ONGs, Donantes Internacionales, y la Descoyuntura Postmaterial en América Latina

NGOs have proliferated in the developing world, assuming key political roles as intermediary organizations representing public interests. Yet at least in the three Latin American countries examined here, the proportion of the NGO sector focused on postmaterial issues massively outpaces the proportion of the mass public that considers these issues highly salient. This article demonstrates this “postmaterial disjuncture” and theorizes that international donors help drive it by favoring NGOs that pursue postmaterial issues. This hypothesis is evaluated by analyzing a unique dataset containing information on over 700 NGOs. Organizations pursuing postmaterial issues are more than three times likely to receive international funding than are otherwise identical NGOs pursuing material issues. While international donors may be well intentioned, their postmaterial agendas shape the issue orientation of the NGO sector, resulting in potentially adverse consequences for its ability to effectively represent mass interests.Las ONGs han proliferado en los países desarrollados, asumiendo papeles políticos claves como organizaciones intermediarias que representan los intereses públicos. Sin embargo, al menos en los tres países latinoamericanos examinados, la proporción del sector de las ONG se centraron en temas postmateriales supera a masivamente la proporción de la población que considera estas temas muy saliente. Este articulo demuestra la “Descoyuntura Postmaterial” y teoriza que donantes internacionales ayudan a causarla por favoreciendo las ONG que persiguen temas postmateriales. Esta hipótesis se evalúo mediante el análisis de un conjunto de datos que contiene información sobre mas de 700 ONGs. Las ONGs que persiguen temas postmateriales son mas de tres veces mas probabilidades de recibir financiamiento internacional como ONGs que persiguen temas materiales. Mientras que los donantes internacionales pueden ser bien intencionadas, sus agendas postmateriales forma la orientación del sector de las ONG, con consecuencias potencialmente adversas por su capacidad para representar eficazmente los intereses de masas

ONGs, Donantes Internacionales, y la Descoyuntura Postmaterial en América Latina

NGOs have proliferated in the developing world, assuming key political roles as intermediary organizations representing public interests. Yet at least in the three Latin American countries examined here, the proportion of the NGO sector focused on postmaterial issues massively outpaces the proportion of the mass public that considers these issues highly salient. This article demonstrates this “postmaterial disjuncture” and theorizes that international donors help drive it by favoring NGOs that pursue postmaterial issues. This hypothesis is evaluated by analyzing a unique dataset containing information on over 700 NGOs. Organizations pursuing postmaterial issues are more than three times likely to receive international funding than are otherwise identical NGOs pursuing material issues. While international donors may be well intentioned, their postmaterial agendas shape the issue orientation of the NGO sector, resulting in potentially adverse consequences for its ability to effectively represent mass interests.Las ONGs han proliferado en los países desarrollados, asumiendo papeles políticos claves como organizaciones intermediarias que representan los intereses públicos. Sin embargo, al menos en los tres países latinoamericanos examinados, la proporción del sector de las ONG se centraron en temas postmateriales supera a masivamente la proporción de la población que considera estas temas muy saliente. Este articulo demuestra la “Descoyuntura Postmaterial” y teoriza que donantes internacionales ayudan a causarla por favoreciendo las ONG que persiguen temas postmateriales. Esta hipótesis se evalúo mediante el análisis de un conjunto de datos que contiene información sobre mas de 700 ONGs. Las ONGs que persiguen temas postmateriales son mas de tres veces mas probabilidades de recibir financiamiento internacional como ONGs que persiguen temas materiales. Mientras que los donantes internacionales pueden ser bien intencionadas, sus agendas postmateriales forma la orientación del sector de las ONG, con consecuencias potencialmente adversas por su capacidad para representar eficazmente los intereses de masas

NGOs, International Donors, and the Postmaterial Disjuncture in Latin America

NGOs have proliferated in the developing world, assuming key political roles as intermediary organizations representing public interests. Yet at least in the three Latin American countries examined here, the proportion of the NGO sector focused on postmaterial issues massively outpaces the proportion of the mass public that considers these issues highly salient. This article demonstrates this 'postmaterial disjuncture' and theorizes that international donors help drive it by favoring NGOs that pursue postmaterial issues. This hypothesis is evaluated by analyzing a unique dataset containing information on over 700 NGOs. Organizations pursuing postmaterial issues are more than three times likely to receive international funding than are otherwise identical NGOs pursuing material issues. While international donors may be well intentioned, their postmaterial agendas shape the issue orientation of the NGO sector, resulting in potentially adverse consequences for its ability to effectively represent mass interests. (author's abstract

The Politics of Polarization: Legitimacy Crises, Left Political Mobilization, and Party System Divergence in South America

The rise of the left across much of South America in the aftermath of market reforms catalyzed a major divergence in regional party systems. In some countries, polarizing party systems emerged, marked by conflictual patterns of contestation between major political parties and the politicization of class cleavages in party competition. In other countries, integrative party systems consolidated, characterized by largely consensual patterns of competition and class cleavages that remain unexpressed in party competition. This variation in party systems represents a critical macropolitical legacy to emerge from the tumultuous recent decades and offers fruitful ground for developing and testing theory regarding the causes of political and social polarization in the younger democracies of the highly unequal developing world.Examining the cases of Venezuela, Brazil, and Chile, this dissertation develops an argument that centers on the avoidance or occurrence of "legitimacy crises": anti-systemic episodes involving protracted failures of governance and steep erosions of public confidence in state institutions. The presence or absence of legitimacy crisis decisively shaped factional contestation within the partisan left in each country, leading to party system divergence along two dimensions. Whether radical or moderate left coalitions consolidated entailed the establishment of conflictual or consensual patterns of contestation within party systems. Once in office, the radical and moderate left also pursued different strategies of political mobilization - mass-organizational in Venezuela and catchall in Brazil and Chile - that subsequently drove variation in the translation of class cleavages into party competition.The study relies on a variety of qualitative and quantitative data sources, including those gathered during 11 months of fieldwork in Venezuela, and utilizes both process-tracing and statistical methods (primarily genetic matching) to draw causal inferences. A concluding chapter shows that the argument can also explain variation in party systems in two other countries where the left has taken power (Bolivia and Uruguay), suggesting that the framework in the study might provide a broader model of macropolitical divergence in the region during the last decades