Stanford University

The Costs of Claim-Making in Mexico

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Abstract:

High bureaucratic transaction costs can make it impossible for individuals to claim welfare benefits. Instead, these costs make individuals dependent on intermediaries who facilitate access to welfare. Especially in contexts of weak and corrupt policy implementation, politically motivated intermediaries demand political loyalty in return for their assistance, a practice known as clientelism. Although intermediaries may be efficient and even compensate for deficiencies in state capacity, they can also have long-run consequences for individuals' political autonomy and capacity to hold governments accountable. As a result, instead of promoting autonomous political participation, the pursuit of social welfare benefits through intermediaries can intensify ties of dependency. Worryingly, this research suggests that studying distributive outcomes without understanding mediating institutions may produce misleading conclusions. However, an important implication of this theory is that vicious markets of mediation can be weakened by reducing the costs that citizens face in obtaining welfare benefits directly from the state.

 

Speaker Bio:

tesalia
Tesalia is a Post Postdoctoral Scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford University. Starting fall 2020, she will be joining the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Merced as Assistant Professor. She completed her PhD in Political Science at MIT. Tesalia is also a research affiliate at the MIT Governance Lab.

Her research is in comparative political behavior, with a particular focus on how citizens make demands on the state. Her book-project, titled “Intermediaries of the State: Bureaucratic Transaction Costs of Claiming Welfare in Mexico” explores how bureaucratic transaction costs prevent individuals from directly claiming welfare benefits. Instead, these costs make citizens dependent on clientelist brokers and intermediaries, who demand political favors in return for access.

 

Tesalia Rizzo

Encina Hall, E112 616 Jane Stanford Way Stanford, CA 94305-6055  
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CDDRL Postdoctoral Scholar, 2019-20
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Tesalia Rizzo holds a Ph.D. in Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Her research focuses on the demand and supply side of political mediation. Specifically, on how political (formal, informal or clientelist) intermediaries shape citizens’ attitudes and political engagement. She also works with non-governmental practitioners in Mexico to develop and test policies that disincentivize citizen reliance on clientelist and corrupt avenues of engaging with government and strengthen citizen demand for accountability. Her work with Mexican practitioners was awarded the 2017 Innovation in Transparency Award given by the Mexican National Institute for Access to Information (INAI). She is also a Research Fellow at MIT GOV/LAB and the Political Methodology Lab, at MIT. She is a graduate of the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) in Mexico City. Prior to arriving at Stanford, she was a pre-doctoral fellow at the Center for US-Mexican Studies at University of California, San Diego and will join the Political Science Faculty at the University of California, Merced in 2020.

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Post Postdoctoral Scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford University
Seminars

The global spread of political polarization

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Political polarization is tearing at the seams of democracies around the world—from Brazil, India, and Kenya, to Poland, Turkey, and the United States. Drawing on his new co-edited volume (with Andrew O’Donohue), Democracies Divided: The Global Challenge of Political Polarization, Carnegie Endowment scholar Thomas Carothers will analyze the global spread of political polarization, drawing on examples from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and North America. Questions to be addressed include: Why has polarization come to a boil in so many places in recent years? What are its consequences? Once democracies have become deeply divided, what can they do to restore at least some consensus? Is polarization in the United States similar to or different from polarization elsewhere?

 

Speaker Bio:

Thomas Carothers
Thomas Carothers is senior vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace where he oversees all of the Endowment’s research programs and directs the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program. Widely recognized as a leading authority on democratization and international support for democracy, he has worked on democracy and governance assistance projects around the world for many public and private organizations. He is the author or editor of numerous critically-acclaimed books and reports as well as many articles in prominent journals and newspapers. He has been a visiting faculty member at Oxford University, the Central European University, and Johns Hopkins SAIS. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School, the London School of Economics, and Harvard College.

