Cecilia Martínez‐gallardo
Biographic Data
| ID | 4160376 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Cecilia Martínez‐gallardo |
| GIVEN NAMES | Cecilia |
| FAMILY NAME | Martínez‐gallardo |
| SIGNATURE | GALLARDO C M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3700-1037 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 526 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
Executive Approval in Extraordinary Times: Comparing across Crises
What drives popular support for political executives? Compared to normal times, we know little about how the public responds to executives in extraordinary circumstances, and we know even less about similarities and differences across crisis events. While a calculating public may sanction incumbents for adverse events, the unexpected nature of many crises has the potential to increase leaders’ approval ratings. Based on time series analyses of ex…
Explaining programmatic party appeals in Contemporary Latin America: The differing roles of ideology, particularism, and populism
Political parties and presidents in contemporary Latin America vary considerably in the extent to which they emphasize policy when appealing to voters (programmatism). We use Confirmatory Factor Analysis and data from the Chapel Hill Expert Survey—Latin America (CHES-LA) to examine how three key party characteristics relate to programmatism: ideological positions, particularistic strategies, and populism. Our results show that political actors on…
Executive Approval Dynamics in Presidential and Parliamentary Democratic Regimes
Does the type of democratic regime matter for public evaluations of leaders? We argue two characteristics intrinsic to presidential and parliamentary regimes lead to divergent patterns of executive approval. For presidents, direct elections foster more personal leader-voter linkages; for prime ministers, dependence on the legislature for survival contributes to more institutionalized party systems. These two mechanisms should generate higher appr…
El perfil partidista de los secretarios de Estado en México
Objective/context: This article analyzes the affiliation of cabinet members in four post-transition governments in Mexico. The main goal is to contribute to the study of the role of parties in the dynamics of government formation. Methodology: The article is based on the description of an original database regarding the trajectory and partisan links of 148 secretaries of state in Mexico between 2000 and 2024. Conclusions: Our analysis shows that …
Ideological and Populist Bases of Partisan Responses to the Covid-19 Pandemic in Latin America
This research note explores variation in how political parties and presidents in Latin America responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. Relying on the Chapel Hill Expert Survey-Latin America (CHES-LA), we argue that preferences regarding the trade-off between virus containment and maintaining an open economy were shaped by the ideological positions of presidents and parties, particularly for more programmatic ones. This is largely consistent with find…
Revisiting party system structuration in Latin America and Europe: Economic and socio-cultural dimensions
The degree to which party systems are ideologically and programmatically structured is central to democracy. This article analyzes differences in the extent and nature of programmatic structuration in Latin America and Europe, using a new original data source, the Chapel Hill Expert Survey-Latin America (CHES-LA), in combination with the long-standing CHES-Europe. First, we demonstrate the reliability of CHES-LA in relation to CHES-Europe, and su…
When growth is not enough: Inequality, Economic Gains, and Executive Approval
A robust economy is assumed to bolster leaders' standing. This ignores how benefits of growth are distributed. Extending the partisan models of economic voting, we theorize executives are more likely rewarded when gains from growth go to their constituents. Analyses of presidential approval in 18 Latin American countries support our pro-constituency model of accountability. When economic inequality is high, growth concentrates among the rich, and…
When Does the Public Get It Right? The Information Environment and the Accuracy of Economic Sentiment
Public evaluations of the economy are key for understanding how citizens develop policy opinions and monitor government performance. But what drives economic evaluations? In this article, we argue the context in which information about the economy is distributed shapes economic perceptions. In high-quality information environments—where policies are transparent, the media is free, and political opposition is robust—mass perceptions closely track …
Public support for Latin American presidents: The cyclical model in comparative perspective
What characterizes the dynamics of presidential popularity? Research based on the United States of America finds popularity exhibits an almost law-like cyclicality over a president’s term: high post-election “honeymoon” approval rates deteriorate before experiencing an end-of-term boost as new elections approach. We contend that cyclical approval dynamics are not specific to the USA, but rather characteristic of presidential systems more generall…
Cushioning the Fall: Scandals, Economic Conditions, and Executive Approval
Security, Clarity of Responsibility, and Presidential Approval
