IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/intare/v22y2019i4p295-311.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A political–institutional explanation of environmental performance in Latin America

Author

Listed:
  • Denis Rey

    (University of Tampa, USA)

  • Joshua Ozymy

    (Texas A&M University Corpus Christi, USA)

Abstract

This research utilizes the 2010 Environmental Performance Index to examine how electoral rules affect environmental performance in 20 Latin American democracies. Using supporting time-series analysis with dependent variables for habitat protection, particulate matter, and carbon dioxide emissions from 2000 to 2008, our study finds that proportionality and party systems influence environmental performance in the region. Results show that representation impacts ecosystem vitality more so than public health. We account for this gap by arguing that levels of political representation influence the allocation of public and private goods which, in turn, help determine environmental outcomes. Our findings do not always paint a consistent picture, which may be attributed to the difficulties of operationalizing complex concepts such as environmental performance within and across countries and examining how these relationships change over time. Additional research is warranted to tease out these relationships.

Suggested Citation

  • Denis Rey & Joshua Ozymy, 2019. "A political–institutional explanation of environmental performance in Latin America," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 22(4), pages 295-311, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:intare:v:22:y:2019:i:4:p:295-311
    DOI: 10.1177/2233865919833979
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2233865919833979
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/2233865919833979?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Myerson, Roger B., 1993. "Incentives to Cultivate Favored Minorities Under Alternative Electoral Systems," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(4), pages 856-869, December.
    2. Nicola Persico & Alessandro Lizzeri, 2001. "The Provision of Public Goods under Alternative Electoral Incentives," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(1), pages 225-239, March.
    3. Iversen, Torben & Soskice, David, 2006. "Electoral Institutions and the Politics of Coalitions: Why Some Democracies Redistribute More Than Others," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 100(2), pages 165-181, May.
    4. Allen Hicken & Joel W. Simmons, 2008. "The Personal Vote and the Efficacy of Education Spending," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 52(1), pages 109-124, January.
    5. Chang, Eric C. C. & Golden, Miriam A., 2007. "Electoral Systems, District Magnitude and Corruption," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 37(1), pages 115-137, January.
    6. Gene M. Grossman & Elhanan Helpman, 2005. "A Protectionist Bias in Majoritarian Politics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(4), pages 1239-1282.
    7. David Austen-Smith, 2000. "Redistributing Income under Proportional Representation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(6), pages 1235-1269, December.
    8. Gene M. Grossman & Alan B. Krueger, 1995. "Economic Growth and the Environment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(2), pages 353-377.
    9. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 1999. "The size and scope of government:: Comparative politics with rational politicians," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(4-6), pages 699-735, April.
    10. Golden, Miriam A., 2003. "Electoral Connections: The Effects of the Personal Vote on Political Patronage, Bureaucracy and Legislation in Postwar Italy," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 33(2), pages 189-212, April.
    11. Neumayer, Eric, 2003. "Are left-wing party strength and corporatism good for the environment? Evidence from panel analysis of air pollution in OECD countries," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 203-220, June.
    12. Congleton, Roger D, 1992. "Political Institutions and Pollution Control," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 74(3), pages 412-421, August.
    13. Scruggs, Lyle A., 1999. "Institutions and Environmental Performance in Seventeen Western Democracies," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 29(1), pages 1-31, January.
    14. Joshua Ozymy & Denis Rey, 2013. "Wild Spaces or Polluted Places: Contentious Policies, Consensus Institutions, and Environmental Performance in Industrialized Democracies," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 13(4), pages 81-100, November.
    15. Barrett, Scott & Graddy, Kathryn, 2000. "Freedom, growth, and the environment," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(4), pages 433-456, October.
    16. Bhattarai, Madhusudan & Hammig, Michael, 2001. "Institutions and the Environmental Kuznets Curve for Deforestation: A Crosscountry Analysis for Latin America, Africa and Asia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 995-1010, June.
    17. Matt Golder & Jacek Stramski, 2010. "Ideological Congruence and Electoral Institutions," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(1), pages 90-106, January.
    18. Cheibub, Jos㉠Antonio & Przeworski, Adam & Saiegh, Sebastian M., 2004. "Government Coalitions and Legislative Success Under Presidentialism and Parliamentarism," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 34(4), pages 565-587, October.
    19. Hukkinen, Janne, 1995. "Corporatism as an impediment to ecological sustenance: the case of Finnish waste management," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 59-75, October.
