Programming Presidential Agendas: Partisan and Media Environments That Lead Presidents to Fight...

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Programming Presidential Agendas:Partisan and Media Environments ThatLead Presidents to Fight Crime andCorruptionElizabeth A. Stein a & Marisa Kellama Elizabeth A. Stein is Assistant Professor, Instituto de Estudos Sociaise Políticos (Institute for Social and Political Studies) , University ofthe State of Rio de Janeiro. Marisa Kellam is Associate Professor,Waseda Institute for Advanced Study, Waseda University , Tokyo ,JapanPublished online: 30 Jan 2014.

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Political Communication, 31:25–52, 2014Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN: 1058-4609 print / 1091-7675 onlineDOI: 10.1080/10584609.2012.762075

Programming Presidential Agendas: Partisanand Media Environments That Lead Presidents

to Fight Crime and Corruption

ELIZABETH A. STEIN and MARISA KELLAM

This article examines how media and partisan mechanisms of accountability influencepresidential agendas in Latin America. The authors argue that responsiveness increasesin powerful presidential systems when opposition parties and free media help citizenshold presidents accountable between elections. Where presidents must contend witha cohesive, ideological opposition and effective constraints to their power, they turnto valence issues with broad appeal and over which they have greater control. A freemedia—one without significant economic, legal, or political constraints—pressures thepresident to respond to the electorate’s concerns, which include crime and corruptiondue to the incentives that motivate news content and the media’s agenda-setting pow-ers. Analyzing more than 50 presidential terms across 18 countries, the authors showthat when Latin American presidents face either free and competitive media or stronglegislative oppositions, homicide rates and the level of perceived corruption tend to belower. Thus, this study proposes that efforts to improve media or partisan environments,or both, would help address Latin America’s accountability deficit and promote goodgovernance in the region.

Keywords Latin America, accountability, media freedom, crime, corruption

Political accountability and the related concept of responsiveness underlie the principleof representative democracy, so much so that some authors use measures of accountabil-ity and responsiveness as attributes to assess the “quality of democracy” (Diamond &Morlino, 2004; O’Donnell, 2004; Schmitter, 2004; Schmitter & Karl, 1991). To distin-guish between accountability mechanisms that ensure that politicians remain responsiveto their constituents’ interests between elections (Peruzzotti & Smulovitz, 2006; Powell,2004; Przeworski, Stokes, & Manin, 1999) versus those institutions that constrain politi-cal actors from consolidating power in their office (O’Donnell, 1998; Schedler, Plattner, &

Elizabeth A. Stein is Assistant Professor, Instituto de Estudos Sociais e Políticos (Institute forSocial and Political Studies), University of the State of Rio de Janeiro. Marisa Kellam is AssociateProfessor, Waseda Institute for Advanced Study, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan.

We are very grateful to Dr. Shanto Iyengar and two anonymous reviewers for their valuablefeedback. We also thank participants in our panels at the International Political Science Association2012 Annual Congress in Madrid, Spain, and at the Midwest Political Science Association2012 Annual Conference in Chicago, IL, where we presented earlier versions of this research,for their useful suggestions. Rhonda Struminger provided helpful research assistance. Both authorscontributed equally to this article and share responsibility for any errors that remain.

Address correspondence to Elizabeth A. Stein, Instituto de Estudos Sociais e Políticos, Rua daMatriz, 82 Botafogo, Rio de Janeiro, RJ Brazil 22260-100. E-mail: [email protected]

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26 Elizabeth A. Stein and Marisa Kellam

Diamond, 1999), scholars have distinguished between two forms of accountability: verticaland horizontal, respectively.

Latin American constitutions often grant disproportionate power to the presidentrelative to other government branches, which raises concerns about the sufficiency ofinstitutional mechanisms of presidential accountability (Linz, 1990; Mainwaring, 1993;Mainwaring & Welna, 2003; Shugart & Carey, 1992). For example, presidents’ abilitiesin many countries to appoint justices, easily remove them, or expand the court either havepoliticized the judiciary or diminished its capacity to constrain presidents (Pérez-Liñán &Castagnola, 2009). Presidential systems create a tradeoff between accountability and gov-ernability; legislators cannot dismiss an incompetent president early through a vote of noconfidence and, facing potential gridlock, the president cannot re-form a hostile partisanatmosphere in the legislature by calling early elections. Many of the inter-branch checksembedded in Latin American constitutions that potentially could rein in presidents dependin large part on the partisan composition of the legislature. Where presidents have major-ity support or face a highly fractionalized partisan opposition that is unable to coalesce inopposition to the president, the president can ride roughshod over purported institutionalconstraints.

Absent the institutionalized threat of early removal that exists in parliamentary sys-tems, in presidential systems the media potentially become the primary monitor ofgovernment performance between elections. Because the potential consequences of neg-ative media coverage concern the president, a strong media environment—one in whichthe media are free of significant economic, legal, and political constraints—helps ensurethat presidents remain vigilant about the electorate’s interest even when subsequent elec-tions are not yet on the horizon or where term limits prohibit immediate reelection. LatinAmerican presidents know that investigative reports and exposés can lead to scandals, pub-lic protests, and legislative inquiries that may threaten their survival in office (Hochstetler,2006; Pérez-Liñán, 2007).

In this article, we evaluate how the composition of the partisan environment in thelegislature and the quality of the media environment under which a president governs influ-ence whether the president will follow her ideological agenda, shirk the public’s interestaltogether, or pursue policies that broadly placate the population. We argue that presidentswho govern with a strong partisan opposition in the legislature, which may impede thepassage of ideological legislation, will pursue the latter solution, pursuing widely popularpolicies. We refer to issues that draw a consensus among voters as valence issues (Stokes,1963). Though a number of issues meet this criteria, having widespread appeal (e.g., eco-nomic growth, improvements to health and education), we believe presidents will focus onfighting violent crime and reducing systemic corruption because (a) incentives motivatingmedia coverage amid commercial competition lead journalists to spotlight these two issues,driving them atop the public’s agenda; (b) no legislator wants to appear weak on crime ortolerant of corruption, potentially permitting minority presidents to pass legislation acrosspartisan lines on these issues; and (c) even where presidents may not succeed in pass-ing legislation, they often can circumvent an intransigent opposition by working throughbureaucracies rather than legislatures to combat crime and corruption.1 Presidents who suc-cessfully tackle valence issues and champion their achievements in the media can expectpopular support, which also may bring electoral rewards. Though driven by different incen-tives, we will show that the policy priorities of presidents constrained by a strong oppositioncoincide with those of presidents who face free media. In contrast, where neither the oppo-sition nor the media constrain the president, and thus cannot prevail upon her to pursuegood policy, we anticipate deteriorating conditions including rising crime and corruption.

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Programming Presidential Agendas 27

For example, in the lead-up to Venezuela’s 2012 presidential elections interna-tional news analysts reported that Hugo Chávez’s reelection hopes were threatened by“burgeoning violent crime” in Venezuela, where the murder rate has been estimated tobe four times what it was when Chávez took office 13 years ago.2 During Chávez’s tenurein office, media freedom declined precipitously, as did the strength of the opposition, to thepoint that no opposition members held seats in the legislature following the opposition boy-cott of the 2006 election. During this time, the average income of Venezuelans increasedslightly. Though in the end Chávez won reelection, since the previous election the opposi-tion chiseled away 8% of his vote share, perhaps reflecting the negative outcomes of poorpublic policy.3 Referring to it as the “paradox of Chávez’s long rule,” a TimeWorld articlenotes that the progress of his anti-poverty mission has been undermined because “crises likecrime, inflation and corruption have become as much a part of the revolution’s landscapeas new health clinics.”4

As indicated by the case of Venezuela, the quality of political institutions and partysystems tends to correspond with the quality of the media environment—which we termthe “quality of governance trajectory.” Where free and vibrant media exist, one expects tosee balanced institutions and a well-functioning party system as well as other indications ofgood governance, such as low crime rates and little evidence of corruption. Where a presi-dent remains unconstrained by the opposition or other institutions, one might anticipate fee-ble or subservient media and social outcomes reflective of weak accountability. However, inparticular countries or at particular points in time, the capacity of the media to constrain thepresident does not coincide with the capacity of the political opposition to do so. Where thepolitical opposition is strong but the media are weak, or vice versa, presidents still have theincentive to target their policies toward fighting crime and corruption, the valence issuesthat everyone supports and over which the executive branch has greater control. Since astrong opposition and free media both constrain the president, holding her accountable,improvements on either dimension should coincide with better policy outcomes.

