Carew Boulding

NGOs and Political Participation in Weak Democracies: Subnational Evidence on Protest and Voter Turnout from Bolivia

How do NGOs affect political participation in weakly democratic settings? We know that NGOs can be an important part of moderate civil society by building trust, facilitating collective action, and encouraging voter turnout. This paper explores these relationships in weakly democratic settings. NGOs stimulate political participation by providing resources and opportunities for association. Where voting is seen as ineffective, new participation can take the form of political protests and demonstrations. This paper presents results from an original local level dataset from Bolivia on NGO activity, voter turnout, and political protest, showing a strong relationship between NGO activity and political protest in weakly democratic contexts.

Do political parties matter for turnout? Number of parties, electoral rules and local elections in Brazil and Bolivia

Does the number of political parties influence voter turnout in developing democracies? Some scholars argue that large party systems facilitate matching voter preferences with a specific party, increasing turnout. Others argue multiparty systems produce too many alternatives, decreasing turnout. In developing democracies, there is debate over whether these institutions matter at all. We argue that party systems do matter for turnout in developing countries, but the relationship between turnout and the number of political parties is conditional on the electoral formula. Under proportional representation systems, large numbers of parties increase turnout. Under winner take all systems, large numbers of parties depress turnout. Since electoral rules also influence the number of parties, we use an innovative sub-national research design, taking advantage of local variation in the number of parties that is largely unrelated to the electoral system. Specifically, we test these relationships by analysing turnout data at the municipal level in Brazil and Bolivia, countries with very different electoral rules. Overall, we find evidence that party systems influence turnout, but in different ways depending on the election rules.

Civil Society and Support for the Political System in Times of Crisis

How does civil society affect support for the political system during times of political crises? Some argue that civil society strengthens support for political systems by increasing trust and participation. Yet recent scholarship demonstrates that civil society can also facilitate mobilization and dissent, which may undermine support for the political system, especially in times of crisis. We test these competing claims using individual-level data from a country in the midst of a major political crisis: Bolivia in 2004. We find that membership in civil society organizations leads to higher levels of diffuse support for the political system even during a crisis—and even among those who have recently participated in protest. Civil society, however, is not associated with higher support for government during the crisis. Despite extremely high levels of mobilization, extreme dissatisfaction with government, and evidence that membership in associations actively facilitates political protest, civil society continues to be positively associated with support for the political system.