Karen L. Remmer | |
---|---|
Nationality | American |
Occupation(s) | Political scientist, academic, author and researcher |
Academic background | |
Education | B.A., political science M.A. Ph.D. |
Alma mater | Wellesley College University of Chicago |
Thesis | Political Competition and Public Policy: The Impact of Party Development in Chile and Argentina (1974) |
Academic work | |
Institutions | Duke University |
Karen L. Remmer is an American political scientist,academic,author and researcher. She is a professor emerita of political science at Duke University. [1]
Remmer has authored over 80 publications. Her expertise lies in comparative politics and political economy with a particular focus on Latin America and the Caribbean. She has published widely on electoral competition,military rule,institutional change and political economy of Latin America. She is the author of Party Competition and Public Policy:Argentina and Chile, [2] and Military Rule in Latin America. [3]
Remmer was associate editor of the Latin American Research Review from 1981 till 2001. She has also served as a co-president of Rocky Mountain Council for Latin American Studies from 1979 till 1980. [1]
Remmer obtained a bachelor's degree in political science from Wellesley College in 1966. She then enrolled at the University of Chicago and received her master's and doctoral degree in 1968 and 1974,respectively. She also studied as a post-graduate research student in the Department of Politics at the London School of Economics between 1968 and 1970. [1]
Following her master's studies,Remmer held a brief appointment as a lecturer at Lewis and Clark College before joining the University of New Mexico in 1974 as professor of political science. She then left and took up an appointment as a full professor at Duke University in 2001. [1]
Remmer's research in the field of comparative politics has focused on political economy and political institutions with central emphasis on Latin America.
Beginning in the mid-1980s,Remmer wrote series of articles exploring the relationship between economics and politics in the Latin American region. Her research on the electoral impact of the debt crisis of the 1980s provided evidence that economic crisis provoked electoral instability and undermined the support of incumbents without giving rise to political extremism,political polarization,or otherwise undermining democratic institutions. [4] The resilience of democracy in the region was further emphasized in her analysis of the sustainability of democracy in South America in the post-1944 period. Drawing on comparisons between democratic and authoritarian regimes,her research underlines the impact of political institutions on regime durability by showing that economic performance has conditioned the risk of authoritarian,but not democratic,breakdown. [5]
A closely related vein of research explores the impact of democracy on policy performance. Drawing on a study of IMF stabilization programs over a thirty-year period,her research shows that in comparison with authoritarian regimes,democracies have been no less likely to introduce or implement stabilization programs and no more likely to break down in response to their political costs. [6] Analyzing policy responses to economic crisis,she further challenged the conventional wisdom about the impact of regime differences by providing evidence that democracies do not respond less effectively to economic crisis than authoritarian regimes. [7] In related research on the impact of elections on macroeconomic performance in Latin America,Remmer provided evidence that competitive elections have enhanced rather than undermined the capacity of political leaders to address macroeconomic problems. Her analysis suggests that the relationship between democracy and economic performance is more effectively captured by a “political capital”model than by its more traditional political business cycle alternative. [8]
Remmer's co-authored 2000 study offers evidence that interactions between party competition and the structure of the public sector shape fiscal performance at the subnational level and thereby condition the capacity for national economic adjustment. As the Argentine experience concretely demonstrates,in political systems characterized by federalism and decentralized government spending even relatively successful national adjustment efforts may be undermined by contradictions between local and national policy. [9]
Exploring electoral choice at the provincial level,Remmer also highlights the potential for slippage between policy responsibility and electoral accountability in decentralized political systems. [10] Another study of subnational elections in Argentina draws upon both aggregate data and survey evidence to underline the interdependence of electoral assessments and choice processes across levels of government. Not only do assessments of national performance influence subnational elections in Argentina;subnational assessments also influence the choices of voters in national elections in accordance with what might be described as a ‘reverse coattails’effect. [11]
Remmer's research has also documented patronage business cycles in Argentina,showing that at the provincial level patronage spending expands significantly in the year following elections. [12]
Remmer has explored the issue of government size in two research articles. The first draws a link between foreign aid and government growth in the 1970-99 period. [13] Drawing on subnational comparisons,the second explores the consequences of political scale for government spending. It suggests that the tendency for small political units to have big governments is not merely the result of economies of scale in the provision of public goods,but a reflection of the greater pressures for public spending faced by politicians in smaller and more homogeneous political units. [14]
Remmer's recent research has focused on the topic of investment treaty arbitration. In the first of her three papers on disputes arising under the protection of investment treaties,she explores their impact on foreign investment flows and state reputational rankings. [15] A second research contribution analyzes variations in dispute outcomes,which have increasing favored states over investors. Due to unequal access to legal knowledge and expertise,however,the legal playing field has remained biased against lower and middle income states,whose odds of winning a dispute compare unfavorably with those of wealthier states. [16] A third paper explores variations in the incidence of state involvement in investment treaty disputes in Latin America over the 1987-2014 period. [17]
Remmer's research has also contributed to the study of institutional and electoral change in Latin America. Focusing on the individual level of analysis,she has examined vote switching in Argentina, [18] the rise of leftist populist governance, [19] and democratization. [20] [21]
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics,and parties may promote specific ideological or policy goals.
