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23 Mar
Research

Informal Institutions and Horizontal Accountability: Protocols in the Chilean Budgetary Process.

2013. “Informal Institutions and Horizontal Accountability: Protocols in the Chilean Budgetary Process.”  Latin American Politics and Society 55 (4): 74-94. PDF.

Studies of executive‐legislative relations are usually based only on the analysis of formal institutions, although informal institutions also shape interbranch behavior. This omission leads to questionable results when scholars examine the capacity of state institutions to audit other public agencies and branches of government. This article explores how the protocols, an informal institution that shapes the Chilean budgetary negotiations, have increasingly allowed the congress to have a more relevant budgetary role than what the constitution permits. It argues that protocols accommodate some of the undesired consequences of a charter that is strongly biased toward the central government, and describes how this institution has departed from its stringent budgetary focus to encompass broader executive‐legislative agreements that enhance the legislature’s capacity to oversee the executive.

05 Mar
Research

“Who whispers to the president? Advisors versus ministers in Latin America.” [In Spanish] Política 50(2): 29-57

2012. “Who whispers to the president? Advisors versus ministers in Latin America.” [In Spanish] Política 50(2): 29-57. PDF.

This article examines who influences presidential decisions within the Executive and how this occurs. Based on interviews with twenty-one former presidents, this paper argues that the tension between advisors and ministers varies according to the type of presidential leadership and whether the president freely appoints ministers or they are imposed by political parties. The interaction between both variables conditions relations between advisors and ministers, allowing advisors to complement, substitute, accommodate or compete with ministers’ duties. To systematize this argument, this paper proposes a categorization of the degree of conflict that exists between ministers and advisors.

06 Mar
Columns

March 6, 2020. “La erosión de la democracia chilena y su potencial reversión” El Mercurio Online.

The original article was published at https://comentarista.emol.com/1840440/11494005/Ignacio-Arana.html

Chile experimentó en 2019 un pronunciado declive democrático en la clasificación que realiza Freedom House (https://freedomhouse.org/), una de las tres principales organizaciones que mide el estado de la democracia en el mundo. Freedom House evalúa 15 indicadores sobre libertades civiles y 10 sobre derechos políticos, y los transforma en una escala que va de 0 a 100 puntos. En dicha clasificación, Chile cayó de 94 a 90 puntos debido a los acontecimientos ocurridos desde el 18 de octubre. Si bien la caída es alarmante, no constituye una amenaza al sistema democrático y el gobierno tiene potencialmente la capacidad para revertir la regresión en el corto plazo.

El año pasado Chile mejoró en un indicador que mide derechos políticos y retrocedió en tres ítems que miden libertades civiles. Hubo un avance en apertura y transparencia gubernamental cuando en septiembre fue derogada la Ley Reservada del Cobre para aumentar la transparencia y el control civil sobre el presupuesto militar. Aunque el cambio legal establece un cronograma lento de cambios, es un avance significativo en una ley que desde 1990 varios gobiernos se han comprometido a cambiar por su opacidad. La ley 13.196 establecía que el 10% de las ventas de Codelco fueran transferidas a las fuerzas armadas sin rendir cuentas al poder civil, una invitación abierta al despilfarro y la corrupción, como el escándalo “milicogate” terminó por evidenciar.

Los retrocesos en libertades civiles ocurrieron tanto por las violaciones a los derechos humanos cometidas por carabineros, como por los abusos ejercidos por manifestantes violentos y saqueadores contra el resto de la población civil. El extenso uso ilegítimo de la fuerza pública cometido por carabineros ha sido ampliamente constatado tanto por el Instituto Nacional de Derechos Humanos como por Naciones Unidas y organizaciones internacionales como Human Rights Watch y Amnistía Internacional, además de abundante información anecdótica que ha circulado en la prensa y redes sociales. Carabineros ha recibido acusaciones gravísimas, incluyendo torturas y violaciones sexuales.

