This book opens the institutional Pandora's box of conflict management, focusing on two central questions: To what degree do Latin American political contexts create spaces for institutional designs that deal with conflicts in a feasible and legitimate way? How can institutional architects exploit such spaces to manage conflict innovatively? The authors' point of departure is that institutions are primarily conflict-solving entities guiding individual and social behaviour, and that they set out to be much more than rules of the game: institutions do (and should) evolve and are eventually redesigned to meet human necessities. In light of the pending socioeconomic challenges in most of Latin America, institutional designers are confronted with the fact that nothing inherent within the institutions guarantees that conflict is processed in ways that tackle distributive and ethnic inequalities.

Comprehensive coverage of how populists have responded to the pandemic Great selection of international case studies Extremely distinguished contributor list

Comprehensive coverage of how populists have responded to the pandemic Great selection of international case studies Extremely distinguished contributor list

How voting behavior in Latin America is influenced by social networks and everyday communication among peers In Latin America's new democracies, political parties and mass partisanship are not deeply entrenched, leaving many votes up for grabs during election campaigns. In a typical presidential election season, between one-quarter and one-half of all voters-figures unheard of in older democracies-change their voting intentions across party lines in the months before election day. Advancing a new theory of Latin American voting behavior, Persuasive Peers argues that political discussions within informal social networks among family members, friends, neighbors, coworkers, and acquaintances explain this volatility and exert a major influence on final voting choices. Relying on unique survey and interview data from Latin America, the authors show that weakly committed voters defer to their politically knowledgeable peers, creating vast amounts of preference change as political campaigns unfold. Peer influences also matter for unwavering voters, who tend to have social contacts that reinforce their voting intentions. Social influence increases political conformity among voters within neighborhoods, states, and even entire regions, and the authors illustrate how party machines use the social topography of electorates to buy off well-connected voters who can magnify the impact of the payoff. Persuasive Peers demonstrates how everyday communication shapes political outcomes in Latin America's less-institutionalized democracies.

How voting behavior in Latin America is influenced by social networks and everyday communication among peers In Latin America's new democracies, political parties and mass partisanship are not deeply entrenched, leaving many votes up for grabs during election campaigns. In a typical presidential election season, between one-quarter and one-half of all voters-figures unheard of in older democracies-change their voting intentions across party lines in the months before election day. Advancing a new theory of Latin American voting behavior, Persuasive Peers argues that political discussions within informal social networks among family members, friends, neighbors, coworkers, and acquaintances explain this volatility and exert a major influence on final voting choices. Relying on unique survey and interview data from Latin America, the authors show that weakly committed voters defer to their politically knowledgeable peers, creating vast amounts of preference change as political campaigns unfold. Peer influences also matter for unwavering voters, who tend to have social contacts that reinforce their voting intentions. Social influence increases political conformity among voters within neighborhoods, states, and even entire regions, and the authors illustrate how party machines use the social topography of electorates to buy off well-connected voters who can magnify the impact of the payoff. Persuasive Peers demonstrates how everyday communication shapes political outcomes in Latin America's less-institutionalized democracies.

This book opens the institutional Pandora's box of conflict management, focusing on two central questions: To what degree do Latin American political contexts create spaces for institutional designs that deal with conflicts in a feasible and legitimate way? How can institutional architects exploit such spaces to manage conflict innovatively? The authors' point of departure is that institutions are primarily conflict-solving entities guiding individual and social behaviour, and that they set out to be much more than rules of the game: institutions do (and should) evolve and are eventually redesigned to meet human necessities. In light of the pending socioeconomic challenges in most of Latin America, institutional designers are confronted with the fact that nothing inherent within the institutions guarantees that conflict is processed in ways that tackle distributive and ethnic inequalities.