In Figure 1, we illustrate our theoretical expectations for policy outcomes based ontwo dimensions that we argue shape presidential behavior: The horizontal dimension cap-tures the degree of partisan constraints on the executive using a combination of oppositionparty fractionalization and the party system’s degree of ideological polarization,5 and thevertical dimension depicts the extent of economic, legal, and political limitations on mediafreedom. We have divided each dimension into three ordered categories. Figure 1 presentsour expectations for political accountability and policy outcomes according to the com-bined media and partisan environments encountered by the president during her term. Ourempirical analysis, which we present later in the article, confirms our expectations; weshow that when Latin American presidents face a vibrant and free media and/or a strongopposition, homicide rates and the level of reported corruption tend to be lower.6

In the subsequent section, we review a wide range of literature related to democraticaccountability and responsiveness and factors influencing presidential power in democra-cies. We address how institutional constraints and the partisan composition of the legisla-ture affect executives’ power in Latin American countries. We also examine literature onthe role of the media in keeping presidents accountable and responsive to the electorate, theevolution of market-driven news coverage, and the media’s agenda-setting power. We thenpresent our theory, examining the implications of various media and partisan environmentsfor programming presidential agendas. We proceed with our testable hypotheses, followedby our empirical analyses and a discussion of our results. We conclude by emphasizing thebroader significance of our findings for the quality of governance in Latin America.

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Figure 1. Expectations of presidential accountability.

Accountability in Latin America’s Presidential Democracies

In the context of modern Latin American democracies, constitutions vary in the degreeto which other branches can constrain presidents’ behavior. Latin America’s presidentialsystems tend to grant disproportionate power to the president. Presidential veto, decree, andagenda-setting powers designed to increase governability in multiparty contexts strengthenthe presidents’ bargaining position vis-à-vis the legislature. Constitutions allow presidentsto introduce legislation—in some countries exclusively—granting legislatures only limitedamendatory powers (Cox & Morgenstern, 2001). The nature of an executive’s veto pow-ers (Alemán & Tsebelis, 2005) and decree powers (Cox & Morgenstern, 2001; Shugart& Carey, 1998) further affect a president’s potential strength relative to that of the leg-islature’s. Even where the legislative branch or judiciary has the formal powers to limitpresidential actions, legislators and judges only will do so where their prospects are nottied to the president’s future (Pérez-Liñán & Castagnola, 2009; Samuels & Shugart, 2003).In the case of the legislature, for example, the nature of the party system becomes influentialin determining the power and autonomy of the president, all else being equal (Morgenstern,Negri, & Pérez-Liñán, 2008).

Focusing on impediments to governability, Scott Mainwaring (1993) argues that frag-mented party systems exacerbate the problems of presidentialism. High fragmentation notonly reduces the probability that a president will benefit from a majority government, butit also weakens the legislative opposition’s effectiveness in countering presidential powerbecause “in these cases there is not an opposition, but multiple oppositions,” which can

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exacerbate collective action problems (Morgenstern et al., 2008, p. 161). In other words,“a large opposition [does] not necessarily mean a cohesive one” (p. 165). Given the preva-lence of fractionalized party systems in Latin America, several scholars have evaluatedthe strength of executive power by considering an executive’s constitutionally mandatedauthority relative to the degree of partisan support she has in the legislature (Mainwaring &Shugart, 1997; Shugart & Carey, 1992). In short, the literature emphasizes that both institu-tional design and the nature of party systems may contribute to the “accountability deficit”in Latin America (Moreno, Crisp, & Shugart, 2003; Peruzzotti & Smulovitz, 2006).

The imbalances in institutional design that foster Latin American countries’ account-ability deficit also may account for high levels of corruption in Latin America relativeto other regions (Mainwaring & Welna, 2003; O’Donnell, 1994; Peruzzotti & Smulovitz,2006). Scholars have argued that presidentialism, federalism, and certain electoral systemshelp explain the variation in the prevalence of corruption across countries (Geddes & Neto,1992; Kunicová & Rose-Ackerman, 2005; Treisman, 2007), though little consensus existsregarding the exact causal mechanisms, influences, magnitude, or even the direction of theeffects between various institutions and perceived corruption. Several authors have arguedthat decentralized systems (e.g., federalist) promote corruption, possibly due to a lack ofmonitoring when the central government transfers revenue to sub-national governments thatdetermine how the money is spent (Treisman, 2000), though others view federalism as anadditional constraint on presidential powers (Fisman & Gatti, 2002). Additionally, scholarshave noted that features of the electoral system, such as closed-list proportional represen-tation and large district magnitudes, allow for higher levels of corruption (Kunicová &Rose-Ackerman, 2005; Lederman, Loayza, & Soares, 2005), in part because they reduceaccountability by obscuring the electoral connection, making legislators more beholden totheir party leaders than to voters (Carey & Shugart, 1995).

Having focused primarily on formal institutions including electoral rules, most of theempirical literature on corruption has overlooked how the constellation of parties that servewithin the legislature affects corruption (Brown, Touchton, & Whitford, 2011). DavidS. Brown and his coauthors argue that greater ideological polarization in the legislaturelowers corruption because “politicians are more likely to behave as agents of the publicgood when confronted with an opposition that is unlikely to collude [with government]even in the absence of institutional checks and balances” (2011, pp. 1517–1518). ManuelBalán (2011) also ties an increase in corruption scandals to intra-party competition withinthe governing coalitions.

Whereas much of the literature on corruption links its severity to various institutionalarrangements, far fewer studies examine the relationship between political institutions andcrime or associate crime rates with democratic accountability (Zimring & Johnson, 2006).Rather, most explanations for cross-country variation in crime rates focus on structuralfactors, including urbanization, education, and inequality, or sociocultural factors, such as“a culture of masculinity” or the declining influence of the Catholic Church and the familyunit. In addition, the culture of the drug market (not of drug use) and urban adolescentunemployment in the context of rising education can create both a motive and opportunityfor criminal activity (Briceño-León, 2005).

Among the limited literature on crime that looks beyond economic and sociologicalfactors, research suggests that good governance (e.g., respect for human rights, social wel-fare programs) and democracy, when it has been consolidated, lower homicide rates andother serious crimes while allowing lesser crimes to flourish because they generally gounpunished (Ming-Jen, 2007; Neumayer, 2003). Other studies intimate that effective crimepolicy requires states to have distinct and effective institutions aimed at preventing crime,

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investigating crime, and sanctioning or punishing perpetrators in order to reduce crimerates (Ungar, 2011); large police forces, effective judicial and penal systems, and generalrespect for the rule of law reduce violent crime (Soares & Naritomi, 2007). In addition toinstitutions with the direct purpose of addressing criminal activity, other government insti-tutions also may influence criminal behavior; for example, federalism can affect crime ratesbecause decentralization shapes the nature of the aforementioned institutions. On the onehand, the localization of police functions allows individual police forces to tailor policy tolocal conditions, which should decrease crime rates; yet, on the other hand, decentralizationcan diffuse bureaucratic oversight and coordination, which may lead to system inefficien-cies and the impotency of police on the streets, allowing for increased criminal activity(Ungar, 2011). Building on such work, in this article we connect the institutional literatureto crime and crime-related media research, which we review below.

Media Markets and the Media’s Agenda-Setting Effects

Whereas institutional and partisan checks on the president allow for, but by no means guar-antee, horizontal accountability, vertical accountability requires strong media and a vibrantcivil society. The media, nongovernmental organizations, social movements, and civil soci-ety organizations educate the public by monitoring and publicizing government actions(Peruzzotti & Smulovitz, 2002, 2006). In an ideal democratic environment, the media’sreporting (a) helps citizens overcome imperfect information on elected officials’ actions,(b) analyzes and distills legislation, and (c) reveals the strengths and weaknesses of can-didates, allowing citizens to make informed voting decisions (Besley, Burgess, & Prat,2002). Well-informed citizens can evaluate the president’s responsiveness to the voters’preferences and properly reward or punish her by reelecting the incumbent or by votingher out of office. Media reports of presidential wrongdoings or abysmal performance dur-ing the interim between elections may result in mass protests that eventually could lead toimpeachment proceedings and the president’s resignation, illustrating other mechanisms ofvertical accountability (Hochstetler, 2006; Pérez-Liñán, 2007).

