Regimes and Democracy in Latin America: Theories and Methods (Oxford Studies in Democratization)

This volume focuses on democracy in Latin America, and both assesses the state of current knowledge on the topic and identifies new research frontiers in the study of Latin American politics. It provides an overview of research agendas and strategies used in the literature over the past four decades. It tackles a series of central questions-What is democracy? Is democracy an absolute value? Are current conceptualizations of democracy adequate? How and why does democracy work or fail in Latin America?-and spells out the implications of answers to these questions for current research agendas. It distinguishes between qualitative and quantitative approaches to the conceptualization and measurement of democracy, and presents a dataset on political regimes and democracy that illustrates how the differences between these two standard approaches might be overcome. Finally, it evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of conventional methods used to generate and test explanations of the causes and consequences of democracy, and proposes alternative ways to advance ongoing substantive debates given the current state of theory and data. The contributors are scholars from the United States and Latin America who are experts on Latin America, and who have established reputations as theorists and methodologists. The volume will be of interest to readers seeking to understand debates about democracy in developing societies and to grasp the concepts, theories and methods that are currently being developed to study Latin American politics. Oxford Studies in Democratization is a series for scholars and students of comparative politics and related disciplines. Volumes concentrate on the comparative study of the democratization process that accompanied the decline and termination of the cold war. The geographical focus of the series is primarily Latin America, the Caribbean, Southern and Eastern Europe, and relevant experiences in Africa and Asia. The series editor is Laurence Whitehead, Official Fellow, Nuffield College, University of Oxford.
This volume focuses on democracy in Latin America and assesses the state of current knowledge on the topic and identifies new research frontiers in the study of Latin American politics. It provides an overview of research agendas and strategies used in the literature over the past four decades. It tackles a series of central questions--What is democracy? Is democracy an absolute value? Are current conceptualizations of democracy adequate? How and why does democracy work or fail in Latin America?--and spells out the implications of answers to these questions for current research agendas. It distinguishes between qualitative and quantitative approaches to the conceptualization and measurement of democracy, and presents a dataset on political regimes and democracy that illustrates how the differences between these two standard approaches might be overcome. Finally, it evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of conventional methods used to generate and test explanations of the causes and consequences of democracy, and proposes alternative ways to advance ongoing substantive debates given the current state of theory and data.

The contributors are scholars from the United States and Latin America who are experts on Latin America, and who have established reputations as theorists and methodologists. The volume will be of interest to readers seeking to understand debates about democracy in developing societies and to grasp the concepts, theories and methods that are currently being developed to study Latin American politics.

Contents......Page 10 List of Figures......Page 12 List of Tables......Page 13 List of Contributors......Page 14 Introduction: Research Agendas and Strategies in the Study of Latin American Politics......Page 16 PART I. RESEARCH AGENDAS......Page 38 1. The Study of Politics and Democracy: Touchstones of a Research Agenda......Page 40 2. Reconceptualizing Democratization: Access to Power Versus Exercise of Power......Page 54 3. Neo-Madisonian Theory and Latin American Institutions......Page 66 PART II. CONCEPTS, DATA, AND DESCRIPTION......Page 118 4. Thickening Thin Concepts: Issues in Large-N Data Generation......Page 120 5. Classifying Political Regimes in Latin America, 1945–2004......Page 138 PART III. CAUSAL THEORIZING AND TESTING......Page 176 6. Theory Building and Hypothesis Testing: Large-N Versus Small-N Research on Democratization......Page 178 7. Democracy and Growth: A Case Study in Failed Causal Inference......Page 194 8. Why Regions of the World Are Important: Regional Specificities and Region-Wide Diffusion of Democracy......Page 214 9. Democracy, Dictatorship, and Economic Development: A Model of Reference-Dependent Choices with Experimental Data......Page 246 References......Page 262 D......Page 298 M......Page 299 T......Page 300 Z......Page 301