Robert R Kaufman
Biographic Data
| ID | 371279 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Robert R Kaufman |
| GIVEN NAMES | Robert R |
| FAMILY NAME | Kaufman |
| SIGNATURE | KAUFMAN R R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8542-0415 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 49 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1162 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 47 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1968 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 18 |
Federalism and Democratic Backsliding in Comparative Perspective
As a wave of backsliding has swept across both new and established democracies, scholars have sought to identify formal and informal institutions that can act as guardrails of democracy. But while informal norms, party structures, and formal institutions such as separation of powers have all been singled out as potential bulwarks against democratic backsliding, the literature has had less to say about what role, if any, federalism might play in s…
Backsliding: Democratic Regress in the Contemporary World
Assaults on democracy are increasingly coming from the actions of duly elected governments, rather than coups. Backsliding examines the processes through which elected rulers weaken checks on executive power, curtail political and civil liberties, and undermine the integrity of the electoral system. Drawing on detailed case studies, including the United States and countries in Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Africa, the book focuses on three, …
The Anatomy of Democratic Backsliding
How do duly elected rulers weaken checks on executive power, curtail civil and political liberties, and undermine the integrity of the electoral process? Drawing on sixteen cases of backsliding from Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Africa as well as the United States, our theory of backsliding focuses on three causal mechanisms: the pernicious effects of polarization; rulers’ control of the legislature; and the incremental nature of abuses of p…
Democratic Decline in the United States: What Can We Learn from Middle-Income Backsliding
We explore what can be learned from authoritarian backsliding in middle income countries about the threats to American democracy posed by the election of Donald Trump. We develop some causal hunches and an empirical baseline by considering the rise of elected autocrats in Venezuela, Turkey, and Hungary. Although American political institutions may forestall a reversion to electoral autocracy, we see some striking parallels in terms of democratic …
On the Nature and Endings of Latin America's Industrial Policies: Interview with Robert Kaufman and Adolfo Meisel
Response to Michael Albertus and Victor Menaldo’s review of Dictators and Democrats: Masses, Elites, and Regime Change
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Dictators and Democrats: Masses, Elites, and Regime Change
From the 1980s through the first decade of the twenty-first century, the spread of democracy across the developing and post-Communist worlds transformed the global political landscape. What drove these changes and what determined whether the emerging democracies would stabilize or revert to authoritarian rule? Dictators and Democrats takes a comprehensive look at the transitions to and from democracy in recent decades. Deploying both statistical …
Dictators and Democrats: Masses, Elites, and Regime Change
From the 1980s through the first decade of the twenty-first century, the spread of democracy across the developing and post-Communist worlds transformed the global political landscape. What drove these changes and what determined whether the emerging democracies would stabilize or revert to authoritarian rule? Dictators and Democrats takes a comprehensive look at the transitions to and from democracy in recent decades. Deploying both statistical …
Democratization During the Third Wave
The initial optimism that greeted the onset of the “Third Wave” of democratization has cooled with the instability of many new democracies and the proliferation of stable competitive authoritarian regimes. These disappointments have produced a return to structural theories emphasizing the constraints posed by underdevelopment, resource endowments, inequality, and ethno-religious cleavages. We argue, however, for a sharper focus on the political m…
Correct Voting Across Thirty-Three Democracies: A Preliminary Analysis
This article extends Lau and Redlawsk's notion ofcorrect voting– whether voters, under conditions of uncertainty, choose the alternative they would have chosen had they been fully informed about the issues and candidates in that election – to sixty-nine elections in thirty-three established and emerging democracies around the world. At the individual level, political sophistication, political experience and motivation all significantly predict th…
Income, Occupation, and Preferences for Redistribution in the Developing World
Inequality and Regime Change: Democratic Transitions and the Stability of Democratic Rule
Recent work by Carles Boix and Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson has focused on the role of inequality and distributive conflict in transitions to and from democratic rule. We assess these claims through causal process observation, using an original qualitative dataset on democratic transitions and reversions during the "third wave" from 1980 to 2000. We show that distributive conflict, a key causal mechanism in these theories, is present in just…
