Latin America

State Capitalism and FDI Expropriation in Latin America

This article focuses on state capitalism in Latin America and examines what causes the expropriation of foreign direct investment (FDI) in this region. We argue that leaders’ concerns over their political survival affect FDI expropriation in Latin American countries. Specifically, when leaders sense a higher level of political constraints and political insecurity, they are more likely to take unilateral action, i.e., by expropriating FDI. This argument illustrates one important feature of state capitalism: governments utilize markets to serve political goals.

Electoral Accountability:The Relation between Incumbent Governments’ Economic Performance and Vote Shares in Latina America

Electoral accountability refers to the mechanism that people are able to use their votes to award or punish incumbent governments based on their policy outcomes and political performance. Conventional studies focusing on electoral accountability in Latin America mainly address the relations between governments’ economic performance and incumbents’ vote share. However, their conclusions are diverse. We argue that this problem might be due to mistaking levels of analyses, incomplete datasets, mistakes in model selection, and ignoring the influence from political contexts.

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