Economic, legal, and political factors can constrain journalists, limit content, andreduce the media’s ability to act as a viable watchdog of elected officials, inclusive ofpresidents. These factors determine the extent to which the media collude with or actsubserviently to government, which potentially can undermine the media’s ability and will-ingness to hold officials accountable and ensure politicians’ responsiveness through candidreporting. Timothy Besley and Robin Prat (2006) contend that media pluralism and non-governmental ownership help lower the likelihood of “media capture” by the government.However, media ownership does not stand alone in generating an amenable environment foroutspoken journalists. Where journalists fear political repercussions for their coverage, andtherefore report timidly on controversial issues, presidents may exploit weak mechanismsof vertical accountability and neglect the provision of public goods.

To monitor and report on the behavior of government actors, journalists and theireditors must be protected from political vengeance. Some Latin American countries con-tinue to criminalize defamation, and a few still maintain desacato statutes that holdjournalists in contempt for content disrespecting or embarrassing top government offi-cials. Where the targets of exposés or investigative reports can resort to legal sanctionsthat treat reporters as criminals or physically harm journalists with impunity, journalistsmay be deterred from investigating corruption (Collings, 2001; Waisbord, 2002).

In reality, however, the media’s journalistic and market incentives often determinethe content of news coverage to a greater degree than do informational demands of civic

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engagement. Additionally, studies have shown that the media seemingly drive the public’sagenda rather than the other way around (Edwards & Wood, 1999). As Latin Americancountries democratized, the media environment changed substantially. Concerns aboutpress freedom and the media’s “capacity to serve its democratic role” shifted from fear-ing undue government influence to threats to media autonomy from market dynamics(Baker, 2007, p. xi), exacerbated in Latin America by a persisting dearth of media diversity(Waisbord, 2009). Decreasing censorship had opened the door for “watchdog journalism”(Peruzzotti, 2006); however, this coincided with the further consolidation of media owner-ship and declining government advertising revenue and subsidies that commercialized themedia (Lugo-Ocando, 2008).

Media commercialization increasingly challenges press freedom in Latin Americancountries (Besley et al., 2002; Hughes & Lawson, 2005; Waisbord, 1998, 2002) as itdoes elsewhere around the globe (Papathanassopoulos, 2001). While this transformationhas freed journalists from government oversight and the resulting self-censorship, leadingto increasingly critical coverage (Fox, 2007; Peruzzotti, 2006), commercial concentrationexposes journalists to the whims of owners and has forced news outlets to provide “mar-ketable” content or risk going out of business (Papathanassopoulos, 2001; Waisbord, 1998).Media critics have associated commercialization with the “softening” or increased “drama-tization” of news at the expense of public interest reporting (Hamilton, 2004; Patterson,2003). In his book Rich Media, Poor Democracy, media historian Robert McChesney wrotethat “the wealthier and more powerful the corporate media giants have become, the poorer[are] the prospects for participatory democracy” (1999, p. 2).

The nature of “news” means that special events or unexpected occurrences drasticallyreshape media content when they take place, such as Pope John Paul II’s passing, 9/11,or even the World Cup of Soccer. Nevertheless, most days journalists and editors havesubstantial time or space to fill, especially since the advent of cable news networks andthe 24-hour news cycle. Under these ordinary circumstances, commercial interests driveeditorial choices. Investigative reporting is an expensive enterprise and may not attractconsumers who have numerous other options for entertainment. Accordingly, the commer-cialization of media ultimately may threaten the rise of “watchdog” journalism that beganin the 1990s (Waisbord, 2000).

Crime Coverage and Its Effect on the Public Agenda

Facing commercial incentives and in search of stories that sell, producers and editors haveadopted the motto “if it bleeds it leads” (Patterson, 2003, p. 141); many studies of the U.S.and British media have shown that news outlets in general and local television news inparticular focus disproportionately on violent crime (Beal, 1997, 2006; Gilliam & Iyengar,2000; Gilliam, Iyengar, Simon, & Wright, 1996; Patterson, 2003; Schlesinger, Tumber, &Murdock, 1991). Studies have found correlations between exposure to television news andfear of crime, controlling for actual conditions, demographics, and personal victimization(Lowry, Nio, & Leitner, 2003; Romer, Jamieson, & Aday, 2003). Recent studies of newsin Latin American countries illustrate that Latin American media also disproportionatelycover crime relative to other public affairs and demonstrate that many of the same mediaeffects relating to crime coverage translate to Latin America’s democracies (Browne &Tomicic, 2007; Huhn, Oettler, & Peetz, 2006).

Experimental research has revealed that repeated exposure to news content on a partic-ular topic, even short snippets, increases a topic’s salience in the minds of news consumers,setting the public’s agenda (Beal, 1997; Iyengar & Kinder, 1987; Schlesinger et al., 1991).

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In the 1990s, coinciding with the increasing popularity of cable news and increased mar-ket competition, poll after poll showed that Americans increasingly named crime as “themost important problem facing the nation,” despite Justice Department statistics indicat-ing that the crime rate was actually falling (Beal, 1997; Gilliam et al., 1996; Romeret al., 2003). This disparity indicates the power that the media have to override peo-ple’s own experiences in setting the public’s agenda and thus the political agenda for thenation.

Sara Sun Beal explains how “the market-driven treatment of crime in the news mediahas the potential to skew American public opinion, increasing the support for various puni-tive policies” (2006, p. 398). Peter Vasterman asserts that media frenzies can make a socialproblem “appear to reach crisis proportions, forcing social actors, especially authorities,to take drastic and hasty action” (2005, p. 512). Latin American news outlets, like othermarket-oriented media systems, also focus their attention disproportionately on crime andcorroborate the media’s agenda-setting effects, demonstrating that crime coverage corre-sponds with the level of the public’s concern about personal security and crime (Browne& Tomicic, 2007; D’Adamo & García Beaudoux, 2007). Polls taken around Latin Americasubstantiate people’s approval of more punitive measures as fear of crime rises, regardlessof actual crime rates (Ungar, 2011). Because elected officials must concern themselves withthe concerns of the electorate, politicians reshape policy to address the public’s perceptionof crime (Chermak & Weiss, 1997).

Corruption Coverage as Headline News

Whereas market incentives and ease of accessibility motivate journalists’ and editors’coverage of crime, their motivation to investigate and report on corruption stems not onlyfrom media market competition, but also from the personal prestige that comes from break-ing a story about political corruption. Muckraking journalism can increase a news outlet’sprestige and elevate its political importance if it is the first to report on corruption among topgovernment officials. The media savor scandals involving elected leaders that can generateheadline news for months by covering subsequent investigations (Balán, 2011; Pérez-Liñán,2007).

Since the return to democracy in Latin America, several major corruption scandalshave broken featuring high-level government officials, including presidents. Aggressivecoverage of corruption scandals in Latin American news outlets has raised public aware-ness of corruption, leading the public to rate corruption as “one of the most pressingpolitical issues” (Balán, 2011, p. 3). The media’s agenda-setting influence, therefore,implores presidents to clean up their administrations and crack down on corruption in othergovernment bodies. Empirical research consistently shows a robust inverse correlationbetween media freedom and levels of corruption and indicates that the direction ofcausation runs from the media to corruption (Brunetti & Weder, 2003; Freille, Haque, &Kneller, 2007; Treisman, 2007).

Suggesting a less positive outcome, Timothy Power and Matthew Taylor note that“increasing freedom of the press and greater potential for civil society mobilization pro-vide opportunities both for more public debate over corruption and, potentially, for greaterdisappointment with the absence of accountability” (2011, p. 6). In spite of the possibilityof generating electoral malaise, most researchers agree with Daniel Kaufmann (2005), whostresses the importance of the transparency generated by media freedom, along with goodlaws on public disclosure and access to information, in limiting corruption and cultivatinggood governance.

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Why Strong Oppositions and Free Media Lead Presidents to Fight Crimeand Corruption

We read previous research on corruption and crime—and accountability more generally—as suggesting a role for both partisan and media mechanisms to strengthen governmentresponsiveness between elections. Our work develops from previous scholarship on pres-idential systems that focuses on how the partisan makeup of the legislature can obstructor amplify formal executive powers, allowing us to assess a particular president’s actualpower. We also build on the political communications literature that demonstrates theinfluence of the media on the public’s and therefore presidents’ political agendas. Basedon implications we derived from this literature, we expect presidents to govern differ-ently when facing competitive and constraining political environments and/or robust,safeguarded media than they would govern in the absence of such mechanisms ofaccountability.

