Are presidential democracies inherently unstable and prone to breakdown? Recent work on Latin America suggests that the region has seen the emergence of a new kind of instability, where individual presidents do not manage to stay in office to the end of their terms, but the regime itself continues. This article places the Latin American experiences in a global context, and finds that the Latin American literature helps to predict the fates of presidents in other regions. The first stage of a selection model shows that presidents who are personally corrupt and preside over economic decline in contexts where democracy is paired with lower levels of GDP/capita are more likely to face challenges to their remaining in office for their entire terms. For the challenged presidents in this set, the risk of early termination increases when they use lethal force against their challengers, but decreases if they are corrupt. These factors help account for the disproportionately large number of South American presidents who have actually been forced from office, the "South American anomaly" of the title.

This article examines the issue of presidential failure in South America by evaluating the multiple factors that create risk of resignation, removal, or impeachment of presidents. The study draws on various economic variables that have not been thoroughly investigated in the past and uses survival analysis to identify what factors are influential. In performing this testing, the importance of variables such as civil protest, executive wrongdoing, and specific measures of economic hardship-inflation and prolonged recession-becomes clear. Majority legislative support also remains significant, supporting early arguments about the influence of presidential institutions. This investigation provides a unique perspective on presidential survival while evaluating the importance of previously excluded variables in a comprehensive manner.

This article introduces a regional trade agreement (RTA) simulation for undergraduate students. The simulation uses a multilevel bargaining framework, in which students can represent not only governments of negotiating countries but also domestic interests. By allowing students to experience international bargaining at different levels, they gain a deeper understanding of controversial international trade processes.I n recent decades, dramatic changes in higher education have led to new practices and methods, extending classroom styles beyond traditional lecture formats. Active learning and/or learner-centered teaching has burgeoned in discussions of enhancing student knowledge and skill-building. 1 Other than purely academic goals, many professors view active learning as a means for "setting students' minds on fire" (Carnes 2011, A72). Student knowledge and skills may increase through these methods, and they may be more motivated and involved in the learning process (Frederking 2005;Giovanello, Kirk, and Kromer 2013;Krain and Lantis 2006;Shellman and Turan 2006). As a result, professors have incorporated experiential learning, classroom simulations, "flipped" classrooms, web-based learning, and other techniques into their teaching practices.This article introduces a new classroom simulation that resembles the multilevel negotiations of a regional trade agreement (RTA). The concept of free trade and the practice of negotiating trade agreements continue to be a source of considerable controversy and confusion, exemplified by the ongoing case of the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations. In our experience, students find that they lack the knowledge of how trade agreements work to engage the issue beyond simplistic partisan talking points. We believe a classroom simulation provides an ideal opportunity for students to learn through experience not only the basics of international trade but also the complicated domestic politics involved.By simulating multilevel bargaining, the simulation described in this article puts students in the position of various domestic interests and requires them to negotiate at both the country and international levels. By disaggregating domestic interests, we move beyond existing country-level simulations (Switky and Avilés 2007) to give students a deeper understanding of how domestic politics-that is, coalition building, agenda setting, and the role of veto players-affects international politics. 2 This framework also allows cross-country interaction among similar groups (e.g., transnational labor cooperation), which reminds students that states do not always operate as unitary actors.Building on the structure of Stodden's (2012) simulation concerning the provision of humanitarian aid, we adapted it to RTA circumstances. Although the simulation is loosely based on real-world RTAs, 3 we use abstract countries. Our experience with using real countries is that students either try to replicate how that country acted or believe they do not know enough about its history to act on it...