Kenneth F Greene
Biographic Data
| ID | 812119 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kenneth F Greene |
| GIVEN NAMES | Kenneth F |
| FAMILY NAME | Greene |
| SIGNATURE | GREENE K F |
| AFFILIATIONS | The University of Texas at Austin |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9483-4852 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 399 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
The Machine Works: Why Turnout Buying is More Effective Than it Appears
Turnout buying is a mainstay of machine politics. Despite strong theory that selective incentives should spur turnout, meta-analyses of empirical studies show no effect, thus making machine politics seem irrational and unsustainable. I argue that the apparent failure of turnout buying is an artefact of common measurement decisions in experimental and observational research that lump together turnout buying, abstention buying, and vote-choice buyi…
Interacting as equals reduces partisan polarization in Mexico
Money Can't Buy You Love: Partisan Responses to Vote‐Buying Offers
Current theory on vote‐buying treats benefits instrumentally as income replacement that always increase utility for the machine. But many recipients react negatively. I argue that responses to selective benefits spring from partisan bias, with opponents motivated to reject a machine that attempts to buy their vote. This new partisan response model helps explain why machines target many supporters, why many opponents remain unpersuaded by selectiv…
Is Mexico Falling into the Authoritarian Trap
Mexico’s 2021 midterm elections occurred amid concerns about the erosion of democratic institutions. Supporters of President Lopez Obrador (AMLO) view his centralization of power in the executive as necessary to make government work for a marginalized majority. But the same state weaknesses that helped to propel AMLO to power constrain his responses to complex governance problems, including poverty and violent crime. This limits AMLO’s ability to…
Campaign Effects and the Elusive Swing Voter in Modern Machine Politics
Are vote-choice buying attempts successful? Much research across the social sciences argues that political machines expertly turn citizens into clients, undermining core aspects of democracy. Using insights from behavioral theories of vote choice, I argue that standard partisan campaigns can diminish vote-choice buying’s efficiency. Machines face a targeting problem: Local brokers identify good clients using long-term markers but then campaigns s…
Mexico’s Party System Under Stress
On 1 July 2018, leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) won a decisive victory in Mexico's presidential election, while a coalition led by AMLO's National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) claimed majorities in both houses of Congress. AMLO's calls for change resonated with voters frustrated by chronic poverty and inequality, rising violence, and corruption, and his win has called into question the stability of Mexico's party system. Yet AMLO, wh…
Using the Predicted Responses from List Experiments as Explanatory Variables in Regression Models
The list experiment, also known as the item count technique, is becoming increasingly popular as a survey methodology for eliciting truthful responses to sensitive questions. Recently, multivariate regression techniques have been developed to predict the unobserved response to sensitive questions using respondent characteristics. Nevertheless, no method exists for using this predicted response as an explanatory variable in another regression mode…
Making Clientelism Work: How Norms of Reciprocity Increase Voter Compliance
The Latin American Left's Mandate: Free-Market Policies and Issue Voting in New Democracies
The rise of the left across Latin America is one of the most striking electoral events to occur in new democracies during the last decade. Current work argues either that the left's electoral success stems from a thoroughgoing rejection of free-market policies by voters or that electorates have sought to punish poorly performing right-wing incumbents. Whether the new left has a policy or performance mandate has implications for the type of polici…
Campaign Persuasion and Nascent Partisanship in Mexico's New Democracy: Campaign Persuasion in Mexico
Despite ample evidence of preelection volatility in vote intentions in new democracies, scholars of comparative politics remain skeptical that campaigns affect election outcomes. Research on the United States provides a theoretical rationale for campaign effects, but shows little of it in practice in presidential elections because candidates' media investments are about equal and voters' accumulated political knowledge and partisan attachments ma…
The Political Economy of Authoritarian Single-Party Dominance
Why do authoritarian dominant parties, once established, continue to win elections or lose power? Employing a time-series cross-national analysis of election outcomes and two country case studies, the author shows that dominant parties endure despite poor economic performance, voter demand for new parties, and sufficiently permissive electoral institutions. Instead, the author demonstrates that dominant parties continue to win when they can polit…