We argue that the composition of the legislative opposition determines in part the typesof policies the president will pursue. We contend that where the president’s party enjoys amajority in the legislature or where the president faces a weak opposition—one that is frag-mented and non-ideological—she can pursue her ideological platform, which will satisfythe party’s core supporters and donors who frequently are more ideologically driven thanthe average voter. If the president also does not deal with other institutional constraints,she may choose to forgo the pursuit of policy in favor of graft. However, when a presidentlacks a legislative majority and faces a strong partisan opposition in the legislature—onethat ideologically opposes the president’s party and is not highly fractionalized—she willavoid ideological battles that she is unlikely to win.7 Hoping to champion policy successescome election time, we anticipate that she will turn instead to issues with broad appeal andover which she has greater control, all else being equal.

We identify conditions under which a president is more, or less, likely to focus herattention on the particular valence issues of crime and corruption. The president may chooseto pursue valence issues either because she can achieve real change while circumventingthe legislature or because these issues attract less legislative opposition. The president canaddress issues of crime through the budget process, which she controls, allocating greaterresources toward security, including more police on the street and other crime-fightingmeasures such as the installation of more street lights or cameras. Also, even fiscally con-servative legislators likely do not want to be seen as withholding resources from publicsafety measures, and so are unlikely to reallocate budget expenditures related to fightingcrime. Like crime, the president also can attack corruption through her own initiatives.Measures of corruption, such as Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index(CPI), generally capture “the venality of bureaucrats over whom legislators may have littlecontrol” (Treisman, 2007, p. 232). Thus, for a president to address pervasive corruption ofthe type captured in these indices, she need not legislate such improvements because sheoversees the bureaucracy.

Presidents have strong incentives to fight crime in the streets and corruption in thebureaucracy if they are likely to be held accountable for these issues. Their willingness todivert the policy agenda from ideological issues, preferred by interest groups and politicaldonors, to that driven by the media and public opinion will occur where presidents facestrong mechanisms of vertical accountability that ensure politicians’ responsiveness to theelectorate. The media’s ability to operate freely without fear of significant economic, legal,or political sanctions affects the probability that journalists will cover potentially touchysubjects. Absent the real threat of physical or legal reprisals from subjects of exposés,

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journalists can tackle the provocative subjects of crime and corruption that sell newspa-pers, attract viewers, and bring in advertising revenue. Given the media’s agenda-settingpowers—which have been shown to apply across a variety of regimes—we anticipate thatmedia coverage of these topics translates into heightened concern with crime and corruptionamong the electorate and, hence, lifts these topics to the top of the president’s agenda.

The pervasive nature of crime coverage leads to extensive public support for punitivepolicies (Beal, 1997, 2006); hence, mere lip service will not suffice, and presidents mustconvince the public that they actually are tough on crime. Thus, a president who hopes todrive down crime figures she can champion at election time may prefer to evade legislatorswho will politicize the issue. Instead, she may directly address the issue through executivedirectives that could result in more moderate policy than publicly demanded, but whichwould likely produce the positive outcomes she needs for reelection or a positive legacy(Schlesinger et al., 1991, Zimring & Johnson, 2006).

Where media are diverse, autonomous, and operate in a relatively safe environment,the media should discourage politicians’ abuse of power and promote good policy out-comes related to corruption as well. Alícia Adserà and her coauthors argue that “the degreeof information citizens have, either through news media, personal networks, or their owndirect experiences, curbs opportunities politicians may have to engage in political corrup-tion and mismanagement” (Adserà, Boix, & Payne, 2003, p. 448). Thus, where the publichas access to good information and has mechanisms to sanction corrupt or inept leaders,we should see lower levels of appropriation by public officials.

Alternatively, in countries where presidents face neither a vibrant and competitivemedia environment nor any cohesive legislative opposition, presidents can choose to dis-count the policy priorities of the populace without fear of it becoming front-page news orfodder for an opposition attack. For example, since the Argentine economic crisis beganin December 2001 and discredited the Radical Civic Union Party, Peronist presidents havelacked a legislative opposition to challenge their authority. A decline in watchdog journal-ism in Argentina between 2000 and 2005 coincided with this partisan shift. Referring tothis simultaneous decline, Juliet Pinto (2008, p. 766) notes:

During certain periods, in certain conditions, watchdog journalism on the polit-ical elite can be subsumed to organizational interests. Responses given inthe interviews . . . described pressures on [journalists] from business inter-ests, changes in public opinion, ideologies and government news managementstrategies to temper coverage regarding the political elite. These factors areespecially powerful in an environment of institutional weakness, economicvulnerability and political elite cohesion.

As in the Argentine case, a president with few constraints on her power may preferto invest her resources in appeasing her clientele who sustain her in power. Under theseconditions, we anticipate no improvement in crime and corruption. In some cases, we evenanticipate worsening of crime and corruption if, during a president’s term, media freedomdeteriorates or the opposition becomes increasingly fractionalized, weakening oversight ofthe executive and further relaxing constraints on the president. As Argentina slips downthe “quality of governance trajectory,” the presidents who have served in the last decadehave faced weaker mechanisms of accountability—both horizontal and vertical—than didArgentine presidents who served before them. Given these changes, we would expect theserecent presidents to have altered the types of policies they pursue and, consequently, we

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anticipate negative changes in outcomes, which we found to be the case (see Figure 2,which we discuss in more detail below).

Testable Implications

As previously mentioned, one would expect most presidential terms to fall along the “qual-ity of governance trajectory” (indicated by the three white cells), where the quality of mediafreedom closely corresponds with the quality of the executive environment (see Figure 1).Where media are free and professional and the opposition is strong, the executive cannotact unilaterally; we therefore should anticipate outcomes of good governance, such as lowcrime rates and low levels of corruption.

However, where circumstances diverge from this logical trajectory and countriesexhibit characteristics that both promote and inhibit good governance, it is less apparentwhich outcomes we should anticipate. Our theory elucidates the prospect for relativelygood policy outcomes in these mixed environments (indicated by the four dark gray cells).Independently of one another, as the environment for media improves or the legislatureincreasingly curbs the president’s authority, we should begin to see improvements in crimeand corruption levels. The further along either dimension a president finds herself, thegreater her incentive to tackle these conditions. We do not expect many presidential termsto fall in the remaining two cells (Boxes 3 and 7) because these capture the unlikely circum-stances in which the two dimensions fall at opposite extremes. We propose the followinghypotheses regarding crime and corruption.

H 1: Under minority presidents facing a cohesive, ideological opposition in the legislature,crime rates and levels of reported corruption will be lower than under presidents facinga fractionalized, non-ideological opposition or presidents with a legislative majority.

H 2: During presidential terms in which the media enjoy greater freedom, crime rates andlevels of reported corruption will be lower than during presidential terms in which themedia confront substantial constraints on their freedom.

To provide an intuitive, though preliminary, evaluation of our argument, in Figure 2we provide the actual outcomes, expressed as averages across all presidential terms fallingwithin a cell, for democratic presidential terms between 1995 and 2010 in 18 LatinAmerican countries.8 Using the framework from Figure 1, we located each presidentialterm in one of the nine cells according to the media and partisan environments in a coun-try during each president’s respective term. We measure the media environment usingFreedom House’s Press Freedom Index (PFI) and the partisan environment by combiningthe degree of ideological polarization in the legislature with opposition fractionalization, asmeasured by the effective number of opposition parties (we provide more detail in the noteto Figure 2).

We report the average values of each dependent variable—the CPI and homicide rate—in the last calendar year (for which we have data) of the presidential terms listed in eachcell.9 With regard to measures of policy outcomes, this figure presages the results we obtainin our statistical analyses presented later. We can observe whether, on average, the mediaand partisan environments that we argue influence presidential priorities correspond to pol-icy outcomes in line with our predictions. We recognize that the president’s behavior mayalter the media and opposition environments during her term along with other temporal con-ditions. To some degree, we capture the president’s influence when we observe multi-term

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Figure 2. Presidents and policy outcomes.

presidents move from one cell to another as media conditions improve or deteriorate fromterm to term, as occurred for Argentina’s former president Carlos Menem when media con-ditions deteriorated between his first and second terms. We also witness different presidentsfrom the same country governing under strikingly different media and partisan environ-ments. For example, presidential terms for Panama can be found in four different cells,crossing all three columns (opposition strength) and two of three rows (media freedom).

