Policy Regime Juxtaposition in Latin America

Abstract

This article has three main objectives, each in the spirit of broadening the study of subnational politics to include the juxtaposition of policy regimes and not just political regimes. First, it identifies the causes that help explain why we are seeing more territorial heterogeneity within countries in terms of the pursuit of ideologically disparate development models at different levels of government. Second, the article assesses the importance of this trend by analyzing the chief advantages and disadvantages of policy regime juxtaposition. Third, I turn to the question of why subnational officials are able to defend ideologically deviant policy regimes in some cases, but not in others. Based on the Bolivian, Ecuadorian, and Peruvian cases, my argument emphasizes the importance of two key factors: capacity and coalitions.

Keywords

• Capacity (Thesaurus)
• policy regime
• juxtaposition
• subnational
• coalitions (author’s keywords)