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Papers by Cecilia Martinez Gallardo

This study uses an online experiment to assess how anxiety, anger and enthusiasm shape the inform... more This study uses an online experiment to assess how anxiety, anger and enthusiasm shape the information gathering habits of citizens in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic of 2019-2020. We experimentally induce anxiety using a standard Autobiographic Emotional Memory Task (AEMT). The project is aimed at understanding the factors that shape how citizens seek out information about the virus.

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics, 2020

Presidentialism has long been associated with democratic instability. Conflict between the execut... more Presidentialism has long been associated with democratic instability. Conflict between the executive and the legislature is at the heart of this relationship. Traditional arguments link minority presidents with policy deadlock and inter-branch conflict, especially in contexts where presidential institutions deincentivize the formation of governing coalitions that can provide presidents with stable legislative majorities. The extent to which these premises are true, however, varies significantly across the presidential countries of Latin America, as does the potential for conflict and cooperation between the executive and the legislature. The prevalence of minority presidents hinges on the fragmentation of congress as well as other characteristics of the party and electoral systems; the relative powers of the president and congress vary widely, and in many places they have been adjusted precisely to reduce inter-branch conflict. Finally, even where minority governments are the norm, ...

Research & Politics, 2018

What characterizes the dynamics of presidential popularity? Research based on the United States o... more What characterizes the dynamics of presidential popularity? Research based on the United States of America finds popularity exhibits an almost law-like cyclicality over a president’s term: high post-election “honeymoon” approval rates deteriorate before experiencing an end-of-term boost as new elections approach. We contend that cyclical approval dynamics are not specific to the USA, but rather characteristic of presidential systems more generally, despite heterogeneity in their socio-economic and political contexts. Testing this proposition requires overcoming a key empirical problem: lack of comparable data. We do so by employing time-series inputs from 324 opinion surveys from a new publicly available database—the Executive Approval Database 1.0—to craft quarterly measures of popularity across 18 Latin American contemporary presidential democracies. Our analysis strongly confirms the cyclical approval model for the region. The conclusion identifies avenues for future research on ...

Journal of Politics in Latin America, 2014

This article proposes a set of arguments about the strategic use of cabinet appointments by execu... more This article proposes a set of arguments about the strategic use of cabinet appointments by executives in presidential systems. Although recent work has greatly improved our understanding of government formation in presidential countries, most changes to presidential cabinets happen throughout the lifetime of a government and remain poorly understood. I argue that presidents use cabinet changes in response to unexpected shocks and to adjust their governments to changing political and policy circumstances. Weak presidents are more likely to use this strategic resource, which means that ministerial turnover should be higher when a president's formal authority is weak and he or she has low political support and popularity. To test these claims, I have assembled an original dataset that records individual cabinet changes in 12 Latin American countries between 1982 and 2012. The data provides strong support for the theory.

Although presidents routinely appoint non-party ministers, cabinet partisanship in presidential d... more Although presidents routinely appoint non-party ministers, cabinet partisanship in presidential democracies remains poorly understood. Recent work on cabinet formation focuses on the benefits to presidents of building legislative support by including party-affiliated ministers in the cabinet.

American Journal of Political Science

This article shows that political competition generates incentives that affect the pace of adopti... more This article shows that political competition generates incentives that affect the pace of adoption of market reforms in the context of policy convergence. Previous work shows the effect of financial and technological pressures in promoting policy convergence and the impact of institutional constraints on shaping the pace of policymaking. Controlling for these effects, this article demonstrates the policy effects of political competition and ideological polarization even at a time when ideological policy differences seem to be fading due to policy convergence. This article studies policy adoption using duration analysis for the 18 countries of Latin America during the 1985–2000 period when most of the market reforms in public utilities were adopted.

Comparative Political Studies, 2014

The importance of institutions in shaping citizens' ability to punish or reward politicians for e... more The importance of institutions in shaping citizens' ability to punish or reward politicians for economic outcomes is well established. Where institutions divide authority politicians can blame each other and citizens find it harder to assign responsibility for policy failures; where institutions clarify lines of authority, citizens can better hold politicians accountable. However, this argument assumes that citizens perceive policy responsibility as shared among political actors and this is not always the case. Looking at security policy, we argue that when policy responsibility is concentrated in a single actor the effect of institutions on blame attribution is different from what the economic voting literature predicts. Divided government in this context makes blameshifting less effective and makes it more likely that citizens will punish incumbents. By contrast, the ability of executives to control the narrative around security failures by blaming the perpetrators, especially during unified government, can help them avoid blame.

