Abstract
With Politics and Political Elites in Latin America, the reader is offered insights into topics related to politics in 18 countries. Structured in two parts, Democracy and Institutions and Case Studies, a total of 14 chapters covers key areas to better understand today's complex Latin American political context, including: political ambition, political institutions, and satisfaction with democracy.
All studies draw from the Parliamentary Elites in Latin America (PELA) dataset curated by the University of Salamanca. The dataset includes interviews with politicians for over 20 years, allowing scientists to explore a unique set of aspects of democracy and political life.
Moving slightly away from the thematic distribution offered by the book, we would like to discuss the main arguments presented by focusing on three specific areas within the first section of the book: elites, legislators, and legislative elites. Then, we will discuss the case studies.
Elites
The role of political elites across diverse democratic settings has gathered consistent attention in political communication literature for decades (e.g. Cotta et al. 2017; Eldersveld 1989). However, few efforts are geographically comprehensive within Latin America. In this book, five chapters focus on political elites represented in the PELA dataset, encompassing interviews with legislators in lower chambers.
The first chapter by Barragán et al. details the PELA project, serving as an introductory basis for other studies presented. With a lack of research on the subject, a systematic interview question protocol was devised to study political elites. The authors lay out the evolving challenges dealt with since the project's inception in 1994, before highlighting academic work drawing from this dataset.
Chapter 3 by Rivas Pérez and Alcántara couples PELA with World Bank, WGI, F-Rae, BTI, and SWIID data to evaluate how much trust political elites place in the parliament, judiciary, political parties, and presidents. Using HJ-Biplot, satisfaction with democracy, quality thereof, and control of corruption are identified as critical democratic pressures. The chapter tracks the evolution of trust over two decades across political changes that occurred in 18 Latin American countries.
The fourth chapter by Martínez Rosón and Mateos Díaz investigates a host of institutional, cultural, political, and individual variables that can influence satisfaction with democracy by politicians and citizens. To offer a more informative picture, authors combined data from PELA and the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP), allowing them to compare politicians with citizens. Political elites tend to report higher levels of satisfaction than lay publics almost across the board.
In chapter 6, authors Bohigues and Alcántara combine data from PELA and V-Dem in an explorative study to connect political elites and varieties of democracy. In a mixed-methods study, researchers show that ideology, trustworthiness of elections, and regime stability are crucial aspects in explaining different approaches to democracy. Surprisingly, satisfaction with democracy appears to be a less important factor.
Chapter 9 by Bohigues and Morgenstern, attempts to link opinions and attitudes held by Latin American political elites with support or opposition towards the United States and China. Interestingly, no strong predictors could be identified in the case of China. In contrast, ideological views on appropriate roles adopted by the government (i.e., market regulation for the economy, environmental concerns, etc.) are influential within the USA context.
Legislators
Other chapters explore the role of legislators in sustaining and developing different democratic contexts in Latin America.
In chapter 2, Kernecker investigates the ambition politicians’ exhibit. Working directly with answers from politicians, the results presented provide rare insights about legislators’ goals, plans, and ultimate ambitions most previous studies may not have been able to capture. Surprisingly, politicians might harbor progressive but mostly manifest static ambition, such as getting re-elected. However, ambition is distinctly dynamic (e.g., from re-election to the same office, to a higher, or even lower one) and prone to change throughout tenure.
Corral and Martínez Rosón investigate vote-buying practices in chapter 5. Results show practices vary substantially depending on location. While it appears to be common in the Dominican Republic and Paraguay, legislators rarely engage in such practices in Uruguay or Costa Rica. Important to consider for future research is the high social desirability bias uncovered. Results revealed significant gaps between legislators’ perception of their country's customs versus what they personally engage in.
In chapter 7, Arana Araya and Guerrero Valencia combine PELA with Presidential Database of the Americas data (Arana Araya 2017), gaining deeper insight into factors influencing how much legislators trust the president. A host of sociodemographic and psychological variables about the presidents produced unique results: prior entrepreneurial engagement leads to higher levels of trust, as does political socialization; political experience does not pose a strong influence. For psychological factors, openness to new experiences emerged as the most important predictor of trust.
Legislative Elites
Chapter 8 by García Montero and Graciela Rodríguez connects research strands previously highlighted and focuses on legislative elites. Researchers used 8,369 interviews from the PELA dataset to investigate how gender influences political careers. Data shows that there are differences according to gender, with women's political careers being shorter. Finally, family trajectories seem to differ, with male legislators being more likely to be married or living with a partner.
Case Studies
The book's second part – five chapters – focuses on case studies, singling out individual countries represented in the PELA datasets.
Chapter 10 by Melo et al. addresses how useful the ideologic left-right distinction is in research and what it reveals about issues parliamentarians face. Despite some academic voices criticizing this division (Haupt 2010; Mair 2007), results highlight that ideologic self-positioning serves as a predictor of support for various issues parliamentarians encounter, (e.g., provision of welfare or gender inequality). Additionally, socioeconomic facts considered appear to hold some power (e.g., education and religion); it appears the ideologic left/right distinction can be used as a relevant proxy for future studies.
This is followed by Chapter 11 by Márquez and Marenghi, exploring how perceptions of political stability change over time and how perceptions are influenced by factors like trust in electoral processes or agreement with the constitution. Overall, results show that elite perceptions are not always congruent with citizens’, warranting further research.
In chapter 12, Ramírez Baracaldo and Rivas Otero highlight two major types of legislators’ opposition (leftists and center-rightists). Joining to the CD-party (created in 2013 in direct opposition to FARC-EP) emerged as an important predictor thereof, whereas membership of other parties is inconsequential.
Chasquetti and Selios take a closer look at Uruguay in Chapter 13, investigating how legislators view themselves as key elements for democracies and how congruent their opinions are with those of regular citizens. There appear to be clear differences depending on which party legislators belong to, with center-left legislators showing more support for abortion than center-rightist ones. This ideologic positioning and stance on certain issues makes Uruguay a case of “moderate representation” (Kitschelt et al. 1999).
The final chapter by Barragán investigates similarities and differences in opinions held by political elites in Panama and Guatemala. While both show no ideological polarization in their party systems due to strong personalism (from the long history of businesspeople entering politics), the authors point to contrasting views. In Panama, legislative elites assess their political system as stable and are more satisfied with democracy, whereas confidence and satisfaction with institutions remain lower in Guatemala.
Overall, Politics and Political Elites in Latin America offers readers an exciting insight into Latin American legislators’ minds. Drawing from the impressive PELA dataset, all studies included provide approaches rarely found in research, making it a valuable resource for anybody interested in Latin American politics. More seasoned researchers might be informed about and inspired to make use of the PELA dataset, broadening the scope of current scientific contributions in Latin American Politics.