Dominant Party Strategy and Democratization
How do incumbent parties strategize against challengers when a new partisan cleavage cuts across the incumbent's electoral coalition? This article argues that a two‐dimensional extension of Riker's anticoordination thesis conflicts with Downsian extensions. It shows that when voters coordinate on a single challenger based on their shared preference on a cross‐cutting cleavage, a vote‐maximizing incumbent party should move away from the challenger…
Why Dominant Parties Lose: Mexico's Democratization in Comparative Perspective
Why have dominant parties persisted in power for decades in countries spread across the globe? Why did most eventually lose? Why Dominant Parties Lose develops a theory of single-party dominance, its durability, and its breakdown into fully competitive democracy. Greene shows that dominant parties turn public resources into patronage goods to bias electoral competition in their favor and virtually win elections before election day without resorti…
Elite Polarization Meets Mass Moderation in Mexico's 2006 Elections
Even before the 2006 presidential election dissolved into a nasty street battle, it was widely perceived as strongly polarized. The two leading candidates, Felipe Calderón of the conservative National Action Party (PAN) and Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the leftwing Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), staked out starkly different positions on key economic issues. Calderón promised continuity with Mexico's free-market reforms, focusing on i…
Mexico's New Politics: The PAN and Democratic Change (review)
Opposition Party Strategy and Spatial Competition in Dominant Party Regimes: A Theory and the Case of Mexico
This article provides a non-formal modification of the standard spatial model of party competition to make it more applicable to the study of opposition parties in dominant party systems in transition. Dominant parties' virtual monopoly over resources forces challengers to rely on activist-based strategies. Challengers then face the problem of balancing programmatically radical activists against the moderate preference of the median voter. The ar…
The Political Economy of Authoritarian Single-Party Dominance
Why do authoritarian dominant parties, once established, continue to win elections or lose power? Employing a time-series cross-national analysis of election outcomes and two country case studies, the author shows that dominant parties endure despite poor economic performance, voter demand for new parties, and sufficiently permissive electoral institutions. Instead, the author demonstrates that dominant parties continue to win when they can polit…
Making Clientelism Work: How Norms of Reciprocity Increase Voter Compliance
The Latin American Left's Mandate: Free-Market Policies and Issue Voting in New Democracies
The rise of the left across Latin America is one of the most striking electoral events to occur in new democracies during the last decade. Current work argues either that the left's electoral success stems from a thoroughgoing rejection of free-market policies by voters or that electorates have sought to punish poorly performing right-wing incumbents. Whether the new left has a policy or performance mandate has implications for the type of polici…
Campaign Persuasion and Nascent Partisanship in Mexico's New Democracy: Campaign Persuasion in Mexico
Despite ample evidence of preelection volatility in vote intentions in new democracies, scholars of comparative politics remain skeptical that campaigns affect election outcomes. Research on the United States provides a theoretical rationale for campaign effects, but shows little of it in practice in presidential elections because candidates' media investments are about equal and voters' accumulated political knowledge and partisan attachments ma…
Using the Predicted Responses from List Experiments as Explanatory Variables in Regression Models
The list experiment, also known as the item count technique, is becoming increasingly popular as a survey methodology for eliciting truthful responses to sensitive questions. Recently, multivariate regression techniques have been developed to predict the unobserved response to sensitive questions using respondent characteristics. Nevertheless, no method exists for using this predicted response as an explanatory variable in another regression mode…
Opposition Party Strategy and Spatial Competition in Dominant Party Regimes: A Theory and the Case of Mexico
This article provides a non-formal modification of the standard spatial model of party competition to make it more applicable to the study of opposition parties in dominant party systems in transition. Dominant parties' virtual monopoly over resources forces challengers to rely on activist-based strategies. Challengers then face the problem of balancing programmatically radical activists against the moderate preference of the median voter. The ar…
Is Mexico Falling into the Authoritarian Trap
