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Examinations of social policy often focus on their economic and social outcomes without much concern for their political dimensions. Since Evo Morales assumed the presidency of Bolivia in 2006, the Andean country has emerged as a powerful example of how social policy can be leveraged for political purposes beyond clientelism. The government's famous nationalization of natural gas resources along with a hefty hydrocarbon tax funded two major social programs: the Bono Juancito Pinto, an education conditional cash transfer, and Renta Dignidad, a universal old-age pension. Evidence from surveys, key informant interviews, reports, and official documents demonstrated that Bolivia's universal social policy was motivated by more than the goal of efficiently addressing the country's chronic social inequality. The Morales administration's implementation of these programs was a conscious decision to leverage windfall resource rents to build greater national solidarity and advance the MAS' political project to refound the country. Through a universalist approach to social policy, the MAS government has consolidated political hegemony, strengthened national solidarity, and secured the support of the armed forces. This political strategy, however, rests on shaky ground. The rentier model the government depends on to fund universal social policy fuels social conflicts that could destabilize the MAS' recently won hegemony and its attempts at nation building. Bolivia's experience with universal cash transfers lays the foundation for future study of social policy and nation building in the developing world; it is also important to examine how funding sources impact the efficacy of these programs. Considering cash transfers' exploding popularity and dissemination across the world in the last decade, this thesis calls for the more nuanced study of these programs in their political dimensions. / text

Boston University. University Professors Program Senior theses. / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-02

This thesis seeks for an explanation of social mobilisation by examining the nuts and bolts of the institutional design of democracies. Since the nature of executive-legislative relations in democracy is an important influence on the distribution of policy outcomes between actors in society, and consequently on the extent of support (or inclusion) of citizens to the way power is exercised, the present work investigates how pure presidentialism (and the whole range of institutional accessories that can be combined with this particular executive) affects the opportunities and constraints for social mobilisation. This is done by conducting a within-format comparison across pure presidential regimes in Latin America, where most pure presidential regimes are located. The thesis is grounded in both quantitative and qualitative methods of research. Quantitatively, protest events are measured across time and space and the parameters are estimated through pooled cross-sectional time-series models for count data. Qualitatively, three case studies are examined: Bolivia (electoral rules), Ecuador (non-legislative and legislative presidential power) and Venezuela (party system). The main findings of this study are: Within presidential systems social mobilisation is more likely to occur whenever: (1) presidents are selected in runoff elections in the assembly, and (2) constitutions allow the immediate re-election of the president. However, the prospects for social mobilisation are not significantly affected by the extent to which electoral formulae promote the entry of parties to the assembly. As regards to the relative powers of the presidency and the legislature, the extent of the decree and veto powers of the president do not affect the occurrence of social mobilisation. Instead, the probability of contentious action is greater whenever (3) the capacity of legislatures to censure and sanction the members of the executive is low; and (4) legislatures have weak authority over public spending. Lastly, it is shown that the probability of social mobilisation does not vary across majoritarian and minority governments; neither is social mobilisation susceptible to the levels of electoral volatility in the legislature. Rather, (5) social mobilisation is highest whenever the pro-presidential contingent in the legislature is dominated by one large political party. The thesis thus concludes by strongly advocating for the inclusion of the format of the executive as an important variable in the comparative study of social mobilisation and of the substantive outputs of a democracy, in general.

Since the transitions to democracy in Latin America, women in the region have undergone major changes in their roles in society. From traditionally only present in the home to participating in collective action efforts, and finally participating at increasing numbers in governments, women have made incredible strides in the Latin American region. Latin American countries have successfully advocated for the inclusion of women in government, but few studies in academia focus on determining whether their inclusion has made a difference in government processes or in society. Borrowing from the literature positing that women are behaviorally different from men as well as their identification with motherhood and as wives in their collective action efforts in Latin America, I argue that women have different concerns from men both outside and inside of the public sphere and therefore make a difference in government with regards to policy priorities and government budget allocations. Studying 18 Latin American countries, I find that there is a gender gap in public opinion, which demonstrates that women are more concerned with social welfare matters than men. I also find that female concerns are carried into their behavior once in government as observed by female legislators’ heightened support for social welfare policies. Furthermore, I find that women in legislatures affect government behavior differently from their male counterparts as observed with female legislators’ positive effects on the allocation of the budget towards social welfare areas.