Thomas Carothers Senior vice president for studies, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Seminars

Torture as a method of criminal prosecution: Democratization, Criminal Justice Reform, and the Mexican Drug War

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A criminal trial is likely the most significant interaction a citizen will ever have with the state; its conduct and adherence to norms of fairness bear directly on the quality of government, extent of democratic consolidation, and human rights. While theories of repression tend to focus on the political incentives to transgress against human rights, we examine a case in which the institutionalization of such violations follows an organizational logic rather than the political logic of regime survival or consolidation. We exploit a survey of the Mexican prison population and the implementation of reforms of the justice system to assess how reforms to criminal procedure reduce torture. We demonstrate that democratization produced a temporary decline in torture which then increased with the onset of the Drug War and militarization of security. Our results show that democracy alone is insufficient to restrain torture unless it is accompanied by institutionalized protections.

 

Speaker Bio:

rodriguez luis
Luis Rodriguez was born in Puerto Rico, where he spent most of his formative years. He studied at the University of Maryland where he studied political science and Latin American literature. Upon completing undergrad in 2014, He began a PhD at Stanford, focusing his research on issues of crime, violence, and state capacity in Latin America and using advanced quantitative methods to find creative ways of measuring these often elusive phenomena.

 

CDDRL Pre-doctoral Fellow, 2019-20
Seminars

A ‘Democratic Depression’ Could Be Around the Corner

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Democratic institutions worldwide have reached a unique and precarious turning point, said Larry Diamond on a recent episode of the World Class podcast by the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI).

 



After the Cold War, the world became dominated by liberal values and a prevailing consensus for freedom, democracy and human rights, Diamond told World Class host and FSI Director Michael McFaul. During this time, the percentage of democratic states rose from making up about a quarter to more than half of all of the independent states in the world — which had never happened before in history. However, explained Diamond, who is senior fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, this trend may come to an end soon.

“It’s under severe challenge from Russia, China, Iran and from many other countries that were until recently democracies or are in danger of no longer being democracies soon,” Diamond said. “We are in a new and urgent situation.”

In 2018, Freedom House — a non-governmental organization that conducts research on democracy and political freedom — reported a decline in global freedom for the 13th consecutive year, reversing the post-Cold War trend between 1991 and 2006.
        
“We could be on the cusp of a democratic depression,” said Diamond. In his view, here are the four main causes of this worldwide shift. 

[Sign up for the FSI monthly newsletter to receive stories like this directly to your inbox.]

Incremental Authoritarianism
The first cause, according to Diamond, is what he calls “incremental authoritarianism,” which usually occurs when elected populist rulers — such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin or Turkey’s Tayyip Erdoğan, for example — begin to spread conservative, anti-immigrant or anti-pluralist values in an attempt to “save” the nation from corruption or threatening international illiberal values.

“Of course, the corrupting influences are human rights, accountability, pluralism, the rule of law and anything that would constrain their power and eliminate all potential rivals,” Diamond explained.

Russian Rage
The second cause has to do with Russia’s status as what Diamond describes as a “fallen superpower.”. Russia has begun to intervene in the politics of European democracies, meddle with the politics of the U.S. electoral democracy, spread confusion and promote division — all actions that stem from “Russian rage.”

“I think Putin has become unleashed,” he said. “He’s much more aggressive and ambitious now that he has found a cost-effective way of inflicting damage on democracy through disinformation and the penetration of the electoral space of democracies that we thought was sacred and secure.”

Chinese Ambition
Since coming to power in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party has tried to cultivate ties with “sympathetic actors” abroad — whether it be by sending Chinese citizens to U.S. graduate programs or to think tanks — but this effort has been ramped up and extended under Xi Jinping to a degree that hasn’t been seen before, according to Diamond.

“Chinese influence is extending into universities, corporations, Chinese-language media overseas, and certainly into aggressive — and I’d say illegal — technology practices that are boldly trying to create a new world of Chinese influence and even domination by the People’s Republic of China,” he explained.

American Complacency
Finally, Americans have become complacent about the security of their democracy, and many think that it doesn’t require their attention or participation in order to be upheld, said Diamond. In addition, some Americans have also become comfortable about the slow deterioration of their democracy through the polarization of U.S. politics. 

