Democratic Crises in Latin America from 1990-2012: Explaining the Variation in Responses from Regional Intergovernmental Organizations
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Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University Political Science Dissertations Department of Political Science 5-11-2015 Democratic Crises in Latin America from 1990-2012: Explaining the Variation in Responses From Regional Intergovernmental Organizations Betsy Montgomery-Smith Georgia State University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/political_science_diss Recommended Citation Montgomery-Smith, Betsy, "Democratic Crises in Latin America from 1990-2012: Explaining the Variation in Responses From Regional Intergovernmental Organizations." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2015. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/political_science_diss/36 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Political Science at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Political Science Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. DEMOCRATIC CRISES IN LATIN AMERICA FROM 1990-2012: EXPLAINING THE VARIATION IN RESPONSES FROM REGIONAL INTERGOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS by BETSY MONTGOMERY-SMITH Under the Direction of Jennifer McCoy, PhD ABSTRACT Despite the existence in Latin America of a highly developed norm to collectively promote and defend democracy, there is variation in its application during democratic crises in the region. What explains the variation in responses to democratic crises? This dissertation makes three major arguments. The first is that the variation in responses is a result of the clarity and severity of the democratic crisis. Crises that present a clear threat to the constitutional underpinnings of democracy receive the strongest responses, while threats that are neither clearly undemocratic nor democratic receive the weakest. The second argument I make is that when there is variation to threats that are not clear, the factors of time, polarization within the organization, information, and uncertainty regarding the consequences of responding determine which cases receive responses and which do not. Finally, I demonstrate empirical evidence for the hypothesis that regional intergovernmental organizations in Latin America can be characterized as “clubs of presidents.” These findings have implications for our understanding of the various threats to the consolidation and quality of democracy. The data covers 31 cases of presidential crises from 1990-2012. The project uses cross-tabulations as well as in-depth case studies drawing from personal interviews with the former presidents, ambassadors of the Organization of American States, and ambassadors of member-states of IGOs directly involved in the crises. INDEX WORDS: Organization of American States, Presidential Crises, Democratization, Defense of Democracy, Clubs of Presidents DEMOCRATIC CRISES IN LATIN AMERICA FROM 1990-2012: EXPLAINING THE VARIATION IN RESPONSES FROM REGIONAL INTERGOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS by BETSY MONTGOMERY-SMITH A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University 2015 Copyright by Betsy Lynn Smith 2015 DEMOCRATIC CRISES IN LATIN AMERICA FROM 1990-2012: EXPLAINING THE VARIATION IN RESPONSES FROM REGIONAL INTERGOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS by BETSY MONTGOMERY-SMITH Committee Chair: Jennifer McCoy Committee: Carrie Manning Kim Reimann Electronic Version Approved: Office of Graduate Studies College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University May 2015 iv DEDICATION To my husband, Ian – you open my life up to a world of possibilities. Thank you for your love, your support, and for bringing laughter and light into my life. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS There are so many people to thank who helped make this project possible. I first want to thank the faculty of the Department of Political Science at Georgia State University. The support I received from everyone in the department made the journey to the dissertation stage an exciting one. Special thanks to Dr. Jennifer McCoy, Dr. Carrie Manning, and Dr. Kim Reimann for spending their time reading and offering feedback for the numerous drafts of this project. I also want to extend my sincere gratitude to Dr. Amy Steigerwalt for her support. I am also eternally grateful to my all of my contacts and friends in Ecuador that made my time there fruitful. Special thanks goes to my homestay family, Antonio and Susi Grijalva-Saenz, who not only made me feel at home, but whose family dinners were full of intense political discussion and insights. I also want to express my deep gratitude to the faculty at FLACSO and to all of the interviewees who agreed to spend their time with me. A very big debt of gratitude goes to Dr. Jennifer McCoy for setting up numerous high-level contacts for interviews. Finally, I would be remiss if I failed to acknowledge the support of my family. Without the support of my parents my time in graduate school would have been impossible. They never failed to encourage me to go after my goals, and for that I will always be grateful. I also wish to thank my brothers for their emotional support and a big thanks to my younger brother, Kevin Montgomery, for the detailed edits to my dissertation drafts. I would also like to thank Dr. B.J Biringer of Florida State University for his encouragement and support over the years. Most importantly, thank you to my husband, Ian Smith, for everything you do. I could write an entire dissertation on how essential you have been in my life, but since I’m limited in words and space, I think it’s best to simply say: thank you for being you. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................ v LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................ x LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................... xi 1 Chapter One: The Defense-of-Democracy Paradigm and the Responses of International Organizations ......................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 1 1.2 The Puzzle ........................................................................................................... 2 1.3 Existing Literature .............................................................................................. 5 1.4 Hypotheses and Variables ................................................................................. 24 1.5 Universe of Cases ............................................................................................. 34 1.6 Methodology ..................................................................................................... 35 1.7 Significance of Question ................................................................................... 37 1.8 Outline of the Remaining Chapters ................................................................... 38 2 Chapter Two: A Theory of Clarity and Severity in Domestic Democratic Crises ................................................................................................................................... 40 2.1 Why Clarity and Severity Matter ...................................................................... 40 2.2 When Clarity and Severity are Low: The Role of Information, Time, Uncertainty, and Polarization.................................................................................................... 42 2.3 The Role of Uncertainty and Polarization ........................................................ 48 2.4 Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 54 vii 3 Chapter Three: Presidential Crises and Intergovernmental Responses: Empirical Results ........................................................................................................................ 56 3.1 Dependent Variable: Responses from the Organization of American States ... 58 3.2 Explanatory Independent Variables .................................................................. 61 3.3 Alternative Independent Variables ................................................................... 65 3.4 Empirical Results .............................................................................................. 68 3.5 Summary of the Results of the Cross-tabulations for Clarity, Severity, and OAS responses ........................................................................................................................... 72 3.6 Empirical Results for the “Club of Presidents” Hypotheses ............................. 72 3.7 Empirical Results for Alternative Variables and OAS Responses ................... 75 3.8 Summary of Empirical Results ......................................................................... 76 3.9 Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 79 4 Chapter Four: Explaining the Variation in the Responses to Coups d’etat in Ecuador 2000 and Honduras 2009 ............................................................................................ 81 4.1 Ecuador 2000 ...................................................................................................