Conforming to our expectations, more than one-third of all of the presidential terms inour sample fell in one of the boxes along the quality of governance trajectory (Boxes 1, 5,and 9). Approximately 13% of presidential terms were located in Box 1 with weak partisanopposition and only marginally free media, while only five of 62 presidential terms fellunder conditions of strong partisan opposition alongside a free media, which reinforcesthe common concern about a lack of presidential accountability in many Latin Americandemocracies. Notably, however, almost 60% of presidential terms included in our samplemanifested mixed dynamics between media and partisan conditions of accountability. Also

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meeting expectations, very few presidencies manifested good media environments but poorpartisan environments, or vice versa (Boxes 3 and 7). Where presidents dominate theirlegislatures, the media environment rarely fosters watchdog journalism. President HugoChávez faced this unique situation following his landslide victory in 1998, in which he ranwith the support of his own movement rather than one of the two traditional parties. Hequickly dismantled many media protections, as reflected in the placement of his secondterm in Box 1.

Comparing Figure 2 to Figure 1, we find that empirical realities correspond to our the-oretical expectations; conditions of moderate to high accountability correspond with morehonest government and better social outcomes, as indicated by the lower average levels ofreported corruption and lower average homicide rates in the final years of the presidentialterms in the corresponding boxes. Comparisons along the quality of governance trajectorystarkly illustrate the expected relationship between social outcomes and mechanisms ofaccountability. In addition, Figure 2 illustrates that these different mechanisms of account-ability work independently. Holding media freedom constant at “free,” homicide rates andreported corruption decline (CPI increases) moving across from Box 7 to Box 9 as thestrength of the opposition increases. Holding the partisan opposition at “strong,” homiciderates and reported corruption increase (CPI decreases) as media freedom declines mov-ing from Box 9 down toward Box 3. In the remaining cells, reported corruption followsexpected patterns, indicating a slight deterioration moving from Box 1 to Box 2, where wewould have expected improvements due to the strengthening opposition. Homicide ratesgenerally follow expected patterns relative to levels of media freedom; more people aremurdered on average during presidencies with embattled media. However, homicide ratesand opposition strength only follow the anticipated pattern where media freedom is high; asmedia freedom declines, increasing opposition strength leads to increasing homicide rates.We interpret this as an indication that media play a greater role in shining a light on crimethan do the opposition since they also may be vulnerable on this issue; however, we alsobelieve these averages are driven by a few countries with unusually high homicide ratesbut with moderate to strong oppositions, including El Salvador, Mexico, and Honduras.We control for various potential factors that would explain these exceptional cases in ourregression analyses in the next section.

Regression Analyses

To test the hypotheses stated earlier, we estimate several statistical models predicting crimerates and levels of perceived corruption. These are cross-sectional, time-series analyses inwhich we include data from more than 50 presidential terms across 18 Latin Americancountries between 1995 and 2010.

We follow most other studies of crime in using homicide rate as a dependent variable,even though homicide accounts for only a small percentage of all crime; it is the only crimewith a universally accepted definition and measure (number of homicides per 100,000 peo-ple). Across the 53 presidential terms in our analysis, the average homicide rate in the finalyear of the term is 24.4 homicides per 100,000 people, with a standard deviation of 20.8,indicating substantial variation in the region’s homicide rates during the 15-year period weobserved. To correct for the skew in the distribution of homicide rates across countries andtime, we use the natural log of homicide rates in our statistical estimations.

Note that the difference in homicide rates across countries tends to be larger than thevariation within particular countries over time. Within countries, the annual percentagechange in the homicide rate averaged ±11.8%. We illustrate the contrast of cross-country

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differences versus within-country differences over time using a few examples. Peru hasone of the lowest average homicide rates in the region at 6.3 homicides per 100,000 people;however, relative to its average, Peru experienced substantial year-to-year variation in itshomicide rate, going from a minimum of about 3 to a maximum of nearly 12 homicides per100,000 people. Brazil, in contrast, shows minimal year-to-year variation in its homiciderate, with an average annual percentage change of ±5.7%, but carries a higher-than-averagehomicide rate of 27.7 homicides per 100,000 individuals. Among the most violent countrieslies Honduras, which averages 50.8 homicides per 100,000 people and ranges from a lowof 32 to a high of 82 homicides per 100,000 individuals across the years under observation.

We use the CPI, scaled from 0 to 10, as an indicator of corruption, with higher numbersindicating less corruption. The CPI aggregates subjective assessments about the prevalenceof corruption in a given country and year from sources including both experts and surveyrespondents. Previous studies have argued that more corruption coverage should lead tohigher perceptions of corruption among the electorate; less coverage should lead to lowerpublic perceptions of corruption. The CPI, based on country experts, business people, andopinion surveys, is more likely to reflect actual corruption than is the public’s percep-tion, which is based on corruption coverage in the media (or its absence) and individualexperience.

In our regression analysis, we present models that rely only on the CPI in each pres-ident’s final year in office, which should mitigate problems associated with time-seriesanalysis of the annual CPI (Treisman, 2007). In our data set, the average value of the CPIin the final year of the presidential term is 3.5, with a minimum of 1.5 and a maximum of7.3. These data are somewhat skewed, with 90% of the cases falling below 5.5, indicatingthe region’s struggle with corruption. Yet Chile, Costa Rica, and Uruguay defy regionaltrends, given that the CPI for most presidential terms in these three countries was on thehigher range of its scale, indicating consistently low reported corruption. Within-countrystandard deviations are lower than the standard deviation across all presidential terms, butwe do see some within-country change across a country’s presidencies. The greatest vari-ation occurred in Bolivia, Colombia, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Argentina. However, as ourdata show, the degree of variation within a country does not correspond to the actual levelof reported corruption; despite both having minimal variation over time, Chile’s averageCPI is 7.1, whereas Mexico’s is 3.5.

We use the same set of key explanatory variables in our models analyzing both crimeand corruption in Latin America (see Table 1 for data sources and operationalization ofvariables). We employ multiple indicators to capture the strength of the opposition that pres-idents encountered during their terms. First, we include an indicator for majority presidents.Second, we take into account the extent of ideological polarization in the legislature bymeasuring the left-right dispersion in seat shares away from the relative center of thelegislature. Finally, we include the extent of opposition fractionalization, measured asthe effective number of opposition parties.10 As an indicator of the overall media envi-ronment, we use the PFI, which sums the legal, political, and economic constraints onmedia freedom. We reverse this scale such that higher numbers indicate greater mediafreedom.11

When analyzing both crime and corruption, we also control for formal presidentialpowers that give presidents control in setting budgets and shaping the legislative agenda,and consequently influence both governability and accountability. In addition, we controlfor the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Human Development Index(HDI) in both sets of models to account for cross-country differences in wealth that

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Tabl

e1

Ope

ratio

naliz

atio

nof

vari

able

s

Des

crip

tion

Sour

ce/de

tails

Dep

ende

ntva

riab

les

Abs

ence

ofre

port

edco

rrup

tion

(mea

n=

3.5,

SD=

1.4)

Cor

rupt

ion

Perc

eptio

nIn

dex

(CPI

),sc

aled

from

0to

10,

with

10be

ing

the

low

estr

epor

ted

corr

uptio

nT

rans

pare

ncy

Inte

rnat

iona

l

Nat

ural

log

ofho

mic

ide

rate

(mea

n=

2.9,

SD=

0.9)

Nat

ural

log

ofth

eho

mic

ide

rate

(num

ber

ofin

tent

iona

lho

mic

ides

per

100,

000

peop

le)

We

aver

aged

scor

esfr

omth

eU

nite

dN

atio

nsO

ffice

ofD

rugs

and

Cri

me

and

the

Wor

ldB

ank’

sW

orld

Dev

elop

men

tIn

dica

tors

whe

nbo

thw

ere

avai

labl

eIn

depe

nden

tvar

iabl

esM

ajor

itypr

esid

ent(

20%

ofca

ses)

1=

pres

iden

t’s

part

yho

lds

mor

eth

an50

%of

the

seat

sin

the

low

er(o

ron

ly)

cham

ber

ofth

ele

gisl

atur

eC

alcu

late

dby

auth

ors

Ideo

logi

calp

olar

izat

ion

(mea

n=

41,S

D=

26)

Mea

sure

sth

ele

ft-r

ight

disp

ersi

onin

the

seat

dist

ribu

tion

acro

sspa

rtie

sfr

omth

ere

lativ

ece

nter

ofa

part

icul

arle

gisl

atur

e,fo

llow

ing

Cop

pedg

e(1

998)

;0w

ould

indi

cate

allp

artie

soc

cupy

the

sam

epo

sitio

n,w

hile

100

wou

ldin

dica

tea

legi

slat

ure

even

lysp

litbe

twee

nex

trem

ele

ftan

dex

trem

eri

ght

Cal

cula

ted

byau

thor

s

Opp

ositi

onfr

actio

naliz

atio

n(m

ean

=2.

