This article provides a theoretical framework for analyzing the recruitment and selection of legislative candidates in Latin America. It argues that political recruitment and candidate selection are undertheorized for Latin America yet have determinative impacts on political systems, often overriding the influence of more commonly studied institutional variables. The article elucidates a typology of legislative candidates based on the legal and party variables that lead to the emergence of particular selection methods, as well as the patterns of loyalty generated by those methods. It analyzes the recruitment and selection processes as independent and dependent variables, underscoring the significant effect these procedures have on the incentive structure and subsequent behavior of legislators. Those factors, in turn, have important consequences for democratic governability and the performance of presidentialism.
reSuMen algunas de las dificultades del gobierno de michelle Bachelet y la crisis más generalizada del gobierno de la concertación han estado cada vez más vinculadas a variables de liderazgo, al agotamiento de la coalición con respecto a sus ideales básicos, o a la necesidad de diversos tipos de reformas institucionales. este trabajo contempla la posibilidad de que el modelo mismo de transición, que ha sido considerado como tan exitoso, podría ser el origen de las dificultades que hoy invaden tanto la concertación como la democracia chilena en general. además, argumenta que la interacción del sistema electoral y la estructura de la competencia postautoritaria han obligado a una política elitista que ayuda a explicar las dificultades actuales que sufre la concertación, y ha forzado una crisis generalizada de representación. para elaborar este argumento el autor se basa en el trabajo de manuel antonio Garretón, sobre los enclaves autoritarios, señalando que hay ciertos enclaves de la transición que dificultan el desarrollo de una democracia representativa de calidad. estos enclaves de transición incluyen: el cuoteo, control de la élite en la selección de candidatos y la política electoral, dominación de los partidos en la política, formulación de políticas elitista y extrainstitucional, y la intocabilidad del modelo económico heredado del gobierno de pinochet.Palabras clave: chile, michelle Bachelet, enclaves de transición, concertación, enclaves autoritarios. AbstrActSome of the difficulties of Michelle Bachelet Government and the more generalized crisis of Chile's governing Concertación coalition have increasingly been tied to leadership variables, the exhaustion of the coalition with respect to its core ideals, or the need for various types of institutional reform. This paper considers the possibility that the very model of transition which has been lauded as so successful might actually be at the root of the difficulties that today plague both the Concertación and Chilean democracy more generally. This paper argues that the interaction of the electoral system and the structure of post-authoritarian competition have forced an elitist form of politics that helps to explain the current difficulties plaguing the Concertación coalition and fueled a generalized crisis of representation. To make this argument it builds on the work of Manuel Antonio Garretón concerning authoritarian enclaves, arguing that there are certain enclaves of the transition that get in the way of the development of a high quality representative democracy. These transitional enclaves include: el cuoteo, elite control of candidate selection and electoral politics, party dominated politics, elitist and extra-institutional policymaking, and the untouchability of the economic model inherited from the Pinochet government.
This research note summarizes initial research from a wider project on the determinants of candidate selection procedures. It seeks to contribute to the growing literature on candidate selection by distinguishing transitional and institutionalized democracies. First, it provides a review of the existing literature, with particular emphasis placed on identifying the existing hypotheses on the determinants of candidate selection procedures. Second, it elucidates why transitional polities differently constrain the choice of legislative candidate selection procedures compared to institutionalized democracies. Third, several hypotheses derived from the literature indicate that the barriers to adopting inclusive legislative candidate selection procedures are higher in transitional than in institutionalized democracies.
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