Volume 41, Number 4, July 2009

Why do Latin American countries exhibit stark differences in their ability to protect citizens from falling into poverty? Analysis of poverty levels measured by ECLAC in eighteen countries shows that political factors-including the democratic record, long-term weight of left-of-center parties in the legislature, and investment in human capital-are significant and substantively important determinants of poverty. These findings contribute to the growing literature that emphasizes the importance of regime form, parties, and policies for a variety of outcomes in Latin America, despite the weaknesses of democracy and the pathologies of some parties and party systems in the region.

Latin American countries pursue a variety of reforms to reduce and prevent violent crime, ranging from new penal codes to restructured police forces. The most promising and popular approach to crime reduction is community-oriented policing which, in contrast to most forms of traditional policing, seeks to empower citizens by building police-community partnerships. Similar reforms in two cities in Brazil and four in Honduras show that community policing will be most effective where executive and security officials engage with social groups, either through direct contact with civil society or through state institutions that address the concerns of highly violent poor areas.

The accountability of state institutions and rulers is a defining feature of democracy. The police form a key state institution that is targeted for reforms to improve its accountability. The surprising case of increased police accountability in Bogotá, Colombia demonstrates the importance of the political strategy of lateral reform, which successfully mitigated obstacles to police accountability to the state and society. Lateral reform is a sequence of policies that strategically alter the societal context in which reforms take place to increase public support for and participation in reform processes over time. This strategy may strengthen the hand of politicians seeking to increase the accountability of recalcitrant state institutions.

The nature and efficacy of specific tactics used by Chinese protesters challenge the conventional wisdom that ordinary people in an authoritarian regime must resort to disruption to obtain bargaining power. An expanded view of mediating mechanisms of protest efficacy includes two dimensions: means (disruption/persuasion) and routes (direct leverage/third-party leverage). In addition to resorting to disruption, Chinese protesters frequently employ tactics to activate three nondisruptive mechanisms: persuasion, publicity, and elite advocacy. While these “troublemaking” tactics can be easily confused with disruption, they work according to a different logic. The efficacy of a wide variety of tactics in China suggests the interactions of elites and subordinate classes are often more nuanced and reciprocal than disruption theory assumes.

Why do states with converging economic policies in southern Asia have diverging educational policies? Variations in the structure of domestic support for political elites in India, Pakistan, and Malaysia show that the state’s role in social provisioning during reforms was differently interpreted and implemented despite economic growth in all three countries. Indian and Pakistani elites, who are more dependent on clientelist networks and religious organizations seeking to provide their own schooling, face incentives to privatize education. In contrast, Malaysia’s government relies on horizontal networks of support, is hostile towards Islamic groups, and therefore faces incentives to increase the public provision of education. Differing incentives construct policies that enable or contain the growth of religious extremism.

This article gauges the impact on comparative politics of the methodological turn in political science through a review of four recent books on the role of comparative historical analysis in the subfield. Two volumes-one edited by James Mahoney and Dietrich Rueschemeyer and the other edited by Henry Brady and David Collier-defend the accomplishments and strengths of comparative historical analysis. In contrast, the book by Barbara Geddes advocates a scientific approach combining rational choice theory with regression. The article includes a discussion of the interviews conducted by Gerardo Munck and Richard Snyder with prominent comparativists and questions whether strategies of inference should be our most pressing concern.