The Politics of Livestock Sector Policy and the Rural Poor in Peru

This working paper explores public policies that would advance pro-poor development in the livestock sector, with special attention to organized actors, their interests, and the political feasibility of state initiatives. It focuses on two sub-sectors that involve large numbers of small producers: the dairy sector and the alpaca sector. Emphasis is placed on the latter, since there is a greater potential role for Peru's weak, neo-liberal state in promoting pro-poor development in the alpaca sector. The paper's main findings are that: i) key public agencies of importance for the livestock sector suffer from politically motivated turnover of functionaries, the absence of a professionalized, meritocratic bureaucracy, insufficient funding, lack of coordination, and a limited capacity to act as regulatory and coordinating agents, ii) there are few organized actors at the national level capable of advancing the interests of small producers, and iii) decentralization initiated in 2002 has created new institutional spaces for participation by the poor in politics and resource allocation, while, in practice however, numerous obstacles hinder participation and limit the overall effectiveness of these institutions. The author recommends several specific public policies that could promote pro-poor development: i) protection of the dairy sector from subsidized US dairy products in trade agreements, ii) direct marketing of alpaca fiber from producers to the industries, and iii)national standards for quality grading of alpaca fiber. The paper also identifies a number of more general strategic entry points for improving opportunities for small producers to benefit from expansion in the livestock sector: i) support to small producers associations, ii) assistance for small fiber-processing industries, iii) institutionalization and professionalization of state agencies, iv) increased funding of livestock sector agencies, v) coordination among and between donor projects and state agencies and, vi) support for decentralization.Livestock Production/Industries, Political Economy,

Redistribution under the right in Latin America: electoral competition and organized actors in policymaking

Unexpected social policy expansion and progressive tax reforms initiated by right-wing governments in Latin America highlight the need for further theory development on the politics of redistribution. We focus on electoral competition for low-income voters in conjunction with the power of organized actors––both business and social movements. We argue that electoral competition motivates redistribution under left-wing and right-wing incumbents alike, although such initiatives are more modest when conservatives dominate and business is well-organized. Social mobilization drives more substantial redistribution by counterbalancing business power and focusing incumbents on securing social peace and surviving in office. By characterizing distinctive features of social-policy politics and tax-policy politics and theorizing linkages between the two realms, we contribute to broader debates on the relative influence of voters versus organized interests in policymaking. We apply our theory to explain “least-likely” cases of redistributive policies under conservative governments in Mexico (2006-2012) and Chile (2010-2014)

A Dialogue with the Data: the Bayesian foundations of iterative research in qualitative social science

We advance efforts to explicate and improve inference in qualitative research that iterates between theory development, data collection, and data analysis, rather than proceeding linearly from hypothesizing to testing. We draw on the school of Bayesian “probability as extended logic,” where probabilities represent rational degrees of belief in propositions given limited information, to provide a solid foundation for iterative research that has been lacking in the qualitative methods literature. We argue that mechanisms for distinguishing exploratory from confirmatory stages of analysis that have been suggested in the context of APSA’s DA-RT transparency initiative are unnecessary for qualitative research that is guided by logical Bayesianism, because new evidence has no special status relative to old evidence for testing hypotheses within this inferential framework. Bayesian probability not only fits naturally with how we intuitively move back and forth between theory and data, but also provides a framework for rational reasoning that mitigates confirmation bias and ad-hoc hypothesizing—two common problems associated with iterative research. Moreover, logical Bayesianism facilitates scrutiny of findings by the academic community for signs of sloppy or motivated reasoning. We illustrate these points with an application to recent research on state building

La economía política de la reforma tributaria progresiva en Chile

This article describes the Chilean tax system and analyzes the political context prevented regressive reforms to transform the system established during the dictatorship. Examines the formulation of tax policy after democratization and the strategies employed by the governments of the center-left coalition for the passage of incremental reforms. Finally, it shows that the political atmosphere changed after the student protests of 2011 and 2012, which made possible the adoption of more progressive tax reform proposed by President Bachelet in 2014.Este artículo describe el sistema tributario chileno y analiza el contexto político que impidió reformas que transformaran el regresivo sistema establecido durante el régimen dictatorial. Examina el proceso de formulación de políticas tributarias después de la democratización y las estrategias que emplearon los gobiernos de la coalición de centro izquierda para lograr la aprobación de reformas incrementales. Por último, muestra que el ambiente político cambió luego de las protestas estudiantes de 2011 y 2012, lo que hizo posible la aprobación de la reforma tributaria mucho más progresiva propuesta por la presidente Bachelet en 2014

Explicit Bayesian analysis for process tracing: guidelines, opportunities, and caveats

Bayesian probability holds the potential to serve as an important bridge between qualitative and quantitative methodology. Yet whereas Bayesian statistical techniques have been successfully elaborated for quantitative research, applying Bayesian probability to qualitative research remains an open frontier. This paper advances the burgeoning literature on Bayesian process tracing by drawing on expositions of Bayesian “probability as extended logic” from the physical sciences, where probabilities represent rational degrees of belief in propositions given the inevitably limited information we possess. We provide step-by-step guidelines for explicit Bayesian process tracing, calling attention to technical points that have been overlooked or inadequately addressed, and we illustrate how to apply this approach with the first systematic application to a case study that draws on multiple pieces of detailed evidence. While we caution that efforts to explicitly apply Bayesian learning in qualitative social science will inevitably run up against the difficulty that probabilities cannot be unambiguously specified, we nevertheless envision important roles for explicit Bayesian analysis in pinpointing the locus of contention when scholars disagree on inferences, and in training intuition to follow Bayesian probability more systematically

Private wealth and public revenue in Latin America: business power and tax politics

Winner of the 2016 Latin American Studies Association Donna Lee Van Cott Award for best book on Latin American political institutions

The Politics of Livestock Sector Policy and the Rural Poor in Peru

This working paper explores public policies that would advance pro-poor development in the livestock sector, with special attention to organized actors, their interests, and the political feasibility of state initiatives. It focuses on two sub-sectors that involve large numbers of small producers: the dairy sector and the alpaca sector. Emphasis is placed on the latter, since there is a greater potential role for Peru's weak, neo-liberal state in promoting pro-poor development in the alpaca sector. The paper's main findings are that: i) key public agencies of importance for the livestock sector suffer from politically motivated turnover of functionaries, the absence of a professionalized, meritocratic bureaucracy, insufficient funding, lack of coordination, and a limited capacity to act as regulatory and coordinating agents, ii) there are few organized actors at the national level capable of advancing the interests of small producers, and iii) decentralization initiated in 2002 has created new institutional spaces for participation by the poor in politics and resource allocation, while, in practice however, numerous obstacles hinder participation and limit the overall effectiveness of these institutions. The author recommends several specific public policies that could promote pro-poor development: i) protection of the dairy sector from subsidized US dairy products in trade agreements, ii) direct marketing of alpaca fiber from producers to the industries, and iii)national standards for quality grading of alpaca fiber. The paper also identifies a number of more general strategic entry points for improving opportunities for small producers to benefit from expansion in the livestock sector: i) support to small producers associations, ii) assistance for small fiber-processing industries, iii) institutionalization and professionalization of state agencies, iv) increased funding of livestock sector agencies, v) coordination among and between donor projects and state agencies and, vi) support for decentralization