Journal Articles by John Polga-Hecimovich
Korean Journal of Policy Studies, 2021
In the face of poorly performing bureaucracies, public management specialists and policy experts ... more In the face of poorly performing bureaucracies, public management specialists and policy experts have been quick to suggest administrative reforms. Yet, since governance lies at the nexus of politics and administration, reforms limited to the administrative dimension are likely to fall short without concomitant political change. This essay argues that in contemporary Latin America, certain political-institutional arrangements or institutional traits are more likely to produce (in)effective governance than others. Specifically, Latin American presidentialism creates several “perils” for governance, including: the rigidity and short time horizons of presidentialism; multipartyism under presidentialism; weakly institutionalized party systems and non-programmatic parties; an imbalance of power between strong presidents and weak legislatures; the plebiscitarian nature of presidentialism; and democratic backsliding and the centralization of power in the presidency. These institutional traits incentivize patronage, promote myopic policymaking, and weaken bureaucratic autonomy. To illustrate how they manifest themselves in public policy, the paper uses evidence from the region’s responses to the Covid-19 pandemic, then concludes by suggesting political reforms that may help to improve governance in the region.
The Journal of Democracy, 2021
The election of Guillermo Lasso in Ecuador may indicate a return to the neoliberalism, fiscal aus... more The election of Guillermo Lasso in Ecuador may indicate a return to the neoliberalism, fiscal austerity, and minority government that marked the contentious politics of the 1990s and 2000s. This “return to the past” is the result of successive governments’ inability to resolve longstanding structural deficiencies. Despite overt attempts to forge a new trajectory, Rafael Correa’s Citizens’ Revolution reflected an illusory stability that depended on favorable political-economic conditions. After government revenues decreased and Correa left office, the country’s political and economic pathologies reemerged. Ultimately, the nature of these problems bodes ill for governability under Lasso and for democratic stability.
Journal of Theoretical Politics, 2020
Under free list proportional representation voters can: (a) cast preference votes for candidates;... more Under free list proportional representation voters can: (a) cast preference votes for candidates; (b) cast multiple preferences; and (c) distribute preferences across multiple lists. Alternatively, they can cast a list vote. Our theory shows that office-seeking candidates face incentives to pursue the personal vote, while non-candidate partisans seek the party vote. Voters are in the crosscurrents of these forces. Also, since preference voting is so cognitively and informationally demanding, voters have incentives to use shortcuts, especially (a) list voting; (b) casting fewer than their allotment of preferences; and (c) preference voting for well-known or highly placed candidates. We find support for our expectations using linear mixed-effects regression of the proportion of preference votes in candidate-level electoral data from Ecuador. Personal voting is more prevalent as magnitude increases, where the local party is strong, and for candidates that are incumbents, male, high on the list, and in the position of first loser.
Armed Forces & Society, 2021
Although the value of diversity-in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status-to ... more Although the value of diversity-in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status-to the U.S. military has been subject to debate, preferences for diversity at educational institutions for the military officers are rarely examined systematically. To address this, we investigate whether midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy favor prioritizing diversity in student admissions and faculty recruitment using conjoint analysis, a method suited for estimating attitudes on sensitive and politicized issues. The results show strong preferences in favor of applicants from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds and moderate but still positive preferences for members of traditionally underrepresented racial/ethnic groups in both admissions and faculty recruitment. Midshipmen's preferences with respect to gender are, however, less straightforward. In particular, we find a strong negative preference against gender nonbinary applicants and candidates. Our findings suggest that midshipmen's attitudes reflect both resolved and unresolved debates that resonate throughout the armed forces.
Journal of Latin American Studies
How have governments in Latin America been able to counteract two decades of neoliberalism and pu... more How have governments in Latin America been able to counteract two decades of neoliberalism and pursue post-neoliberal developmental reforms, and what tools have they used to do so? We argue that post-neoliberal projects are possible through the use of three necessary conditions in a context of economic bonanza: 1) extensive use of the legal-constitutional framework to facilitate interventionism; 2) an increase in the centrality of public planning agencies to design those policies; and 3) growth of the bureaucracy to implement the policies. Through a case study of Rafael Correa's Ecuador, we show how a constituent assembly, empowerment of the state planning agency, and increase in the size of the public administration have allowed the president to combat neoliberalism and pursue his ambitious Buen Vivir (Good Living) plan. This simple framework offers important clues for understanding post-liberalism and the return of the state in Ecuador and beyond.
