Sofia Vera

Sofia Vera is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research interests are in political institutions, representation, and political behavior, with a regional focus in Latin America.  Her dissertation research focuses on political accountability for corruption and the institutional and contextual factors that influence citizen responses to political elite’s exposed corruption. She uses a mixed-methods approach in her research, working with experimental, quantitative, and qualitative data.   

John Polga

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Alejandro Trelles

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Miguel Carreras

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Ekaterina Rashkova

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Ignacio Arana: The Quest for Uncontested Power: How Presidents’ Personality Traits Leads to Constitutional Change in the Western Hemisphere.

Dissertation Description: Does it matter who the president is? If so, how does it matter? Most political science research that analyzes the presidency treats the individual differences of presidents as “residual variance”. I challenge this approach arguing that presidents’ decisions are shaped by their individual differences. I test the argument examining which presidents attempt to make constitutional changes to increase their powers or relax their term limits. Thirty eight presidents of the Americas have made such attempts forty eight times since 1945. I hypothesize that presidents who are risk prone and have an assertive personality are more likely to attempt to change the constitution. I answer the research question using a novel dataset of personality traits and background characteristics for 315 presidents who governed the Americas between 1945 and 2012. The dataset integrates information from a survey distributed to 911 experts from 26 nationalities, the coding of 13 individual characteristics of the leaders and semi-structured interviews conducted with 21 former presidents. The empirical analyses support the two hypotheses in the cases of presidents that try to change their powers, while the leaders’ assertiveness also proves to be a relevant cause of their attempts to relax their term limits. Interestingly, the individual differences of presidents have a stronger explanatory power than complementary explanations of constitutional reforms (i.e., institutional and contextual variables).

Short Bio

Ignacio Arana Araya is a postdoctoral fellow in the Institute for Politics and Strategy at Carnegie Mellon University and at the Instituto de Ciencia Política, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. He holds a BA in Journalism and Mass Communication from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (2002), a MA in Political Science from the University of Chile (2007), and a MA and a PhD in Political Science from the University of Pittsburgh (2015). His central line of research explores how the individual differences among presidents have an impact on relevant political phenomena, including institutional change and policy outcomes. His secondary line of research is the comparative study of institutions, with a focus on Latin America. He studies informal institutions, executive-legislative relations, judicial politics and elections.

His research has been published or is forthcoming in the Journal of Law and Courts, the Journal of Legislative Studies, Latin American Politics and Society, Latin American Perspectives, The Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance, Bolivian Studies Journal and Política. Before entering the PhD, he worked at the international desks of the newspapers El Mercurio (Chile, 2002-2008) and ABC (Spain, 2008). He can be reached at www.ignacioarana.com.

Recent Publications:

2017. “Strategic Retirement in Comparative Perspective” (with Aníbal Pérez-Liñán). Forthcoming in Journal of Law and Courts.

2017. “Chile 2016: ¿El Nadir de la Legitimidad Democrática?” Forthcoming in Revista de Ciencia Política.

2016. “What Drives Evo’s Attempts to Remain in Power? A Psychological Explanation.” Bolivian Studies Journal 22: 191-219

2016. “How to Assess the Members of the Political Elite? A Proposal Based on Presidents of the Americas.” Política, Revista de Ciencia Política.

2016. “Aftershocks of Pinochet’s Constitution: the Chilean Post-Earthquake Reconstruction.” Latin American Perspectives.

2015. “Budgetary Negotiations: How the Chilean Congress Overcomes its Constitutional Limits” Journal of Legislative Studies 21 (2): 213-231.

2013. “Informal Institutions and Horizontal Accountability: Protocols in the Chilean Budgetary Process.” Latin American Politics and Society 55 (4): 74-94. 

2012. “Who whispers to the president? Advisors versus ministers in Latin America.” Política 50, Nº2: 29-57.

Yen Pin Su: Opposition Parties and Anti-Government Protests in Comparative Perspective

Abstract: Yen-Pin Su's dissertation examines why some democratic countries have experienced more anti-government protests than others. To investigate this question, he proposes a party theory of protests, which posits that the patterns of protests in democracies are shaped by the mobilization capacity of opposition parties. Moreover, he argues that the effects of opposition mobilization capacity on protests are different in developed countries and developing countries, respectively. In this research, he conducts a quantitative analysis using data of anti-government protests, parties, and elections from 107 democratic countries. In addition, he conducts a comparative case study of Taiwan and Peru that draws on historical documents, news reports, and elite interviews.

Short bio:

Yen-Pin Su is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at National Chengchi University, Taiwan. His primary research interests include comparative politics and mass political behavior. His work focuses on party politics, social movements, electoral institutions, and democratization, with a regional specialization in Latin America and East Asia. His articles are published or forthcoming in Comparative Politics, International Political Science Review, Party Politics, and Latin American Politics and Society.