LESLIE ELLIOTT ARMIJO
Research Statement -- Propositions about International Politics & Political Economy
August 2013
Five big themes wind through my research. I begin by listing them in the form of short
propositions about politics. Each thesis is followed by a short explanatory paragraph, after which
I mention representative research in reverse chronological order. A mini-abstract describes each
work. Although most pieces bridge multiple themes, each receives only a single mention. Many
of these papers can be read at: <www.lesliearmijo.org>
Thesis #1. Democracy and markets need one another.
Thesis #2. Finance, the bedrock of capitalism, is profoundly socially-constructed.
Thesis #3. Appropriate meta-theory would enhance the transfer of the concepts and methods of
public policy analysis to international and comparative policy contexts.
Thesis #4. Sovereign states remain the most influential actors in the international system.
Thesis #5. Democratic peace theory is mostly correct.
Thesis #1. Democracy and markets need one another.
A just, contented, and peaceful society requires economic growth, at least sufficient so
that population increases do not result in a decreased mean standard of living. Free citizens
typically demand incremental improvements in living standards, although one should not
discount the possibility of democratic processes enabling a political solution to the problem of
finite global resources. Free markets, including secure private property and rewards for
entrepreneurship, are best at generating economic growth in the national setting, while free trade
drives global growth.1 Nonetheless, unchecked capitalist competition generates inequality and
social misery, much as Marx and Engels predicted. Mass political democracy, in which leaders
receive money and support from private business but ultimately must win elections, is a system
that forces state regulation on capitalism, curbing its worst excesses, and ultimately benefitting
market stability, even efficiency. Democratic capitalism moreover functions better, over the
medium-run, than authoritarian capitalism.
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However, fully liberalized international capital flows are not necessarily the best option for
achieving stable global economic growth, especially for developing countries.
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(1) Unexpected Outcomes: How Emerging Markets Survived the Global Financial Crisis (with
Carol Wise and Saori Katada, eds.). Currently under review at Brookings Institution Press.
“Emerging market governments coped with the international crisis through a pragmatic
combination of neoliberal and statist policy responses.”
(2) “The Public Bank Trilemma: The BNDES and Brazil’s New Developmentalism.” In Peter
Kingstone and Timothy Power, eds., Democratic Brazil Ascendant. Pittsburgh: University of
Pittsburgh Press, forthcoming 2014.
“While central banks must manage the conflicting imperatives of Expertise (technocratic
autonomy) and Democracy (responsiveness to the duly-constituted political authorities),
public sector banks in mixed-capitalist societies must balance an even more demanding
trilemma: Expertise, Democracy, and Markets (promotion of the private financial sector).
(3) “Two Dimensions of Democracy and the Economy.” (with Carlos Gervasoni).
Democratization, 17:1, February 2010, pp. 143-174.
“Incremental increases in either Dahlian democratic contestation or democratic participation
negatively correlate with deep and prolonged economic crises. Thus, democracy may not
ensure terrific economic outcomes—but it effectively protects against truly awful ones.”
(4) “Compared to What? Assessing Brazilian Political Institutions” (with Philippe Faucher and
Magdelena Dembinska). Comparative Political Studies, 39:6, August 2006, pp. 759-786.
“Written at a time when most Brazil specialists emphasized the incompetence and inefficiency of
Brazilian democracy, the paper uses policy processes and outcomes to argue that Brazil’s
newly democratic political institutions, while hardly ideal, performed reasonably well.”
(5) “Mass Democracy: The Real Reason that Brazil Ended Inflation?,” World Development,
33:12, December 2005, pp. 2013-2028.
“Brazil’s transition to genuine mass democracy for the first time enfranchised the urban and rural
poor, the groups that had suffered most from chronic high and hyperinflation, providing
crucial political support for policymakers to confront vested interests and stabilize the
macroeconomy.”
(6) “Crises cambiais e estrutura decisória: a política de recuperação econômica na Argentina e no
Brasil” (with Philippe Faucher). Dados (Rio de Janeiro) 47:2, 2004, pp. 297-334.
“Le rôle des institutions politiques dans les crises financières de l'Argentine et du Brésil” (with
Philippe Faucher). Revue Tiers Monde (Paris), XLV: 178, April-June 2004, pp. 387-418.