Views of Economic Inequality in Latin America
The authors assess the factors that affect judgments about the fairness of the distribution of wealth with pooled public opinion data from Latinobarometro surveys conducted in 1997, 2001, and 2002. They test hypotheses with a multilevel logit model that allows them not only to examine the effects of the class background and perceptions of individual respondents but also to assess the impact of society-level differences in economic growth, GDP per…
The Eastern European Welfare State in Comparative Perspective
Until recently, the study of the welfare state was confined largely to the advanced industrial countries. However, the recent transitions in Eastern Europe substantially widen the canvas on which comparisons might be drawn. In addition, new literature has emerged on the evolution of social policy in the middle-income countries of Latin America and East Asia as well (Huber, 2002; Kapstein and Milanovic, 2002; Brooks, 2007; SeguraUbiergo, 2007; Hag…
Development, Democracy, and Welfare States: Latin America, East Asia, and Eastern Europe
and Policy proudly present the Globalization, Innovation and Development speaker series.This series provides insight into the dynamics of innovation and economic development in a globalizing world
David C.Wills, The First War on Terrorism: Counter-Terrorism Policy during the Reagan Administration
April 01 2009 David C.Wills, The First War on Terrorism: Counter-Terrorism Policy during the Reagan Administration Robert Kaufman Robert Kaufman Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information Robert Kaufman Online ISSN: 1531-3298 Print ISSN: 1520-3972 © 2009 Massachusetts Institute of Technology2009 Journal of Cold War Studies (2009) 11 (2): 164–166. https://doi.org/10.1162/jcws.2009.11.2.164 Cit…
Poverty, Inequality, and Democracy (II): How Regions Differ
Does democracy lead to more inclusive and equitable social contracts? Our answer is a qualified "yes." Democratization in Latin America and Eastern Europe increased attention to social policy despite wrenching economic crises. Yet welfare legacies of the early and mid-twentieth century affected the new policy course. In Latin America, unequal entitlements eased political constraints on liberal reforms of existing social insurance systems and enco…
The Political Effects of Inequality in Latin America: Some Inconvenient Facts
Referring to the extreme economic and racial inequalities that have characterized his country since the colonial era, Fernando Henrique Cardoso has famously said that Brazil is no longer an underdeveloped country, but an unjust one. Surveys of mass publics throughout Latin America indicate that large majorities hold similar views about their own societies. All but small percentages in each country agree that the current distribution of income is …
Inequality and Redistribution: Some Continuing Puzzles
An unequal distribution of income and wealth is an inherent feature of all complex societies, and up to a point, a desirable one. A highly skewed distribution, however, raises questions of serious moral and practical concern: To what extent does socioeconomic inequality undermine the principle of political equality on which democratic societies are based? Under what conditions does it lead to lead to political polarization that retards economic g…
Market Reform and Social Protection: Lessons from the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland
The countries of East Central Europe stand out as examples of the advantages of early and successful transitions to the market. Besides being early reformers, these countries also moved unusually quickly toward the establishment of broad social protection programs intended to cushion the shocks of the transition and to provide some longer-term protection against the uncertainties of the market economy. The success of these strategies has been une…
Revising Social Contracts: Social Spending in Latin America, East Asia, and the Former Socialist Countries, 1980-2000
Este trabajo examina los determinantes del gasto social en América Latina
Treasurer's Report
Reforming the State: Fiscal and Welfare Reform in Post-Socialist Countries
Countries of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe are entering the second decade of political transformation and economic reform. The first decade involved macroeconomic stabilization, privatization, and development of the basic institutional infrastructure of a market economy. The new policy challenges center on the nature of the social contract between citizens and their governments. These challenges include identifying the appropriate bo…
Globalization, Domestic Politics, and Social Spending in Latin America: A Time-Series Cross-Section Analysis, 1973–97
This study examines the effects of globalization, democratization, and partisanship on social spending in fourteen Latin American countries from 1973 to 1997, using a pooled time-series error-correction model. The authors examine three sets of issues. First, following debates in the literature on OECD countries, they want to know whether social spending has been encouraged or constrained by integration into global markets. Within this context, th…
Globalização, política interna e gasto social na América Latina: Uma Análise de corte transversal com série temporal, 1973-1997