“People are becoming so intense in their feelings about parties and politicians that they won’t even talk to people from the other side at the Thanksgiving dinner table,” Diamond said. “Some of the statements of our own president are not consistent with democratic values…in which everyone is recognized as having the right to speak and in which violence can never be encouraged.”

Read more about Diamond’s thoughts on the state of global democracy in his new book, “Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency.”

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Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a signing ceremony in Beijing's Great Hall of the People on June 25, 2016. (Photo by Greg Baker-Pool/Getty Images).
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Contingent Extremism

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What explains the political momentum of far right parties? I argue that the far right has broadened its base by mobilizing contingent extremists—supporters who have long held extreme beliefs, but who were inactive in more hostile political opinion climates. To test this theory, I field a priming experiment in Germany, Hungary, and France (n=4,776) to measure respondents’ willingness to identify as far right supporters when assigned to more or less ‘favorable’ information about far right party popularity through experimentally varied polls. I find strong evidence that (1) contingent extremists exist; and (2) that significantly more extremists are ‘contingent’ in voting districts where the far right is electorally weak. This suggests that extremists’ direct social environments moderate the effect of the media on their political mobilization. Moreover, I identify a minimal ‘climate of opinion’ threshold at which extremists begin to support the party openly.

 

Speaker Bio:

jakli
Laura Jakli is a Predoctoral Fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University, and a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research examines emerging threats to democracy, focusing on political extremism and authoritarian encroachment. Her related research examines how information networks shape migration patterns and refugee behavior. Her research appears in International Studies Quarterly, the Virginia Journal of International Law, and Democratization (Oxford University Press).

Laura Jakli

Encina Hall, C147 616 Jane Stanford Way Stanford, CA 94305-6055
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CDDRL Predoctoral Fellow, 2018-20
Fellow, Program on Democracy and the Internet, 2018-20
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​I am a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. Starting in 2023, I will be an Assistant Professor at Harvard Business School's Business, Government and the International Economy (BGIE) unit.

My research examines political extremism, destigmatization, and radicalization, focusing on the role of popularity cues in online media. My related research examines a broad range of threats to democratic governance, including authoritarian encroachment, ethnic prejudice in public goods allocation, and misinformation. 

​My dissertation won APSA's Ernst B. Haas Award for the best dissertation on European Politics. I am currently working on my book project, Engineering Extremism, with generous funding from the William F. Milton Fund at Harvard.

My published work has appeared in the American Political Science Review,  Governance,  International Studies Quarterly, Public Administration Review, and the Virginia Journal of International Law, along with an edited volume in Democratization (Oxford University Press). My research has been featured in KQED/NPR, The Washington Post, and VICE News.
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I received my Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley in 2020. I was a Predoctoral Research Fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University and the Stanford Program on Democracy and the Internet. I hold a B.A. (Magna Cum Laude; Phi Beta Kappa) from Cornell University and an M.A. (with Distinction) from the University of California, Berkeley.

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Predoctoral Fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University
Seminars

Should We Take Authoritarian Anti-Corruption Seriously?

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Anti-corruption efforts by authoritarian regimes are often assumed to be political charades or excuses to purge rivals. The common view is that meaningful corruption control involves strengthening democratic institutions, such as judicial independence and the rule of law, which autocrats are largely unwilling to do. However, I argue that successful anti-corruption reform by nondemocratic governments is more common than is widely acknowledged. Using a novel scoring system for anti-corruption efforts, I show that there have been at least nine successful reforms in autocracies in recent decades. Moreover, my research finds that in these cases autocrats did not reduce corruption through the conventional democratic approach, but instead used decidedly authoritarian methods, and often strengthened their regimes in the process. I illustrate these points by analyzing Xi Jinping’s ongoing anti-corruption campaign in China, alongside cases in authoritarian South Korea, Taiwan, and elsewhere.

 

Speaker Bio:

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Christopher Carothers is a postdoctoral fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. His research in comparative politics focuses on East Asia, authoritarianism, and the politics of corruption, and has previously been published in the Journal of Democracy and various media outlets. He received his Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University in 2019.