Comparative Political Studies, 2014

ABSTRACT Presidential cabinets include on average more nonparty ministers than governments in any... more ABSTRACT Presidential cabinets include on average more nonparty ministers than governments in any other form of democracy, and critics of presidentialism have argued that this compromises representativeness, accountability, and governability. Yet cabinet partisanship in presidential democracies remains poorly understood. Existing studies argue that the partisan composition of cabinets reflects the degree to which presidents prioritize building legislative support. We demonstrate that a better understanding of government formation requires attention to a second dimension of choice: agency risks. Focusing on the relationship between presidents and their own parties, which is at the core of every presidential government, we show that party-affiliated ministers are not always reliable agents for presidents and that presidents appoint nonpartisan ministers to limit agency loss. We test this argument using original data on the partisanship of single-party cabinets in 12 Latin American countries and find support for the key claims.

Regulation & Governance, 2011

Page 1. Agency under constraint: Ideological preferences and the politics of electricity regulati... more Page 1. Agency under constraint: Ideological preferences and the politics of electricity regulation in Latin America Cecilia Martinez-Gallardo University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 253 Hamilton Hall, Department of Political Science, Chapel Hill NC 27599-3265, ...

Political Behavior, 2014

ABSTRACT Why do some presidents emerge from a scandal unscathed while for others it may lead to a... more ABSTRACT Why do some presidents emerge from a scandal unscathed while for others it may lead to a crisis of legitimacy? This question is crucial to understanding the conditions under which elected leaders are held accountable. This study proposes a theory of conditional accountability by which the public most consistently punishes presidents for scandals when the economy is weak. Under strong economic conditions, scandals do not tarnish presidents’ public standing. To test the theory, we use a new dataset that includes measures of scandals, presidential approval, and the economy for 84 presidential administrations in 18 Latin American countries. Consistent with our expectations, scandals only appear to damage presidential approval when inflation and unemployment are high.

British Journal of Political Science, 2004

American Political Science Review, 2008

This article challenges a key part of the conventional view of coalitions in presidential systems... more This article challenges a key part of the conventional view of coalitions in presidential systems that sees them as short-lived and ad hoc. The author shows instead that there is wide variation in the durability of governing coalitions across these regimes. She develops a theory of the incentives of parties to participate in the government and the circumstances under which scholars might expect to see the existing governing coalition break down. The author draws on data from 121 cabinets in 12 Latin American countries between the late 1980s and the mid-2000s to show that the dissolution of the cabinet is more likely when the president places less value on coalition building as a policy-making strategy and when parties find it costly to participate in the government. In particular, the author shows that strong unilateral institutional powers tend to diminish the incentives of presidents to compromise with other parties; in contrast, effective legislatures and high rates of approval for the executive contribute significantly to more stable governments.

This study uses an online experiment to assess how anxiety, anger and enthusiasm shape the inform... more This study uses an online experiment to assess how anxiety, anger and enthusiasm shape the information gathering habits of citizens in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic of 2019-2020. We experimentally induce anxiety using a standard Autobiographic Emotional Memory Task (AEMT). The project is aimed at understanding the factors that shape how citizens seek out information about the virus.

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics, 2020

Presidentialism has long been associated with democratic instability. Conflict between the execut... more Presidentialism has long been associated with democratic instability. Conflict between the executive and the legislature is at the heart of this relationship. Traditional arguments link minority presidents with policy deadlock and inter-branch conflict, especially in contexts where presidential institutions deincentivize the formation of governing coalitions that can provide presidents with stable legislative majorities. The extent to which these premises are true, however, varies significantly across the presidential countries of Latin America, as does the potential for conflict and cooperation between the executive and the legislature. The prevalence of minority presidents hinges on the fragmentation of congress as well as other characteristics of the party and electoral systems; the relative powers of the president and congress vary widely, and in many places they have been adjusted precisely to reduce inter-branch conflict. Finally, even where minority governments are the norm, ...

Research & Politics, 2018

What characterizes the dynamics of presidential popularity? Research based on the United States o... more What characterizes the dynamics of presidential popularity? Research based on the United States of America finds popularity exhibits an almost law-like cyclicality over a president’s term: high post-election “honeymoon” approval rates deteriorate before experiencing an end-of-term boost as new elections approach. We contend that cyclical approval dynamics are not specific to the USA, but rather characteristic of presidential systems more generally, despite heterogeneity in their socio-economic and political contexts. Testing this proposition requires overcoming a key empirical problem: lack of comparable data. We do so by employing time-series inputs from 324 opinion surveys from a new publicly available database—the Executive Approval Database 1.0—to craft quarterly measures of popularity across 18 Latin American contemporary presidential democracies. Our analysis strongly confirms the cyclical approval model for the region. The conclusion identifies avenues for future research on ...

Journal of Politics in Latin America, 2014

This article proposes a set of arguments about the strategic use of cabinet appointments by execu... more This article proposes a set of arguments about the strategic use of cabinet appointments by executives in presidential systems. Although recent work has greatly improved our understanding of government formation in presidential countries, most changes to presidential cabinets happen throughout the lifetime of a government and remain poorly understood. I argue that presidents use cabinet changes in response to unexpected shocks and to adjust their governments to changing political and policy circumstances. Weak presidents are more likely to use this strategic resource, which means that ministerial turnover should be higher when a president's formal authority is weak and he or she has low political support and popularity. To test these claims, I have assembled an original dataset that records individual cabinet changes in 12 Latin American countries between 1982 and 2012. The data provides strong support for the theory.