The importance of institutions in shaping citizens’ ability to punish or reward politicians for economic outcomes is well established. Where institutions divide authority, politicians can blame each other and citizens find it harder to assign responsibility for policy failures; where institutions clarify lines of authority, citizens can better hold politicians accountable. However, this argument assumes that citizens perceive policy responsibilit…
Choosing Whom to Trust: Agency Risks and Cabinet Partisanship in Presidential Democracies
Presidential cabinets include on average more nonparty ministers than governments in any other form of democracy, and critics of presidentialism have argued that this compromises representativeness, accountability, and governability. Yet cabinet partisanship in presidential democracies remains poorly understood. Existing studies argue that the partisan composition of cabinets reflects the degree to which presidents prioritize building legislative…
Designing Cabinets: Presidential Politics and Ministerial Instability
This article proposes a set of arguments about the strategic use of cabinet appointments by executives in presidential systems. Although recent work has greatly improved our understanding of government formation in presidential countries, most changes to presidential cabinets happen throughout the lifetime of a government and remain poorly understood. I argue that presidents use cabinet changes in response to unexpected shocks and to adjust their…
Out of the Cabinet: What Drives Defections From the Government in Presidential Systems
This article challenges a key part of the conventional view of coalitions in presidential systems that sees them as short-lived and ad hoc. The author shows instead that there is wide variation in the durability of governing coalitions across these regimes. She develops a theory of the incentives of parties to participate in the government and the circumstances under which scholars might expect to see the existing governing coalition break down. …
Agency under constraint: Ideological preferences and the politics of electricity regulation in Latin America
Whereas both the literature on globalization and the literature on regulatory diffusion stress the pressures that led to policy convergence, this article shows how the ideology of incumbents produced different regulatory outcomes, even in the face of strong financial and technological pressures that constrained policy agency. By looking at the regulatory frameworks adopted at the time of electricity privatization in Latin America, this article sh…
How Democracy Works: Political Institutions, Actors and Arenas in Latin American Policymaking
Over the past 30 years, democratic freedoms and competitive electoral processes have taken hold as never before in Latin America. How Democracy Works takes a detailed look, from an institutional perspective, at each of the main actors on the policymaking stage in Latin America, emphasizing the extent to which institutions facilitate or hinder intertemporal political cooperation and compromise. It analyzes official political actors and arenas, as …
Replacing Cabinet Ministers: Patterns of Ministerial Stability in Parliamentary Democracies
We examine the stability of individual ministers across parliamentary democracies. Our data show that this stability is only loosely related to the stability of cabinets, making it impossible to rely primarily on arguments about cabinet duration to explain patterns of individual stability. We argue that to explain patterns of individual stability, it is useful to focus on the problems that party leaders have in identifying which individuals have …
Political Competition and Policy Adoption: Market Reforms in Latin American Public Utilities
This article shows that political competition generates incentives that affect the pace of adoption of market reforms in the context of policy convergence. Previous work shows the effect of financial and technological pressures in promoting policy convergence and the impact of institutional constraints on shaping the pace of policymaking. Controlling for these effects, this article demonstrates the policy effects of political competition and ideo…
Cabinet Instability and the Accumulation of Experience: The French Fourth and Fifth Republics in Comparative Perspective
Drawing on arguments about politics during the French Fourth Republic, the concept of cabinet instability is reconsidered. Rather than studying cabinet duration, the article examines the accumulation of experience by individual cabinet ministers. Two variables are measured in nineteen parliamentary democracies: portfolio experience the experience of cabinet ministers in the specific portfolios that they hold) and political experience (the experie…
Replacing Cabinet Ministers: Patterns of Ministerial Stability in Parliamentary Democracies
We examine the stability of individual ministers across parliamentary democracies. Our data show that this stability is only loosely related to the stability of cabinets, making it impossible to rely primarily on arguments about cabinet duration to explain patterns of individual stability. We argue that to explain patterns of individual stability, it is useful to focus on the problems that party leaders have in identifying which individuals have …
Out of the Cabinet: What Drives Defections From the Government in Presidential Systems
This article challenges a key part of the conventional view of coalitions in presidential systems that sees them as short-lived and ad hoc. The author shows instead that there is wide variation in the durability of governing coalitions across these regimes. She develops a theory of the incentives of parties to participate in the government and the circumstances under which scholars might expect to see the existing governing coalition break down. …
