Why do some ethnic groups gain rights through mobilization against the state, while others become targeted for doing so? We argue that whether mobilization leads to inclusion or further exclusion of peripheral ethnic groups depends on the long-term trajectory of conflict. When peripheral groups have a history of conflict with the state, they often develop an oppositional identity that core groups can frame as a threat, thereby justifying intensified targeting and exclusion. We test this argument in the context of nineteenth-century South America, where core Creole elites established new nations on a fluid sociopolitical landscape, shaping ethnic boundaries that were still malleable while facing multiple and frequent conflicts with these groups. Our findings suggest that patterns of colonial-era conflict between white and non-white groups determined whether later inter-ethnic conflicts during state and nation-building led to ethnic exclusion and targeting.

During the nineteenth century, South America was plagued by internal rebellions that destabilized the region's economies and political systems. At the beginning of the twentieth century, however, levels of political violence throughout the region declined dramatically. Existing scholarship has paid surprisingly little attention to this historic transformation, in part because comprehensive data on revolts have been lacking. Historical narratives and an analysis of a comprehensive new dataset on all revolts in South America from 1830 to 1929 show that the decline in revolts stemmed in large part from the expansion and professionalization of the region's militaries, which were driven by the export boom and the threat of interstate conflict. Nevertheless, not all types of rebellions declined precipitously during this period, as an original typology of revolts shows. Although the strengthening of the region's armed forces discouraged revolts by non-state actors, it did not significantly reduce rebellions from within the state apparatus, such as military coups.

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Democracy is often a conquest of elite opposition parties. In electoral authoritarian regimes, opposition parties will promote suffrage expansion in order to weaken the ruling parties' control over elections and improve their own electoral possibilities. Ruling parties, by contrast, will oppose suffrage expansion for the same reasons that opposition parties support it, and they will use their control of the political system to block it. Suffrage reforms typically occur in electoral authoritarian regimes only when there is a split within the ruling coalition that leads a faction to side with the opposition. I explore these arguments through detailed qualitative analyses of suffrage reforms in Chile in 1874 and Uruguay in 1918, as well as a quantitative analysis of a roll-call vote in Chile.

What impact does personalism, or presidential dominance of a weakly organized ruling party, have on the level of democracy? We argue that presidents who dominate their own weakly organized parties are more likely to seek to concentrate power, undermine horizontal accountability, and trample the rule of law than presidents who preside over parties that have an independent leadership and an institutionalized bureaucracy. Independent party leaders, we suggest, will often try to curb the excesses of the president in order to protect their own political prospects. We explore these hypotheses through a quantitative analysis of the determinants of the level of democracy in 18 Latin American countries from 1980-2015. We find that personalism has a consistently negative impact on the level of democracy in Latin America.

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What impact does the size of the ethnic minority population have on the representation of women in national legislatures? We examine this question by using provincial-level data from 32 Latin American and postcommunist countries. Our study finds that the size of the ethnic minority population shapes female legislative representation but only in candidate-centric electoral systems. In party-centric systems, any gender bias or resource disadvantage that female legislative candidates face in minority areas appears to be muted by electoral rules.

What leads to the initial emergence of democracy? Many studies view democratization as the product of a class struggle over economic redistribution, pitting the landed elites against the masses or the bourgeoisie. This article, by contrast, argues that the initial emergence of democracy in South America stemmed from a struggle between elite parties or factions that pursued (or opposed) democratic reform to gain (or maintain) political power. Democratization occurred when a split within the ruling party or coalition led dissident factions to side with the opposition and push through reforms that expanded the franchise and leveled the electoral playing field. I explore these arguments by examining the origins of democracy in four Latin American countries: Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Uruguay. Historical process tracing and a quantitative analysis of the vote on a key democratic reform measure in Argentina in 1912 provide support for these arguments.