Ciències Politiques i Socials, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona,

84p.

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Potential participants*

France

Hélène Combes (Paris)

Georges Couffignal (Paris)

Olivier Dabène (Aix-en-Provence)

David Garibay (Paris)

Camille Goirand (Lille)

Julie Massal (Aix-en-Provence)

David Recondo (Paris)

Germany

Dieter Nohlen (Heidelberg)

Detlef Nolte (Hamburg)

Franz Puhle (Frankfurt)

Italy

Philippe Schmitter (EUI)

Elena Martinez Barahona (EUI)

Spain

Manuel Alcántara (Salamanca)

Eva Anduiza (Barcelona)

Esther Del Campo (Madrid, Complutense)

Flavia Freidenberg (Salamanca)

Fátima García (Salamanca)

Salvador Martí (Salamanca)

Mónica Méndez (Murcia)

UK

Alan Angell (Oxford)

Paul Cammack (Manchester)

Roberto Espíndola (Bradford)

Joe Foweraker (Essex)

Robert Funk (LSE)

Jean Grugel (Sheffield)

Emma Hughes (Manchester)

Georgina Lievesley (Manchester Metropolitan)

Ann Matear (Portsmouth)

Ronnie Munck (Liverpool)

Francisco Panizza (LSE)

Anthony Payne (Sheffield)

Carlos Pereira (Oxford)

George Philip (LSE)

Eduardo Posasa Carbo (Oxford)

Fernando Sanchez (Oxford)

Rachel Sieder (London)

Fernando Solano (Bradford)

Darren Wallis (Nottingham-Trent)

Georgina Waylen (Sheffield)

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US

Dan Epstein (Harvard)

Barbara Geddes (UCLA)

Jonhatan Hartlyn (North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

Roseanne Heath (Texas A&M)

Erika Moreno (Iowa)

Luciano Renna (Pittsburgh)

Peter Smith (USCD)

Michelle Taylor-Robinson (Texas A&M)

*Most have conducted research/published on the workshop's topic, other have done so on

related areas.