Cushioning the Fall: Scandals, Economic Conditions, and Executive Approval
Designing Cabinets: Presidential Politics and Ministerial Instability
This article proposes a set of arguments about the strategic use of cabinet appointments by executives in presidential systems. Although recent work has greatly improved our understanding of government formation in presidential countries, most changes to presidential cabinets happen throughout the lifetime of a government and remain poorly understood. I argue that presidents use cabinet changes in response to unexpected shocks and to adjust their…
Choosing Whom to Trust: Agency Risks and Cabinet Partisanship in Presidential Democracies
Presidential cabinets include on average more nonparty ministers than governments in any other form of democracy, and critics of presidentialism have argued that this compromises representativeness, accountability, and governability. Yet cabinet partisanship in presidential democracies remains poorly understood. Existing studies argue that the partisan composition of cabinets reflects the degree to which presidents prioritize building legislative…
Political Competition and Policy Adoption: Market Reforms in Latin American Public Utilities
This article shows that political competition generates incentives that affect the pace of adoption of market reforms in the context of policy convergence. Previous work shows the effect of financial and technological pressures in promoting policy convergence and the impact of institutional constraints on shaping the pace of policymaking. Controlling for these effects, this article demonstrates the policy effects of political competition and ideo…
Security, Clarity of Responsibility, and Presidential Approval
The importance of institutions in shaping citizens’ ability to punish or reward politicians for economic outcomes is well established. Where institutions divide authority, politicians can blame each other and citizens find it harder to assign responsibility for policy failures; where institutions clarify lines of authority, citizens can better hold politicians accountable. However, this argument assumes that citizens perceive policy responsibilit…
Cabinet Instability and the Accumulation of Experience: The French Fourth and Fifth Republics in Comparative Perspective
Drawing on arguments about politics during the French Fourth Republic, the concept of cabinet instability is reconsidered. Rather than studying cabinet duration, the article examines the accumulation of experience by individual cabinet ministers. Two variables are measured in nineteen parliamentary democracies: portfolio experience the experience of cabinet ministers in the specific portfolios that they hold) and political experience (the experie…
Public support for Latin American presidents: The cyclical model in comparative perspective
What characterizes the dynamics of presidential popularity? Research based on the United States of America finds popularity exhibits an almost law-like cyclicality over a president’s term: high post-election “honeymoon” approval rates deteriorate before experiencing an end-of-term boost as new elections approach. We contend that cyclical approval dynamics are not specific to the USA, but rather characteristic of presidential systems more generall…
Revisiting party system structuration in Latin America and Europe: Economic and socio-cultural dimensions
The degree to which party systems are ideologically and programmatically structured is central to democracy. This article analyzes differences in the extent and nature of programmatic structuration in Latin America and Europe, using a new original data source, the Chapel Hill Expert Survey-Latin America (CHES-LA), in combination with the long-standing CHES-Europe. First, we demonstrate the reliability of CHES-LA in relation to CHES-Europe, and su…
Agency under constraint: Ideological preferences and the politics of electricity regulation in Latin America
Whereas both the literature on globalization and the literature on regulatory diffusion stress the pressures that led to policy convergence, this article shows how the ideology of incumbents produced different regulatory outcomes, even in the face of strong financial and technological pressures that constrained policy agency. By looking at the regulatory frameworks adopted at the time of electricity privatization in Latin America, this article sh…
When Does the Public Get It Right? The Information Environment and the Accuracy of Economic Sentiment
Public evaluations of the economy are key for understanding how citizens develop policy opinions and monitor government performance. But what drives economic evaluations? In this article, we argue the context in which information about the economy is distributed shapes economic perceptions. In high-quality information environments—where policies are transparent, the media is free, and political opposition is robust—mass perceptions closely track …
Ideological and Populist Bases of Partisan Responses to the Covid-19 Pandemic in Latin America
This research note explores variation in how political parties and presidents in Latin America responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. Relying on the Chapel Hill Expert Survey-Latin America (CHES-LA), we argue that preferences regarding the trade-off between virus containment and maintaining an open economy were shaped by the ideological positions of presidents and parties, particularly for more programmatic ones. This is largely consistent with find…
