Democracies and dictatorships in Latin America: Political actors, 1944-2010

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Project Summary: The book for which this data collection was generated seeks to explain why democracies and authoritarian regimes have emerged and then survived or fallen in Latin America from 1945 to 2005. The more specific goal of the data collection is to assess the impact of normative orientations towards democracy and radical policy preferences on the likelihood of democratic transitions and democratic breakdowns. Most theories postulate that regimes survive or fall depending on the behavior of political actors. As the authors tested hypotheses based on competing theories, they became convinced that actors’ normative preferences about democracy and dictatorship and their policy preferences were indeed crucial variables to understand why democracies and dictatorships emerge and then survive or break down. They found that normative regime preferences and radicalism, together with international conditions, are the most important predictors for democratic emergence and survival in Latin America. Data Abstract: The absence of systematic historical measures of normative regime preferences (ideological support for democracy or authoritarianism) and of policy radicalism for major political actors led the authors to commission a set of reports covering all Latin American countries after World War II up to 2010 The reports were produced between 2008 and 2013 with the help of 19 research assistants (RAs) by archival research and synthesis of existing material (notes based on secondary sources subsequently integrated into country reports). The data collection includes all of these reports as well as the coding rules guiding their production. For eighteen of the twenty countries, the coding of political actors covers the period from 1944 until 2010; for Argentina and El Salvador reports reach back to 1916 and 1927, respectively. The data are organized by country (documents for Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela) and by administration (sections within documents). For most administrations, a limited number of actors (between two and ten) were the decisive political players. The list always includes the president (except for a few puppet presidents), political parties, trade unions, military factions, social movements, and other powerful organizations. For 290 presidential administrations, the dataset has 1460 actors including 573 parties, party coalitions, and party factions; 327 presidents and the organizations that are relatively subordinate to them (such as their parties under democracies and almost always the military under military dictatorships); 175 militaries, military factions, and military organizations; 82 business organizations; 56 guerrilla organizations; 53 popular and civil society organizations; 52 labor unions and federations; 52 powerful individuals who were not the president; 27 churches; 22 social movements; 16 paramilitary groups; and a smaller number of other kinds of actors. The authors identified the actors’ political alignments vis-à-vis the incumbent president by coding whether they were the government or government allies, members of the opposition, or neutral or divided with regards to the administration. Based on multiple historical sources, country reports discuss and code three variables for each political actor: its normative preference for democracy, its normative preference for dictatorship, and its policy radicalism/moderation. The coding rules for normative preferences for democracy and dictatorship are designed to distinguish between instrumental and normative reasons for supporting regimes. Files Description: Twenty country reports, divided into sections corresponding to the administrations in office during 1944-2010, with additional administrations for Argentina (1916-1930) and El Salvador (1927-1943). Each section (administration or period for long-lasting administrations) contains a sub-section for the actors mentioned above. An additional table summarizes the profile of all political actors discussed for each administration period. For each actor, the report provides brief narratives involving qualitative assessment of three attributes: (1) The actor’s normative support for democracy. The actor’s normative support for dictatorship; (2) The actor’s degree of radicalism on policy issues; (3) Historical sources referenced for each document are listed at the end of each respective country report.