Accountability,in terms of ethics and governance,is equated with answerability,culpability,liability,and the expectation of account-giving.
Democratization,or democratisation,is the democratic transition to a more democratic political regime,including substantive political changes moving in a democratic direction.
International political economy (IPE) is the study of how politics shapes the global economy and how the global economy shapes politics. A key focus in IPE is on the distributive consequences of global economic exchange. It has been described as the study of "the political battle between the winners and losers of global economic exchange."
Modernization theory is used to explain the process of modernization within societies. The "classical" theories of modernization of the 1950s and 1960s drew on sociological analyses of Karl Marx,Emile Durkheim and a partial reading of Max Weber,and were strongly influenced by the writings of Harvard sociologist Talcott Parsons. Modernization theory was a dominant paradigm in the social sciences in the 1950s and 1960s,then went into a deep eclipse. It made a comeback after 1991,when Francis Fukuyama wrote about the end of the Cold War as confirmation on modernization theory and more generally of universal history. But the theory remains a controversial model.
Comparative politics is a field in political science characterized either by the use of the comparative method or other empirical methods to explore politics both within and between countries. Substantively,this can include questions relating to political institutions,political behavior,conflict,and the causes and consequences of economic development. When applied to specific fields of study,comparative politics may be referred to by other names,such as comparative government.
The resource curse,also known as the paradox of plenty or the poverty paradox,is the phenomenon of countries with an abundance of natural resources having less economic growth,less democracy,or worse development outcomes than countries with fewer natural resources. There are many theories and much academic debate about the reasons for and exceptions to the adverse outcomes. Most experts believe the resource curse is not universal or inevitable but affects certain types of countries or regions under certain conditions.
Adam Przeworski is a Polish-American professor of political science specializing in comparative politics. He is Carroll and Milton Professor Emeritus in the Department of Politics of New York University. He is a scholar of democratic societies,theory of democracy,social democracy and political economy,as well as an early proponent of rational choice theory in political science.
Guillermo Alberto O'Donnell Ure was a prominent Argentine political scientist who specialized in comparative politics and Latin American politics. He spent most of his career working in Argentina and the United States,and who made lasting contributions to theorizing on authoritarianism and democratization,democracy and the state,and the politics of Latin America. His brother is Pacho O'Donnell.
Steven Levitsky is an American political scientist and Professor of Government at Harvard University. A comparative political scientist,his research interests focus on Latin America and include political parties and party systems,authoritarianism and democratization,and weak and informal institutions. He is notable for his work on competitive authoritarian regimes and informal political institutions.
Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of democracy and political plurality. It involves the use of strong central power to preserve the political status quo,and reductions in the rule of law,separation of powers,and democratic voting. Political scientists have created many typologies describing variations of authoritarian forms of government. Authoritarian regimes may be either autocratic or oligarchic and may be based upon the rule of a party or the military. States that have a blurred boundary between democracy and authoritarianism have some times been characterized as "hybrid democracies","hybrid regimes" or "competitive authoritarian" states.
A coup d'état,or simply a coup,is typically an illegal and overt attempt by a military organization or other government elites to unseat an incumbent leadership. A self-coup is when a leader,having come to power through legal means,tries to stay in power through illegal means.
A hybrid regime is a type of political system often created as a result of an incomplete democratic transition from an authoritarian regime to a democratic one. Hybrid regimes are categorized as having a combination of autocratic features with democratic ones and can simultaneously hold political repressions and regular elections. Hybrid regimes are commonly found in developing countries with abundant natural resources such as petro-states. Although these regimes experience civil unrest,they may be relatively stable and tenacious for decades at a time. There has been a rise in hybrid regimes since the end of the Cold War.
Leonardo Morlino is Emeritus Professor of Political Science at LUISS "Guido Carli" University specializing in comparative politics.
Angela Wigger is a political economist at the Political Science department at the Radboud University in the Netherlands.
Democratic backsliding is a process of regime change towards autocracy that makes the exercise of political power by the public more arbitrary and repressive. This process typically restricts the space for public contestation and political participation in the process of government selection. Democratic decline involves the weakening of democratic institutions,such as the peaceful transition of power or free and fair elections,or the violation of individual rights that underpin democracies,especially freedom of expression. Democratic backsliding is the opposite of democratization.
Evelyne Huber is an American and Swiss political scientist specializing in comparative politics and a scholar of Latin America,currently the Morehead Alumni Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina,Chapel Hill,where she was the Department Chair for more than a decade. Her work has focused on democracy and redistribution,particularly in Latin America.
An authoritarian enclave is a non-democratic subunit of a democratic system. It may be an administrative division of a state or a ministry.