Professional Affiliation

Associate Professor of Political Science, Vanderbilt University

Wilson Center Project

"The Politics of Neoliberal Reform in Fragile Democracies: Argentina, Brazil, Peru, and Venezuela"

Project Summary

Why have several governments in Latin America's fragile democracies dared and managed to enact drastic market reforms, which impose high costs on most voters and therefore carry substantial political risks? And why have many citizens unexpectedly accepted these costly measures, thus making tough nonliberal programs politically viable? To account for this surprising turn of events, my project assesses economic, political-institutional, ideational, and rational-choice arguments and elaborates a new explanation based on psychological insights. In this way, it addresses major debates in the discipline, especially the relative importance of structural determination vs. choice and the issue of rationality in politics.