Costa Rica: Paradise in doubt

Journal of Democracy

Volumn 16, Issue 3, 2005, Pages 140-154

  Lehoucq, Fabrice ^a  

^a CENTRO DE INVESTIGACIÓN Y DOCENCIA ECONÓMICAS   (Mexico)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 23744442587     PISSN: 10455736     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/jod.2005.0047     Document Type: Review

References (27)

1. See www.nacion.com/ln_ee/diciembre/14/870357.jpg.
2. Data on the number of independents stems from Fernando F. Sánchez, "Dealignment in Costa Rica: A Case Study of Electoral Change," doctoral diss., University of Oxford, 2003, 190.
3. See also Jorge Rovira Mas, ed., La democracia de Costa Rica ante el Siglo XXI (San José: Editorial de la Universidad de Costa Rica, 2001), 195-231.
4. John A. Booth, Costa Rica: Quest for Democracy (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1998)
5. emphasizes political culture. Fabrice Lehoucq, Lucha electoral y sistema politico en Costa Rica, 1948-1998 (San José: Editorial Porvenir, 1997)
6. gives importance to institutional arrangements. Bruce M. Wilson, Costa Rica: Politics, Economics and Democracy (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1998), discusses issues of political economy.
7. Bertelsmann Foundation, Bertelsmann Transformation Index 2003: Political Management in International Comparison (Gütersloh, Germany: Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2004).
8. The World Bank rankings stem from Daniel Kaufmann, et al., "Governance Matters III: Governance Indicators for 1996-2002," World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 3106, Washington, D.C., 2003.
9. Fabrice Lehoucq and Iván Molina, Stuffing the Ballot Box: Fraud, Reform, and Democratization in Costa Rica (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
10. Fabrice Lehoucq, "Costa Rica: Modifying Majoritarianism with a 40 Percent Threshold," in Josep M. Colomer, ed., Handbook of Electoral System Choice (London: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2004).
11. Fabrice Lehoucq, "Policymaking, Parties, and Institutions in Democratic Costa Rica," paper presented at the conference "Reform of the State and the Policymaking Process (IPES 2005)," Inter-American Development Bank, Washington, D.C., February 2005.
12. For the first empirically based discussion of the effects of term limits on presidential success, see Michelle Taylor-Robinson, "The Effect of Party Candidate Selection Procedures and National Electoral Rules on the President's Ability to Achieve His Legislative Agenda: The Case of Costa Rica," paper presented the UNT Conference on Parties and Elections in New Democracies, Dallas-Fort Worth, 12-13 April 2002.
13. The point about deputy incentives comes from John M. Carey, Term Limits and Legislative Representation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 98.
14. Bruce Wilson, Juan Carlos Rodríguez, and Roger Handberg, "'The Best-Laid Schemes . . . Gang Aft A-Gley': Judicial Reform in Latin America - Evidence from Costa Rica," Journal of Latin American Studies 36 (August 2004): 507-31.
15. Mitchell A. Seligson, "Trouble in Paradise? The Erosion of System Support in Costa Rica, 1978-1999," Latin American Research Review 37 (Spring 2002): 160-85.
16. Surveys cited in Fernando F. Sánchez, "Dealignment in Costa Rica," 313. The next paragraphs also draw upon Sánchez, 219-333.
17. James W. Wilkie, "Recentralization: The Budgetary Dilemma in the Economic Development of Mexico, Bolivia, and Costa Rica," in James W. Wilkie, ed., Statistics and National Policy (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center, 1974);
18. and Thelmo Vargas Madrigal, "¿Qué queremos, y qué no, del Estado?" Revista Parlamentaria 3 (August 1995): 53-70.
19. Ciska Raventós, "Las fallas del estado de derecho: corrupción y baja calidad de la democracia en Costa Rica," unpub. ms., 2004.
20. Kevin Casas-Zamora, Paying for Democracy: Political Finance and State Funding for Parties (Colchester, United Kingdom: ECPR, 2005).
21. Jorge Vargas-Cullel and Luis Rosero-Bixby, La cultura política de la democracia en Costa Rica, 2004 (San José: EUCR, 2005), 60-66. The source for the data in this survey is the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) directed by Mitchell A. Seligson at Vanderbilt University.
22. Andrés Rodríguez-Clare and José Angulo, "El sistema tributario y aduanero: una vision del conjunto," in Contraloría General de la República, El sistema tributario costarricense (San José: Contraloría General de la República, 2002), 18.
23. All other data are from Carmelo Mesa-Lago, Market, Socialist, and Mixed Economies: Comparative Policy and Performance in Chile, Cuba, and Costa Rica (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 508-10.
24. Fabrice Lehoucq and Ivan Molina, Stuffing the Ballot Box.
25. Bert Hoffman, The Politics of the Internet in Third World Development: Challenges in Contrasting Regimes with Case Studies of Costa Rica and Cuba. (New York and London: Routledge, 2004), 100-14.
26. "An Alarm Call for Latin America's Democrats," Economist, 26 July 2001.
27. See Proyecto del Estado de la Nación, Auditoría Ciudadana sobre la Calidad de la Democracia (San José: Proyecto del Estado de la Nación, 2001) for a comprehensive look at citizen complaints about their political system.