Social Science Research Council

"Still 'Politics as Usual'?"

My dissertation focuses on the political influence Latin American presidents exert by using the many resources under their control, and whether this influence has waned after economic reforms. Since it seems reasonable to speculate that economic reforms might have reduced the amount of resources under the president's control, politicians might be facing now a very different bargaining environment from the one that existed prior the reforms. The dissertation is structured around a model (in development) in which parties have both policy and non-policy concerns and the president allocates the resources he controls to different groups in order to minimize the costs political bargain. I plan on testing some implications of this models quantitatively in countries where roll call and budgetary data are available, and qualitatively, with case studies of specific instances of bargaining for countries where such data is not available. With the IDRF grant I will be visiting Bolivia and Uruguay, two countries with very different political history, party structure and, especially, reform patterns. The main goals of the trip are twofold: i) Collect data not available from abroad, that will help me address the extent to which the reforms did in fact restrict the president's resources, and whether this has had any impact on the way president's distribute their resources in exchange for support; and ii) conduct interviews with politicians and civil servants to gain insight into whether politicians have been affected by this new environment and how have they sought to adapt.