Papers by Mauricio Rivera Celestino
Politica y Gobierno
Resumen: Diversos comentaristas afirman que la ciencia política mexicana ha seguido el modelo est... more Resumen: Diversos comentaristas afirman que la ciencia política mexicana ha seguido el modelo estadounidense y arrastra todos sus vicios, mientras que otros consideran que la disciplina en México está lejos del estándar estadounidense pero esa debería ser la meta. Este debate ha estado más presente en el terreno de las impresiones que en el de la eva-luación sistemática del estado de la ciencia política mexicana. El artículo analiza una muestra de 231 trabajos de ciencia política publicados en tres revistas académicas consoli-dadas (1990-2007). Contrario a las creencias sobre la americanización de la ciencia política mexicana, los resultados muestran que ésta es dominantemente descriptiva, monográfica y cualitativa. La conclusión principal es que, más allá de debatir la preeminencia de algún método en particular, la disciplina en México contribuirá más a medida que se discutan aspectos sustantivos de los métodos y procesos de investigación. Palabras clave: ciencia política mexicana,...
Política y Gobierno, 2010
Algunas democracias alrededor del mundo —incluidas las latinoamericanas— presentan niveles de rep... more Algunas democracias alrededor del mundo —incluidas las latinoamericanas— presentan niveles de represión iguales o superiores a la media global de las autocracias. Pese a la relevancia de este fenómeno, la investigación de la represión democrática es escasa y poco sistematizada. Mediante la distinción entre represión estatal centralizada y descentralizada, y considerando aportes provenientes de la agenda global y de los estudios de área-América Latina, se presenta una revisión de las teorías y explicaciones empíricas que pueden contribuir a la construcción de una teoría de la represión democrática. Paralelamente, se presenta un catálogo de los desafíos asociados con los procesos de generación teórica y evaluación empírica, y se ofrecen alternativas a estos retos. La conclusión principal es que al modelar el uso de la violencia estatal democrática en términos de distintas relaciones agente-principal (gobernantes electos-agencias estatales de seguridad, agencias estatales de seguridad-ciudadanía), los estudios de área-AL ofrecen herramientas analíticas útiles para la investigación comparada de la represión democrática.
Política y Gobierno, 2011
Diversos comentaristas afirman que la ciencia política mexicana ha seguido el modelo estadouniden... more Diversos comentaristas afirman que la ciencia política mexicana ha seguido el modelo estadounidense y arrastra todos sus vicios, mientras que otros consideran que la disciplina en México está lejos del estándar estadounidense pero esa debería ser la meta. Este debate ha estado más presente en el terreno de las impresiones que en el de la evaluación sistemática del estado de la ciencia política mexicana. El artículo analiza una muestra de 231 trabajos de ciencia política publicados en tres revistas académicas consolidadas (1990-2007). Contrario a las creencias sobre la americanización de la ciencia política mexicana, los resultados muestran que ésta es dominantemente descriptiva, monográfica y cualitativa. La conclusión principal es que, más allá de debatir la preeminencia de algún método en particular, la disciplina en México contribuirá más a medida que se discutan aspectos sustantivos de los métodos y procesos de investigación.
Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2017
Existing research has paid increasing attention to the role of political institutions such as leg... more Existing research has paid increasing attention to the role of political institutions such as legislatures and opposition parties in autocracies. So far, however, the relationship between nondemocratic institutions and state repression has remained largely unclear. This article argues that authoritarian institutions are related to divergent conflicting dynamics between incumbent regimes and opposition actors, which provide leaders with opposite incentives to repress. While authoritarian legislatures enhance leaders’ capacity to prevent conflict and reduce their need for repression, the presence of opposition parties helps opposition actors to overcome collective action barriers and mobilize against the incumbent regime, increasing the states’ need for repression. A panel data analysis of nondemocracies from 1976 to 2007 shows that authoritarian-elected legislatures reduce repression and the presence of opposition parties increases it. Moreover, the results indicate that autocracies with opposition parties and an elected legislature experience lower repression than autocracies with opposition parties but no elected legislature.
Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2017
Existing research has uncovered strong geographical clustering in civil war and a variety of diff... more Existing research has uncovered strong geographical clustering in civil war and a variety of diffusion mechanisms through which violence in one country can increase the risk of outbreaks in other countries. Popular coverage of nonviolent protest often emphasizes regional waves like the 1989 revolutions in Eastern Europe and the Arab Spring. However, most research on nonviolence focuses only on features within countries affecting motivation and opportunities, and we know little about the possible role of diffusion and transnational factors. We detail how nonviolent campaigns in other states can increase nonviolent mobilization and direct action, highlighting important differences in the likely actors for violent and nonviolent direct action and the relevant diffusion mechanisms. We find strong empirical evidence for diffusion in nonviolent campaigns. The effects are largely confined to campaigns in neighboring countries, and there is little evidence of global diffusion. The potential diffusion effects are also specific to whether dissent is violent and nonviolent rather than general political instability. Moreover, we find that the effects of neighboring campaigns on nonviolent direct action apply only in cases with plausible motivation for contesting the government, and the effects are stronger when the regional environment can help expand opportunities for organizing dissent.
International Interactions, 2015
This article provides an explanation for the significant variation in coups in autocracies. The e... more This article provides an explanation for the significant variation in coups in autocracies. The existing theoretical literature focuses on the strategies that leaders use to thwart mass mobilization and survive in power. However, most autocratic leaders lose power through a coup, indicating that the main threats to political survival in autocracies emerge from insiders and not from outside the incumbent coalition. This article focuses on leaders’ strategies to mitigate elite threats and argues that autocrats’ strategies of co-optation and repression within the ruling elite and the armed forces affect the risk of coups in opposite ways. Elected authoritarian legislatures are instruments that leaders employ to co-opt members of the incumbent coalition and are expected to decrease the likelihood of coups. In contrast, purges of insider actors constitute a repressive strategy that depletes bases of support and increases the risk of coups. We find empirical support for these hypotheses from a sample of all authoritarian regimes from 1950 to 2004.
Journal of Peace Research , 2016
The study of social violence in Latin America has stood at the periphery of cross-national resear... more The study of social violence in Latin America has stood at the periphery of cross-national research despite the region being one of the most violent in the contemporary world. This article provides a comprehensive review of theories of crime and presents an empirical analysis of social violence in Latin America from 1980 to 2010. The literature often emphasizes one theoretical approach over others and existing explanations are seen as competitive rather than complementary. Yet, the empirical findings of this study support different explanations and illustrate how considering different theoretical approaches helps improve our knowledge on social violence phenomena. The results from different estimation methods reveal that youth bulges, female workforce, and post-conflict states are positively associated with social violence, as measured by homicide rates. The results also show that states’ efforts to strengthen judicial system capacity and increase school attendance can promote peace. Moreover, while drug producers and/or transit countries are not systematically related to social violence, money-laundering countries experience higher homicide rates, suggesting that not all dimensions of drug-markets increase violence. Whereas Latin America as a whole has experienced few episodes of civil wars in the past decades, the findings suggest that several factors affecting the onset of civil wars also influence other forms of non-political violence such as social violence. This echoes earlier calls in the literature on the necessity of bridging conflict and criminology research.
Journal of Peace Research, 2013
Whereas optimists see the so-called Arab Spring as similar to the revolutions of 1989, and likely... more Whereas optimists see the so-called Arab Spring as similar to the revolutions of 1989, and likely to bring about democratic rule, skeptics fear that protest bringing down dictators may simply give way to new dictatorships, as in the Iranian revolution. Existing research on transitions has largely neglected the role of protest and direct action in destabilizing autocracies and promoting democracy. We argue that protest and direct action can promote transitions in autocracies, and that the mode of direct action, that is, whether violent or nonviolent, has a major impact on the prospects for autocratic survival and democracy. We present empirical results supporting our claim that nonviolent protests substantially increase the likelihood of transitions to democracy, especially under favorable international environments, while violent direct action is less effective in undermining autocracies overall, and makes transitions to new autocracies relatively more likely.
Violent crime has been commonplace in Latin America over the past decades. While existing researc... more Violent crime has been commonplace in Latin America over the past decades. While existing research has made progress in explaining the rationale and outcomes of government coercive strategies against crime, it has overlooked the non-coercive strategies implemented to improve public security. It is argued in this article that political authorities make human capital enhancement efforts to shape actors' incentives about criminal activity and mitigate crime. Accordingly, it is hypothesised that violent crime increases human capital enhancement efforts, and that the effect of violent crime on human capital enhancement efforts is larger when left-oriented governments are in power because they stress actors' motivations over windows of opportunities as the main drivers of crime. Support for these hypotheses is found in a sample of Latin American democracies in the period 1990-2007. Hay poco dinero, pero hay muchas balas. Hay poca comida, pero hay muchas balas ( …) Hay poca educación y muchos cartuchos, cuando se lee poco se dispara mucho (Calle 13, 'La Bala', Entren los que quieren, 2010)
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Papers by Mauricio Rivera Celestino