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Challenging Democracy: Latin American Attitudes on Presidential Term Limits
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| 자료유형 | 학위논문 |
|---|---|
| 서명/저자사항 | Challenging Democracy: Latin American Attitudes on Presidential Term Limits. |
| 개인저자 | Castillo, Alexandra. |
| 단체저자명 | The Ohio State University. Political Science. |
| 발행사항 | [S.l.]: The Ohio State University., 2019. |
| 발행사항 | Ann Arbor: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, 2019. |
| 형태사항 | 223 p. |
| 기본자료 저록 | Dissertations Abstracts International 81-06A. Dissertation Abstract International |
| ISBN | 9781687976727 |
| 학위논문주기 | Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Ohio State University, 2019. |
| 일반주기 |
Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 81-06, Section: A.
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| 이용제한사항 | This item must not be sold to any third party vendors. |
| 요약 | In the early 1990s, scholars and pundits alike celebrated the advent of democracy as the end of the Cold War saw the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the disintegration of authoritarian regimes throughout the world. Nearly three decades later, the optimism of the earlier era has all but disappeared. By the mid-2000s, scholars began to warn of the dangers of democratic decay, particularly in areas where democracy was relatively new. Latin America, with its tumultuous history of violent coups and repressive authoritarian regimes, was no exception. Rather than turning to overt instances of regime overthrow, however, leaders in the modern era used a more sophisticated, democratic toolkit of constitutional changes, referendum votes, and legislative and supreme court decisions to slowly dismantle traditional democratic checks and balances.By 2018, presidential term limits, a traditional check on executive power, had been successfully removed in four countries (Bolivia, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Venezuela), eliminated and later reinstated in two countries (Ecuador and Peru), and challenged in two countries (Argentina and Colombia). More dramatically, then-president Manuel Zelaya in Honduras was physically removed from office in 2009 for suggesting that term limits be extended beyond a single term, while a similar proposal in Paraguay in 2017 almost led to a constitutional crisis. Rather than focusing on institutions or political leaders, this dissertation directs its attention to the role of citizens in these processes of democratic degradation on the ground. In doing so, this dissertation asks: What explains citizens' support for the removal of presidential term limits? Why are term limits contentious in some countries and not others? What explains why some challenges to remove term limits are successful while others fail? And ultimately, is support for the removal of term limits congruent with democratic attitudes?This dissertation begins by situating the removal of presidential term limits in Latin America within the larger literature of democratic decay and deconsolidation. Next, it explores the literature on presidential term limits before laying the foundation for the theoretical contribution of the dissertation. I rely on two heuristics borrowed from the voting literature, economic evaluations and social identity, to shed light on opinion-formation in relation to term limits. Just as citizens rely on similar heuristics to make relatively informed decisions about their political candidate of choice, I argue that these shortcuts also are useful in helping citizens make decisions about referendum votes and more abstract political phenomena such as term limits. Thereby, I expect that when citizens have positive evaluations of their personal or the national economic situation, they are more likely to support the removal of term limits. Social identity also can determine who the insiders or outsiders are under the current political arrangement, which similarly informs term limit opinion, while insiders are more likely to tolerate the removal of this traditional check on executive tenure than outsiders.The first empirical chapter tackles opinion on term limits in Bolivia and Ecuador shortly after term limit legislation had undergone changes. In Ecuador, the Supreme Court had eliminated term limits while a referendum to remove term limits in Bolivia had recently lost by a slim margin. Capitalizing on the saliency of these issues as well as the differential outcomes, a survey was fielded in both countries, which shed light on the proposed heuristics. As expected, positive evaluations of the national economy were predictive of support for the removal of presidential term limits under a variety of justifications. The analysis also revealed that identification as an outsider was related to a higher likelihood of maintaining term limits under all conditions, although this finding was not as robust.The next empirical chapter extends the analysis from the specific case studies to the entire region using Latinobarometer survey data from 1995-2016 across 18 countries in addition to two unique dependent variables. The first dependent variable records whether countries have removed constraints on presidential reelection, while the second dependent variable documents challenges to remove term limits, whether successes or failures. Using event history analysis, the findings for the absence of constraints on presidential reelection are at odds with the previous empirical chapter: Positive evaluations of the national economic environment were related to the maintenance of term limits. Negative economic evaluations increased the hazard ratio of failure, or the removal of term limits. Moreover, the temporal indicator suggested that the survival function decreased over time, making countries more susceptible to the elimination of term limits in each successive year after 2009. None of the public opinion indicators were predictive of successful challenges to remove presidential term limits, and neither of the main heuristics explained failed challenges.Overall, the results presented in this dissertation suggest another application for economic heuristics beyond the voting literature. Not only were economic heuristics predictive of support for the removal of term limits in a direct application, but they also helped to reveal country-level patterns for institutional outcomes. A positive economic outlook was related to the removal of presidential term limits under a variety of justifications, and it also explained varying country-level risk for the elimination of constraints on presidential reelection. By focusing on citizens' opinions, this dissertation helps to extend our understanding of processes of democratic decay from within. |
| 일반주제명 | Political science. Latin American studies. Social research. |
| 언어 | 영어 |
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