La violencia civil descontrolada y la evidente incapacidad estatal para abordarla han afectado libertades civiles básicas como la libertad de movimiento y la libertad de reunión, así como la libertad académica. Las libertades de movimiento y reunión fueron legalmente restringidas para millones de personas cuando el Presidente Piñera declaró estado de emergencia en quince regiones, medida que fue reforzada con toques de queda en varias zonas. Pero la restricción más duradera ocurrió por los saqueos y vandalismo, que con la quema de transporte público y privado, bloqueos de plazas, calles, y caminos limitaron la capacidad de desplazamiento y reunión de una buena parte de la población. Aberraciones cívicas como “el que baila, pasa” y un número incuantificable de actos intimidatorios también inhibieron el ejercicio civil de estas libertades básicas.Finalmente, la libertad académica se vio comprometida dada la imposibilidad temporal de impartir clases en recintos de enseñanza, y en particular con el saqueo y ocupación de universidades y el acoso a quienes ejercen la docencia.

¿Cambio de rumbo?

Pese a los ominosos acontecimientos tras el 18 de octubre, todos los factores que condujeron a la erosión democrática pueden ser revertidos en el corto plazo si el gobierno logra controlar el desorden policial y cívico. Aunque la tarea es difícil, el país está mucho mejor posicionado para prosperar que los países americanos, europeos, africanos y asiáticos gobernados por fuerzas autoritarias que hoy lideran asaltos a instituciones y normas democráticas. Freedom House ha documentado un descenso sistemático en el nivel de democracia en el mundo en los últimos 14 años, debido principalmente a gobiernos que atacan a la prensa, socavan la independencia judicial y militar, cambian leyes electorales para sacar ventajas, y usan instituciones estatales neutrales como agencias de impuestos, inteligencia, y seguridad como armas políticas contra sus rivales. Nada de eso ocurrió en 2019 ni está ocurriendo en Chile.

Asimismo, en términos relativos Chile sigue siendo una democracia sólida. Con sus 90 puntos está igualado con Francia y por sobre países como Italia (89), Grecia (88), y Estados Unidos (86). De hecho, en América sólo es superado por Uruguay (98), Canadá (98), y Costa Rica (91). Aunque aún está lejos de los 97 puntos que tenía en 2009 o de los 100 que hoy comparten Suecia, Noruega y Finlandia, es sano evitar miedos irracionales sobre el futuro. La severidad de los abusos policiales y de la violencia civil declinó hace meses y por delante quedan procesos electorales que le dan a los votantes la posibilidad de participar, decidir y ser representados, pilares que sólo pueden ayudar a sostener una mejor democracia.

28 Mar
Columns

March 28, 2018. “The ‘personal’ versus the ‘institutional’ presidency: An artificial divide” Presidential Power Blog.

The original article was published at a British Blog (http://presidentialpower.com) that ceased to exist.

