Moisés Arce

Globalization, Taxation, and Burden-Shifting in Latin America

Most researchers interested in the relationship between global markets and public policy focus on advanced industrial democracies. In contrast, we examine competing hypotheses as to globalizations effect on governments by expanding the scope of the discussion to include developing nations. More specifically, we investigate the relationship between international market integration and the evolving burden of taxation on capital, as well as the subsequent response of markets to shifts in tax policy in Latin America since the late 1970s. Consistent with our theoretical expectations, we find that global market forces are more constraining vis-a-vis tax policy in Latin America than in the worlds wealthiest nations. Despite these market-based pressures, however, national politics continue to influence tax policy in Latin America in a manner consistent with findings on advanced industrial democracies. As such, developing nations continue to have some room to manipulate policy, though within the context of a more strictly neoliberal context than their counterparts in advanced industrial democracies.

Neoliberalism and Lower-Class Voting Behavior in Peru

It is often assumed that lower classes will resist market-oriented neoliberal reforms that impose economic austerity on popular sectors and exacerbate social inequalities. However, the Peruvian case suggests that there are contexts in which political leaders can implement market reforms while sustaining lower-class political support. Survey data and the electoral results of a 1993 constitutional referendum indicate that President Alberto Fujimoris unexpected postelectoral embrace of the neoliberal model cost him support among lower-class constituents in the short term. However, the renewal of economic growth and accelerated poverty relief funding, combined with a reduction in political violence, enabled Fujimori to win back lower-class support for his 1995 reelection. In the process, Fujimori constructed a multiclass electoral constituency that broke with Perus previous pattern of polarized class-based voting distinctions.

Political Violence and Presidential Approval in Peru

Using monthly presidential approval data for the period between 1985 and 1997 for two presidencies, I analyze the impact of political violence on presidential approval in Peru. While controlling for variables commonly used in the economic voting literature, the results suggest that higher levels of political violence hurt left-leaning governments, but not necessarily right-leaning governments. It is likely that voters expect right-leaning governments to deal better with political violence in general and thus are more supportive of their efforts.

LOW-INTENSITY DEMOCRACY REVISITED: The Effects of Economic Liberalization on Political Activity in Latin America

Existing literature emphasizes the disorganizing or weakening effects of economic liberalization on civil society, whereby free-market policies are said to demobilize and depoliticize collective actors. the article evaluates the effects of economic liberalization on large-scale societal mobilizations across seventeen latin american countries for the period 1970–2000. the article further tests the effects of economic liberalization on individual political participation across sixteen latin american countries for the period 1980–2000. in contrast to the atomization literature, this article provides strong evidence that economic liberalization leads to greater levels of societal mobilization in the context of free-market democratization. the article also demonstrates that economic liberalization does not induce a decline in political participation. collectively, these results cast doubt on the theoretical underpinnings and empirical findings presented in Kurtz (2004).

Societal Protest in Post-Stabilization Bolivia

Bolivia was the poster child for economic liberalization policies adopted throughout Latin America since the 1970s. The country is also currently viewed as a place where the neoliberal or market-oriented economic model has been exhausted, as indicated by high levels of societal protest and recent democratic instability. Using available subnational data from Bolivia, we examine the determinants of societal protest across the countrys nine provinces for the 1995–2005 period. Consistent with recent literature, we find that provinces with higher levels of political competition have lower levels of societal protest. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, which suggests that neoliberal reforms depoliticize and demobilize collective actors, we find that economic liberalization increases the level of protest activity. Taken together, the article draws attention to the paradoxical effect of neoliberalism to simultaneously debilitate certain types of popular resistance and activate others.

Protest and Democracy in Latin America's Market Era

Existing studies hold that Latin America’s market turn has had a demobilizing effect on collective political activity despite the presence of democracy. However, recent work has documented the revival of protest in the region, emphasizing the repoliticization of collective actors in the wake of economic liberalization, especially when democracy is present. This article expands the theoretical scope of the repoliticization perspective, providing the most comprehensive test of the demobilization and repoliticization hypotheses to date. Using time-series data from seventeen Latin American countries, the article confirms the repoliticization view by showing that protest increases with economic liberalization in democratic settings.

PARTIES AND SOCIAL PROTEST IN LATIN AMERICA'S NEOLIBERAL ERA

Prior research has shown that economic liberalization leads to greater levels of protest in the presence of open and democratic politics. Yet the meso-level political institutions that associate democratic political regimes with protest remain unknown. In this light, the article analyses the effects of political parties on the level of protest using cross-sectional time-series data from 17 Latin American countries beginning with the third wave of democratization in 1978. The results show that the quality of representation embodied in political parties structures the level of societal conflict. In particular, countries with low levels of party system institutionalization and high levels of legislative fragmentation experience greater levels of protest activity. Overall, the article highlights the importance of political institutions in countering the most recent wave of protest against economic liberalization across Latin America.

The Societal Consequences of Market Reform in Peru

This article analyzes how market reform policies already in place affect social interests, and the feedback effects of those interests on reform processes. The variety of societal responses includes the creation of new societal organizations, reflecting the variable content and asymmetrical distribution of costs and benefits of the policies implemented. Because of this variety even in Peru, where the disorganizing effects of neoliberal reform appear to be strongest, it would seem that the societal impact of economic reform elsewhere in Latin America would also warrant more careful examination.

The politics of pension reform in Peru

To date, the bulk of the research on the politics of social security reform analyzes privatization as a dependent variable and explores the political and economic conditions leading to the implementation of pension reforms. Departing from the tradition of previous scholarship, this article redirects attention to the political consequences of pension privatization by focusing on how pension reform affects social interests, and the effects of those interests on reform processes. The analysis reveals the importance of looking beyond the initial alignment of interests surrounding market reform initiatives to explore the broader political implications. In Peru, the pension reform created concentrated beneficiaries who pushed for the deepening of the reform process at the expense of costs that were widely distributed among workers in the formal sector.

Competitiveness, Partisanship, and Subnational Protest in Argentina

Research has shown that countries with weak institutions are more likely to experience higher levels of protest as a means to achieve political objectives or express policy demands. A growing body of literature portrays Argentina as a case of widespread institutional weakness, and the country currently sustains the highest rates of protest participation in Latin America. However, existing literature has yet to explain why apparently similar subnational units within the same national democratic regime experience different levels of protest. By moving down to a subnational level of analysis, this article explores the political factors that shape protest activity across the country’s 23 provinces and the city of Buenos Aires for the period 1993–2005. It demonstrates that the electoral incentives created by shifting patterns of political competition and the nature of partisan opposition influence the spatial and temporal unevenness of subnational protest activity.