Regimes and Democracy in Latin America Theories and Methods

by Munck, Gerardo L.

• ISBN13: 9780199219902
• ISBN10: 0199219907
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-06-28
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This volume focuses on democracy in Latin America and assesses the state of current knowledge on the topic and identifies new research frontiers in the study of Latin American politics. It provides an overview of research agendas and strategies used in the literature over the past four decades. It tackles a series of central questions--What is democracy? Is democracy an absolute value? Are current conceptualizations of democracy adequate? How and why does democracy work or fail in Latin America?--and spells out the implications of answers to these questions for current research agendas. It distinguishes between qualitative and quantitative approaches to the conceptualization and measurement of democracy, and presents a dataset on political regimes and democracy that illustrates how the differences between these two standard approaches might be overcome. Finally, it evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of conventional methods used to generate and test explanations of the causes and consequences of democracy, and proposes alternative ways to advance ongoing substantive debates given the current state of theory and data. The contributors are scholars from the United States and Latin America who are experts on Latin America, and who have established reputations as theorists and methodologists. The volume will be of interest to readers seeking to understand debates about democracy in developing societies and to grasp the concepts, theories and methods that are currently being developed to study Latin American politics.

Author Biography

Gerardo Munck, Argentinian by birth, received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of California in San Diego and teaches in the School of International Relations at the University of Southern California. His research focuses on political regimes and democracy, methodology, and Latin America.

Table of Contents

Introduction. Research Agendas and Strategies in the Study of Latin American Politics

The Study of Politics and Democracy: Touchstones of a Research Agenda

Reconceptualizing Democratization: Access to Powerversus Exercise of Power

Neo-Madisonian Theory and LatinAmerican Institutions

Thickening Thin Concepts: Issues in Large-N Data Generation

Classifying Political Regimes in Latin America,

Theory Building and Hypothesis Testing: Large-N vs.Small-N Research on Democratization

Democracy and Growth: A Case Study in Failed Causal Inference

Why Regions of the World Are Important: Regional Specificities and Region-Wide Diffusion of Democracy

Democracy, Dictatorship and Economic Development: A Model of Reference-Dependent Choices With Experimental Data

References

Index

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