Citation:
Date Presented:
February 5Abstract:
This thesis examines the factors which prompt institutional change through the lens of electoral reform in several Latin American countries. Motivated by the electoral history of the Dominican Republic and a series of reforms passed over the course of roughly the past two decades, my thesis hypothesizes that the occurrences of one major impetus (political crisis) and one minor impetus (international pressure) bring about preliminary, incomplete reform that then allows for a “wave” of further reform and institutional strengthening over time. A combination of expert interviews, historical newspaper articles, government documents, and secondary sources was used for in-depth content analysis and process-tracing purposes in a case study of the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic was then compared qualitatively to the cases of Chile and Venezuela, Latin American countries which have also experienced significant electoral reform in the past twenty years. The research findings included prolific and weighty references to the hypothesized causality, and the comparison cases were congruent with the theory formed through the individual study of the Dominican Republic, thereby offering valuable insights into the factors that provoke institutional advancement in consolidating democracies.