7,SD

=2)

Eff

ectiv

enu

mbe

rof

oppo

sitio

npa

rtie

s=

1/(H

erfe

ndah

lIn

dex

ofO

ppos

ition

Part

ies)

Wor

ldB

ank’

sD

atab

ase

ofPo

litic

alIn

stitu

tions

,upd

ated

byau

thor

sM

edia

free

dom

(mea

n=

58.5

,SD

=12

)R

ever

salo

fth

ePr

ess

Free

dom

Inde

x(P

FI),

scal

edfr

om1

to10

0,w

ith10

0in

dica

ting

afr

eer

med

iaen

viro

nmen

tFr

eedo

mH

ouse

Con

trol

sH

uman

Dev

elop

men

tInd

ex(m

ean

=66

.5,S

D=

7)C

ombi

nes

indi

cato

rsof

life

expe

ctan

cy,e

duca

tiona

lat

tain

men

t,an

din

com

ein

toa

com

posi

tein

dex,

resc

aled

tora

nge

betw

een

0an

d10

0

Uni

ted

Nat

ions

Dev

elop

men

tPro

gram

me

(Con

tinu

ed)

39

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Tabl

e1

(Con

tinue

d)

Des

crip

tion

Sour

ce/de

tails

Gin

iind

ex(m

ean

=52

.4,S

D=

4.6)

Inde

xm

easu

ring

the

degr

eeof

econ

omic

ineq

ualit

yin

aco

untr

y,w

here

100

indi

cate

sto

tali

nequ

ality

2012

Wor

ldD

evel

opm

entI

ndic

ator

s

Dea

thpe

nalty

(mea

n=

0.3,

SD=

0.3)

Indi

cato

rof

ago

vern

men

t’s

polic

yre

gard

ing

use

ofth

ede

ath

pena

lty:0

=ba

non

deat

hpe

nalty

;0.5

=de

ath

pena

ltyon

lype

rmitt

edfo

rex

cept

iona

lcri

mes

,suc

has

crim

esco

mm

itted

unde

rm

ilita

ryla

wor

inw

artim

e;1

=de

ath

pena

ltype

rmitt

edfo

ror

dina

rycr

imes

Am

nest

yIn

tern

atio

nal

Fede

ralis

m(2

0%of

case

s)D

icho

tom

ous

vari

able

whe

re1

deno

tes

fede

rals

yste

ms,

0ot

herw

ise

Cod

edby

auth

ors

Pers

onal

vote

ince

ntiv

e(m

ean

=3.

5,SD

=3.

3)R

anks

coun

trie

sin

incr

easi

ngor

der

ofin

cent

ives

tocu

ltiva

tea

pers

onal

vote

acco

rdin

gto

thei

rm

ostd

omin

anto

rpo

pulo

ustie

r;ra

nges

from

1–13

John

son

&W

alla

ck(2

006)

Form

alpr

esid

entia

lpow

ers

(mea

n=

3.8,

SD=

1.6)

Wei

ghte

dav

erag

eof

the

follo

win

gfo

rmul

aof

legi

slat

ive

pres

iden

tialp

ower

s:4∗ V

eto

+4∗ D

ecre

e+

3∗ Bud

get+

3∗ Exc

lusi

veIn

itiat

ion

+1∗ P

lebi

scite

;we

resc

aled

as0

to10

,whe

re10

indi

cate

sth

em

ostp

ower

s

Uni

ted

Nat

ions

Dev

elop

men

tPro

gram

me

40

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generally influence public service provision and government performance (Lake & Baum,2001). Importantly, differences in citizens’ abilities to hold incumbents accountable forpolicy failures likely correspond to differences in poverty prevalence and levels of edu-cation that affect their ability to monitor and understand policy (Keefer & Khemani,2005). We believe that the HDI better approximates levels of development than does grossdomestic product (GDP) per capita because HDI takes into consideration how income trans-lates into well-being, indirectly capturing the distribution of wealth. Although all of thepresidents in our analysis were democratically elected and governed under democratic con-stitutions, we include the Polity IV score as a control for the degree of democracy in theregression analyses reported in the online appendix. The extent of democracy accounts,in part, for cross-national differences in policy performance (Adserà et al., 2003; Lake &Baum, 2001). In the crime appendix models, we also control for history of civil war as aproxy for the availability of guns.

In each set of models, we also include additional control variables that are relevantto the particular dependent variable. Specifically, studies examining the determinants ofcrime and crime policy include measurements of systemic, institutional, and sociologi-cal factors that might capture the propensity for individuals to commit crime. We includethe Gini index as a measure of economic inequality, which is among the most consistentstructural factors in predicting crime. In the appendix tables, we also consider a variety ofother covariates that relate to perpetrators’ motivation and availability to commit crime.12

Scholars include measures of the strength and efficiency of the judiciary and the severity ofcriminal penalties to evaluate the deterrent effect of the justice system (Lederman, Loayza,& Menéndez, 2002; Ming-Jen, 2007). We also include a variable denoting when, if ever,a country sanctions the death penalty. Because the PFI incorporates judicial efficiency andindependence, we analyze the effect of judicial independence separately from the PFI in theappendix tables. Lastly, we control for federalism because reforming and enforcing nationalcrime policy often is more difficult in decentralized systems, in part because responsibil-ity for fighting crime frequently is delegated to the states or municipalities (Pritchard &Berkowitz, 1993).

In our models predicting reported corruption, we include control variables for politicalinstitutions that are commonly found in empirical models of corruption. We againinclude a dummy variable for federalism because decentralized power and multi-tieredbureaucracy have less oversight than centralized systems and generate opportunities forcorruption. As noted earlier, researchers have claimed that electoral systems that encouragepersonality-driven rather than party-driven campaigns affect corruption, either fostering itbecause candidates try to “buy” votes or curbing it because voters are better able to holdindividual politicians accountable, incentivizing these politicians to combat corruption.To discern the relationship between electoral rules and reported corruption we include JoelJohnson and Jessica Wallack’s index (2012) based on components outlined by John Careyand Matthew Shugart (1995), ranking electoral systems according to increasing personalvote incentives.13

Results

In one set of models, we run ordinary least squares regressions in which the unit of obser-vation is the presidential term,14 and report standard errors that are corrected for panel-levelheteroskedasticity and pairwise contemporaneous correlation (Beck & Katz, 1995). Sincewe aim to measure a president’s influence on social policy and policy outcomes, weexamine the dependent variables during the president’s final (calendar) year in office, as

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described above. Accordingly, we average values for the independent variables in all of ourmodels up to, but excluding, the year used to assess the outcome.

In another model, we shift our analysis to annual data and employ a random-effectslinear regression model. The country-specific random effects model captures unobservedcharacteristics that may account for differences across countries in crime rates and reportedcorruption levels. Whereas the previous set of models, which analyze presidential terms,mostly capture variation across countries, the analysis of annual data explains to a greaterextent variation within countries over time. In these models, we include measures of theindependent variables at their absolute levels and also a measure of shifts in explanatoryconditions that can, and do, change annually, such as the environment in which the mediaoperate. We also indicate the start of a new legislative term, which is likely to produce achange from one year to the next in variables such as opposition fractionalization and polar-ization. When using annual observations, we also include a running count of the number ofyears since the current president first assumed office to capture any time trends in the data.

In Table 2, we present the regression estimates of the three primary crime models.Because our dependent variable is the natural logarithm of the homicide rate, we also reportthe exponentiated coefficients, which indicate proportional changes in the homicide ratefor a unit change in the independent variables, holding all else constant.15 The analysisof homicide rate by presidential terms supports Hypothesis 2 regarding the influence ofthe media environment on crime outcomes, while the annual data analysis supports bothHypotheses 1 and 2, indicating the influence of the partisan environment on crime rates aswell.

The first set of columns in Table 2 presents the base model with just the core controlvariables commonly used in studies of crime. The variation among the controls accountsfor 40% of the variation in homicide rates in Latin America’s democracies. In the presiden-tial term model presented in the next set of columns, a 1-point difference in media freedomis associated with a 3% change in the homicide rate. For example, Ecuador’s media envi-ronment under Rafael Correa’s first term received a rating of 57.5; had it been as free asthe media environment in Bolivia during Evo Morales’s first term (60.7), Model 3 indicatesthat Ecuador’s homicide rate would have been almost 10% lower than it was, all else beingequal. In substantive terms, the estimated effect of the media environment exceeds the mag-nitude of the effect of economic inequality on crime rates, as reported in the second set ofcolumns.