“These two related articles contrast the domestic politics of exchange rate management and
financial crisis responses in Argentina and Brazil, both new democracies with presidential
systems, yet with other important differences in political culture and institutions.”
(7) "‘We Have a Consensus’: Explaining Political Support for Market Reforms in Latin
America" (with Philippe Faucher). Latin American Politics and Society, 44:2, 2002, pp. 140.
“Latin America’s experience of dramatic market reforms under democratic governments in the
1990s undercuts the argument in favor of authoritarian modernization and prior economic
liberalization.”
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(8) Financial Globalization and Democracy in Emerging Markets (ed.). New York:
Palgrave/Macmillan, 1999.
“Rapid capital account liberalization in developing countries has been associated with increased
vulnerability to financial crises. Such crises often destabilize weak incumbent governments,
which in the 1980s and 1990s--mostly fortuitously--promoted democratization in Latin
America and East Asia.”
(9) "Center-State Relations in India and Brazil: Privatization of Electricity and Banking" (with
Prem Shankar Jha). Revista de Economia Política (São Paulo), July/November 1997.
“In cases drawn from both India and Brazil, the central government pursued privatization of
public sector firms owned by state and local governments more vigorously when those states
were governed by the political opposition.”
(10) "Inflation and Insouciance: The Peculiar Brazilian Game," Latin American Research
Review, 31:3, Fall 1996, 7-46.
“So long as Brazil’s poor masses were effectively disenfranchised, the country’s policymakers
found it politically rational to maintain an distorted economic regulatory framework that
nonetheless generated benefits for politically-included middle and upper class groups.”
(11) "Menem's Mania?: The Timing of Argentine Privatization," Southwestern Journal of Law
and Trade in the Americas, 1:1, 1994, pp. 1-28.
“When President Menem surprised his leftist supporters by opting for radical neoliberal reforms
after the election, he was not simply being fickle, but instead responded to new indications
that such reforms would be politically popular.”
(12) Conversations about Democratization and Economic Reform: Working Papers of the
Southern California Seminar (ed.). Los Angeles: University of Southern California, Center
for International Studies., 1995.
“Fifteen country case studies from Eastern Europe and Latin America test theses about the
timing and sequencing of political and economic liberalization.”
(13) "The Problems of Simultaneous Transitions" (with T.J. Biersteker and A.F. Lowenthal).
Journal of Democracy, 5:4, October 1994, pp. 161-175.
“From bait-and-switch to shock therapy, the paper analyses the political rationales (and
techniques) behind different strategies employed by weak governments faced with popular
demands for simultaneous democratic and economic reforms.”
Thesis #2. Finance, the bedrock of capitalism, is profoundly socially and ideationallyconstructed.
Those who operate in financial markets are reputed to be rational, quantitative, and hardheaded. In fact, fiat money itself, including the U.S. dollar, is founded on an agreed, mutuallybeneficial, social fiction. The degree of fictiveness in our money has increased over time, as
when the world shifted from a gold standard, to a U.S. dollar standard, and eventually to a U.S.
dollar-exchange standard throughout the 20th century. As of 2013, the key buttress of global
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markets is the necessary (yet patently ridiculous) belief that the strength of the U.S. dollar rests
on something tangible, that is, on something other than the international political credibility and
economic dominance of the United States. Contemporary financial markets, global as well as
national, are built on mutual trust and mutual suspension of belief—as much as on the operation
of decentralized, mechanical market forces.
(1) Voice and Money through Time: India, Brazil, and Why Politics Matters for Finance (with
John Echeverri-Gent). Book manuscript, completion mid-2014.
“Over 250 years incumbent governments of the territories of contemporary India and Brazil have
confronted similar challenges of financial modernization at roughly equivalent times. The
study highlights the role of heterogeneous national politics in generating diverse monetary
and financial outcomes.”
(2)“Absolute or Relative Gains? How Status Quo and Emerging Powers Conceptualize Global
Finance” (with John Echeverri-Gent). In Thomas Oatley and William Winecoft, eds.
Handbook of International Monetary Relations. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, forthcoming
2014.
“When negotiating over trade in financial services, government policymakers and private
business actors in the advanced industrial countries begin with either laissez faire or liberal
institutionalist assumptions, while their counterparts elites in developing countries are often
economic realists, acutely sensitive to questions of relative gain.”
