Wendy Hunter

Rewarding Lula: Executive Power, Social Policy, and the Brazilian Elections of 2006

This article analyzes Luiz Inácio da Silvas resounding reelection victory in the wake of corruption scandals implicating his party and government. Voters with lower levels of economic security and schooling played a critical role in returning Lula to the presidency. Least prone to punish the president for corruption, poorer Brazilians were also the most readily persuaded by the provision of material benefits. Minimum wage increases and the income transfer program Bolsa Família expanded the purchasing power of the poor. Thus, executive power and central state resources allowed Lula to consolidate a social base that had responded only weakly to his earlier, party-based strategy of grassroots mobilization for progressive macrosocietal change. Although Lula won handily, the PTs delegation to Congress shrank for the first time, and the voting bases of president and party diverged. The PT benefited far less than the president himself from government investment in social policy.

Democracy and Social Spending in Latin America, 1980–92

What is the effect of regime type on public expenditures for social programs? We investigate the relationship between democracy and the change in social spending—controlling for GDP, the debt, inflation, and age structure of the population—through a time-series cross-sectional panel data set for 17 Latin American countries from 1980 to 1992. The results show that, especially in poor countries during economic crisis, democracies increase the allocation of resources to social programs relative to authoritarian regimes. This suggests that the latter are more constrained by economic forces, whereas democracies are more constrained by popular demands. Hence, calls to abandon broad categorizations of regime type appear to be premature: Democracy can matter in systematic and substantial ways.

Democracy and Human Capital Formation Education Spending in Latin America, 1980 to 1997

This article examines the relationship between democratic representation and spending on education in Latin America. The authors assess the impact that democracy has on the distribution of resources between different levels of schooling and on total spending on education. Specifically, they test whether democratic governments allocate a greater share of resources to primary education, the level that benefits the largest segment of the electorate and that is most critical for human capital formation in developing countries. Using time-series cross-sectional analysis, the authors find that democracies devote a higher percentage of their educational resources to primary education and that they maintain higher absolute spending levels on education in the aggregate, thereby enhancing the prospects of human capital formation.

Leftist governments in Latin America : successes and shortcomings

1. The performance of leftist governments in Latin America: conceptual and theoretical issues Kurt Weyland 2. The repeating revolution: Chavezs new politics and old economics Javier Corrales 3. The challenge of progressive change under Evo Morales George Gray Molina 4. The Chilean left in power: achievements, failures, and omissions Evelyne Huber, Jennifer Pribble and John D. Stephens 5. From Cardoso to Lula: the triumph of pragmatism in Brazil Peter R. Kingstone and Aldo F. Ponce 6. Lulas administration at a crossroads: the difficult combination of stability and development in Brazil Pedro Luiz Barros Silva, Jose Carlos de Souza Braga and Vera Lucia Cabral Costa 7. The policies and performance of the contestatory and moderate left Raul Madrid, Wendy Hunter and Kurt Weyland.

World Bank Directives, Domestic Interests, and the Politics of Human Capital Investment in Latin America

Recent studies underscore the importance of international organizations in transmitting norms, ideas, and values to developing countries. But has this diffusion influenced government policy in less developed countries? During the past two decades, the World Bank has emphasized the need for Third World governments to increase the stock of human capital by investing in education and health. Specifically, it has encouraged developing countries to shift an increasing share of their resources toward primary education. The authors examine 13 Latin American countries between 1980 and 1992 to establish the relationship between World Bank project lending and government investment in human capital. They combine time-series cross-sectional analysis with field research to evaluate the World Banks influence on government spending on education and health. Although the World Bank may be successful in convincing developing country technocrats to “invest in people,” this research suggests that it is less successful in convincing the politicians who control the purse strings.

Continuity or Change? Civil-Military Relations in Democratic Argentina, Chile, and Peru

Have the armed forces maintained their influence in Latin Americas new democracies? Or has the reinstallation of free political competition diminished their political clout? Have overbearing militaries tightly constrained popular sovereignty? Or have democratic responsiveness and accountability extended into wider spheres of political life and reduced military influence? These questions are of crucial importance for the future of the fledgling civilian regimes in the region.1 Scholars adhering to a modes-of-transition perspective expect a high level of continuity in military clout. Following Alfred Stepan, they focus on the fact that Latin American militaries usually maintained control over the democratization process and therefore managed to extract from resurgent democratic forces important institutional prerogatives, such as extensive representation on national security councils and other decision-making bodies with broad political responsibilities, to shield themselves from civilian control, to keep watch over civilian forces, and to interfere in many arenas of democratic politics.2 The modes-of-transition argument thus expects persistent military influence based on institutional structures that are frozen into place during the regime transition.

Negotiating Civil‐Military Relations in Post‐Authoritarian Argentina and Chile

This article invokes game theory to analyze civilian attempts to push back military influence in two countries where the armed forces have enjoyed strikingly dissimilar levels of power and privilege after the transition of democracy: Argentina and Chile. It finds that civilian governments in both countries have managed to make progress in challenging military prerogatives. But they have made relatively more progress in areas unrelated to human rights. While civilians have had to respect military immunity in the human rights sphere, they have managed to erode other limitations on popular sovereignty that the officer corps imposed as a condition for leaving power. The resulting accommodation I describe reflects the pragmatic approach to politics that civilian and military leaders have assumed in post-authoritarian Latin America.

Lula's Brazil at Midterm

This article assesses the Lula government at midterm. The PT-led government has steered a surprisingly orthodox course in economics, social policy and party politics in light of the factors that led it to victory in 2002, namely, the PTs critique of the economic and social models promoted by the Cardoso administration, its reputation as untainted by corruption and clientelism, and Lulas close personal identification with the plight of the poor. While following convention has helped ensure political and economic stability, the PTs long-term contribution to democracy rests on its ability to promote meaningful social development and political reform.

Transforming Subjects into Citizens: Insights from Brazil’s Bolsa Família

Welfare programs distribute benefits to citizens. Perhaps even more importantly, by conveying powerful messages about how the state views poor people, welfare programs shape people’s views about themselves as subjects or citizens. Theoretical debates on how public policies can enhance democratic citizenship inspire our study of Brazil’s Bolsa Familia (Family Grant). Has this conditional cash transfer program, which forms a major point of contact between the state and millions of poor Brazilians, elevated feelings of social inclusion and agency? A prominent perspective in the welfare-state literature would not expect a positive outcome given the strict means testing and behavioral requirements entailed. Yet our focus group research with Bolsa Familia recipients suggests that the program does foster a sense of belonging and efficacy. Policy design and government discourse matter. This innovative welfare program yields rich insights on alternative paths to citizenship development for middle- and low-income countries in the third wave of democracy.

Market structures, political institutions, and democratization: the Latin American and East European experiences

This article develops a structural and institutional framework for exploring the prospects for stable democracy in Latin America and Eastern Europe. Its guiding premise is that democratic consolidation hinges on the willingness of societal actors to use the party system as their primary medium of interest articulation. The structural analysis examines how the resources of agents in different socioeconomic systems influence their affinity for party or non-party strategies. The institutional component assesses how party and state institutions reshape actors’ strategic incentives. Integrating the two logics leads to the following argument: market structures in the developing capitalist countries of Latin America encourage economic elites to circumvent the democratic process. Structural conditions in Eastern Europes transitional socialist countries induce a wider range of actors to employ party strategies, but place anti-democratic elements in a favored position within the electoral arena. Democratic consoli...