SHORT ARTICLE

Electoral Volatility in Latin America

Mollie J. Cohen, Vanderbilt University
Facundo E. Salles Kobilanski, Vanderbilt University
Elizabeth J. Zechmeister, Vanderbilt University

Using an original database of legislative and presidential electoral results from the democratic transitions of the 1970s
and 1980s to the present day, we provide a new assessment of electoral volatility in Latin America. Following a model
established in studies of other regions, we decompose volatility into two subtypes: party replacement and stable party
volatility. We demonstrate the relevance of this approach to Latin America and, further, document that volatility has
persisted rather than waned in Latin America’s posttransition period largely because of party replacement. We then
examine the contested link between economic performance and volatility and document temporal instability in this
relationship: our analysis affirms previous conclusions regarding a connection in the 1980s in Latin America but uncovers
scant evidence of a relationship between the economy and volatility for the 1990s to present day.

F our decades into democracy’s third wave, many Latin

American political systems continue to experience in-
stitutional conflicts and the weakening or collapse of
parties (Helmke 2010, 2017; Lupu 2014; Morgan 2011; Rob-
erts 2003; Seawright 2012). Instability matters because it
undermines citizens’ ability to navigate programmatic poli-
tics (Carlin, Singer, and Zechmeister 2015) and motivates
elites to secure positions and experiment with unanticipated
appeals (Helmke 2017; Lupu and Riedl 2013; Stokes 2001).
We use new data to assess of one form of instability: electoral
volatility.
First, we present an original, comprehensive database of
vote shares for Latin America: the Latin American Presi-
dential and Legislative Elections (LAPALE) database (http://
www.lapaledata.com). LAPALE establishes source documen-
tation, draws from official sources, runs from democratic tran-
sitions in the 1970s/80s to 2016, and facilitates tests of ro-
bustness to older data sets (e.g., Nohlen 2005) and to varying
party inclusion thresholds. Second, we demonstrate the rele-
vance to Latin America of a framework that assesses volatility
in terms of party replacement and established party subtypes
(Birch 2003; Powell and Tucker 2014). Further, and contrary
to views of consolidation in Eastern Europe and Africa (Powell
and Tucker 2014; Weghorst and Bernhard 2014), we show that
electoral volatility still is not diminishing in Latin America,
and we identify that this is largely due to persistent party re-
placement.
Third, we provide a new perspective on the debate about
the relevance of the economy to volatility. Remmer’s (1991)
classic work shows that, in the 1980s, poor economic per-
formance increased electoral volatility in Latin America. Re-
cently, Powell and Tucker (2014) sparked fresh debate on the
relevance of economic indicators to electoral volatility (Crab-
tree and Golder 2016, 2017; Powell and Tucker 2014, 2017;
see also Dassonneville and Hooghe 2016). We document a
relationship between economic performance and volatility
for the 1980s, as per Remmer (1991); however, we find no
evidence that this link persists. In short, we show that the

Mollie J. Cohen (mollie.cohen@gmail.com) is a postdoctoral research fellow, Facundo E. Salles Kobilanski (facundo.e.salles.kobilanski@vanderbilt.edu) is a
graduate student, and Elizabeth J. Zechmeister (liz.zechmeister@vanderbilt.edu) is Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt Uni-
versity, Nashville, TN 37240.
In the first stage of this project, the second author was supported by a Fulbright doctoral fellowship awarded by the Fulbright Commission in Argentina
and the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The LAPALE data and supporting materials necessary to reproduce the numerical results in the article are available
in the JOP Dataverse (http://thedata.harvard.edu/dvn/dv/jop). An online appendix with supplementary material is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1086
/697464.