(3) “Equality and Regional Finance in the Americas,” Latin American Politics and Society,
Forthcoming Winter 2013.
“In the first decade of the 20th century governments of the U.S., Venezuela, and Brazil all
pursued unlike visions of the ideal set of international financial links in the Western
Hemisphere, with each vision tied to distinct conceptions of ‘equality’ and ‘justice.’”
(4) "The Political Geography of World Financial Reform: Who Wants What and Why?," Global
Governance, 7:4, 2001, Special issue on the Global Financial Architecture, edited by
Susanne Soderberg.
“The political coalitions supporting four broad sets of preferences for reform of the international
financial architecture reflect a rough North/South divide among countries, as well as class
and interest group differences within countries.”
(5) Debating the Global Financial Architecture (ed.). Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2002.
“The worldwide discussions over how to prevent a recurrence of the Asian financial crisis
generated different analyses and preferences among scholars and policymakers in
industrialized, as contrasted to developing, countries.”
Thesis #3. Appropriate meta-theory would enhance the transfer of the concepts and
methods of public policy analysis to international and comparative policy contexts.
Most of the field of public policy analysis (and closely-related disciplines such as public
administration and decision sciences) is profoundly, if unintentionally, U.S or Euro-centric. For
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those who study or must confront real world policy challenges in the global arena (such as how
to achieve cross-national cooperation over climate mitigation), or in non-Western and/or nonadvanced industrial country contexts, the “fit” could be better. Our understanding of the
international policy arena can be improved by more explicit borrowing from international
relations theory, including but not limited to neorealism, as well as theories of “international
regimes” developed in the 1970s and 1980s. For comparative public policy, the relevant bodies
of necessary social theory include the comparative politics of developing areas and development
administration. In country contexts outside the advanced industrial democracies neither basic
macroeconomic balance, nor institutionalized traditions of cordial policy disagreement, nor the
simple physical security of civil servants or the general public may be simply assumed. The
cross-national translation of policy analysis is not simply a matter of improving cultural
sensitivity, for the source of inapplicability is most often structural/institutional rather than
inhering in culture/individual cognitions. This is not a problem that may be remedied by
equipping analysts with better foreign language skills or country experience. It also needs to be
theorized.
(1) Contending Visions of the Americas: International Public Policies of the United States,
Venezuela, and Brazil (with Sybil Rhodes). Book manuscript, completion late 2013.
“The book elaborates a new analytical approach to “governance mapping” of international policy
arenas characterized by ambiguous geographic and issue scope, contested causal
relationships, and acute problems of collective action. We apply the framework to
understand Western Hemisphere multilateral cooperation in four issue arenas: environment,
finance, security, and migration.”
(2) The Meta-Varieties of Capitalism: How to Compare Public Policy Across Wildly
Heterogeneous National Contexts. Book manuscript, completion late 2014.
“A ‘meta-varieties of capitalism’ (MVOC) approach highlights fundamental cross-country
differences in two core dimensions: the scope of substantive political voice and the inherited
economic role of the state. By first concretizing and simplifying cross-societal differences in
large, enduring patterns of national political economy, it subsequently is easier to think
sensibly about the very different approaches countries have taken in specific policy arenas
such as climate mitigation, land reform, migration, privatization, or energy regulation.”
Thesis #4. Sovereign states remain the most influential actors in the international system.
In the 21st century, the structure of the interstate system will move from unipolarity to
multipolarity. While transnational links among persons, non-governmental organizations, and
business firms have proliferated, ultimate de facto global policymaking authority continues to
rest primarily with the governments of the sovereign state or states that is most prominent in the
interstate balance of capabilities. The United States has been the most capable and influential
(“powerful”) state since at least the mid-20th century, although for decades the system was, or
was perceived to be, bipolar. The rise of China in the 21st century is inevitable, and a politicallyunited Western Europe--which I still expect, the on-going eurozone crisis notwithstanding-would constitute a third major pole. Nonetheless, other large powers such as Japan, India, Brazil,
and Russia, also will exercise independent foreign policies. To understand outcomes in critical
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global policy arenas (from financial regulation to climate change mitigation), one must analyze
the structural and ideational factors influencing the preferences of the national governments of
the larger, more dominant states, a set that now includes several emerging powers in addition to
the G7 advanced industrial economies. My work has focused on the larger Latin American
countries (especially Brazil, but also Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, and Chile),
as well as the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa).
