Collaborative Research: The Architecture of Accountability in 21st Century Latin America

Some public officials in Latin America routinely act outside the law, violating constitutional rights, engaging in corruption, and ignoring judicial rulings. Such unlawful behavior undercuts the rule of law, weakens democracy, and inhibits investment and growth in the region. This project examines the “architecture of accountability” – the sets of institutions charged with holding public officials accountable to the law – in 18 Latin American countries since 2000. The research addresses three questions: (1) What accountability institutions have existed in these countries and how have they been designed and reformed? (2) What explains variation in the design and reform of these institutions? (3) What explains variation in how effectively Latin American government officials have been held accountable? We use quantitative and qualitative analytic methods to test hypotheses about how political incentives and interests affect the design and reform of these institutions, and how their design influences how well Latin American public officials have been held to account since the turn of the century. The researchers will design, build, and deploy an open-source tool that will systematically monitor the on-line sources on which the project draws and alert the project when those sources have undergone change. The project will significantly advance understanding of the functioning and dysfunction of Latin American states, and the weakness of the rule of law in the region. The research will produce a large dataset that will be widely disseminated. By broadening and democratizing access to data about critical political and legal institutions, the project empowers original, high-quality interdisciplinary and trans-American research. By demonstrating to what degree accountability institutions have contributed to government accountability in Latin America, and what institutional attributes affect their influence, the project informs institutional design, and should have a sustained and positive impact on government transparency and government accountability in Latin America. Finally, the monitoring tool that the project will develop promises to facilitate the work not only of this project, but of other data-collection projects and databases as well. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.