Mexico’s 2021 midterm elections occurred amid concerns about the erosion of democratic institutions. Supporters of President Lopez Obrador (AMLO) view his centralization of power in the executive as necessary to make government work for a marginalized majority. But the same state weaknesses that helped to propel AMLO to power constrain his responses to complex governance problems, including poverty and violent crime. This limits AMLO’s ability to…
Dominant Party Strategy and Democratization
How do incumbent parties strategize against challengers when a new partisan cleavage cuts across the incumbent's electoral coalition? This article argues that a two‐dimensional extension of Riker's anticoordination thesis conflicts with Downsian extensions. It shows that when voters coordinate on a single challenger based on their shared preference on a cross‐cutting cleavage, a vote‐maximizing incumbent party should move away from the challenger…
Money Can't Buy You Love: Partisan Responses to Vote‐Buying Offers
Current theory on vote‐buying treats benefits instrumentally as income replacement that always increase utility for the machine. But many recipients react negatively. I argue that responses to selective benefits spring from partisan bias, with opponents motivated to reject a machine that attempts to buy their vote. This new partisan response model helps explain why machines target many supporters, why many opponents remain unpersuaded by selectiv…
Mexico’s Party System Under Stress
On 1 July 2018, leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) won a decisive victory in Mexico's presidential election, while a coalition led by AMLO's National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) claimed majorities in both houses of Congress. AMLO's calls for change resonated with voters frustrated by chronic poverty and inequality, rising violence, and corruption, and his win has called into question the stability of Mexico's party system. Yet AMLO, wh…
Elite Polarization Meets Mass Moderation in Mexico's 2006 Elections
Even before the 2006 presidential election dissolved into a nasty street battle, it was widely perceived as strongly polarized. The two leading candidates, Felipe Calderón of the conservative National Action Party (PAN) and Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the leftwing Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), staked out starkly different positions on key economic issues. Calderón promised continuity with Mexico's free-market reforms, focusing on i…
Campaign Effects and the Elusive Swing Voter in Modern Machine Politics
Are vote-choice buying attempts successful? Much research across the social sciences argues that political machines expertly turn citizens into clients, undermining core aspects of democracy. Using insights from behavioral theories of vote choice, I argue that standard partisan campaigns can diminish vote-choice buying’s efficiency. Machines face a targeting problem: Local brokers identify good clients using long-term markers but then campaigns s…
Opposition Party Strategy and Spatial Competition in Dominant Party Regimes: A Theory and the Case of Mexico
This article provides a non-formal modification of the standard spatial model of party competition to make it more applicable to the study of opposition parties in dominant party systems in transition. Dominant parties' virtual monopoly over resources forces challengers to rely on activist-based strategies. Challengers then face the problem of balancing programmatically radical activists against the moderate preference of the median voter. The ar…
Mexico's New Politics: The PAN and Democratic Change (review)
Why Dominant Parties Lose: Mexico's Democratization in Comparative Perspective
Why have dominant parties persisted in power for decades in countries spread across the globe? Why did most eventually lose? Why Dominant Parties Lose develops a theory of single-party dominance, its durability, and its breakdown into fully competitive democracy. Greene shows that dominant parties turn public resources into patronage goods to bias electoral competition in their favor and virtually win elections before election day without resorti…
Elite Polarization Meets Mass Moderation in Mexico's 2006 Elections
Even before the 2006 presidential election dissolved into a nasty street battle, it was widely perceived as strongly polarized. The two leading candidates, Felipe Calderón of the conservative National Action Party (PAN) and Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the leftwing Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), staked out starkly different positions on key economic issues. Calderón promised continuity with Mexico's free-market reforms, focusing on i…
Dominant Party Strategy and Democratization
How do incumbent parties strategize against challengers when a new partisan cleavage cuts across the incumbent's electoral coalition? This article argues that a two‐dimensional extension of Riker's anticoordination thesis conflicts with Downsian extensions. It shows that when voters coordinate on a single challenger based on their shared preference on a cross‐cutting cleavage, a vote‐maximizing incumbent party should move away from the challenger…