Mainstream media and political analysts seem obsessed covering the eccentricities and peculiarities of the occupant of the White House, adventuring how Trump’s limitations as a statesman may have undesired impacts on executive governance. Trump’s unpredictable behavior and decision-making style have stunned many observers, but both recent and historical presidents of the Americas also had flamboyant personalities (and performances). Idiosyncratic presidents, in fact, have always existed. Not so long ago, Presidents Hugo Chávez of Venezuela (1999-2013) and Abdalá Bucaram of Ecuador (1996-1997) used to hit international headlines for their extravagances. Bucaram, popularly nicknamed “El Loco,” was eventually impeached by Congress for – officially – being a madman. What these eccentric characters remind us is that those who hold the most important political offices in their countries bring their unique personalities to power with them, and such uniqueness has an impact on their performance. However, students of the presidency have generally failed to quantitatively measure how the personality traits of the leaders may impact executive governance.
Arguably, this failure occurs mainly because students of the presidency have failed to absorb research on differential psychology. This brand of psychological research studies the individual differences of humans, or how people differ from each other in how they feel, act, think and
behave. Absorbing the theoretical, empirical, and methodological contributions of the differential psychology literature would also allow integrating the research of scholars who focus on the “personal” presidency and those who center on the “institutional” presidency.
Both research streams have run through parallel corridors, leading to conflicting views on how the presidency works. The president-centered (also called “personality-centered”) approach examines decision making in the executive branch based on presidential behavior. Scholars from this group examine the ability of presidents to persuade individuals and organizations to accommodate policy making to their preferences. They argue that the heads of government have plenty of room to act and decide at their own discretion. Since the individual attributes of the leaders influence policy outcomes, it is necessary to analyze the personal characteristics of the leaders to understand executive politics (Neustadt 1960; Barber 1972; Greenstein 2009).
In contrast, presidency-centered (also called “institutional presidency”) studies minimize the importance of presidents as individuals and center the explanation of policy outcomes on the institutional setting in which heads of government work (e.g., Moe 1993; Dickinson 2004; Lewis 2008). The central assumption in this approach is that different presidents will behave similarly in identical contexts. It regards the study of the characteristics of the leaders as unworthy because more explanatory leverage is -supposedly- gained when scholars analyze the effect of institutional factors on policy outcomes.
The opposing theoretical views have contributed to a divide of students of the presidency along two methodological lines with little interconnection. While presidency-centered researchers mainly conduct statistical or game-theoretic analyses, most president-centered studies are qualitative.
I argue that the division wall between presidency-centered and president-centered explanations of the presidency is built on unsound foundations. Presidency-centered scholars have assumed that the personal characteristics of presidents 1) are of little relevance to understand their behavior and that 2) such features cannot be systematically measured because they are idiosyncratic. Although
president-centered researchers do not share these assumptions, they have also failed to recognize that 1) on differential psychology there is a broad consensus on what human personality is, and that 2) personalities tend to be stable over time.
These misconceptions have had profound consequences. Presidency-centered researchers claim that presidents cannot be used as units of analysis in quantitative studies (e.g., King 1993) and that analytically little is lost leaving the uniqueness of the heads of government aside. However, a vast corpus of psychological research contradicts the assumption that the specificity of presidents is irrelevant to understand their behavior. The literature on differential psychology has shown that all individuals have stable personality differences and that these differences strongly explain their behavior (Judge et al. 1999; Goldberg 1990; McCrae and Costa 1997; Costa and McCrae 1992). Since personality traits are stable, they can be systematically studied. Presidents can be treated as units of analysis in statistical analyses. Although president-centered scholars recognize the importance of the personal characteristics of the presidents, they have often discussed psychological attributes of the leaders arbitrarily, paying little attention to psychological research (e.g., Greenstein 2009).
I propose that to have a deeper understanding of the presidency, we need to start testing hypotheses that include presidency-centered and president-centered paradigms. To do so, it is necessary to reposition the individual differences of leaders as a central cause of political phenomena in quantitative research. And we cannot do that unless we absorb the knowledge produced from the discipline that has studied how humans differ from each for the last 130 years.
05 May
Columns

May 5, 2017. “5 lessons from former presidents on making good decisions” The Washington Post.

The original article was published at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/05/05/5-lessons-from-ex-presidents-on-making-good-decisions/

Many observers have been questioning Donald Trump’s decision-making. But how can we assess presidential decision-making? Presidents make the most consequential decisions in presidential political systems. And yet we know little about why heads of government decide as they do, or about the circumstances that surround their decisions.

And so I asked them. Between June 2011 and May 2012, I interviewed 21 former presidents from eight Latin American countries. Collectively, they offered these five insights into decision-making.

1. Decisions with highly limited information are inevitable

Presidents frequently make decisions for which they are poorly informed. “Every day I had to make decisions with an information deficit,” said Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, president of Costa Rica from 1998 to 2002. As Eduardo Frei, Chile’s president from 1994 to 2000, said:

You get up in the morning with an agenda, and suddenly something comes up and there is little time to solve it. When this happens, it becomes costly to have all the information, and you often cannot postpone decisions.

2. An imperfect decision may be better than not deciding or deciding late

If I have to decide within 24 hours because the world may fall, I may try to ask for some advice, but if it is not possible, well, hell, presidents make decisions all day. You try to get as much information as you can, but sometimes the cost that you pay for not making a decision is enormous.

Vinicio Cerezo, president of Guatemala from 1986 to 1991, even claimed that “one of the fundamental problems of many Latin American governments is that presidents do not decide, or do it late or unclearly. This leads to overwhelming pressures.”

3. Lean on advisers to relieve the pressure

Most of the heads of government interviewed emphasized that they knew that making important decisions was part the job before taking office. And yet several acknowledged that once in power, they could not avoid feeling overwhelmed. Rafael Callejas, Honduras’s president from 1990 to 1994, was categorical: “The presidency is always an administration by the crisis.”