Although presidents routinely appoint non-party ministers, cabinet partisanship in presidential d... more Although presidents routinely appoint non-party ministers, cabinet partisanship in presidential democracies remains poorly understood. Recent work on cabinet formation focuses on the benefits to presidents of building legislative support by including party-affiliated ministers in the cabinet.

American Journal of Political Science

This article shows that political competition generates incentives that affect the pace of adopti... more This article shows that political competition generates incentives that affect the pace of adoption of market reforms in the context of policy convergence. Previous work shows the effect of financial and technological pressures in promoting policy convergence and the impact of institutional constraints on shaping the pace of policymaking. Controlling for these effects, this article demonstrates the policy effects of political competition and ideological polarization even at a time when ideological policy differences seem to be fading due to policy convergence. This article studies policy adoption using duration analysis for the 18 countries of Latin America during the 1985–2000 period when most of the market reforms in public utilities were adopted.

Comparative Political Studies, 2014

The importance of institutions in shaping citizens' ability to punish or reward politicians for e... more The importance of institutions in shaping citizens' ability to punish or reward politicians for economic outcomes is well established. Where institutions divide authority politicians can blame each other and citizens find it harder to assign responsibility for policy failures; where institutions clarify lines of authority, citizens can better hold politicians accountable. However, this argument assumes that citizens perceive policy responsibility as shared among political actors and this is not always the case. Looking at security policy, we argue that when policy responsibility is concentrated in a single actor the effect of institutions on blame attribution is different from what the economic voting literature predicts. Divided government in this context makes blameshifting less effective and makes it more likely that citizens will punish incumbents. By contrast, the ability of executives to control the narrative around security failures by blaming the perpetrators, especially during unified government, can help them avoid blame.

Comparative Political Studies, 2014

ABSTRACT Presidential cabinets include on average more nonparty ministers than governments in any... more ABSTRACT Presidential cabinets include on average more nonparty ministers than governments in any other form of democracy, and critics of presidentialism have argued that this compromises representativeness, accountability, and governability. Yet cabinet partisanship in presidential democracies remains poorly understood. Existing studies argue that the partisan composition of cabinets reflects the degree to which presidents prioritize building legislative support. We demonstrate that a better understanding of government formation requires attention to a second dimension of choice: agency risks. Focusing on the relationship between presidents and their own parties, which is at the core of every presidential government, we show that party-affiliated ministers are not always reliable agents for presidents and that presidents appoint nonpartisan ministers to limit agency loss. We test this argument using original data on the partisanship of single-party cabinets in 12 Latin American countries and find support for the key claims.

Regulation & Governance, 2011

Page 1. Agency under constraint: Ideological preferences and the politics of electricity regulati... more Page 1. Agency under constraint: Ideological preferences and the politics of electricity regulation in Latin America Cecilia Martinez-Gallardo University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 253 Hamilton Hall, Department of Political Science, Chapel Hill NC 27599-3265, ...

Political Behavior, 2014

ABSTRACT Why do some presidents emerge from a scandal unscathed while for others it may lead to a... more ABSTRACT Why do some presidents emerge from a scandal unscathed while for others it may lead to a crisis of legitimacy? This question is crucial to understanding the conditions under which elected leaders are held accountable. This study proposes a theory of conditional accountability by which the public most consistently punishes presidents for scandals when the economy is weak. Under strong economic conditions, scandals do not tarnish presidents’ public standing. To test the theory, we use a new dataset that includes measures of scandals, presidential approval, and the economy for 84 presidential administrations in 18 Latin American countries. Consistent with our expectations, scandals only appear to damage presidential approval when inflation and unemployment are high.

British Journal of Political Science, 2004

American Political Science Review, 2008

This article challenges a key part of the conventional view of coalitions in presidential systems... more This article challenges a key part of the conventional view of coalitions in presidential systems that sees them as short-lived and ad hoc. The author shows instead that there is wide variation in the durability of governing coalitions across these regimes. She develops a theory of the incentives of parties to participate in the government and the circumstances under which scholars might expect to see the existing governing coalition break down. The author draws on data from 121 cabinets in 12 Latin American countries between the late 1980s and the mid-2000s to show that the dissolution of the cabinet is more likely when the president places less value on coalition building as a policy-making strategy and when parties find it costly to participate in the government. In particular, the author shows that strong unilateral institutional powers tend to diminish the incentives of presidents to compromise with other parties; in contrast, effective legislatures and high rates of approval for the executive contribute significantly to more stable governments.