Christopher Carothers

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CDDRL Postdoctoral Scholar, 2019-20
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I am a scholar of comparative politics and currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for the Study of Contemporary China. My research is on authoritarianism and corruption control with a regional focus on East Asia—especially China, the Koreas, and Taiwan. My first book, Corruption Control in Authoritarian Regimes: Lessons from East Asia (Cambridge University Press, 2022), is about why some autocrats are motivated to curb corruption, why their efforts succeed or fail, and what the political consequences of such efforts are. I received my Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University in 2019.

My writing has been published or is forthcoming in numerous academic and policy journals, including Perspectives on Politics, Government and Opposition, the Journal of Democracy, Politics and Society, the Journal of Contemporary China, the Journal of East Asian Studies, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the China Leadership Monitor, and The National Interest.

Before academia, I lived and traveled in East Asia for several years, learning Chinese and Korean along the way. I worked for The Wall Street Journal Asia in Hong Kong, taught English in Xinjiang, and studied Korean in Seoul. I received my B.A. (summa cum laude), also from Harvard, in Social Studies and East Asian Studies.

Postdoctoral fellow at Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL)
Seminars

Draper Hills 2019 Summer Fellows Reflect on Activism, Democracy and the Importance of Collaboration

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Every summer, the Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program brings together international leaders who are pioneering new approaches to advance social and political change in some of the most challenging global contexts. The fellows spend three weeks living and taking classes on the Stanford campus, visiting Silicon Valley tech companies and building a network.

Representing business, government and the nonprofit sector, fellows are working on the frontlines of democratic change to combat the global rise of authoritarianism and populism. The Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies spoke to five of the fellows about the impact of the Draper Hills program on their work and activism. These are their stories.

Shaili Chopra, India

shaili3 Shaili Chopra, founder of SheThePeopleTv. Photo: Alice Wenner
“I run a platform called SheThePeopleTv. It's a platform for women, and it aims to share news, opinions, data and statistics through a gendered lens. Women are a critical part of democracy — from where I come, in India, we have 600 million women. That's half of the country's population. I think they must also have half of the country’s voice, which they don't.

“I think a big plus of a program like Draper Hills is that when we are all working in the general construct of democracy, we have shared problems, and we also look for shared solutions. It's very empowering to be around people who understand these situations, or have found solutions or overcame them in their countries, or are going through similar problems. You can discuss them and get a sense of solidarity and a sense of empathy.”

Wiem Zarrouk, Tunisia

wiem1 Wiem Zarrouk, senior advisor to the Minister of Development, Investment and International Cooperation in Tunisia. Photo: Alice Wenner

“I’ve been working for the Tunisian government for three years as an advisor to the Minister of Development, Investment and International Cooperation. I am leading the government reforms to improve Tunisia's ranking in the World Bank Competitiveness Report - Doing Business.

“In Tunisia, we’ve set up most of our democratic institutions, and now we want to improve the business environment to attract more investment in local businesses. Eight years ago, the people went into the streets demanding more jobs. The challenge in Tunisia right now is economic, that’s why economic reforms are important to our government.

“I think the impact of the Draper Hills program will be immediate. I’ve learned a lot here about the link between development and democracies, so it really covers the scope of my work. And it's been great to learn about the theoretical side — the professors are really speaking about things that impact our daily work.” 


Ujwal Thapa, Nepal

ujwal1 Ujwal Thapa, president of the BibekSheel Nepali youth movement. Photo: Alice Wenner

“Bibeksheel Nepali is basically a political startup. It’s a youth-led movement, and we’re focused on changing the norms and mindsets of the culture in Nepal. We work a lot with citizens to instill the values of transparency, empathy and humility because we think democracy needs to be more emotional instead of just logical. I think liberal democracy needs to be understood more in the context of humanity. So it’s an experiment that we're doing in Nepal.

“When we started with the experiment, we decided not to focus only on the state, but thought about a few more components: one is our citizens, another is the society and the third is the government. Nepal recently came out of a violent civil war, and we just built a new constitution that is much more tolerant. Transparency is another value that we want to instill, because of the long isolationist and autocratic dictatorship that has existed in the past.