Electoral Studies
Free list proportional representation is an electoral system that gives voters as many votes as t... more Free list proportional representation is an electoral system that gives voters as many votes as there are seats, and allows the voter to distribute them anywhere on the ballot. Computing party support under this system can be complicated, since different electors possess and use different numbers of votes. As a result, national election results and derivatives thereof (e.g. electoral volatility) may be calculated incorrectly. Using a stylized illustration, we describe obstacles to vote aggregation under the free list and develop four approaches for counting votes. The first two, " na¨ıve aggregation " and the " fictional voter " technique, have known applications. We propose the third, which we call " weighted votes, " to deal with missing data about the number of voters. The last, " weighted preferences, " has been used intermittently, and we offer a generalization for a broad range of applications. Applying these methods to Ecuadorian elections, our results reveal biases in certain approaches and inform the question of which method to use and under which circumstances. Lastly, we make publicly available a definitive set of district-and national-level election results for Ecuador over six elections from 1998 to 2017, thereby making it possible for the case to re-enter comparative cross-national research.
"Venezuelan Overview" from the "Debates: Venezuela" in LASA Forum 48 (1): 35-8.
We develop a unified theory of presidential instability to explain why presidents are removed fro... more We develop a unified theory of presidential instability to explain why presidents are removed from office through military coups or through legal procedures. While some causal factors motivate opponents to overthrow the president irrespective of the specific mechanism employed, other factors expand the relative capabilities of groups inclined to pursue military or civilian action. The first group of variables, including economic recession, protests, and radicalization, explains why presidents fall. The second set of variables, including regional diffusion, partisan support for the executive, and normative support for democracy, explains how they are ousted. We test this theory using discrete-time event history models with sample selection on a novel database for 19 Latin American countries between 1945 and 2010., and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments.
The study of the bureaucracy in Latin America, within the study of politics, has long been little... more The study of the bureaucracy in Latin America, within the study of politics, has long been little more than an afterthought. Instead, is assumed to be in the realm of public administration and separate from other regional subfields that have increasingly gained the attention of political scientists. As a result, scholars’ understanding of Latin American bureaucratic politics is limited. Here, we conduct a comprehensive survey of peer-reviewed articles to evaluate the state of the field of Latin American bureaucratic politics. We find a thematically, analytically, and methodologically splintered discipline, but one primed for exploitation and new avenues of research. We summarize salient trends in the literature, describe advances in the study of bureaucracy in Latin America, and discuss limitations with this scholarship. We then suggest a roadmap for scholars by proposing a series of research questions and recommend a series of analytical and methodological approaches to address those questions.
Most scholars of the (now abandoned) Chilean legislative electoral system, known as the “binomial... more Most scholars of the (now abandoned) Chilean legislative electoral system, known as the “binomial system”, have noted the many ways it was designed to benefit the ideological right. However, Zucco (2007) challenges this conventional wisdom by arguing that there is no bias through the electoral sys- tem's majoritarian character, no bias through malapportionment, and that designers could have designed a system to better benefit the ideological right. This paper uses comuna level electoral returns and simulations from Chile's 1988 plebiscite to show that the system was indeed designed to 1) reduce the number of parties in the Chilean party system and 2) minimize electoral losses and maximize electoral gains of the political right. It further argues that, 3) it would have been difficult to design a legislative electoral system to better over-represent the ideological right given the constraints and political context of the time. The analysis strongly supports the rationality of electoral engineering to benefit designers and their allies, even under sub-optimal conditions of limited time and resources. Though the system was abandoned in 2015 in favor of a moderate proportional representation system, it is important to set the record straight in terms of electoral engineers' intents and purposes.
