Voters for Electoral Accountability in Highly Institutionalized Party Systems
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by D-Scholarship@Pitt The Importance of ‘Rational’ Voters for Electoral Accountability in Highly Institutionalized Party Systems by José René Argueta B.S. in Forestry, Oregon State University, 1995 Master of Environmental Studies, Yale University, 1997 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2007 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by José René Argueta It was defended on April 18, 2007 and approved by Barry Ames, Associate Professor, Political Science Salvatore Babones, Assistant Professor, Sociology Dissertation Advisor: Anibal Perez-Liñan, Assistant Professor, Political Science Dissertation Advisor: Mitchell A. Seligson, Centennial Professor, Political Science, Vanderbilt University ii Copyright © by José René Argueta 2007 iii The Importance of ‘Rational’ Voters for Electoral Accountability in Highly Institutionalized Party Systems José René Argueta, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2007 It has been argued that “institutionalization” facilitates vertical accountability by providing for strong national parties, with somewhat deep roots in the society. In such settings, citizens with varying combinations of societal characteristics (i.e. race, religion, income, etc.) would be able to identify which party represents their cleavage-generated interests and vote for them, or vote them out of office if they fail their ‘mandate.’ Voting for the party that represents one’s cleavage-generated interests would make the system more stable, since there would be regularity in the way people vote. However, that may not provide the flexibility in voting behavior necessary for vertical accountability to occur. Instead of voters with strong (affective) attachment to a party, vertical accountability would rather require voters that cast their vote based on less stable characteristics of a party such as its past performance, president’s evaluation, candidates’ quality, and other issues argued by rational-choice theorists to be more important than an affective attachment. This dissertation research tested this hypothesis using survey data from Honduras that registered the voting behavior of different partisans during the national elections of 1997 and 2001. This research found that “rational” voters (moderate partisans and independents) did incorporate the electoral flexibility necessary for electoral accountability. They also exhibited distinctive characteristics that confirm their responsibility for electoral accountability. Rational iv voters were more likely than affective voters to have higher levels of education and political knowledge and to be more critical of the president’s performance, among other related attitudes. Notwithstanding the fact that Honduras has a highly institutionalized party system, the mechanisms through which electoral accountability came about were mainly abstention to vote for one’s party and, to a much lesser extent, vote-switching. Thus, voting abstention may not necessarily be an undesirable voting behavior since it may actually play a key role in the realization of electoral accountability. In summary, this research proved that “affective” voters may provide the system with stability, but that “rational” voters are necessary for the flexibility required for electoral accountability. v TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE................................................................................................................................. XIV 1.0 INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................ 1 1.1 PURPOSE OF REASERCH............................................................................... 5 1.2 DATA AND CONCEPTS.................................................................................... 7 1.2.1 Data ................................................................................................................ 7 1.2.2 Operationalization of the Main Variable.................................................. 12 2.0 THE POLITICAL SYSTEM OF HONDURAS...................................................... 18 2.1 THE STATE OF HONDURAS ........................................................................ 18 2.2 DEVELOPMENT OF THE HONDURAN POLITICAL SYSTEM............. 20 2.2.1 Honduras political parties.......................................................................... 21 2.2.2 The Villeda administration and the military governments..................... 25 2.2.3 The democratic governments post-transition (1982-present)................. 30 2.2.3.1 Roberto Suazo Córdova, PL (1982-1986) ......................................... 32 2.2.3.2 José Simón Azcona Hoyo, PL (1986-1990) ....................................... 33 2.2.3.3 Rafael Leonardo Callejas, PN (1990-1994) ...................................... 34 2.2.3.4 Carlos Roberto Reina, PL (1994-1998)............................................. 35 2.2.3.5 Carlos Roberto Flores Facussé, PL (1998-2002).............................. 35 vi 2.2.3.6 Ricardo Maduro Joest, PN (2002-2006)............................................ 36 2.2.4 The Honduran democratic political system at age 25.............................. 37 2.3 PARTISANSHIP IN HONDURAS .................................................................. 45 3.0 CLEAVAGES AS DETERMINANTS OF PARTISANSHIP IN HONDURAS .. 51 3.1 IDEOLOGY ....................................................................................................... 54 3.2 DEMOGRAPHIC VARIABLES...................................................................... 58 3.2.1 Gender.......................................................................................................... 59 3.2.2 Income.......................................................................................................... 60 3.2.3 Education..................................................................................................... 62 3.2.4 Age................................................................................................................ 64 3.2.5 Degree of urbanization ............................................................................... 65 3.2.6 Geographic residence.................................................................................. 67 3.2.7 Land ownership........................................................................................... 68 3.2.8 Religion ........................................................................................................ 70 3.3 SUMMARY OF FINDINGS............................................................................. 71 3.4 CONCLUSIONS................................................................................................ 75 4.0 PARTY TURNOVER AND VOTER TYPES ......................................................... 77 4.1 ELECTORAL VOLATILITY IN HONDURAS ............................................ 78 4.2 THE DYNAMICS OF PARTY TURNOVER................................................. 82 4.2.1 Voting Abstention ....................................................................................... 86 4.2.2 Voting switching.......................................................................................... 93 4.3 TYPES OF VOTERS ........................................................................................ 94 4.4 CONCLUSIONS.............................................................................................. 104 vii 5.0 TYPES OF VOTERS AND POLITICAL ATTITUDES...................................... 106 5.1 PERCEPTION OF HANDLING OF POST-HURRICANE MITCH RECONSTRUCTION RESOURCES ............................................................................ 109 5.2 PERCEPTION OF CORRUPTION .............................................................. 114 5.3 PERCEPTION OF TRANSPARENCY OF STATE INSTITUTIONS...... 117 5.4 TRUST IN GOVERNMENT.......................................................................... 120 5.5 EVALUATION OF PRESIDENT’S PERFORMANCE.............................. 122 5.6 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS.............................................................. 125 6.0 CONCLUDING REMARKS .................................................................................. 127 6.1 THEORETICAL REASONING .................................................................... 127 6.2 CHAPTERS’ DESCRIPTIONS AND MAIN FINDINGS........................... 130 6.3 THEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS OF THIS RESEARCH...................... 136 APPENDIX A............................................................................................................................ 141 BIBLIOGRAPHY..................................................................................................................... 143 viii LIST OF TABLES Table 1.1: Strata and Clusters Distribution................................................................................... 10 Table 1.2: Sample Design for 2001 Survey of Honduras ............................................................. 12 Table 1.3: Main Concepts............................................................................................................. 14 Table 2.1: Honduras Rulers (1821-2007) ..................................................................................... 24 Table 2.2: Percent of valid votes obtained by each party (1981-2005)