“Draper Hills is bringing all of these practitioners together who are experimental and innovative. And the world needs better collaboration from people who really believe in the ideals of the 21st century, which are liberal, democratic and more humanistic. That’s one of the strongest aspects of the Draper Hills program.”


N.S. Nappinai, India

nappinai1 N.S. Nappinai, senior practitioner in the Supreme Court of India and Bombay High Court. Photo: Alice Wenner

“I'm a lawyer — I specialize in cyber laws. My work throughout my career has been focused on ensuring responsible technology and the use of technology to fight crime. Two years ago I was appointed by the Supreme Court of India as Amicus Curiae on a matter related to protecting against the uploading of videos and images of gang rape and child pornography online.

“Some of the social media platforms had very good reporting mechanisms, whereas it was more hidden on other platforms. So we ensured that this issue was brought to the forefront so that people know that these are things that can be reported and some action can be taken. The whole idea was that as long as you identify such content at the earliest possible time, then you help the victim that much more.

“For me, balancing victims' rights with free speech is very important. This was a big dilemma that I faced, in terms of ‘How much of what I am doing is likely to stifle free speech?’ A lot of discussions at Draper Hills have helped formulate and structure my thoughts, and it's very nice to get the perspective from people from 26 other countries.”


Hinda Bouddane, Morocco

hinda1 Hinda Bouddane, the first vice president of the elected provincial council of the city of Fez. Photo: Alice Wenner

“I'm involved in women's empowerment and education for girls in Morocco. And especially for women in rural areas — they are less privileged, and many of them don't know their rights. So my fight through JA Worldwide and my activism is to empower these women and to raise awareness about their rights and the importance of education for girls.

“Education for girls is really important in fighting discrimination against women. Education empowers women to become financially independent, say no to violence, and to get engaged in the public sphere. Through that, women can be a part of the democratic process not only by voting, but also by taking part from within and running for office.

At Draper Hills, we're deepening our knowledge about topics like the rule of law, democracy and human rights, and hearing many different perspectives. And importantly, we are building a great network to connect many intelligent people from around the world, and we will work together to foster democratic values.”

 

 

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The 2019 Draper Hills Class of 2019 at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Photo: Stanford Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
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IMMIGRATION AND POPULISM IN CANADA, AUSTRALIA, AND THE UNITED STATES

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In the second decade of the 21st century, the world experienced the rise of a global populist movement built around ethnic nationalism and hostility to foreigners and immigration. This movement has been led by the United States after the election of Donald J. Trump as President in 2016, and today includes leaders in Turkey, Hungary, Poland, Italy, Brazil, and a host of parties throughout Europe that challenge the liberal international order. Canada, Australia, and the United States are three former British colonies that were settled by successive waves of immigrants from abroad. By 2017, the percentage of people born outside the country was nearly 22% in Canada, 29% in Australia, and 14% in the United States. Despite having higher levels of immigration, it is remarkable that neither Canada nor Australia has generated a strong populist movement, or a leader as has the United States. Both countries have achieved political consensus around policies that welcome substantial numbers of immigrants, while controlling their character though a point system and providing substantial support for their settlement and integration. The United States, by contrast, has tried repeatedly since the 1980s to establish a clear policy on immigration and has failed to do so. The US has neither been able to legalize the situation of the 11-12 million undocumented immigrants already in the country nor to effectively enforce its existing immigration laws. The country is highly polarized between pro- and anti-immigration camps, a polarization that has only deepened over time. The three countries had very similar immigration policies up until the 1960s. All three sought to encourage immigration, but were highly selective in where those immigrants could come from: Canada’s Immigration Act of 1910, the “White Australia” policy, and America’s Reed-Johnson Act establishing national origin quotas strongly favored immigrants from northern Europe. All three countries gradually relaxed these controls in the 20th century, accepting first Southern and Eastern Europeans in the first half of the century, and then opening up their societies to immigration from other parts of the world in the 1960s.

the paper.

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Francis Fukuyama
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