This working paper advances research on inequality with unique, new data on income distribution in 61 countries, including 20 Latin American countries, to explore the effects of political parties on redistribution. First, consistent with a central, but still contested, assumption of the...

Civil society organizations (CSOs) have become an important way to mobilize the energies of those who have been historically unrepresented or underrepresented. The eleven case studies in this book present a wide-ranging view of CSOs in Latin America and their impact on the political and social...

"An Unequal Democracy?: Seeing Latin America through European Eyes" is the result of a conference organized by the International Institute for Governance of Catalonia in November 2003, with support from the government of Catalonia and the Special Office in Europe of the IDB. At the conference, a...

A legitimate and effective democracy is essential for sustainable economic and social development. This updated and expanded edition of "Democracies in Development: Politics and Reform in Latin America" analyzes the effects of institutions on the democratic process, identifies regional trends in...

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...

This analysis characterizes the salient features of the policymaking process (PMP) in Chile. It emphasizes the influence of political institutions on the PMP and examines the linkage between policymaking and policy outcomes in Chile. The salient features of the Chilean PMP are the electoral...

This paper explores the link between compulsory voting and income distribution using a cross-section of countries around the world. Our empirical cross-country analysis for 91 countries during the period 1960-2000 shows that compulsory voting, when enforced strictly, improves income...

Is there any relation between education and democracy? Once we correct for weak instruments and identify education as "weakly exogenous" we find new evidence that education systematically predicts democracy. Our results are robust across model specification, instrumentation strategies, and samples.

The future of structural reforms in Latin America is under discussion. The purpose of this document is to synthesize the facts and opinions that underlie this debate. The first section shows that although the reform process has not ground to a halt, it has been incomplete and uneven, both across...

This working paper explores the importance of legal identity from both a theoretical and operational point of view. The need to investigate and deepen the understanding of the implications of being sans papiers in relation to social exclusion and governance issues is highlighted. This paper...