América Latina Hoy, Aug 2014
Este trabajo analiza la evolución de la nacionalización de los partidos políticos en el Ecuador d... more Este trabajo analiza la evolución de la nacionalización de los partidos políticos en el Ecuador desde el retorno a la democracia. Se utilizan los resultados electorales a nivel distrital entre 1979 y 2013 en tres tipos de elecciones (presidenciales, diputados nacionales y diputados provinciales) para evaluar la homogeneidad territorial de los partidos en cada período (nacionalización «estática»), además de la uniformidad distrital en el cambio temporal de ese apoyo (nacionalización «dinámica»). Recurriendo tanto a la cartografía electoral como a un modelo mixto de análisis estadístico, los resultados muestran un alto nivel de volatilidad en ambas dimensiones de la nacionalización para los partidos, incluso en el partido oficialista, Alianza PAIS. Además, exponen que cuando los partidos han logrado acumular amplio apoyo para sus candidatos legislativos, no se puede atribuir ese desplazamiento territorial a las raíces del partido, sino a un efecto mecánico de la popularidad electoral del correspondiente candidato presidencial. El análisis geográfico indica que el regionalismo persiste en los partidos políticos ecuatorianos desde 1979 hasta la actualidad, a pesar del éxito electoral de Rafael Correa y su partido.
Approximately 9.5 million Ecuadorians went to the polls on 17 February 2013 for quadrennial presi... more Approximately 9.5 million Ecuadorians went to the polls on 17 February 2013 for quadrennial presidential and legislative elections. The incumbent president, Rafael Correa, whose mandate officially ended on 24 May 2013, was completing the first full term since that of Sixto Durán Ballén (1992–1996). As expected, Correa easily won re- election in the first-round, making him the longest-serving Ecuadorian president in history, and his party Alianza Patria Altiva I Soberana (Alianza PAIS) won a 100- seat majority in the 137-member unicameral legislative assembly.
Party nationalization measures are often used to describe and measure the nature of political par... more Party nationalization measures are often used to describe and measure the nature of political parties and party systems. However, the term “party nationalization” is imprecise, with little consensus on how to measure it or evaluate its implications. This article advances the literature on nationalization in a number of crucial ways. We make seven concrete suggestions for improving the measurement of party nationalization in theoretical terms and then demonstrate the problems and biases with existing studies through a theoretical discussion and application to Chilean political parties. Given that our theoretical and empirical analyses show there is important weaknesses in all nationalization measures, we argue in favor of approaching the phenomenon with a variety of tools in order to avoid misleading conclusions.
Chile’s parties have been characterized as ‘European’ in their development and institutionalizati... more Chile’s parties have been characterized as ‘European’ in their development and institutionalization, but ‘Latin American’ in their high degree of political localism. Yet the specialized literature has not tested these tendencies nor developed a theory as to how they may coexist. Using the concept of party nationalization, we establish the veracity of the claims in the literature and propose a theory of static and dynamic nationalization development. We show that, as in Western European systems, Chile’s political parties exhibited progressive static nationalization until 1973. Since re-democratization, parties have demonstrated low levels of static nationalization, while the coalitions are highly nationalized. Concurrently, both parties and the coalitions have exhibited low levels of dynamic nationalization like parties throughout Latin America. We argue that these conflicting patterns are due to the interactive effect of functional cleavages and electoral institutions.
Comparative constitutional studies rank the U.S. president as relatively weak and most Latin Amer... more Comparative constitutional studies rank the U.S. president as relatively weak and most Latin American presidents as strong. However, specialized studies suggest that U.S. presidents have
great abilities to implement their agendas. We argue that presidents with weak formal powers “reinforce” their ability to impose an agenda (scope), as well as their ability to make those decisions stick (force). These reinforced powers, however, have diminishing returns as formal powers rise. As a result, the sum of presidential powers ranges from high (the U.S.) to very high (Latin America).