Heads of state routinely rely on advisers who help them understand the direct and indirect implications of the choices at hand. “You surround yourself with people you trust, but they also need to be experts,” said Elías Antonio Saca, the president of El Salvador from 2004 to 2009. Armando Calderón Sol, El Salvador’s president from 1994 to 1999, said, “I always asked my advisers; even when I was almost sure of what I was going to do.”

“In one group were the members of my cabinet, a multi-sectoral group that represented all points of view and served as a strainer of ideas. I convened another group formed by select friends. The third group was a ‘kitchen cabinet,’ with which I met three times a month. With them I reviewed the big picture; we discussed all subjects.”

4. Listen to alternative viewpoints 

One group of leaders said they tried to listen to alternative points of view when making decisions. Saca said heads of government need to “be patient and understand that you cannot win all battles. … To govern, you must listen and let people tell you. And you need the ability to get out of the bubble of the presidency, because many people tell you what you want to hear.”

A second, smaller group of leaders stated that they did not search for much counseling because they knew what they wanted to do. Óscar Arias, Costa Rica’s president from 1986 to 1990 and from 2006 to 2010, stressed that when making decisions “I did not care if they were popular or not. I signed a free-trade agreement with China and never asked Costa Ricans if they agreed.”

Similarly, Manuel Zelaya, Honduras’s president from 2006 to 2009, stated, “I act according to my beliefs.” And Ecuador’s president from 1996 to 1997, Abdalá Bucaram, said: “I do exactly what my conscience dictates, and in that sense, I do not think about tomorrow. … I am a man who, when he believes in something, does it. I completely assume the risks.”

5. Master when to negotiate and when to retaliate

When to negotiate, how to persuade and when to retaliate are options that presidents regularly ponder. Most heads of state interviewed said they think that they had to invest a significant part of their energies negotiating and persuading allies and rival forces.

Costa Rica’s Calderón said that being a soft bargainer allowed him to enjoy a “very strong leadership,” because “in this country, you need to treat people with a lot of affection and respect.”

Arnoldo Alemán, president of Nicaragua (1997-2002), stated that because he did not enjoy a majority in Congress, “what I suffered the most was to constantly be in breakfasts, lunches and dinners negotiating with legislators.”

However, some interviewees emphasized the need to exercise tough leadership, including retaliating against dissenters. “I would be a liar if I were to say that presidents do not retaliate. … Human beings are like that. You step on my foot, and I step on yours,” said Abel Pacheco, Costa Rica’s president from 2002 to 2006. Honduras’s Callejas justified not helping legislators develop their political agenda as a way to “induce” them to follow presidential policies.

Is there any commonality across these five lessons? Yes. They suggest that the more politically experienced an incoming president is, the more he or she can use that depth of knowledge to overcome information constraints, understand when a decision cannot be rushed or delayed, and identify when to negotiate and when to retaliate against dissenters. Experienced politicians also have a clearer idea of when to listen to advisers and how much to be open to alternative points of view.

10 Jul
Columns

May 28, 2013. “La discusión constitucional en perspectiva comparada” La Tercera

The original article was published at La Tercera (Chilean newspaper).

La actual discusión sobre un eventual reemplazo constitucional en Chile liderada por candidatos presidenciales y columnistas de diversas áreas ha estado caracterizada por una descripción sesgada y poco informada sobre la experiencia internacional. En la discusión se ha
obviado la evidencia de que los reemplazos constitucionales (1) no son infrecuentes, que (2) pueden causar tanto inestabilidad como estabilidad política, que (3) no necesariamente implican cambios más profundos que una reforma constitucional convencional, que (4) las
preferencias de quienes hacen las reformas condicionan fuertemente los resultados y que (5) el mecanismo más usado para cambiar las constituciones han sido las asambleas constituyentes.

Elkins, Ginsburg y Melton (2009) analizan todas las constituciones promulgadas entre 1789 y 2006. Su análisis demuestra que, a nivel mundial, las constituciones tienen menor esperanza de vida que los gatos: 19 años. Casi todos los países tienen constituciones (Israel, el Reino Unido y Arabia Saudita son raras excepciones) y casi todos las han cambiado al menos una vez. De hecho, de acuerdo a Ginsburg, Elkins y Blount (2009) cada año son reemplazadas entre 4 y 5 constituciones, mientras que entre 10 y 15 son reformadas.