The Journal of Politics, volume 80, number 3. Published online May 10, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/697464
q 2018 by the Southern Political Science Association. All rights reserved. 0022-3816/2018/8003-0020$10.00 1017
1018 / Electoral Volatility in Latin America Mollie J. Cohen, Facundo E. Salles Kobilanski, and Elizabeth J. Zechmeister
economy can affect volatility in regions where democratic
party politics has recently (re)emerged, but such links are
transient across epochs.
ELECTORAL VOLATILITY AND ITS (CONTESTED)
ECONOMIC UNDERPINNINGS
Since Przeworski (1975) and Pedersen (1979), scholars have
been assessing, reflecting on, and debating measures, causes,
and consequences of electoral volatility. Volatility in West-
ern Europe has increased over time (Dalton and Wattenberg
2000; Dassonneville and Hooghe 2016), while African and
Eastern European systems have been stabilizing (Powell and
Tucker 2014; Weghorst and Bernhard 2014). One perspec-
tive is that volatility decreases over time in posttransition
regions. Latin America appears to be an exception (Concha
Olivares 2014; Lupu and Stokes 2010): high volatility (Rob-
erts 2014) seems to persist amid parties and systems splin-
tering or collapsing (Lupu 2014; Morgan 2011).
Understanding volatility is important because where in-
stability reigns, political elites are prone to make unantici-
pated moves (Lupu and Riedl 2013; Stokes 2001; Tavits
2008). Such outcomes reflect and feed a vicious dynamic in
which instability creates conditions that are ripe for out-of-
program maneuvers by elites who diminish party brands
and thus undercut the public’s capacity to use programmatic
shortcuts and dampen party loyalties, all of which fuels fur-
ther electoral instability (Carlin et al. 2015; Lupu 2016; Mor-
gan 2011; Zechmeister and Corral 2013). While some vote
fluctuation is healthy, too much suggests de-alignment or
underinstitutionalization (Dalton and Wattenberg 2000;
Mainwaring and Pérez-Liñan 2015).
Electoral volatility theoretically is influenced by retro-
spective calculations. Economic downturns lead voters to-
ward anti-incumbent preferences (Benton 2005; Fiorina 1981;
Murillo and Visconti 2016; Roberts 2014; Roberts and Wib-
bels 1999). Yet, the effect of the economy on volatility is sub-
ject to debate. Powell and Tucker (2014) argue that Eastern
European economic downturns increase volatility, but Crab-
tree and Golder (2017) challenge the robustness of this finding
to the exclusion of an outlying case (in response, see Powell
and Tucker 2017). Weghorst and Bernhard (2014) identify a
connection between economic performance and electoral vol-
atility in Africa. Remmer’s (1991) oft-cited work documents a
relationship between economic downturns and volatility in
Latin American in the 1980s (see also Roberts and Wibbels
1999). Yet, Roberts (2014) suggests that this could be contin-
gent on parties’ capacity to weather backlash against poor
output. In sum, the link between the economy and volatility is
contested.
DATA AND MEASURES
While electoral volatility has been examined in Latin Amer-
ica, the field has lacked a comprehensive data set for the years
since the transitions of the 1970s and 1980s. Furthermore, a
significant number of analyses use the classic Pedersen Index
measure of total electoral volatility, which lumps together all
types of interparty volatility in the system.1 We collected
original vote-share data from official electoral management
bodies (EMBs) across 18 Latin American countries, from
democratic transitions to current times. Much existing schol-
arship on electoral volatility in the region draws heavily on
Nohlen’s (2005) data set (see the appendix, available online).
With a commitment to replication, we worked to confirm
(or refine, when needed) his database and extend it through
2016. When possible, we collected official data from coun-
tries’ EMBs. Otherwise, we supplemented our data set with
alternative data (see table A1; tables A1–A6 are available in
the online appendix).
We find substantial congruence between official vote share
data and Nohlen’s (2005) data set. Correlations for key mea-
sures between Nohlen’s database and our own for the time
period in which there is overlap (1978–2005) range from .80
to .95, which verifies the general accuracy of Nohlen’s data
(see the appendix). At the same time, the LAPALE database
extends beyond previous data sets on electoral outcomes in
the source documentation it contains, in transparency, in flex-
ibility regarding decisions on thresholds for party inclusion,
and in terms of the time period it covers.
Following recent work that distinguishes volatility at-
tributable to the entry of new parties or exit of established
options from that caused by shifts in vote shares among es-
tablished parties (Birch 2003; Powell and Tucker 2014; Sikk
2005; Weghorst and Bernhard 2014), we used the LAPALE
database to deconstruct total volatility into these constituent
parts. The approach keeps total volatility in the picture, while
isolating flux in the menu of political options due to new
parties forming and competing with varying degrees of suc-
cess and duration and old parties splintering or exiting.
We produced three measures of volatility for legislative
and presidential elections. First, Party Replacement Volatility
measures shifts in vote shares among parties that newly en-
1. Exceptions include Coppedge (1998), who measures average (ideo-
logical) block volatility but does not address differences across new and es-
tablished parties; Mainwaring, España-Nájera, and Gervasoni (2016), who
break the Pedersen Index into within-system and extra-system volatility,
which requires considerable conceptual clarity and copious case knowledge
(Hug 2001, 79–80); Su (2014), who focuses on volatility within political
parties (vs. systems); and Carreras, Morgenstern, and Su (2015), who account
for transfers from old to new parties but focus on the two largest parties.
 Volume 80 Number 3 July 2018 / 1019

