Pathways to Power
Political Recruitment and Candidate Selection in Latin America
496 pages | 12 illustrations | 6.125 x 9.25 | 2008
ISBN 978-0-271-03375-4 | cloth: $65.00 sh
Paperback edition is not available

Analyses of formal governmental institutions and electoral laws have considerably advanced our understanding of how politics works in Latin America. However, these analyses largely overlook the process of candidate recruitment and selection, an issue intricately tied to political outcomes and the functioning of democracy.
In this volume, a team of experts uses a common analytic framework developed by the editors to analyze the recruitment and selection of executive and legislative candidates in six major countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Uruguay. It does so from two perspectives. First, as a dependent variable, the volume explores the party and legal factors that drive the recruitment and selection process, thus producing particular types of candidates. It then considers candidate type as an independent variable, analyzing the impact of candidate type on campaigns, political parties, and the behavior of legislators and presidents once elected. The result is the first fully comparative inquiry into a central, but largely neglected, determinant of politics in Latin America.
Peter M. Siavelis is Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation Fellow and Associate Professor of Political Science at Wake Forest University.
Scott Morgenstern is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Pittsburgh.
Contents
Part I - Theoretical Framework
Chapter 1 Political Recruitment and Candidate Selection in Latin America: A Framework for Analysis
Peter M. Siavelis and Scott Morgenstern
Part II - Political Recruitment and Candidate Selection for the Legislative Branch
Chapter 2 The Recruitment and Selection of Legislative Candidates in Argentina
Mark P. Jones
Chapter 3 Political Ambition, Candidate Recruitment, and Legislative Politics in Brazil
David Samuels
Chapter 4 Legislative Candidate Selection in Chile
Patricio Navia
Chapter 5 Mejor Solo Que Mal Acompañado: Political Entrepreneurs and List Proliferation in Colombia
Erika Moreno and Maria Escobar-Lemmon
Chapter 6 Legislative Recruitment in Mexico
Joy Langston
Chapter 7 Why Factions? Candidate Selection and Legislative Politics in Uruguay
Juan Andres Moraes
Part III - Political Recruitment and Candidate Selection for the Executive Branch
Chapter 8 Political Recruitment and Candidate Selection in Argentina: Presidents and Governors, 1983-2006
Miguel De Luca
Chapter 9 Political Recruitment in an Executive-Centric System: Presidents, Ministers, and Governors in Brazil
Timothy J. Power and Marilia G. Mochel
Chapter 10 Political Recruitment and Candidate Selection in Chile, 1990-2006: The Executive Branch
David Altman
Chapter 11 Precandidates, Candidates, and Presidents: Paths to the Colombian Presidency
Steven L. Taylor, Felipe Botero, and Brian F.
Chapter 12 Political Recruitment, Governance, and Leadership: How Democracy Has Made a Difference in Mexico
Roderic Ai Camp
Chapter 13 Presidential Candidate Selection in Uruguay, 1942-2004
Daniel Buquet and Daniel Chasquetti
Part IV - Gender and Political Recruitment
Chapter 14 How Do Candidate Recruitment and Selection Processes Affect Representation of Women?
Maria Escobar-Lemmon and Michelle Taylor Robinson
Part V - Summary and Conclusions
Chapter 15 Pathways to Power and Democracy in Latin America
Scott Morgenstern and Peter M. Siavelis
References
Index
About the Contributors