In our analysis of annual data (third set of columns), which controls for country effects,we find that a 5-point increase in the PFI is associated with an 8.4% decline in the homiciderate.16 The results in the third set of columns also show that the homicide rate declines whenthe legislature is more polarized and increases when the president’s own party controls amajority of the seats. Specifically, a 7.3-point increase in ideological polarization (equiv-alent to the average within-country standard deviation) is associated with a 5.5% declinein the homicide rate. Also, we should expect the homicide rate to increase by 20% when apresident governs with a majority party in the legislature as compared to the homicide rateunder a minority president, all else being equal.

In terms of the control variables, our findings are consistent with previous research oncrime in Latin America. We find that crime is lower in more developed societies, in contextsof greater economic equality, in unitary countries, and when death sentences are permitted.Our main findings are robust to the inclusion of several additional controls, as shown inthe online appendix tables. To summarize, taking into account several control variables andcountry-specific differences, our results indicate that crime is lower where presidents face astronger legislative opposition and where the media are less fearful and operate with fewerconstraints on their reporting.

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Tabl

e2

Cri

me

mod

els

Mod

el1:

Pres

iden

tialt

erm

saM

odel

2:Pr

esid

entia

lter

msa

Mod

el3:

Ann

ualb

Coe

ff.

Exp

.coe

ff.

Coe

ff.

Exp

.coe

ff.

Coe

ff.

Exp

.coe

ff.

Hum

anD

evel

opm

entI

ndex

,lag

−0.0

6∗∗0.

940

−0.0

30.

969

−0.0

040.

997

(0.0

2)(0

.02)

(0.0

19)

Gin

iind

ex,l

ag0.

07∗∗

1.07

30.

07∗∗

1.06

80.

005

1.00

5(0

.02)

(0.0

2)(0

.02)

Dea

thpe

nalty

,lag

−0.5

90.

554

−0.5

2∗0.

595

−0.1

70.

844

(0.3

1)(0

.28)

(0.1

5)Fe

dera

lism

0.42

∗1.

522

0.28

∗1.

323

0.05

1.05

4(0

.21)

(0.1

4)(0

.40)

Form

alpr

esid

entia

lpow

ers,

lag

−0.0

20.

983

−0.0

80.

925

−0.0

080.

992

(0.0

5)(0

.05)

(0.0

9)Id

eolo

gica

lpol

ariz

atio

n,la

g0.

005

1.00

5−0

.008

∗0.

992

(0.0

05)

(0.0

03)

Opp

ositi

onfr

actio

naliz

atio

n,la

g0.

031.

025

−0.0

10.

986

(0.0

3)(0

.02)

Maj

ority

pres

iden

t,la

g−0

.14

0.86

90.

19∗

1.20

9(0

.25)

(0.0

9)M

edia

free

dom

,lag

−0.0

3∗∗0.

970

−0.0

10.

990

(0.0

07)

(0.0

06)

Cha

nge

inm

edia

free

dom

−0.0

2∗0.

983

(0.0

07)

Star

tof

legi

slat

ive

term

−0.0

30.

971

(0.0

3)

(Con

tinu

ed)

43

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Tabl

e2

(Con

tinue

d)

Mod

el1:

Pres

iden

tialt

erm

saM

odel

2:Pr

esid

entia

lter

msa

Mod

el3:

Ann

ualb

Coe

ff.

Exp

.coe

ff.

Coe

ff.

Exp

.coe

ff.

Coe

ff.

Exp

.coe

ff.

Pres

iden

t’s

year

sin

offic

e−0

.02∗

0.97

9(0

.01)

Con

stan

t3.

463.

413.

71(2

.15)

−2.0

7(1

.99)

R2

0.4

0.51

—O

bser

vatio

ns53

5322

9N

umbe

rof

coun

trie

s18

1818

Not

e.D

epen

dent

vari

able

isna

tura

llog

ofho

mic

ide

rate

.a D

epen

dent

vari

able

ism

easu

red

inla

stca

lend

arye

arof

pres

iden

tial

term

.A

llla

gsar

eav

erag

esfo

rth

ete

rmex

clud

ing

the

outc

ome

year

.Pa

nel

corr

ecte

dst

anda

rder

rors

are

inpa

rent

hese

s.bR

ando

mef

fect

sm

odel

.All

lags

are

1ye

ar.R

obus

tsta

ndar

der

rors

are

inpa

rent

hese

s,cl

uste

red

byco

untr

y.∗ p

<.0

5;∗∗

p<

.01.

44

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Table 3Absence of reported corruption

Model 1:Presidential termsa

Model 2:Presidential termsa

Model 3:Annualb

Human Development Index, lag 0.10∗∗ 0.07∗∗ 0.06∗(0.03) (0.02) (0.03)

Federalism −0.86∗ −0.46 −0.57(0.35) (0.28) (0.36)

Personal vote incentives, lag −0.07 −0.02 0.002(0.04) (0.05) (0.03)

Formal presidential powers, lag 0.27∗∗ 0.32∗∗ 0.27(0.08) (0.09) (0.18)

Ideological polarization, lag 0.004 0.008∗∗(0.005) (0.003)

Opposition fractionalization, lag −0.16∗∗ −0.05(0.06) (0.04)

Majority president, lag 0.04 0.09(0.22) (0.20)

Media freedom, lag 0.035∗∗ 0.02∗∗(0.01) (0.009)

Change in media freedom 0.03∗∗(0.01)

Start of legislative term 0.02(0.03)

President’s years in office 0.008(0.03)

Constatnt −3.68∗ −4.03∗∗ −2.94(1.57) (1.35) (2.10)

R2 0.39 0.57 —Observations 59 58 231Number of countries 18 18 18

Note. Dependent variable is Corruption Perception Index.aDependent variable is measured in last calendar year of presidential term. All lags are averages

for the term excluding the outcome year. Panel corrected standard errors are in parentheses.bRandom effects model. All lags are 1 year. Robust standard errors are in parentheses, clustered

by country.∗p < .05; ∗∗p < .01.

Table 3 presents our analysis of the determinants of corruption across presidentialterms and countries. In interpreting these results, note that higher numbers on the CPIindicate less reported corruption. Overall, our corruption models provide some support forHypothesis 1, which predicts lower levels of corruption under minority presidents who facea cohesive, ideological opposition in the legislature, and consistent support for Hypothesis2, which anticipates less corruption where media enjoy substantial freedom.

In column 1, the model includes the common controls associated with studies of cor-ruption. The variation in these variables accounts for 39% of the differences in the CPI inthe final year of presidents’ terms. When we consider variation across presidential terms,

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the coefficient estimates in column 2 indicate that greater opposition fractionalization isassociated with a slight increase in reported corruption; an increase of one effective opposi-tion party typically reduces the CPI by 0.16.17 On the other hand, we find that increases inpresidents’ formal legislative powers reduce reported corruption; a one standard deviationincrease in the measure of presidential powers is associated with a 0.5 increase in the CPI.This suggests that presidents with strong formal powers may be better able to clamp downon corruption in government, even without legislative involvement. When obstructed bythe legislature, presidents with strong legislative powers may use these powers to carry outpolicy reform, while presidents who lack such powers may turn to corrupt practices. Theseeffects are small, but the variation in CPI among Latin America’s recent presidencies onlycovers a 6-point range. For comparison, a 7-point increase (approximately one standarddeviation) in the Human Development Index also corresponds to a 0.5-point increase in theCPI, based on our estimates.

We estimate substantively similar effects of media freedom on reported corruptionto those of formal powers and development discussed in the previous paragraph. A onestandard deviation increase in the media environment corresponds to an increase of about0.44 on the CPI, holding all else constant. Had the Argentine media context under PresidentChristina Fernández de Kirchner (57.5) been as free as the media environment in Uruguayunder President Tabaré Vázquez (21 points higher), while holding all else constant, themodel predicts that the Argentine CPI would have been about 0.74 points higher; had theopposition in Argentina also been as cohesive as Uruguay’s under the same two presidents(11.6 fewer effective parties), we would expect Argentina’s placement on the CPI to havebeen almost 2 points higher in total than it was, indicating substantially less corruption.Thus, these two factors account for about half of the 3.7-point gap in the CPI in the finalyear of Fernández de Kirchner and Vázquez’s terms.

