Phone: (5411) 4725-7020
Fax: (5411) 4725-7010

E-Mail: tommasi@udesa.edu.ar

News:

FORTHCOMING

How Democracy Works. Political Institutions, Actors, and Arenas in Latin American Policymaking.
with Carlos Scartascini and Ernesto Stein
Inter-American Development Bank - David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard University

Contents

1. Political Institutions, Actors, and Arenas in Latin American Policymaking
            Carlos Scartascini, Ernesto Stein, and Mariano Tommasi

2. Beyond the Electoral Connection: The Effect of Political Parties on the Policymaking Process        
Mark P. Jones

3. Active Players or Rubber Stamps? An Evaluation of the Policymaking Role of Latin American Legislatures
Sebastian M. Saiegh

4. How Courts Engage in the Policymaking Process in Latin America: The Different Functions of the Judiciary
Mariana Magaldi de Sousa

5. Inside the Cabinet: The Influence of Ministers in the Policymaking Process
            Cecilia Martinez-Gallardo

6. The Weakest Link: The Bureaucracy and Civil Service Systems in Latin America
            Laura Zuvanic and Mercedes Iacoviello, with Ana Laura Rodriguez Gusta

7. Decentralizing Power in Latin America: The Role of Governors in the National Policymaking
            Francisco Monaldi

8. Business Politics and Policymaking in Contemporary Latin America
            Ben Ross Schneider

9. Labor Organizations and their Role in the Era of Political and Economic Reform
            M. Victoria Murillo and Andrew Schrank

10. The Latin American News Media and the Policymaking Process
            Sallie Hughes

NOW IN PAPERBACK

"Spiller and Tommasi mobilize formal models and rigorous reasoning to probe the depth of the ongoing crises -- both political and economic -- in Argentina. In doing so, they move the goal posts in the field of comparative politics."
Robert H. Bates, Harvard University

"The Institutional Foundations of Public Policy in Argentina is a fascinating and innovative contribution to contemporary political economy. It recommends shifting focus from the long-term structural factors to an analysis of whether the struggle for power and the structure of political institutions encourage public officials to invest in stable, flexible, and public-regarding policies. Pablo Spiller and Mariano Tommasi provide theoretically sophisticated and empirically rich studies of why Congress, the Supreme Court, the bureaucracy and federalism in Argentina�a country rich with development potential�are unable to produce and stick by effective public policies. The Institutional Foundations of Public Policy in Argentina is a major achievement, one that will be indispensable for students of political economy, public policy, and development studies."
Fabrice Lehoucq, Centro de Investigaciones y Docencia Económicas (CIDE), Mexico City

"Noted economists Pablo Spiller and Mariano Tommasi offer a persuasive explanation of one of the most pressing issues for development. They account for the variation in the promotion of policies that serve the long-term interest of the polity and not just the short-term electoral and monetary interests of the policy-makers. This is political economy at its best. The Institutional Foundations of Public Policy in Argentina uses the most analytically sophisticated tools available in the service of understanding an important case. But this is far more than a single case study. Theirs is a general framework that represents a major contribution to the theory of political and economic development."
Margaret Levi, University of Washington

"Nothing like this study exists for any other country. Relying on positive political theory, this book is the first systematic approach to an integrated study of public policymaking. Spiller and Tommasi apply their approach to Argentina, showing why its political and economic institutions emphasize short-term time horizons that hinder cooperation and long-term solutions to major economic problems. Although Argentine political institutions have many of the features of the American separation of powers system, Spiller and Tommasi explain why these institutions work systematically differently in Argentina than the United States."
Barry R. Weingast, Stanford University