In the last two decades, corruption has become a key concern throughout the world. Most of what we know about corruption comes from instances in which misdeeds become public, usually generating a scandal. Why do some acts of corruption become corruption scandals and others do not? This dissertation argues that scandals are not triggered by corruption per se, but are initially caused by the dynamics of political competition within the government. Government insiders leak information on misdeeds in order to increase their influence within the coalition/party in power. A powerful opposition, contrary to common beliefs, acts as a constraint for insiders, making corruption scandals less likely. In order to advance this central argument, this dissertation divides the temporal development of corruption scandals into four stages and proposes a formal model that analyzes the interactions of government insiders and the political opposition. The arguments and hypotheses generated are then evaluated using empirical evidence from two paradigmatic Latin American cases, Argentina and Chile, from 1989 to 2010. The findings support the notion that corruption scandals emerge as a consequence of political competition. / text

This article analyzes the political proposal of ethno-cacerism from the books written and the fortnightly headed by its leader, Antauro Humala, to claim that it is a type of radical populismBased on the concepts of populism, radical populism and ethno-populism, analyzes thefeatures and constraints of ethno-cacerism The author argues that these concepts allow us tounderstand the sense and role of the eclectic components of the ethno-cacerism proposal / El presente artículo analiza la propuesta política etnocacerista, a partir de los libros escritos yel quincenario dirigido por su líder, Antauro Humala, para sostener que se trata de un tipo de populismo radical A partir de los conceptos de populismo, populismo radical y etnopopulismo, analiza las características y limitaciones del etnocacerismo Sostiene que estos conceptos permiten comprender el sentido y el rol de los eclécticos componentes de la propuestaetnocacerista / O presente artigo analisa a proposta política etnocacerista, a partir dos livros escritos e o quin-zenário dirigido pelo seu líder, Antauro Humala, para sustentar mesmo que é um tipo de popu- larização radical A partir desses conceitos de populismo, populismo radical e etno-populismo, analisa as características e limitações do etnocacerismo Sustenta o que estes conceitos permi- tirem compreender o sentido e a função dos ecléticos elementos da proposta etnocacerista

This dissertation explores the relationship between race and democratization. Through the examination of the case of the Dominican Republic, this study challenges mainstream explanations of democratic transitions. At its core, this dissertation aims at calling attention to the absence of race and ethnic allegiances as explanatory variables of the democratic processes and debates in the region. By focusing on structural variables, the analysis shies away from elite and actor-centered explanations that fall short in predicting the developments and outcomes of transitions. The central research questions of this study are: Why is there an absence of the treatment of race and ethnic allegiances during the democratic transitions in Latin America and the Caribbean? How has the absence of ethnic identities affected the nature and depth of democratic transitions? Unlike previous explanations of democratic transitions, this dissertation argues that the absence of race in democratic transitions has been a deliberate attempt to perpetuate limited citizenship by political and economic elites. Findings reveal a difficulty to overcome nationalist discourses where limited citizenship has affected the quality of democracy. Original field research data for the study has been gathered through semi-structured interviews and focus groups conducted from October 2008 to December 2009 in the Dominican Republic.

In recent years, the people of Latin America have organized and elected political leaders traditionally excluded from their nation's established political systems. In Venezuela and Bolivia, the shifts to the left may have been the most drastic. This research will look to what extent United States Foreign Policy led to a radical restructuring in the Venezuelan and Bolivian political systems. Additionally the research will examine the effect of America' War on Drugs and other misguided policies that led to a rejection of the old era of American cooperation and in turn an embrace of a new vision. Utilizing the Dependency Theory as a framework and applying the Blowback Theory, the research synthesizes the contemporary history of the two nations and popular opinion of cooperation with the US. Specifically, research will also focus on the effect undemocratic policies have had on fostering an environment of solidarity among people to come together and link their struggles against hegemonic American policies. Cooperation with the US has often led to the adoption of market-centered economic policies that left the two countries in states of severe poverty where the only way for the people to survive was to collectively organize.

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