Recentralisation and Electoral Preferences at the Subnational Level

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

This panel studies the processes of recentralisation in Colombia, Mexico, and Venezuela, as well as the political preferences at the subnational level in Brazil and Ecuador. Several Latin American countries have experienced recentralising reforms in the past decades, a phenomenon that has been scarcely studied (see Dickovick 2011 and Eaton 2013). López-Murcia’s paper look at the recentralising processes in Colombia in the last two decades and proposes an innovative hypothesis on the role of both economic boom and crisis on the emergence of recentralisation (transfer of resources, responsibilities, or authority from lower to higher levels of government). Olmeda and Armesto will present a research on Mexico's recentralisation, and will explain a model to understand governors’ different positions when facing recentralisation attempts. And Banko will describe the diverse forms of recentralising actions that the Chávez administration undertook in Venezuela. Finally, Gatto's paper studies the goal-oriented preferences of Brazilian state legislators on electoral reforms. And parting from a case study of the 2014 subnational elections in Ecuador, West's paper studies whether voters react to the economic successes of the governing party, even as that party is increasingly involved in violations of democratic rights.

Sub Track

• Political Institutions and Processes

Session Organizer

• Julian D Lopez-Murcia, University of Oxford

Chair

• André Borges, Universidade de Brasilia

Individual Presentations

• The Role of Economic Performance on the Emergence of Recentralisation: Colombia, 1994-2014 - Julian D Lopez-Murcia, University of Oxford

• To Oppose or Not to Oppose? Recentralization and Governors in Mexico - Juan C Olmeda, El Colegio de Mexico; Alejandra Armesto, FLACSO-Mexico

• Political Ambition and Powerless Subnational Actors: the Goal-Oriented Preferences of Brazilian State Legislators on Electoral Reform - Maria Luiza Aberceb Carvalho Gatto, University of Oxford

• Explaining variations in bureaucratic human capital. A new type of analysis with evidence of federal countries. - Lorena Moscovich, Universidad de San Andrés; Laura Flamand, El Colegio de México

• Exploring Subnational Stateness in the Argentine Provinces - Jacqueline Behrend, Universidad Nacional de San Martín / CONICET

Discussant

• Eduardo Moncada, Barnard College-Columbia University