When growth is not enough: Inequality, Economic Gains, and Executive Approval
A robust economy is assumed to bolster leaders' standing. This ignores how benefits of growth are distributed. Extending the partisan models of economic voting, we theorize executives are more likely rewarded when gains from growth go to their constituents. Analyses of presidential approval in 18 Latin American countries support our pro-constituency model of accountability. When economic inequality is high, growth concentrates among the rich, and…
Executive Approval Dynamics in Presidential and Parliamentary Democratic Regimes
Does the type of democratic regime matter for public evaluations of leaders? We argue two characteristics intrinsic to presidential and parliamentary regimes lead to divergent patterns of executive approval. For presidents, direct elections foster more personal leader-voter linkages; for prime ministers, dependence on the legislature for survival contributes to more institutionalized party systems. These two mechanisms should generate higher appr…
Cabinet Instability and the Accumulation of Experience: The French Fourth and Fifth Republics in Comparative Perspective
Drawing on arguments about politics during the French Fourth Republic, the concept of cabinet instability is reconsidered. Rather than studying cabinet duration, the article examines the accumulation of experience by individual cabinet ministers. Two variables are measured in nineteen parliamentary democracies: portfolio experience the experience of cabinet ministers in the specific portfolios that they hold) and political experience (the experie…
Political Competition and Policy Adoption: Market Reforms in Latin American Public Utilities
This article shows that political competition generates incentives that affect the pace of adoption of market reforms in the context of policy convergence. Previous work shows the effect of financial and technological pressures in promoting policy convergence and the impact of institutional constraints on shaping the pace of policymaking. Controlling for these effects, this article demonstrates the policy effects of political competition and ideo…
Replacing Cabinet Ministers: Patterns of Ministerial Stability in Parliamentary Democracies
We examine the stability of individual ministers across parliamentary democracies. Our data show that this stability is only loosely related to the stability of cabinets, making it impossible to rely primarily on arguments about cabinet duration to explain patterns of individual stability. We argue that to explain patterns of individual stability, it is useful to focus on the problems that party leaders have in identifying which individuals have …
How Democracy Works: Political Institutions, Actors and Arenas in Latin American Policymaking
Over the past 30 years, democratic freedoms and competitive electoral processes have taken hold as never before in Latin America. How Democracy Works takes a detailed look, from an institutional perspective, at each of the main actors on the policymaking stage in Latin America, emphasizing the extent to which institutions facilitate or hinder intertemporal political cooperation and compromise. It analyzes official political actors and arenas, as …
Agency under constraint: Ideological preferences and the politics of electricity regulation in Latin America
Whereas both the literature on globalization and the literature on regulatory diffusion stress the pressures that led to policy convergence, this article shows how the ideology of incumbents produced different regulatory outcomes, even in the face of strong financial and technological pressures that constrained policy agency. By looking at the regulatory frameworks adopted at the time of electricity privatization in Latin America, this article sh…
Out of the Cabinet: What Drives Defections From the Government in Presidential Systems
This article challenges a key part of the conventional view of coalitions in presidential systems that sees them as short-lived and ad hoc. The author shows instead that there is wide variation in the durability of governing coalitions across these regimes. She develops a theory of the incentives of parties to participate in the government and the circumstances under which scholars might expect to see the existing governing coalition break down. …
Designing Cabinets: Presidential Politics and Ministerial Instability
This article proposes a set of arguments about the strategic use of cabinet appointments by executives in presidential systems. Although recent work has greatly improved our understanding of government formation in presidential countries, most changes to presidential cabinets happen throughout the lifetime of a government and remain poorly understood. I argue that presidents use cabinet changes in response to unexpected shocks and to adjust their…
Cushioning the Fall: Scandals, Economic Conditions, and Executive Approval
Security, Clarity of Responsibility, and Presidential Approval
The importance of institutions in shaping citizens’ ability to punish or reward politicians for economic outcomes is well established. Where institutions divide authority, politicians can blame each other and citizens find it harder to assign responsibility for policy failures; where institutions clarify lines of authority, citizens can better hold politicians accountable. However, this argument assumes that citizens perceive policy responsibilit…
Choosing Whom to Trust: Agency Risks and Cabinet Partisanship in Presidential Democracies
