Taming Rebellion in South America, 1830-1929

South America was plagued by internal conflict during the 19th century that destabilized the region’s economies and political systems. At the beginning of the 20th century, however, levels of political violence throughout the region declined dramatically. Existing scholarship has paid surprisingly little attention to this historic transformation in part because of the absence of comprehensive data on revolts. Drawing on the work of historians, we create a comprehensive dataset on revolts in ten South American countries from 1830 to 1929, and we develop an original typology of revolts based on the origins of the rebel leaders. We find that revolts from outside the state apparatus declined dramatically during this period, while revolts from inside the state, such as coups, did not. We hypothesize that increases in the size and professionalization of the military, which were driven by the export boom and the threat of international conflict, are fundamental to explain these regional patterns. We test the observational implications of our theory through historical narratives and a series of regression analyses on cross-national time-series data

US Hegemony and Regime Change in Latin America

We contribute to the extensive literature on international influences on democratization and democratic breakdowns by conceptualizing hegemonic mechanisms of regime change and assessing them empirically. Our findings are based on a multi-methods approach and highlight the varying importance of hegemonic influences in post-1945 Latin America. We argue that us support for democratization was consistent in the wave of transitions to democracy that began in Latin America in 1978 and that it was decisive in many of these transitions. While past work has attributed responsibility to the us for the waves of democratic breakdowns from 1948 to 1956 and 1964 to 1976, an examination of the 27 breakdowns from 1945 to 2010 gives reason to doubt this interpretation. Future research could use these conceptual and methodological tools to explore the role of other powers in waves of democracy and authoritarianism. </div

Global experts are more likely to be worried about electoral violence in the presidential election than their US counterparts.

Ahead of the US presidential election there is growing concern both at home and abroad about the health of American democracy. In a new study, Ilana Rothkopf, Paul Friesen, Luis Schenoni, Maggie Shum, and Romelia M. Solano asked 150 election experts from around the world about election scenarios. They found that experts outside the US were more concerned than their American counterparts about threats to US democracy such as violence at polling places, or other forms of voter intimidation

Myths of multipolarity: the sources of Brazilian overexpansion

We provide a framework to analyze the foreign policy overexpansion of so-called emerging powers during the early 21st century. To do so, we look at the Brazilian case and how domestic actors colluded to foster the myth of an impending multipolarity, which served as the ideological basis for an unsustainable surge in that state’s international ambition. After reviewing the literature that analyzes the phenomenon of overexpansion in world politics, we proceed in four steps. First, we describe the evolution of the “multipolarity myth” in elite discourse and public opinion polls. Second, we trace how specific interest groups logrolled to foster and capitalize on the myth. Third, we document the increase of the diplomatic budget, Presidential trips abroad, state-backed investments overseas, participation in UN peace operations, and other indicators of expansion. Fourth, we use the synthetic control method, a statistical technique, to infer the extent of overexpansion by comparing Brazil with a plausible counterfactual – i.e. a weighted basket of countries with similar characteristics, yet unaffected by the myth. Although our focus is on Brazil, this framework might help understand other unsuccessful emerging powers who have recently experienced similar overexpansion crises

The Southern African unipolarity

Despite the tectonic changes that have taken place in Southern Africa since the demise of apartheid, South Africa is still widely considered a hegemonic regional power by scholars, practitioners and pundits. This article challenges this interpretation, asserting that both Pretoria’s foreign policy and that of its neighbours fit the concept of regional unipolarity with more precision. Since the early 1990s, South Africa has pursued leadership within binding regional institutions and invested resources in order to reinforce the sovereignty of second-tier states such as Angola, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, which have in turn disputed its diplomatic and military primacy, achieving impressive results. This behaviour is characteristic of unipoles rather than hegemons. In this article I revisit the evolution of South African relations with its more proximate neighbours in a transition from hegemony (1961–1990) to unipolarity. I start by defining both concepts and clarifying the behaviours that regional powers and small states are expected to have under hegemonic and unipolar settings. Then, I examine inter-state relations in the region, showing that the concept of unipolarity best describes power distribution and best predicts foreign policy in Southern Africa since the 1990s. Finally, I show that this exercise in concept rectification illuminates comparisons with other regional unipoles, and provides a useful framework to forecast the consequences of an eventual Southern African bipolarity, if Angola continues to catch up.publishe

"Divide et vinces" : la lógica realista de la transición sudamericana

Cuatro décadas han pasado desde que el equilibrio de poder argentino-brasileño en el Cono Sur dio paso a una primacía indisputada de Brasil. La naturaleza pacífica y cooperativa de esta transición de poder regional plantea un interesante puzle para las teorías estructuralistas en boga que vaticinan crecientes tenciones entre Estados Unidos y China ¿Por qué ciertos países aceptan su declinación de forma más indulgente, como lo hizo Argentina en aquella coyuntura? En este artículo ofrezco un modelo formal y utilizo la técnica de rastreo de procesos para demostrar que el giro cooperativo clave en esta relación se produjo entre finales de los años setenta y principios de los noventa. Mis conclusiones sugieren, en contra de la narrativa prevalente, que la cooperación entre Argentina y Brasil no fue producto de la democratización. En cambio, el caso Sudamericano sugiere que las transiciones de poder pacíficas tienen lugar cuando los costos de confrontar son altos y las coaliciones de política exterior son redefinidas en el estado declinante.publishe