    20. Shugart,Matthew Soberg & Carey,John M., 1992. "Presidents and Assemblies," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521429900.
    21. David Stasavage, 2005. "Democracy and Education Spending in Africa," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 49(2), pages 343-358, April.
    22. Shugart,Matthew Soberg & Carey,John M., 1992. "Presidents and Assemblies," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521419628.
    23. Per G. Fredriksson & Jim R. Wollscheid, 2010. "Party Discipline and Environmental Policy: The Role of “Smoke‐filled Back Rooms”," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 112(3), pages 489-513, September.
    24. Daniel L. Nielson, 2003. "Supplying Trade Reform: Political Institutions and Liberalization in Middle‐Income Presidential Democracies," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 47(3), pages 470-491, July.
    25. Weingast, Barry R & Shepsle, Kenneth A & Johnsen, Christopher, 1981. "The Political Economy of Benefits and Costs: A Neoclassical Approach to Distributive Politics," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(4), pages 642-664, August.
    26. Bryan D. Jones & Frank R. Baumgartner & Christian Breunig & Christopher Wlezien & Stuart Soroka & Martial Foucault & Abel François & Christoffer Green‐Pedersen & Chris Koski & Peter John & Peter B. Mo, 2009. "A General Empirical Law of Public Budgets: A Comparative Analysis," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(4), pages 855-873, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Haiqing Hu & Di Chen & Chun‐Ping Chang & Yin Chu, 2021. "The Political Economy Of Environmental Consequences: A Review Of The Empirical Literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(1), pages 250-306, February.
    2. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    3. Garance Genicot & Laurent Bouton & Micael Castanheira, 2021. "Electoral Systems and Inequalities in Government Interventions [“Distributive Politics and Electoral Incentives: Evidence from Seven US State Legislatures.”]," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 19(6), pages 3154-3206.
    4. Bernauer, Thomas & Koubi, Vally, 2009. "Effects of political institutions on air quality," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(5), pages 1355-1365, March.
    5. Benczes, István, 2008. "A költségvetési hiány politikai gazdaságtana [The political economy of budgetary deficit]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(3), pages 218-232.
    6. Drosdowski, Thomas, 2006. "On the Link Between Democracy and Environment," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-355, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    7. Torsten Persson & Guido Tabellini, "undated". "Political Institutions and Policy Outcomes: What are the Stylized Facts?," Working Papers 189, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    8. Sebastian M. Saiegh, 2009. "Coalition Governments And Sovereign Debt Crises," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(2), pages 232-254, July.
    9. Gene M. Grossman & Elhanan Helpman, 2005. "Party Discipline and Pork Barrel Politics," NBER Working Papers 11396, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Kauder, Björn & Potrafke, Niklas & Ursprung, Heinrich, 2018. "Behavioral determinants of proclaimed support for environment protection policies," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 26-41.
    11. Olper, Alessandro & Raimondi, Valentina, 2013. "Electoral rules, forms of government and redistributive policy: Evidence from agriculture and food policies," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 141-158.
    12. Massimo Morelli & Michele Tertilt, 2000. "Policy Stability under Different Electoral Systems," Working Papers 00-13, Ohio State University, Department of Economics.
    13. repec:ces:ifodic:v:5:y:2007:i:3:p:14567324 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Drosdowski, Thomas, 2005. "Democracy Deficits, Inequality and Pollution. A Politico-Economic Analysis," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-323, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    15. Ruoff, Gabi, 2008. "Grow rich and clean up later? International assistance and the provision of environmental quality in low- and middle-income countries," Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Zurich 2008 37, Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics.
    16. Halkos, George E. & Tzeremes, Nickolaos G., 2013. "Carbon dioxide emissions and governance: A nonparametric analysis for the G-20," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 110-118.
    17. ,, 2014. "A dynamic theory of electoral competition," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 9(2), May.
    18. Eicher, Theo S. & García-Peñalosa, Cecilia & Kuenzel, David J., 2018. "Constitutional rules as determinants of social infrastructure," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 182-209.
    19. David Martimort & Philippe De Donder & Etienne Billette De Villemeur, 2005. "An Incomplete Contract Perspective on Public Good Provision," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(2), pages 149-180, April.
    20. Daniel M Kselman, 2020. "Public goods equilibria under closed- and open-list proportional representation," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 32(1), pages 112-142, January.
    21. Daniel Duma, 2015. "Voting Rules And Redistribution: The Case Of The Recent Economic Crisis," Annals - Economy Series, Constantin Brancusi University, Faculty of Economics, vol. 3, pages 183-189, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:intare:v:22:y:2019:i:4:p:295-311. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.hufs.ac.kr/user/hufsenglish/re_1.jsp .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.