Field:
    Comparative Politics & Quantitative Methods

Dissertation Title:
    The Political Economy of Ordinary Politics in Latin America

Committee:
    Barbara Geddes (chair), Jeff Lewis, Kathleen Bawn, Timothy Groseclose, and
Jean-Laurent Rosenthal

Date of Completion:
    August 2007

Contact Information:
    Cesar Zucco Junior
    314 Robertson Hall
    CSDP – Woodrow Wilson School
    Princeton University
    Princeton, NJ 08544
    Phone: 609-258-0122
    Fax: 609-258-5014

Curriculum Vitae:
    Download PDF Version

Current Projects:
    See my past and current projects here.

Dissertation Summary:
    My dissertation explains how Latin American presidents use their ample control over state resources to obtain political support in multiparty legislatures. I show the effects of both ideology and the exchange of pork and patronage for support in presidential coalition building. In order to do this, I estimate ideology from sources other than roll-call votes and shows that legislative roll call analysis (using wnominate scores) does not reveal the standard left-right ideological structure, but rather a government vs. opposition cleavage that is induced by the president's handouts to parties and individual politicians. The dissertation includes a model of optimal presidential coalition building strategy that shows how presidents will distribute resources to parties and individual legislators, depending on the size and ideological positions of the parties in the particular political system. Several empirical tests show that the model captures an important element of the reality of presidential coalition building in multiparty political systems, namely that in countries such as Brazil, Bolivia, and Uruguay, presidents shape the way legislators behave through the exchange of resources for votes. The argument implies, for example, that if state resources available to presidents decline, as they have during economic liberalization, presidents should have difficulty holding coalitions together unless they can find a new kind of glue; I show there’s evidence that economic liberalization is associated with increased use of straight corruption -- money payments to legislators in exchange for support.

Research Interests:
    I study Latin American politics and my core research is on executive-legislative relations in multiparty polities. I am also very interested in electoral and party politics, the meaning and measurement of ideology, the politics of poverty, and corruption.

Teaching Interests:
    I served as a TA for six quarters in UCLA's Political Science Department, where I also prepared and taught my own upper division course in 2006. I have also taught courses at a Law School in Brazil, and a brief graduate seminar in Uruguay. I am prepared to teach several different courses on Latin American politics, including comparative political institutions, political economy, and political history of the region, as well as broader standard comparative politics classes, both at the graduate and undergraduate levels. I can also teach quantitative research methods and research design.