We obtain similar findings to previous studies on the common control variablesincluded in cross-national analyses of corruption, but some of the estimates are not robustacross the models in Table 3 and those reported in the appendix. Our results consistentlyindicate that more developed countries experience less reported corruption. We also tendto find that federalist systems incur more reported corruption than centralized systems.Additionally, we find some evidence that personalistic electoral systems lower reportedcorruption compared to party-centric electoral systems, which do not have direct linkagesbetween representatives and voters that encourage legislators’ responsiveness and enhanceaccountability. Still, our main results regarding media and partisan effects on reportedcorruption are robust to various alternative specifications, which we present in the appendix.

Conclusion

Good governance requires that environments promoting accountability balance formalinstitutions designed to promote governability. The capacity of government to solve socialand economic problems requires substantial executive power; if left unchecked, however,executives may choose to disregard the concerns of voters and may abuse the powers oftheir office. In presidential democracies, both opposition parties and the media can holdpresidents accountable. Together these accountability actors constrain presidents’ pursuitof ideologically oriented policy, and program presidential agendas to address the broaderconcerns of the electorate. Without a free press and an effective legislative opposition,however, polarizing and defective policies go unchallenged.

By understanding the dynamics between partisan and media environments and policyoutcomes, we offer insights about the conditions that underlie responsiveness in powerful

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presidential systems, like those throughout much of Latin America. Comparative politicshighlights elections and institutional design as key determinants of democratic account-ability and relates government performance to development and the age of democracy.In this literature and in policy reports, such structural factors frequently overshadow theoften-decisive role of opposition political parties and the media in helping citizens holdpresidents accountable not only at election time but also between elections.

We demonstrate that presidential responsiveness on valence issues increases with thestrength of the legislative opposition and the freedom of the media. Presidents, strivingfor reelection or hoping to cement a positive legacy, will turn away from their ideologicalagenda toward issues with universal appeal when they face contentious and effective leg-islative oppositions and/or strong and independent media. We find lower crime rates andless reported corruption under these circumstances, even after controlling for a wide rangeof alternative influences on political processes and social outcomes.

We recognize that concerns with the quality of governance and the provision of pub-lic goods in Latin America—and the rest of the developing world—go beyond crime andcorruption. It is possible that the conditions we identify as incentivizing presidents to fightcrime and clamp down on corruption may simultaneously, or consequently, direct resourcesaway from other important programs or legislation. While we are careful not to overstateour findings with regard to the quality of governance overall, we believe that our resultsare still quite important because crime and corruption are among the social outcomes thatmatter most to citizens and can have broader effects on society and the economy whenconditions are bad by discouraging investment and encouraging exit among those with thecapacity to do so.

Current conditions in Latin America, with the crumbling of several old party systemsand the rapid deterioration in media freedom in most countries across the region, raisered flags for the future of presidential responsiveness. As more presidents encounter weakpartisan opposition or where presidents and other actors foment environments in whichperpetrators of attacks against press freedom enjoy impunity, we fear further escalation ofcrime and corruption given the findings of this study. These conditions could reverse stridesmade to reduce crime and corruption in many countries in the wake of the third wave ofdemocratization, when opposition parties were emboldened and the media gained theirfreedom to act as watchdogs of government. The case of Venezuela under Hugo Chávezthat we presented in the introduction highlights these concerns. During his tenure in office,Chávez has helped to dismantle Venezuela’s traditional two-party system and introducednew constraints on media freedom, as indicated by Venezuela’s precipitously declining PFIin the past decade; during this same time, homicide rates and reported corruption have beenon the rise, which we contend in this article are related phenomena.

Through the discussion and empirical analysis presented in this article, we validatepartisan and media mechanisms of accountability in Latin America. Along with practicalimplications for the future of Latin America, our work also has implications for futureresearch in comparative political institutions. By integrating the cross-national study ofpolitical institutions with political communications research, our work suggests that fur-ther synthesis will generate a more complete understanding of the various influences ongovernments’ policy agendas and performance across place and time.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2012.762075

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Notes

1. Several studies have shown how democracies are better able or more likely to provide collec-tive goods than autocracies (e.g., Boix, 2003; Lake & Baum, 2001). We focus on which conditionswithin democracies may further the government’s incentive and ability to provide public goods, inparticular security and efficient governance.

2. See Padgett, Tim. “Hugo Chávez’s Re-election Bid: Is the Latin American LeftStumbling.” TimeWorld, October 5, 2012, http://world.time.com/2012/10/05/hugo-chavezs-re-election-bid-is-the-latin-american-left-losing/?xid=newsletter-daily. Also see “Will Venezuela’sPandemic of Crime Destabilize Hugo Chávez’s Regime?” by Girish Gupta and San Casmiro,TimeWorld, September 25, 2012, http://world.time.com/2012/09/25/will-venezuelas-pandemic-of-crime-destabilize-hugo-chavezs-regime/.

3. See Figures A–D in the online appendix, which show the homicide rate and reported corrup-tion, as measured by the CPI, in comparison with the changing media and partisan environments.

4. See http://world.time.com/2012/10/05/hugo-chavezs-re-election-bid-is-the-latin-american-left-losing/?xid=newsletter-daily.

5. A weak opposition has high party fractionalization and low ideological polarization, whereasa strong opposition has low opposition party fractionalization and high ideological polarization.

6. The CPI is based on a weighted average of “risk ratings produced by business consultancies,surveys of international or domestic business people, and polls of country inhabitants,” and thereforeit approximates a measure of actual corruption (Treisman, 2007, p. 213). We use the term “reportedcorruption” in reference to the CPI to distinguish it from the public’s perceived levels of corruption,which emerge from personal experience, the recounted experience of acquaintances, and, in largepart, the depiction of corruption in news media. For a greater description and analysis of the CPI, seeTreisman (2007).

7. Henceforth we refer only to a strong or weak opposition. When doing so, we always refer tothe opposition parties in the legislature and not to the general partisan atmosphere in the country or toother organizations, such as labor unions or chambers of commerce, which also may actively opposethe regime.

8. We began our study in 1995 due to data limitations, specifically with regard to our dependentvariables.

9. To be clear, in Figure 2 and in the regressions that follow, we measure the outcome variablesin the last calendar year of the presidential term for which we have data, as long as the president wasin office for more than 6 months of the outcome year. We exclude presidential terms in which thepresident served less than 2 years prior to the outcome year. The explanatory variables are measuredas averages for the presidential term up to, but not including, the outcome year.

10. According to the World Bank’s Database of Political Institutions codebook, opposition par-ties in presidential systems are those “who oppose the presidential platform (as indicated in thesources) or who run candidates for the presidency.” Opposition parties do not include parties specif-ically reported as independent or non-aligned in the sources. In contrast, government parties includethe president’s party and other parties if “1) they are listed in our sources as in the government or rep-resented in the cabinet, 2) are supportive of the president on substantial issues, or 3) take seats in thelegislature but do not run a candidate for the presidency.” For the most recently elected legislatures,we followed these rules in calculating this variable directly from public electoral results.

11. In the appendix tables, we separately analyze the three major sets of conditions—legal,political, and economic—affecting freedom of the press, following Freille et al. (2007).

12. We include GDP per capita, the percentage of the population residing in urban areas, and thepercentage of employed people among the working-age population (Lederman et al., 2002; Ming-Jen,2007). Previous research has shown that good social welfare programs may reduce crime, while thelack of a social safety net may encourage it (Ungar, 2011). As a proxy for the (lack of a) social safetynet, we include the ratio of out-of-pocket expenditures to total expenditures on health.

13. We consider other measures of the electoral system, namely district magnitude and a dummyfor closed-list proportional representation, as presented in the models included in the appendix. Alsoin the appendix, we follow the corruption literature by evaluating the effect of economic development

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on reported corruption using GDP per capita, instead of the composite HDI. In addition, we con-sider the same set of social and economic variables used in the crime models (see preceding note).Again, because the PFI incorporates judicial efficiency and independence, we analyze the effect ofthis variable separately in the appendix tables.

14. We determine the start of a president’s term based on when she took office. A president’sfirst year corresponds with the calendar year if she took office prior to July 1; otherwise, the first yearis the subsequent calendar year.

15. Note that an exponentiated coefficient equal to one indicates no effect.16. While the standard deviation in media freedom across countries and years is 12.7, the

standard deviation within countries is closer to 5, on average.17. When we turn to the annual model of corruption, we find a small positive and statistically

significant effect of increasing legislative polarization, but opposition fractionalization and formalpresidential powers are no longer statistically significant.

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Programming Presidential Agendas: Partisan and Media Environments That Lead Presidents to Fight...

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