This study examines the effects of globalization, democratization, and partisanship on social spending in 14 Latin American countries from 1973 to 1997, using a pooled time-series error-correction model. Weexamine three sets of issues. First, following debates in the literature on OECD countries, we want to know whether social spending has been encouraged or constrained by integration into global markets. Within this context, we examine the exten…
Globalization, Domestic Politics, and Social Spending in Latin America: A Time-Series Cross-Section Analysis, 1973–97
This study examines the effects of globalization, democratization, and partisanship on social spending in fourteen Latin American countries from 1973 to 1997, using a pooled time-series error-correction model. The authors examine three sets of issues. First, following debates in the literature on OECD countries, they want to know whether social spending has been encouraged or constrained by integration into global markets. Within this context, th…
Inequality and Regime Change: Democratic Transitions and the Stability of Democratic Rule
Recent work by Carles Boix and Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson has focused on the role of inequality and distributive conflict in transitions to and from democratic rule. We assess these claims through causal process observation, using an original qualitative dataset on democratic transitions and reversions during the "third wave" from 1980 to 2000. We show that distributive conflict, a key causal mechanism in these theories, is present in just…
The Political Economy of Democratic Transitions
The Politics of Economic Adjustment: International Constraints, Distributive Conflicts and the State
The Anatomy of Democratic Backsliding
How do duly elected rulers weaken checks on executive power, curtail civil and political liberties, and undermine the integrity of the electoral process? Drawing on sixteen cases of backsliding from Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Africa as well as the United States, our theory of backsliding focuses on three causal mechanisms: the pernicious effects of polarization; rulers’ control of the legislature; and the incremental nature of abuses of p…
The Political Economy of Democratic Transitions
1The Political Economy of Authoritarian Withdrawals25Ch. 2Economic Crisis and Authoritarian Withdrawal45Ch. 3Surviving Crises, Withdrawing in Good Times75Ch. 4Comparing Authoritarian Withdrawals109Ch. 5Democratic Transitions and Economic Reform151Ch. 6New Democracies and Economic Crisis183Ch. 7Economic Management in Non-crisis Democracies228Ch. 8Economic and Political Reform in Dominant-Party Systems: Mexico and Taiwan267Ch. 9Economic Reform and …
Correct Voting Across Thirty-Three Democracies: A Preliminary Analysis
This article extends Lau and Redlawsk's notion ofcorrect voting– whether voters, under conditions of uncertainty, choose the alternative they would have chosen had they been fully informed about the issues and candidates in that election – to sixty-nine elections in thirty-three established and emerging democracies around the world. At the individual level, political sophistication, political experience and motivation all significantly predict th…
The Patron-Client Concept and Macro-Politics: Prospects and Problems
In order to make sense of the endless complexities of social life, social scientists conceptualize the empirical world in terms of interlocking systems and subsystems of roles and behavior, holding some of these spheres constant so that others can be studied and understood. This is a necessary and desirable aspect of social scientific enterprise. It may well be, however, that too many aspects of human interaction are held constant by the conventi…
Democratic Decline in the United States: What Can We Learn from Middle-Income Backsliding
We explore what can be learned from authoritarian backsliding in middle income countries about the threats to American democracy posed by the election of Donald Trump. We develop some causal hunches and an empirical baseline by considering the rise of elected autocrats in Venezuela, Turkey, and Hungary. Although American political institutions may forestall a reversion to electoral autocracy, we see some striking parallels in terms of democratic …
A Preliminary Test of the Theory of Dependency
A Preliminary Test of Dependency This article reports the results of a preliminary test of based on a statistical comparison of seventeen Latin American countries. The concept of dependency has been applied with increasing frequency to the development problems of Latin America and Africa, and a considerable amount of data related to the subject has been amassed from United Nations sources and from historical case studies.' For the most part, howe…
The Political Effects of Inequality in Latin America: Some Inconvenient Facts
Referring to the extreme economic and racial inequalities that have characterized his country since the colonial era, Fernando Henrique Cardoso has famously said that Brazil is no longer an underdeveloped country, but an unjust one. Surveys of mass publics throughout Latin America indicate that large majorities hold similar views about their own societies. All but small percentages in each country agree that the current distribution of income is …
Democratization During the Third Wave
The initial optimism that greeted the onset of the “Third Wave” of democratization has cooled with the instability of many new democracies and the proliferation of stable competitive authoritarian regimes. These disappointments have produced a return to structural theories emphasizing the constraints posed by underdevelopment, resource endowments, inequality, and ethno-religious cleavages. We argue, however, for a sharper focus on the political m…
