Andrea Castagnola

Party Nationalization and Institutions

Party nationalization has two distinct components: the first is based on the degree of homogeneity in the geographic distribution of a partys vote, and the other is defined by the degree to which national events are reflected in the change in a partys electoral support in all regions of the country. In spite of literature tying the static/distributional and the dynamic components together, we show theoretically and empirically that there is a nonnecessary link between them. We then use a seemingly unrelated regression analysis on 60 parties across 28 countries to show that while the executive system (presidentialism vs. parliamentarism) drives an explanation of the dynamic levels of nationalization, the electoral system explains much of the variance in the static/distributional aspect of the phenomenon.

Judicial Instability and Endogenous Constitutional Change: Lessons from Latin America

Legal scholars frequently advocate institutional reforms to modernize the judiciary and promote judicial independence. However, constitutional reforms also offer an opportunity for politicians to reshuffle the high courts. The negative consequences of constitutional change for judicial stability are explored using an original database of Supreme Court and Constitutional Tribunal members in eighteen Latin American countries between 1904 and 2010. Because unobserved factors potentially explain constitutional replacement as well as judicial turnover, a two-stage event-history model has been employed. The analysis integrates two literatures, studies of constitution-making and studies of judicial politics. The results show that constitutional change is a significant cause of judicial instability and court manipulation, even after potential endogeneity has been taken into account.