Después de seis años en el poder, 2012 marcó el pináculo de la acumulación de poder político para... more Después de seis años en el poder, 2012 marcó el pináculo de la acumulación de poder político para Rafael Correa. Además de una política exterior asertiva y un dominio sobre el poder legislativo, el Presidente logró ejercer amplio control sobre la rama judicial y los medios. Bajo el liderazgo de Correa, el Ecuador se ha beneficiado de un aumento en los gastos sociales, logrando una reducción en la pobreza y el desempleo. Sin embargo, estas políticas han aumentado el déficit fiscal que el país está financiando a través de vínculos comerciales con la China. Éste y otros sucesos, como las manifestaciones en zonas petroleras del Oriente, presagian posibles límites a la sostenibilidad de las políticas actuales. No obstante, el corto plazo brilla para Correa, gracias a sus logros económicos, la debilidad de una oposición creíble y su control sobre las instituciones estatales. El éxito de la Revolución Ciudadana se manifestó en las elecciones de 2013, que resultaron en la reelección y en una mayoría legislativa abrumadora para el Presidente.
While judicial turnover in Latin American high courts is often the result of political realignmen... more While judicial turnover in Latin American high courts is often the result of political realignments within the executive branch, the judiciary may also be sensitive to realignments in the legislative branch. The authors use data from the Ecuadorian Constitutional Court to show that under some circumstances, congressional deputies will seek to remove judges further from their own ideal points as the composition of the legislative coalition changes. This provides some of the first empirical evidence of the role legislatures play in Latin American judicial instability and may be broadly generalizable to other countries with similar institutional profiles and rates of interbranch crisis.
This article advances the idea that coalition formation and maintenance in highly fragmented pres... more This article advances the idea that coalition formation and maintenance in highly fragmented presidential regimes is not only crucial to overcoming policy deadlock, but in some cases, critical to ensuring government survival. To advance this argument, the article looks at the formation and demise of legislative coalitions in Ecuador between 1979 and 2006. The empirical data suggest that paradoxically, government coalitions became more difficult to sustain after the adoption of institutional reforms intended to strengthen the president's legislative powers. The adoption of those reforms, it is argued, undermined the legislative incentives to cooperate with the government and helped to accelerate coalition erosion. Not only did the reforms fail significantly to avoid policy deadlock, but in some cases they contributed to the early termination of presidential mandates. This article contributes to the study of coalition survival and how it is linked to policymaking.
Political parties throughout Latin America rely increasingly on primary elections to select candi... more Political parties throughout Latin America rely increasingly on primary elections to select candidates for public office. Where they are adopted, primaries are generally touted as moves toward openness and internal party democracy. Yet politicians and party leaders are concerned with winning elections, and there are reasons to expect that primaries select candidates who are weaker in general election competition than other methods. Using data from every democratic presidential election in Latin America since the late 1970s, we test whether primaries systematically affect candidate strength. We find evidence of a primary bonus—that is, other things equal, primary-selected candidates are stronger than those selected by other procedures.
Book Chapters by John Polga-Hecimovich
Assessing the Left Turn in Ecuador, 2020
Rafael Correa radically transformed the Ecuadorian state. He boosted public sector employment and... more Rafael Correa radically transformed the Ecuadorian state. He boosted public sector employment and government bureaus, increased the government budget, and reinserted the state back into political and economic life in pursuit of his Citizen’s Revolution. I argue that the state’s profound makeover is a consequence of three different factors: a constitutionally powerful presidency, a president who possessed uniquely strong informal powers, and an individual with the willingness to liberally interpret constitutional limits to the power of the presidency. Through an analysis of these three dimensions, I show that what made Correa unique among Ecuadorian chief executives was not his formal power or even his ambition to exercise authority but his informal powers in the forms of partisan support and public approval. The findings suggest that future Ecuadorian presidents should be equally unconstrained in their ability to state-building projects if they enjoy sufficient informal powers and the disposition to maximize them.
Uploads
Journal Articles by John Polga-Hecimovich
great abilities to implement their agendas. We argue that presidents with weak formal powers “reinforce” their ability to impose an agenda (scope), as well as their ability to make those decisions stick (force). These reinforced powers, however, have diminishing returns as formal powers rise. As a result, the sum of presidential powers ranges from high (the U.S.) to very high (Latin America).
Book Chapters by John Polga-Hecimovich
great abilities to implement their agendas. We argue that presidents with weak formal powers “reinforce” their ability to impose an agenda (scope), as well as their ability to make those decisions stick (force). These reinforced powers, however, have diminishing returns as formal powers rise. As a result, the sum of presidential powers ranges from high (the U.S.) to very high (Latin America).