Entering the Electoral Arena: Teachers' Unions, Democracy, and Education Policy in Latin America

• In Event: 63.018 - Promising Scholarship in Education: Dissertation Fellows and Their Research

Abstract

This poster explains the causes and consequences of different patterns of electoral mobilization by teachers' unions in Latin America. Electoral mobilization by teachers can enable them to exert significant influence over education policy, to block neoliberal education reforms, and to propose alternative policies that strengthen public schools and improve the material well-being of teachers. Employing a comparative historical framework, I analyze how teachers’ unions entered the electoral arena and became prominent hubs of electoral mobilization after democratic openings. Specifically, I compare the divergent patterns of electoral mobilization by teachers’ unions in Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico. In Colombia and Mexico, teachers’ unions entered electoral politics; public school teachers formed an organized voting bloc and union leaders were recruited as political candidates. In Argentina, although politics became more open after the democratic transition in 1983, the union maintained greater autonomy from the electoral arena. What explains these contrasting patterns of electoral engagement? How did electoral engagement shape education policy in these three countries? I use the method of process tracing to identify causal mechanisms that help to explain divergent patterns of electoral mobilization and to link electoral mobilization to policy outcomes. This research draws on qualitative and quantitative data collected during 16 months of fieldwork in Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico. I find that two factors strongly shape the ability of teachers’ unions to become significant hubs of electoral mobilization. First, shifts in electoral rules related to democratic transitions create space for teachers’ unions to play a salient role in the electoral arena. Electoral rules that accommodated the political geography of teachers and set low barriers to entry induce union leaders to enter the electoral arena and to form teachers into a relatively cohesive voting bloc. Second, distinct historical legacies endowed teachers’ unions with different types of electoral resources and linkages to their member base. Corporatist legacies shaped the capacity of union leaders to exert control over the union organization and coordinate electoral mobilization from above. In Mexico, the ruling party had given the union significant control over the education sector, and union leaders used state resources to finance electoral mobilization. In Argentina and Colombia, teachers’ unions had social movement legacies, and access to fewer state resources. In Colombia, recurrent teacher protests enabled union leaders to exert considerable influence over rank and file members. By contrast in Argentina a legacy of harsh repression, under the military dictatorship, weakened the ties between union leaders and members, and gave the union more limited influence over the voting behavior of teachers. This research is significant for research on comparative education because teachers’ unions have become salient hubs of electoral mobilization in developing democracies across world regions. Existing literature does not explain these diverse patterns of electoral mobilization, nor does it interpret the consequences of electoral mobilization by teachers for education policy.

Author

• Christopher Chambers-Ju, University of California - Berkeley