Presidential cabinets include on average more nonparty ministers than governments in any other form of democracy, and critics of presidentialism have argued that this compromises representativeness, accountability, and governability. Yet cabinet partisanship in presidential democracies remains poorly understood. Existing studies argue that the partisan composition of cabinets reflects the degree to which presidents prioritize building legislative…
Public support for Latin American presidents: The cyclical model in comparative perspective
What characterizes the dynamics of presidential popularity? Research based on the United States of America finds popularity exhibits an almost law-like cyclicality over a president’s term: high post-election “honeymoon” approval rates deteriorate before experiencing an end-of-term boost as new elections approach. We contend that cyclical approval dynamics are not specific to the USA, but rather characteristic of presidential systems more generall…
When Does the Public Get It Right? The Information Environment and the Accuracy of Economic Sentiment
Public evaluations of the economy are key for understanding how citizens develop policy opinions and monitor government performance. But what drives economic evaluations? In this article, we argue the context in which information about the economy is distributed shapes economic perceptions. In high-quality information environments—where policies are transparent, the media is free, and political opposition is robust—mass perceptions closely track …
When growth is not enough: Inequality, Economic Gains, and Executive Approval
A robust economy is assumed to bolster leaders' standing. This ignores how benefits of growth are distributed. Extending the partisan models of economic voting, we theorize executives are more likely rewarded when gains from growth go to their constituents. Analyses of presidential approval in 18 Latin American countries support our pro-constituency model of accountability. When economic inequality is high, growth concentrates among the rich, and…
Revisiting party system structuration in Latin America and Europe: Economic and socio-cultural dimensions
The degree to which party systems are ideologically and programmatically structured is central to democracy. This article analyzes differences in the extent and nature of programmatic structuration in Latin America and Europe, using a new original data source, the Chapel Hill Expert Survey-Latin America (CHES-LA), in combination with the long-standing CHES-Europe. First, we demonstrate the reliability of CHES-LA in relation to CHES-Europe, and su…
El perfil partidista de los secretarios de Estado en México
Objective/context: This article analyzes the affiliation of cabinet members in four post-transition governments in Mexico. The main goal is to contribute to the study of the role of parties in the dynamics of government formation. Methodology: The article is based on the description of an original database regarding the trajectory and partisan links of 148 secretaries of state in Mexico between 2000 and 2024. Conclusions: Our analysis shows that …
Ideological and Populist Bases of Partisan Responses to the Covid-19 Pandemic in Latin America
This research note explores variation in how political parties and presidents in Latin America responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. Relying on the Chapel Hill Expert Survey-Latin America (CHES-LA), we argue that preferences regarding the trade-off between virus containment and maintaining an open economy were shaped by the ideological positions of presidents and parties, particularly for more programmatic ones. This is largely consistent with find…
Explaining programmatic party appeals in Contemporary Latin America: The differing roles of ideology, particularism, and populism
Political parties and presidents in contemporary Latin America vary considerably in the extent to which they emphasize policy when appealing to voters (programmatism). We use Confirmatory Factor Analysis and data from the Chapel Hill Expert Survey—Latin America (CHES-LA) to examine how three key party characteristics relate to programmatism: ideological positions, particularistic strategies, and populism. Our results show that political actors on…
Executive Approval Dynamics in Presidential and Parliamentary Democratic Regimes
Does the type of democratic regime matter for public evaluations of leaders? We argue two characteristics intrinsic to presidential and parliamentary regimes lead to divergent patterns of executive approval. For presidents, direct elections foster more personal leader-voter linkages; for prime ministers, dependence on the legislature for survival contributes to more institutionalized party systems. These two mechanisms should generate higher appr…
Executive Approval in Extraordinary Times: Comparing across Crises
What drives popular support for political executives? Compared to normal times, we know little about how the public responds to executives in extraordinary circumstances, and we know even less about similarities and differences across crisis events. While a calculating public may sanction incumbents for adverse events, the unexpected nature of many crises has the potential to increase leaders’ approval ratings. Based on time series analyses of ex…
Political science (17 works) · Politics (15 works) · Economics (13 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (13 works) · Law (13 works) · Law (12 works) · Political economy (12 works) · Public Administration (10 works) · Public Administration (9 works) · Latin Americans (8 works)