The Challenges of Consolidation
The Challenges of Consolidation Stephan Haggard (bio) and Robert R. Kaufman (bio) As the recent wave of democratization crested in the 1980s, skeptics questioned the capacity of new democratic governments to manage the daunting political challenges of economic reform. It was thought that either reform would undermine democracy by placing undue strains on fragile polities, or democratic politics would undermine the coherence of policy, generating …
Views of Economic Inequality in Latin America
The authors assess the factors that affect judgments about the fairness of the distribution of wealth with pooled public opinion data from Latinobarometro surveys conducted in 1997, 2001, and 2002. They test hypotheses with a multilevel logit model that allows them not only to examine the effects of the class background and perceptions of individual respondents but also to assess the impact of society-level differences in economic growth, GDP per…
Income, Occupation, and Preferences for Redistribution in the Developing World
Debt and democracy in Latin America
Democratic and authoritarian responses to the debt issue: Argentina, Brazil, Mexico
For Latin American governments, mediating between their national societies and the international economy, the contemporary debt issue poses some excruciating dilemmas. On the one side, these governments are under intense pressure to arrive at satisfactory formulas for settling their debts–satisfactory, that is, to the banks and creditor agencies that control access to international financial markets. Loss of such access would threaten vital capit…
Attitudes toward Economic Reform in Mexico: The Role of Political Orientations
Since the debt crisis of 1982, Mexico has experienced more than a decade of market-oriented economic reform, but research on public opinion toward reform is limited. Drawing on general findings from opinion research in the United States, this study examines how policy preferences of Mexicans are shaped by social background, judgments about the economy, and political loyalties. The effect of these variables is examined across three national survey…
Federalism and Democratic Backsliding in Comparative Perspective
As a wave of backsliding has swept across both new and established democracies, scholars have sought to identify formal and informal institutions that can act as guardrails of democracy. But while informal norms, party structures, and formal institutions such as separation of powers have all been singled out as potential bulwarks against democratic backsliding, the literature has had less to say about what role, if any, federalism might play in s…
Approaches to the Study of State Reform in Latin American and Postsocialist Countries
The Politics of Dual Transitions
Revising Social Contracts: Social Spending in Latin America, East Asia, and the Former Socialist Countries, 1980-2000
Este trabajo examina los determinantes del gasto social en América Latina
Globalização, política interna e gasto social na América Latina: Uma Análise de corte transversal com série temporal, 1973-1997
This study examines the effects of globalization, democratization, and partisanship on social spending in 14 Latin American countries from 1973 to 1997, using a pooled time-series error-correction model. Weexamine three sets of issues. First, following debates in the literature on OECD countries, we want to know whether social spending has been encouraged or constrained by integration into global markets. Within this context, we examine the exten…
Regionalism, Regime Transformation, and PRONASOL: The Politics of the National Solidarity Programme in Four Mexican States
Political change in Mexico since the crisis of 1994 has been characterised by the breakdown of centralised hierarchies and the dispersion of power across geographical regions. We examine the changing relations between regional officials of the National Solidarity Programme (PRONASOL) and local PRI politicians in four Mexican states: Puebla, Nayarit, Tamaulipas, and Baja California. Although PRONASOL was dismantled after 1994, the influence of ant…
Dictators and Democrats: Masses, Elites, and Regime Change
From the 1980s through the first decade of the twenty-first century, the spread of democracy across the developing and post-Communist worlds transformed the global political landscape. What drove these changes and what determined whether the emerging democracies would stabilize or revert to authoritarian rule? Dictators and Democrats takes a comprehensive look at the transitions to and from democracy in recent decades. Deploying both statistical …
The Chilean Political Right and Agrarian Reform: Resistance and Moderation
The Politics of Land Reform in Chile, 1950-1970: Public Policy, Political Institutions, and Social Change
The Politics of Land Reform in Chile, 1950-1970: Public Policy, Political Institutions, and Social Change
The Patron-Client Concept and Macro-Politics: Prospects and Problems
In order to make sense of the endless complexities of social life, social scientists conceptualize the empirical world in terms of interlocking systems and subsystems of roles and behavior, holding some of these spheres constant so that others can be studied and understood. This is a necessary and desirable aspect of social scientific enterprise. It may well be, however, that too many aspects of human interaction are held constant by the conventi…