Los reemplazos constitucionales pueden generar tanto inestabilidad como estabilidad política. De acuerdo a Elkins, Ginsburg y Melton, uno de cada cinco reemplazos constitucionales ocurrió cuando hubo un cambio de régimen, lo que indica que tanto nuevas democracias como
dictaduras han redefinido las reglas básicas de convivencia social con miras a lograr una mayor gobernabilidad. Asimismo, varios estudios han asociado causalmente las constituciones con cambios en calidad de democracia (Lijphart 1999; Powell 2000; Colomer 2001), política
exterior (Feldman 2005), políticas públicas y desempeño económico general (Persson y Tabellini 2003; North y Weingast 1989).

Los reemplazos constitucionales no necesariamente cambian más el contenido de las constituciones que las reformas convencionales. La carta magna mexicana, creada en 1917, ha sido tan reformada que su versión actual es muy distinta a la original. En el extremo opuesto,
el dictador Rafael Trujillo reemplazó cuatro veces la constitución dominicana pero la mayoría de las veces sólo hizo cambios cosméticos a su contenido. Sin embargo, según Elkins y compañía, en promedio los reemplazos constitucionales cambian el 19% del contenido de las
constituciones, mientras que las reformas sólo el 3%.

El profesor del CIDE mexicano, Gabriel Negretto, ha demostrado a través de múltiples publicaciones cómo los cambios constitucionales realizados en América Latina, al igual que en el resto del mundo, representan las preferencias de quienes reforman la constitución. Por lo
tanto, entender los incentivos de quienes hacen las reformas es crucial para entender el resultado. El mecanismo menos representativo de las preferencias del electorado es aquel en el que un comité de expertos redacta la constitución de espaldas a la ciudadanía, como sucedió
en Chile en 1980. La carta magna será más inclusiva a medida que las visiones de más actores políticos y sociales relevantes se incluyan en su proceso de redacción y aprobación.

Algunos políticos y comentaristas han descartado la opción de cambiar la constitución a través de una asamblea constituyente recordando los resultados de los procesos organizados en Venezuela (1999), Bolivia (2007) y Ecuador (2007). Sin embargo, las constituyentes no las
inventó Hugo Chávez; la mayoría de los reemplazos constitucionales en el mundo se han hecho a través de asambleas constituyentes. Ginsburg, Elkins y Blount analizaron el proceso de creación de 460 de las 806 nuevas constituciones promulgadas entre 1789 y 2005, y las
principales responsables de reemplazar las constituciones fueron asambleas constituyentes (129 veces).

Examinar brevemente la experiencia internacional sirve para aclarar algunos puntos centrales. Primero, reemplazar la constitución no necesariamente causaría inestabilidad política. Segundo, un reemplazo constitucional no es sinónimo de una reforma institucional
significativa. Tercero, llevar adelante una reforma constitucional es menos vistoso, pero más fácil de realizar y puede ser igual o más profunda que un reemplazo constitucional. Cuarto, si el objetivo es redactar una constitución nueva que intente representar proporcionalmente las preferencias del electorado, la sustitución tendría que hacerse a través de un cuerpo (ya sea congreso o asamblea constituyente) electo a través de un sistema que tienda hacia la representación proporcional. Sustituir la actual constitución a través de un congreso electo por una fórmula que distorsiona significativamente las preferencias de los votantes, como sucede con el sistema binominal, limitaría severamente la representatividad (y por tanto legitimidad) de los eventuales cambios.

Referencias
Colomer, Josep M. (2001). Political Institutions: Democracy and Social Choice. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.

Elkins, Zachary, Tom Ginsburg, and James Melton (2009). The Endurance of National Constitutions. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Feldman, Noah (2005). “Imposed Constitutionalism”. Connecticut Law Review 37: 857–89.

Ginsburg, Tom, Zachary Elkins, y Justin Blount (2009). “Does the Process of Constitution-Making Matter?” Annual Review of Law and Social Sciences, vol. 5 (5): 201-223.

Lijphart, Arend (1999). Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries. New Haven: Yale University Press.

North, Douglass, y Barry R. Weingast (1989). “Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England”. Journal of Economic History, 49 (4): 803–832.

Persson, Torsten y Guido Tabellini (2003). The Economic Effects of Constitutions. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Powell, Jr., G. Bingham (2000). Elections as Instruments of Democracy: Majoritarian and Proportional Visions. New Haven: Yale University Press.