Tuesday Seminar on Latin American Studies

Date: 

Tuesday, April 9, 2019, 12:00pm to 2:00pm

Location: 

CGIS South Building, 1730 Cambridge Street, Room S030

"Non-Policy Politics: Richer Voters, Poorer Voters, and the Diversification of Electoral Strategies (book presentation)"

Speaker:

María Victoria Murillo, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, Columbia University.

Moderator:

Steven Levitsky, Faculty Associate; Chair, Weatherhead Research Cluster on Global Populism/Challenges to Democracy. David Rockefeller Professor of Latin American Studies, Department of Government, Harvard University; Harvard College Professor.

Contact:

Jillian Scales
jscales@fas.harvard.edu

Abstract:

This book focuses on the non-policy benefits that voters consider when deciding their vote. In addition to proposing policies, parties deliver non-policy benefits, such as competent economic management, constituency service, and patronage. This book provides a unified view of how politicians deliver broad portfolios of policy and non-policy benefits to their constituency. Non-policy resources also shape parties' ideological positions. The book shows which type of electoral offers parties target to either poorer or richer voters and their implications in terms of democratic responsiveness. The theory is tested using both qualitative and quantitative research to establish how linkages between parties and voters shape the delivery of non-policy benefits in Argentina and Chile in the 2000s.