The Political Economy of Authoritarian Single-Party Dominance
Why do authoritarian dominant parties, once established, continue to win elections or lose power? Employing a time-series cross-national analysis of election outcomes and two country case studies, the author shows that dominant parties endure despite poor economic performance, voter demand for new parties, and sufficiently permissive electoral institutions. Instead, the author demonstrates that dominant parties continue to win when they can polit…
The Latin American Left's Mandate: Free-Market Policies and Issue Voting in New Democracies
The rise of the left across Latin America is one of the most striking electoral events to occur in new democracies during the last decade. Current work argues either that the left's electoral success stems from a thoroughgoing rejection of free-market policies by voters or that electorates have sought to punish poorly performing right-wing incumbents. Whether the new left has a policy or performance mandate has implications for the type of polici…
Campaign Persuasion and Nascent Partisanship in Mexico's New Democracy: Campaign Persuasion in Mexico
Despite ample evidence of preelection volatility in vote intentions in new democracies, scholars of comparative politics remain skeptical that campaigns affect election outcomes. Research on the United States provides a theoretical rationale for campaign effects, but shows little of it in practice in presidential elections because candidates' media investments are about equal and voters' accumulated political knowledge and partisan attachments ma…
Making Clientelism Work: How Norms of Reciprocity Increase Voter Compliance
Using the Predicted Responses from List Experiments as Explanatory Variables in Regression Models
The list experiment, also known as the item count technique, is becoming increasingly popular as a survey methodology for eliciting truthful responses to sensitive questions. Recently, multivariate regression techniques have been developed to predict the unobserved response to sensitive questions using respondent characteristics. Nevertheless, no method exists for using this predicted response as an explanatory variable in another regression mode…
Mexico’s Party System Under Stress
On 1 July 2018, leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) won a decisive victory in Mexico's presidential election, while a coalition led by AMLO's National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) claimed majorities in both houses of Congress. AMLO's calls for change resonated with voters frustrated by chronic poverty and inequality, rising violence, and corruption, and his win has called into question the stability of Mexico's party system. Yet AMLO, wh…
Is Mexico Falling into the Authoritarian Trap
Mexico’s 2021 midterm elections occurred amid concerns about the erosion of democratic institutions. Supporters of President Lopez Obrador (AMLO) view his centralization of power in the executive as necessary to make government work for a marginalized majority. But the same state weaknesses that helped to propel AMLO to power constrain his responses to complex governance problems, including poverty and violent crime. This limits AMLO’s ability to…
Campaign Effects and the Elusive Swing Voter in Modern Machine Politics
Are vote-choice buying attempts successful? Much research across the social sciences argues that political machines expertly turn citizens into clients, undermining core aspects of democracy. Using insights from behavioral theories of vote choice, I argue that standard partisan campaigns can diminish vote-choice buying’s efficiency. Machines face a targeting problem: Local brokers identify good clients using long-term markers but then campaigns s…
Money Can't Buy You Love: Partisan Responses to Vote‐Buying Offers
Current theory on vote‐buying treats benefits instrumentally as income replacement that always increase utility for the machine. But many recipients react negatively. I argue that responses to selective benefits spring from partisan bias, with opponents motivated to reject a machine that attempts to buy their vote. This new partisan response model helps explain why machines target many supporters, why many opponents remain unpersuaded by selectiv…
Interacting as equals reduces partisan polarization in Mexico
The Machine Works: Why Turnout Buying is More Effective Than it Appears
Turnout buying is a mainstay of machine politics. Despite strong theory that selective incentives should spur turnout, meta-analyses of empirical studies show no effect, thus making machine politics seem irrational and unsustainable. I argue that the apparent failure of turnout buying is an artefact of common measurement decisions in experimental and observational research that lump together turnout buying, abstention buying, and vote-choice buyi…
Law (14 works) · Political science (14 works) · Politics (14 works) · Economics (12 works) · Law (11 works) · Political economy (11 works) · Democracy (9 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (9 works) · Politics and Society in Latin America (7 works) · Authoritarianism (5 works)