Conference Meeting and Officers for 2012-2013

The DSNG section had a successful LASA 2012 in San Francisco, having sponsored two panels and organized a third.  At the business meeting, the section elected Laura Flamand as the new section chair. Laura will be assisted by Lorena Moscovich and outgoing officers Julian Durazo Herrmann and Tyler Dickovick.

Also at the meeting, it was announced that Imke Harbers had earned the section's best paper award for the previous LASA conference, for her paper entitled "Public Funding and the Dynamics of Electoral Competition in Mexican States".   

Our current section membership is at just over 50 members, which means the section is entitled to a single panel at LASA 2013.  Several current members, including those listed above, will be working to encourage new and former members to register.  A total of more than 75 members results in a section having two sponsored panels at the (now annual) LASA conference.  

Members can reach the section by contacting Laura directly (see webpage at left) or by writing to lasa.dsng@gmail.com.  Many thanks for your continued interest and participation.

Subnational and Intergovernmental Politics panel, LASA 2012

In addition to two official section-sponsored panels on “Decentralization and Social Forces” and “Decentralization and SocialPolicy” (scroll down for more information), the DSNG section helped to organize the following third panel on the related topic of subnational and intergovernmental politics.

Subnational and Intergovernmental Power Politics

Friday 12:30 pm - 2:15 pm, Pacific Suite A

Chair / Discussant:          Carlos Gervasoni (Universidad Torcuato di Tella)

This panel explores the institutions, actors, issues and procedures that structure power politics at the subnational and intergovernmental levels in an attempt to assess the content, nature and trends of post-transition politics in Latin America. The comparative perspective adopted in all papers is reinforced by the fact that the panel as a whole explores subnational and intergovernmental politics in both federal and unitary countries.

1. Local Leadership in El Salvador: Mayor’s Role in Municipal Performance 
Claudia Avellaneda (UNC-Charlotte)

2. Regime Change or Elite Renewal? Gubernatorial Elections in Bahia and Oaxaca
Julián Durazo-Herrmann (Université du Québec à Montréal)

3. Political Franchise Opportunities, Federal Expenditure, and Subnational Alliances:
Argentina 2002-2009
Lorena Moscovich (Universidad de Buenos Aires)
Valeria Brusco (Universidad de Buenos Aires)

4. Resurgent National Governments in Latin America: The Center’s Menu of Options
Tyler Dickovick (Washington and Lee University)
Kent Eaton (UC-Santa Cruz)

Decentralization and Social Forces panel, LASA 2012

The DSNG section is pleased to sponsor the following panel at LASA 2012. Please see below for information on papers, location, and time.

Decentralization and Social Forces: 
Consequences and Responses
Saturday 2:30 pm - 4:15 pm, Golden Gate Ballroom Salon B

Chairs: J. Tyler Dickovick, Washington and Lee University, Julián Durazo Herrmann, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)

Discussant: Laura Macdonald, Carleton University

This panel will examine the interaction between (de)centralized governance – including participatory budgeting and deconcentrated anti-poverty programs – and a range of social responses at the local level.  Three of the papers examine the impacts of public policy and its effects on poverty, well-being, and electoral politics, while two others look at specific local responses to the question of central authority.  Together, the papers give a wide-ranging yet deeply researched view of the consequences of (de)centralized governance and the responses to it from individual citizens, social movements, and civic organizations.

1. The impact of social policies of the federal government in the Brazilian elections of 2010

Maria Teresa Miceli Kerbauy, Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP) – Araraquara

2. Improving Social Well-Being Through New Democratic Institutions

Michael Touchton, Boise State University

Brian Wampler, Boise State University

3. Rediseños de la soberanía provincial y minería trasnacional en Argentina: el caso de Chubut (2003-2011)

Daniel Torunczyk Schein, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)

 

Decentralization and Social Policy panel, LASA 2012

The DSNG section is pleased to sponsor the following panel at LASA 2012. Please see below for information on papers, location, and time.  

 

Decentralization and Social Policy:

Service Provision & Feedback Effects

Friday 2:30 pm - 4:15 pm, Golden Gate Ballroom, Salon B

This panel examines decentralized service provision across a range of sectors, including health provision, revenue generation (tax collection), and natural resource governance (watershed management).  Among the key topics of the panel will be the question of how far decentralization has advanced and how effective it is on a variety of measures in traditionally less decentralized countries such as Ecuador and Paraguay; complementary papers examine the effects of decentralization in the federal countries of Brazil and Mexico. 
 

Chair:  Julián Durazo Herrmann, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)

Discussant:  Tulia Falleti, University of Pennsylvania

1. Delivering health services to the uninsured in Mexico:

The multilevel government implementation of the Seguro Popular

Laura Flamand, El Colegio de México

2. Decentralization and Public Service Provision:

Health Decentralization in Paraguay

Cristina Rodriguez-Acosta, Florida International University

3. Negotiating De Facto Decentralization:

The Process of Local Watershed Management Reform in Ecuador

Craig Kauffman, George Washington University

4. Do Governments with Closer Ties to Civil Society Collect more Taxes?

An Analysis of Municipal Governments in Ecuador

Imke Harbers, University of Amsterdam

Joerg Faust, German Development Institute (Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik)

January 2012 APSA-CD issue

Many thanks to section member Eduardo Moncada for noting the January 2012 issue of the Comparative Democratization section of APSA. Subnational governance is a lead topic in this issue, and some current and former members of the LASA DSNG section have news highlighted there.

Note in particular the piece by Snyder and Moncada, as well as Agustina Giraudy, among others.

LASA DSNG blog

Greetings, and welcome to the blog of the Decentralization and Sub-National Governance section (DSNG) of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA).  This site will be maintained by the officers of the section, in an attempt to serve as a clearinghouse of information for those of us conducting research in this area. 

Links to the webpages of several of our members are listed to the left.  If you are a member of the DSNG section and would like to send information out to the membership, or wish to have your webpage listed on this site, please feel free to contact one of the offices of the section, and we will facilitate that for you.  If you would like to become a member, please let us know and we can also help you with the process. 

Current officers are:
Julian Durazo Herrmann, Chair (durazo.julian@uqam.ca)
Tyler Dickovick (DickovickT@wlu.edu)

New officers will be elected at the upcoming meeting of the LASA in May 2012.