| The 1999 elections in Guatemala |
2002 |
2203 |
On 7 November 1999, something more than half the registered electors of Guatemala cast their votes in presidential, legislative, and municipal elections. Since the transition to democracy in the mid-1980s, Guatemala’s citizens have elected four gover... |
| Bolivia's Constitutional Breakdown |
2008 |
3556 |
The attempt to revolutionize Bolivia that began with the election of Evo Morales in 2005 has led to the breakdown of constitutional democracy and the polarization of the country between the poorer, indigenous western highlands and the (slightly) more... |
| Class Conflict, Political Crisis and the Breakdown of Democratic Practices in Costa Rica: Reassessing the Origins of the 1948 Civil War |
1991 |
6849 |
The 1948 Costa Rican civil war stands as the most significant breakdown of emerging democratic practices in what many believe is a country with a democratic destiny.1 No other political conflict has so polarised the country and cost so many lives. No... |
| Costa Rica: Paradise in doubt |
2005 |
3684 |
Long counted among Latin America's most stable and vibrant democracies, Costa Rica has now become a place where the once unimaginable happens. In just the past year, two former presidents of this Central American country of 4.3 million have been arre... |
| The Costa Rican General Elections of 6 February 1994 |
1995 |
3086 |
On Sunday, 6 February 1994, elections were held in Costa Rica to elect a president, all 57 members of the Legislative Assembly and to fill 953 municipal seats (the rigidores and sindicos of cantones) as well as an equal number of their alternates. Jo... |
| Can Parties Police Themselves? Electoral Governance and Democratization |
2002 |
1784 |
This article outlines the logic and consequences of the classical theory of electoral governance. By empowering the executive with the administration of elections and the legislature with the certification of the vote tally, the theory expected elect... |
| Does Privatization Protect Natural Resources? Property Rights and Forests in Guatemala |
2002 |
3768 |
Objectives. Property rights are central to debates about natural resource policy. Governments traditionally have been seen as the appropriate custodians of natural resources for their citizens. More recently, many argue the privatization of property ... |
| The Election of 1994 in El Salvador |
1995 |
3090 |
After voting in two rounds of elections in the Spring of 1994, El Salvadorans elected a president, a vice-president (on the same ticket), 84 legislative deputies and 262 municipal boards. Armando Calderón Sol (a former Mayor of San Salvador) of the r... |
| Explaining voter turnout rates in new democracies: Guatemala |
2004 |
3192 |
This paper uses several ols models to evaluate the impact of sociological, institutional, and spatial approaches to turnout across the 330 municipalities of Guatemala. It shows that economic development and geographic location (urban vs. rural) have ... |
| Historia patria o historia del poder? (A History of the Fatherland or a History of the Use of Power?) |
1989 |
1036 |
La forma de escribir sobre el pasado político escogida por Carlos Meléndez se podría calificar como un ejemplo de la historia patria. Esta forma de construir una historia se caracteriza por la descripción de los grandes eventos cívicos a través de un... |
| Income and Electoral Calculations in the 2006 Presidential Elections in Mexico |
2009 |
1270 |
Este artículo explica por qué, a pesar de los esfuerzos provenientes del partido
de izquierda para convertir la contienda de 2006 en un referendo sobre desigualdad y pobreza
extendida, el nivel de ingreso económico no influyó en la decisión elector... |
| Institutional Change and Political Conflict: Evaluating Alternative Explanations of Electoral Reform in Costa Rica |
1995 |
3901 |
This article seeks to identify the conditions that prompt executives and legislators to reform electoral laws, especially those with far-ranging and redistributive consequences. It pursues this objective by evaluating the ability of alternative model... |
| The Institutional Foundations of Democratic Cooperation in Costa Rica |
1996 |
4366 |
Costa Rica's long-term standing as one of the few countries in Latin America with a stable democracy has prompted many to view its polity as an inevitable outcome of a racially homogeneous and relatively egalitarian society. Without ignoring the impo... |
| Institutionalizing Democracy: Constraint and Ambition in the Politics of Electoral Reform |
2000 |
3031 |
Why do politicians reform the institutions that keep them in power? Why do they relinquish the ability to rig elections? The nonfraudulent 1988 Chilean plebiscite triggered the collapse of General Pinochet's sixteen year dictatorship. The fairness of... |
| The Local Politics of Decentralized Environmental Policy in Guatemala |
2003 |
2931 |
This article identifies the conditions leading to successful decentralized environmental management in the developing world. It focuses on Guatemala, a country where lawmakers have devolved forest protection to 331 municipalities. This study is based... |
| MEASURING POLITICAL DEMOCRACY : Case Expertise, Data Adequacy, and Central America |
2005 |
3458 |
Recent writings concerning measurement of political democracy offer sophisticated discussions of problems of conceptualization, operationalization, and aggregation. Yet they have less to say about the error that derives from the use of inaccurate, pa... |
| Municipal Politics and Forest Governance: Comparative Analysis of Decentralization in Bolivia and Guatemala |
2006 |
2948 |
Summary. — The success of efforts to decentralize governance responsibilities hinges upon the incentives of local politicians. We test this argument by studying the experiences of forestry sector decentralization in Bolivia and Guatemala. We analyze ... |
| Political Competition and Electoral Fraud: A Latin American Case Study |
1999 |
7759 |
This study aims to begin filling this void by drawing upon a rich documentary source--the petitions to nullify electoral results (demandas de nulidad)--from Costa Rica, a country noted for its long history of democratic government. The petitions cont... |
| Political Competition, Constitutional Arrangements, and the Quality of Public Policies in Costa Rica |
2010 |
2700 |
This article explains why Costa Rica, by the mid-twentieth century, began to depart from the all-too-common mixture of political instability and economic stagnation characteristic of much of the developing world. The article argues that this country ... |
| The Politics of Decentralizing Natural Resource Policy |
2004 |
2911 |
As human populations and their demands on natural resources continue to grow, citizens and officials from around the world search ever more intensely for effective solutions to environmental problems. Various factors conspire to make natural resourc... |
| Reform with Repression: The Land Reform in El Salvador |
1982 |
5631 |
We shall seek to analyze two aspects of Salvadoran society-- one prevalent for a long period of time, the other a response more recent in origin.1 First, we will investigate the conditions that have been developing in recent years in the countryside ... |
| Social and Spatial Characteristics of Voter Turnout in Guatemala: The 1985 Elections |
1997 |
3684 |
This paper identifies the correlates of voter turnout rates in the ethnically complex country of Guatemala. It uses maps and regression analysis to comprehend varying turnout rates across the 330 municipalities of Guatemala. A central finding is that... |
| Structural Reform, Democratic Governance, and Institutional Design in Latin America |
2007 |
2101 |
The radical shift in development strategy in Latin America to market-based reforms was a product of the 1982 debt crisis. In its aftermath Latin American economies stopped growing for most of the 1980s. Persistent balance of payments deficits, aggrav... |