Land Reform and Politics: A Comparative Analysis. Hung-chao Tai
A Preliminary Test of the Theory of Dependency
A Preliminary Test of Dependency This article reports the results of a preliminary test of based on a statistical comparison of seventeen Latin American countries. The concept of dependency has been applied with increasing frequency to the development problems of Latin America and Africa, and a considerable amount of data related to the subject has been amassed from United Nations sources and from historical case studies.' For the most part, howe…
Revolution in Cuba: An Essay in Understanding, by Herbert L. Matthews
Journal Article Revolution in Cuba: An Essay in Understanding, by Herbert L. Matthews Get access Revolution in Cuba: An Essay in Understanding by Herbert L. Matthews. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1975.–x, 468 pp. $15.00. Robert R. Kaufman Robert R. Kaufman Rutgers University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Political Science Quarterly, Volume 91, Issue 2, Summer 1976, Pages 376–377, https://doi.org/10…
Democratic and authoritarian responses to the debt issue: Argentina, Brazil, Mexico
For Latin American governments, mediating between their national societies and the international economy, the contemporary debt issue poses some excruciating dilemmas. On the one side, these governments are under intense pressure to arrive at satisfactory formulas for settling their debts–satisfactory, that is, to the banks and creditor agencies that control access to international financial markets. Loss of such access would threaten vital capit…
Debt and democracy in Latin America
The politics of economic adjustment policy in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico: Experiences in the 1980s and challenges for the future
The Politics of Debt in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico: Economic Stabilization in the 1980s
CHAPTER SIX. The Political Economy of Inflation and Stabilization in Middle- Income Countries
Introduction. Institutions and Economic Adjustment
CHAPTER Seven. Economic Adjustment and the Prospects for Democracy
The Politics of Economic Adjustment: International Constraints, Distributive Conflicts and the State
Crisis y democracia en América Latina
The Challenges of Consolidation
The Challenges of Consolidation Stephan Haggard (bio) and Robert R. Kaufman (bio) As the recent wave of democratization crested in the 1980s, skeptics questioned the capacity of new democratic governments to manage the daunting political challenges of economic reform. It was thought that either reform would undermine democracy by placing undue strains on fragile polities, or democratic politics would undermine the coherence of policy, generating …
Estado y reforma económica: La Iniciación Y Consolidación De Las Políticas De Mercado
The Political Economy of Democratic Transitions
The Politics of Dual Transitions
The Political Economy of Democratic Transitions
1The Political Economy of Authoritarian Withdrawals25Ch. 2Economic Crisis and Authoritarian Withdrawal45Ch. 3Surviving Crises, Withdrawing in Good Times75Ch. 4Comparing Authoritarian Withdrawals109Ch. 5Democratic Transitions and Economic Reform151Ch. 6New Democracies and Economic Crisis183Ch. 7Economic Management in Non-crisis Democracies228Ch. 8Economic and Political Reform in Dominant-Party Systems: Mexico and Taiwan267Ch. 9Economic Reform and …
Regionalism, Regime Transformation, and PRONASOL: The Politics of the National Solidarity Programme in Four Mexican States
Political change in Mexico since the crisis of 1994 has been characterised by the breakdown of centralised hierarchies and the dispersion of power across geographical regions. We examine the changing relations between regional officials of the National Solidarity Programme (PRONASOL) and local PRI politicians in four Mexican states: Puebla, Nayarit, Tamaulipas, and Baja California. Although PRONASOL was dismantled after 1994, the influence of ant…
Attitudes toward Economic Reform in Mexico: The Role of Political Orientations
Since the debt crisis of 1982, Mexico has experienced more than a decade of market-oriented economic reform, but research on public opinion toward reform is limited. Drawing on general findings from opinion research in the United States, this study examines how policy preferences of Mexicans are shaped by social background, judgments about the economy, and political loyalties. The effect of these variables is examined across three national survey…
Approaches to the Study of State Reform in Latin American and Postsocialist Countries
Reforming the State: Fiscal and Welfare Reform in Post-Socialist Countries
Countries of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe are entering the second decade of political transformation and economic reform. The first decade involved macroeconomic stabilization, privatization, and development of the basic institutional infrastructure of a market economy. The new policy challenges center on the nature of the social contract between citizens and their governments. These challenges include identifying the appropriate bo…
Political science (45 works) · Economics (34 works) · Politics (34 works) · Law (27 works) · Political economy (24 works) · Democracy (20 works) · Development economics (19 works) · Sociology (19 works) · Law (16 works) · Social Policy and Reform Studies (14 works)