THE IMPACT OF NEOLIBERAL ECONOMIC REFORMS ON LATIN AMERICANS’ VOTING BEHAVIOR (1980-2004) by María del Rosario Queirolo Velasco BA in Sociology, Universidad de la República, Uruguay, 1997 BA in Political Science, Universidad Católica, Uruguay, 1998 MA in Political Science, University of Pittsburgh, 2003 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Arts and Science, Department of Political Science, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2008 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE This dissertation was presented by María del Rosario Queirolo Velasco It was defended on December 11, 2006 and approved by Aníbal Pérez-Liñán, Assistant Profesor, Department of Political Science, University of Pittsburgh John Markoff, Department of Sociology, University of Pittsburgh Co-Chair: Mitchell A. Seligson, Department of Political Science, Vanderbilt University Dissertation Director: Barry Ames, Department of Political Science, University of Pittsburgh ii Copyright by María del Rosario Queirolo Velasco 2008 iii THE IMPACT OF NEOLIBERAL ECONOMIC REFORMS ON LATIN AMERICANS’ VOTING BEHAVIOR (1980-2004) María del Rosario Queirolo Velasco, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2008 Are leftist parties the beneficiaries of the failure of market-oriented economic reforms in Latin America? This dissertation examines the impact that economic reforms implemented in Latin America during 1980s and 1990s had on the shift to the Left of many countries in the region. In particular, it seeks to answer three research questions: a) what particular features of market-oriented economic reforms, and what economic and political conditions, have benefited left- leaning parties’ electoral performance? b) What are the determinants of Latin Americans’ vote for left-oriented parties? And c) how does the linkage between the micro and macro level of analysis work? A combination of methodologies was used to answer these questions. First, a macro- level analysis was performed using data from 17 countries covering the period from 1985 to 2004. The dataset includes the percentage of votes received by leftist parties, the level of neoliberal reforms implemented in each country, economic variables which appraise economic well-being and political variables that account for the political context. Second, an individual-level analysis was carried out with survey data from Brazil, Mexico and Uruguay to answer the question about the factors that lead Latin American voters to choose a leftist party. This investigation leads to three main conclusions. First, more market reforms did not produce more votes for political parties on the left. More than neoliberal economic reforms, the key variable to understand the increase in the Left is unemployment. Left-leaning parties in Latin America do increase their electoral chances when unemployment is high. Second, Latin Americans are not voting Leftist parties because they are against neoliberal policies. The current shift to the Left is more a result of popular discontent with the economic situation than anything else. Finally, the electoral possibilities of success that leftist parties have by capitalizing on social discontent depend on the number of “untainted opposition” parties available in the political system. In countries like Brazil and Uruguay where leftist parties embody the only “untainted opposition,” it was easier for them to capitalize on popular discontent than in Mexico, where a party on the right also represented an “untainted opposition.” iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................... IX 1.0 INTRODUCTION...................................................................................................1 1.1 THE CURRENT SIGNIFICANCE OF THE LEFT-RIGHT IDEOLOGICAL DIMENSION IN LATIN AMERICA..............................................4 1.2 MACRO AND MICRO EXPLANATIONS TO VOTING LEFT..............8 1.3 A LOOK AT WHAT FOLLOWS...............................................................10 2.0 LATIN AMERICAN IDEOLOGICAL CYCLES IN THE POST-WAR ERA .. .................................................................................................................................12 2.1 THE DEFINITION OF IDEOLOGICAL CYCLE...................................15 2.1.1 The Classification of Political Parties in the Ideological Dimension.16 2.1.2 Data and Methods..................................................................................20 2.2 CYCLES IN DECADES...............................................................................21 2.3 NEOLIBERALISM AND LEFTIST PARTIES FROM 1980S TO 2000S.. ........................................................................................................................29 2.3.1 Condition 1: The Washington Consensus failure ...............................29 2.3.2 Condition 2: The Left had increased its share of the vote in all Latin America ..................................................................................................................36 2.4 CONCLUSION .............................................................................................39 3.0 ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL CONDITIONS THAT BENEFIT LEFTIST PARTIES IN LATIN AMERICA.........................................................................................40 3.1 MARKET REFORMS, ECONOMIC CONDITIONS, AND POLITICAL CONTEXT .....................................................................................................................41 3.2 DATA AND METHODOLOGY .................................................................45 3.3 ASSESSING THE IMPORTANCE OF COMPETING EXPLANATIONS .........................................................................................................49 3.4 GOING BEYOND THE MACRO LEVEL................................................56 4.0 MICRO EXPLANATIONS FOR VOTING THE LEFT IN LATIN AMERICA..............................................................................................................................58 v 4.1 ECONOMIC VOTING ................................................................................61 4.2 PROSPECT THEORY.................................................................................63 4.3 SOCIAL CLASS CLEAVAGE ...................................................................64 4.4 CLEAVAGE CREATED BY POLITICAL PROCESS............................67 4.5 PARTISANSHIP...........................................................................................70 5.0 LATIN AMERICANS ARE VOTING LEFT: EVIDENCE FROM BRAZIL, MEXICO AND URUGUAY..................................................................................................72 5.1 MOST-DIFFERENT SYSTEM: BRAZIL, MEXICO AND URUGUAY... ........................................................................................................................74 5.2 URUGUAY: THE LEFT AS THE ONLY UNTAINTED OPPOSITION .. ........................................................................................................................77 5.2.1 Data and variable description...............................................................82 5.2.2 Results .....................................................................................................85 5.2.3 Discussion................................................................................................96 5.3 BRAZIL: VOTING LEFT IN A WEAKLY INSTITUTIONALIZED PARTY SYSTEM..........................................................................................................99 5.3.1 Data and variable description.............................................................103 5.3.2 Results ...................................................................................................106 5.3.3 Discussion..............................................................................................113 5.4 MEXICO: BETWEEN TWO CREDIBLE OPPOSITIONS..................116 5.4.1 Data and variable description.............................................................120 5.4.2 Results ...................................................................................................124 5.4.3 Discussion..............................................................................................132 5.5 CONCLUSION ...........................................................................................134 6.0 CONCLUSION....................................................................................................137 BIBLIOGRAPHY................................................................................................................144 APPENDIX A.......................................................................................................................154 APPENDIX B .......................................................................................................................160 APPENDIX C.......................................................................................................................164 vi LIST OF TABLES Table 2-1Economic Indicators in Latin America (1980-2004)..................................................... 33 Table 3-1 Summary Statistics ....................................................................................................... 48 Table 3-2 The impact of market reforms, economic outcomes and political variables on the share of the vote for leftist parties in Latin America ...................................................................