Taylor C. Boas

Conceptualizing Continuity and Change

Political scientists studying institutional development face the challenge of accounting for both continuity and change over time. Models of path dependence based on increasing returns, inspired by the example of the QWERTY typewriter keyboard, have played an important role in the analysis of institutional continuity, but they have been criticized for their inability to accommodate change. In this article I present an alternative model of path dependence inspired by the example of the Internet, a technology that has changed fundamentally since its invention. The composite-standard model of path dependence illustrates how complex political institutions subject to increasing returns can evolve gradually over time through a changing mix of lower-level component parts. By incorporating mechanisms of institutional change, such as conversion and layering, within an increasing returnsbased theoretical framework, the composite-standard model highlights new interconnections among these previously distinct processes and offers new insights into the nature of long-term political change.

The Spoils of Victory: Campaign Donations and Government Contracts in Brazil

When firms give money to candidates for public office, what return can they expect on their investment? Prior studies have been inconclusive, due to both methodological challenges and unique features of the U.S. political context on which they have focused. Using data from Brazil, we employ a regression discontinuity (RD) design to identify the effect of an electoral victory on government contracts for a candidate’s corporate donors. Firms specializing in public-works projects can expect a substantial boost in contracts—at least 14 times the value of their contributions—when they donate to a federal-deputy candidate from the ruling Workers’ Party (PT) and that candidate wins office. We find no effects among allied parties, indicating that the PT prioritizes this form of state spending for party strengthening rather than coalition management.

Television and Neopopulism in Latin America: Media Effects in Brazil and Peru

Several Latin American countries have experienced the emergence of neopopulist politicians who eschew ties to traditional parties and orient their campaigns toward the atomized poor. This article examines the role of television in the electoral success of these politicians. Using survey data, I assess the impact of television exposure on vote choice in the 1989 election of Fernando Collor de Mello in Brazil, the 2000 election of Alberto Fujimori in Peru, and the 2001 election of Alejandro Toledo in Peru. These cases achieve variation on two predictors of media effects: the presence of a neopopulist outsider and biased television coverage of the campaign. Statistical analysis confirms our theoretical expectations of media effects in the first two elections (where coverage was biased) but not in the third. These findings suggest that bias is the more reliable predictor of televisions impact on Latin American presidential elections, rather than the presence of a neopopulist candidate.

The Dictator's Dilemma: The Internet and U.S. Policy Toward Cuba

The information revolution poses new challenges for authoritarian regimes. While Cubas experience does not invalidate this idea, it does show that these regimes have more options than simply democratization or economic decline.

Will the Digital Revolution Revolutionize Development? Drawing Together the Debate

This concluding article returns to the broad question that motivates this special issue ofStudies in Comparative International Development: Will the Digital Revolution constitute a revolution in development? In addressing this issue, we explore a number of common themes emphasized by the different contributions: the future of the North-South divide, the role of the state in promoting digital development, the transferability and adaptability of specific information and communication technologies, the challenges and potential benefits of controlling digital information, and the developmental effects of digitally enabled communities. We argue that the Digital Revolutions ultimate impact on development will depend on several key variables, including the extent to which these technologies foster within-country linkages among different sectors and socioeconomic classes; the degree to which new technological applications may be customized or transformed to advance local development; and the outcome of political contests between organized interests that are promoting different ways of organizing and governing the global digital economy. While it is difficult to fully assess a transformation while living in the midst of it, research on the social, political, and economic implications of the Digital Revolution will constitute an important agenda for development scholars in the years to come.

Pastors for Pinochet: Authoritarian Stereotypes and Voting for Evangelicals in Chile

How does a candidate’s religion affect voting behavior in societies without politically salient interdenominational cleavages? Communicating one’s faith should win votes among fellow believers, but in the absence of intergroup competition, it should not directly affect the vote of out-group members. Yet a candidate’s religion can also influence out-group voting behavior via stereotypes that are politically salient. This article uses a survey experiment, conducted prior to Chile’s 2013 election, to examine how priming evangelicals’ historical support for the government of General Augusto Pinochet affects vote intention for an evangelical candidate for Congress. Identifying a candidate as evangelical boosts vote intention among evangelical respondents but does not directly affect members of the out-group. Among right-wing nonevangelicals, the Pinochet prime increases vote intention for an evangelical candidate, but it has no effect for center-left voters. These results suggest that pinochetismo remains salient for a new generation of right-wing voters in Chile.

Classic Questions, New Context: Development in an Era of Bits and Bytes

S of development have long granted a privileged role to technological change. For classical political economists such as Smith and Marx, technological advancement provided the ultimate driver of changes in the division of labor, with all of its economic, social, and political consequences. Modernization theory also accorded technology a central role: Rostow’s (1960) famous five stages of growth were largely about increasing technological mastery over the environment, and scholars such as Lerner (1958) and Pye (1963) considered communication technology an essential engine of economic progress. For theorists of the global product cycle (Vernon, 1971), dependency (Cardoso and Falleto, 1979), and other schools of thought, the mode of technology transfer from rich to poor countries either constituted a limitation on national economic development in the South or significantly shaped the character and internal distribution of resulting economic growth (Evans, 1979). No matter what the theoretical perspective, one would be hard-pressed to give a comprehensive account of any episode of long-run economic development, political conquest, or social change without reference to the role of technology. The recent rise of the “digital economy” therefore presents today’s development scholars with important opportunities and challenges. Digitization, or the ability to store and transmit data in binary form as a series of 1s and 0s, is the common denominator that underlies such trends as greater interconnectivity and data replicability, increases in the speed and decreases in the cost of communication, and the rise of new industries such as the Internet and mobile telephony. With respect to the history of information and communication technologies (ICTs), digitization clearly constitutes a revolution, enabling people to connect with each other

Electoral incentives to combat mosquito-borne illnesses: Experimental evidence from Brazil

Abstract Mosquito-borne illnesses present significant health challenges to the developing world. If citizens are informed about their government’s efforts to combat these diseases, will they reward incumbents who have performed well and punish those who have done poorly at this task? Electoral sanctioning requires that combatting disease be a sufficiently salient concern, which, in turn, is likely to depend upon subjective perceptions of the risks posed by particular illnesses. Epidemics typically prompt stronger risk perceptions than endemic diseases, but where both types circulate jointly, the more familiar endemic disease may determine public reactions. The salience of health threats also varies among individuals; those with a self-interest in prevention or a personal connection to the effects of mosquito-borne illnesses may react more strongly. This study presents the results of a face-to-face survey experiment in Pernambuco, Brazil, informing subjects about their mayor’s use of federal funds to combat mosquito-borne illnesses such as dengue (an endemic disease) and Zika and chikungunya (both epidemics). We examine the effect of this information on intended vote for the mayor’s reelection. For the full sample, the treatment has no significant effect. However, we find a large and significant punishment effect among voters who know someone affected by microcephaly or the Zika virus. Drawing on survey and focus group evidence, we argue that most voters fail to act upon our treatment information because mosquito control is a low-salience concern primarily associated with endemic rather than epidemic diseases. Our study constitutes the first experimental evidence as to whether informing citizens about government public health efforts affects voting behavior. Our results suggests that, where similar epidemic and endemic diseases circulate together, informational campaigns aiming to induce electoral accountability should also seek to boost the salience of the information by educating the public about the difference between familiar and newer threats.