Michelle M. Taylor-Robinson

Vote-Seeking Incentives and Legislative Representation in Six Presidential Democracies

Through the use of an original data set of bill initiation activity in six presidential democracies, we advance scholarly understanding of how the institutional incentives faced by legislative candidates influence representation. We extend and adapt theory, derived primarily from the experience of the U.S. Congress, demonstrating its viability, once assumed constants from the U.S. case are explicitly modeled, in quite distinct institutional contexts. In particular, we find the focus of individual legislators on national versus parochial concerns responds to the incentives provided by the candidate selection process, general election rules, legislator career patterns, and interbranch relations.

Do Women Legislators Have Different Policy Priorities than Their Male Colleagues

Abstract This paper proposes that findings in existing literature concerning the policy priorities of women legislators in Nordic countries, the United States, and Argentina may also be generalized to less developed countries where support for women in politics is minimal. Past studies in countries where women have achieved comparatively high levels of representation report that women legislators show a higher legislative priority on issues concerning womens rights and children and families. Using data on bill initiation, this paper analyzes gender differences in the Honduran Congress from the 1990-93 and 1994-97 terms. Findings are similar to previous studies in that women appear to place a higher priority on womens rights issues; however, we find that women do not have a higher priority than men on childrens and family issues. Examination of bill debate shows that women are more frequent participants in debates of bills involving womens rights and childrens and family issues than of bills concerning issues that have traditionally concerned men

Getting to the Top Career Paths of Women in Latin American Cabinets

Are presidential cabinets gendered institutions? This important question has been ignored for Latin America to date. In this article, the authors propose four benchmarks for evaluating whether presidential cabinets should be classified as gendered institutions. If they are we should observe (1) that there are differences in career length, continuity, and mobility between men and women; (2) that women receive feminine domain posts and men masculine ones; (3) that masculine ministries offer greater potential for upward mobility; and (4) that women must be better qualified than men to receive appointments. Using data from eighteen Latin American countries from 1980 to 2003, the authors analyze the degree to which cabinets conform to these criteria. They conclude that even though women are starting to gain appointments to high-profile and to masculine domain cabinet posts, the overall evidence supports the conclusion that there are gendered patterns to cabinet appointments.

Who Gets Legislation Passed in a Marginal Legislature and is the Label Marginal Legislature Still Appropriate?: A Study of the Honduran Congress

This article explores who gets legislation passed in a marginal legislature and what types of legislation it is? Mezey defines a marginal legislature as one with modest policy-making power and little support from political elites. The assumption in Latin American politics is that assemblies are marginal, rubber stamps for the executive. The case of the Honduran Congress is used to empirically test these assumptions. As expected, the executive sponsors most of the bills that become law. However, deputies also sponsor significant numbers of national-level bills and laws. In addition, deputies do not pass much particularistic and local-level legislation that could enhance their local patron status. These findings call into question the continued utility of Mezeys typology of legislatures given the new realities of the third wave of democracy. A new method of classifying legislatures is proposed based on the incentives that deputies have to act independent of the executive.

The Electoral Connection and Legislative Committees

This article examines whether the career needs of legislators – to be re-elected or to move on to another political post – allow us to explain the rules governing committee structures and the committee assignments individual legislators obtain. It uses the institutional variations provided by Argentina, Costa Rica, and Venezuela to test hypotheses about committee assignments and committee assignment mechanisms. It finds that incentives created by candidate selection procedures and electoral rules show some relationship to committee assignments, but with a good deal of variation across national cases and individual careers.

LA POLÍTICA HONDUREÑA Y LAS ELECCIONES DE 2005

Resumen es: Este articulo es un resumen de la historia politica de Honduras y un analisis de las elecciones de2005. Honduras instalo un sistema democratico en 1982, ...

Old Parties and New Democracies Do They Bring out the Best in One Another

The democratization literature suggests a countrys chances of successfully democratizing are improved by having an institutionalized party system that evolved before the recent authoritarian period. However, the conditions under which old parties established in previous democratic, quasi-democratic or authoritarian periods will benefit a new democracy have not been explored. If a party engaged in undemocratic behavior in the past, such as military alliances, election rigging or internal procedures that denied rank-and-file members chances for meaningful participation, then it may bring these undemocratic behavior patterns into the new democratic regime. The traditional parties in Argentina, Honduras, Panama, Peru and Uruguay are used to explore when parties bring undemocratic past behavior patterns into a new democratic regime, thereby hindering consolidation. These cases show that parties which experienced harsh treatment under an authoritarian regime are unlikely to continue authoritarian tactics such as military alliances and election fraud. However, traditional parties resist changing closed internal procedures that they utilized in the past, and thus cannot be relied upon to provide the mass public with opportunities for political participation beyond voting.

Public opinion and conflict in the separation of powers: Understanding the Honduran coup of 2009

Formal constitutional systems of separated powers often fail to sustain meaningful systems of checks and balances in presidential-style democracies. What conditions support balance in the separation of powers and what conditions provoke instability and conflict? We draw on Madisonian political theory and research addressing the separation of powers in the United States to develop a game theoretical model of inter-institutional stability and conflict within a separation of powers system. Two factors emerge as catalysts for institutional instability and conflict among the branches of government: high-stakes institutional rivalry combined with uncertainty about the public’s relative support for various branches of government. We apply the model to the experience of Honduras in 2008–2009 that resulted in the coup ousting President Zelaya which illustrates the difficulty of developing credible checks and balances.

Honduras: una mezcla de cambio y continuidad

Resumen es: Este articulo analiza las fuentes de cambio y de continuidad en la politica de Honduras para entender si el regimen democratico esta progresando hacia la...

Sex, Survival, and Scandal: A Comparison of How Men and Women Exit Presidential Cabinets

The process of selecting cabinet ministers often takes place behind closed doors, including weighing the need to balance or manage factions within the presidents party and/or coalition partners; addressing demands for diversity in the cabinet, such as appointment of women or other historically underrepresented groups; sending signals about the administrations policy agenda; and enabling the president to have people he or she trusts close at hand. On the other hand, ministerial exits are usually less private affairs. In some cases they come after weeks of public or congressional scrutiny and criticism of ministers for policy failures or follow extended speculation about who will lose their seat when the president reshuffles the cabinet. Some ministers depart to pursue lucrative private-sector opportunities. Other ministers switch posts but stay in government. How ministers exit can have implications for the administration since a president who is frequently forced to shuffle the cabinet or sack ministers looks ineffective, and comparisons to rats and sinking ships are difficult to avoid in the wake of excessive changes. At the same time, an administration with zero turnover may also not be healthy, as it would suggest that presidents are staidly bound to their initial course of action and unable (or unwilling) to adapt to changing circumstances.