(1) “Global Rebalancing and Financial Statecraft: Toward an Analytical Framework” (with
Saori. Katada). New Political Economy, Accepted June 2013 pending minor revisions.
“As the world becomes more multipolar, rising powers feel more confident of their ability to
engage in financial statecraft, which may usefully be conceptualized by the policymaker’s
primary intent as either ‘defensive’ (shield) or ‘assertive’ (sword) in character.”
(2) “The Systemic Financial Importance of Emerging Powers” (with Laurissa Muehlich and
Daniel Tirone). In Special Issue “Measuring and Modeling Regional Powers,” ed. Philippe
De Lombaerde, Journal of Policy Modeling. Forthcoming 2014.
“This paper, the first of several using our new database, constructs several new relative
capabilities (“power”) indices highlighting countries’ relative monetary and financial
resources.”
(3) “The Emerging Powers and Global Governance: Why the BRICS Matter” (with Cynthia A.
Roberts). In Robert Looney, ed. Handbook of Emerging Economies. New York: Routledge,
forthcoming 2014.
“Although China is first among equals, as shown by the willingness of the other members to
modify their policy preferences at the margin to suit Chinese preferences, all five of the
BRICS have seen concrete benefits from cooperation through this exclusive club.”
(4) “Regional Integration: Political Uses of Energy Policy” (with Christine A. Gustafson). In
Maurício Font and Laura Randall, eds., The Brazilian State: Debate and Agenda. Lanham
and New York: Lexington, 2011.
“International energy policies in the Western Hemisphere reflect the political competition among
states as well as market imperatives.”
(5) “Brazil: To Be or Not to Be a BRIC?” (with Paulo Sotero). Asian Perspective, 31:4,
December 2007, pp. 43-70.
“Brazilian leaders were initially skeptical about joining the BRICs grouping, but saw the club as
an opportunity to distance the country from the overbearing U.S.”
(6) “The BRICs Countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) as Analytical Category: Insight or
Mirage?” Asian Perspective, 31:4, December 2007, pp. 1-42.
“The BRICs are a viable grouping for international political analysis, not because they are a set
of high-growth countries for foreign investment, but because their leaders have chosen to
constitute themselves as a coalition and a club.”
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(7) "The Terms of the Debate [on International Financial Architecture]: What's Democracy Got
to Do with It?." In Leslie Elliott Armijo, ed. Debating the Global Financial Architecture,
Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2002.
“As the world gradually becomes more multipolar, a wider variety of countries are demanding
the right to participate in global governance, including decision-making abour international
financial regulation.”
Thesis #5. Democratic peace theory is mostly correct.
The principal reason that the U.S. and Britain did not go to war against one another in the
20 century, despite being the international system’s two poles during the interwar period, is that
their governments held shared values, embodied in domestic political institutions, and therefore
were able to trust one another. Similar statements apply to the ability of postwar Western
European governments, and Latin American governments from the late-1980s, to cooperate
meaningfully with one another. While some authors (from Kant to Solingen) propose that a
secure outward economic orientation may achieve the same result (the ‘trade brings peace’
hypothesis), the evidence for that thesis is more mixed. As non-democratic countries increase
their relative capabilities in the 21st century, providing global public goods probably will become
more difficult.
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(1) “Brazil, the Democratic and Entrepreneurial BRIC” (with Sean Burges). Special issue on the
BRICs, edited by Cynthia A. Roberts. Polity, 42:1, January 2010, pp. 14-37.
“Brazil participates in the BRICs to emerge from the shadow of the U.S., but in the medium run
may find it hard to work with authoritarian partners such as China and Russia.”
(2) “Does Democratization Alter the Policy Process? Trade Policymaking in Brazil” (with
Christine A. Kearney). Democratization, 15:5, December 2008, pp. 991-1017.
“Following democratization, Brazil’s legislature claimed a larger role in trade policymaking.
Since Brazil’s neighbors also had democratized, enduring South American regional trade
and political cooperation, once persistently elusive, became newly possible.”
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