tered competition at time t, as well as parties that exited bels 1999), we also assess three measures of economic devel-
competition between time t 2 1 and t (type A, per Powell opment: DGDP, Inflation, and Exchange Rate data for the year
and Tucker 2014):2 before each election in the database. For the latter two, we
  calculated the natural log of inflation and the exchange rate to
 
 o pexit(t21) 1 o penter(t)  account for very large values.4
Type A p :
2
Second, Stable Party Volatility calculates volatility in vote ELECTORAL VOLATILITY PERSISTS IN LATIN
shares among established parties (those that have not AMERICA, DRIVEN BY PARTY REPLACEMENT
changed in name since the most recent election; Powell and Total electoral volatility in Latin America increased sharply
Tucker’s type B): between the 1980s and 1990s, at which point presidential
  volatility leveled off, while legislative volatility continued to
o pit21 2 pit  increase but at a lower rate. This affirms the persistence of a
Type B p ; among stable parties: trend noted by Roberts (2014) and runs counter to those
2
concluding that third-wave democracies trend toward lower
Third, we measure Total Volatility by adding these subtypes
volatility and more consolidation. We add further insight by
together. Each measure theoretically ranges from 0 to 1, with
demonstrating that party replacement is the principal driver
0 indicating no change in vote shares over time, and 1 mean-
of this persistent electoral volatility.
ing that all votes were distributed across different parties at
Figure 1 displays summary statistics for the two subtypes
time t versus time t 2 1. In considering whether to calculate
of volatility. Dark-gray boxes represent observed values for
values using vote shares for all parties or only those electoral
Party Replacement Volatility, and light-gray boxes represent
options that reach a particular threshold, we assessed four
Stable Party Volatility. Each box shows the 25th–75th per-
decisions: no threshold, and thresholds of 2%, 5%, and 7% of all
centile observations, and the horizontal line within each box
valid votes cast; we present results for analyses with no
represents median volatility for each decade. Whiskers rep-
threshold and a 7% threshold.3
resent the highest and lowest observations in an approxi-
Following studies that identify economic performance as
mately normal distribution; dots signify outlying observa-
a predictor of volatility (e.g., Remmer 1991; Roberts and Wib-
tions. As shown, Party Replacement Volatility has increased
over time in Latin America, while Stable Party Volatility has
2. A key challenge is how to identify stable vs. new parties. One ap- remained more level, especially from the 1990s to the present
proach considers new parties resulting from a split or merger as successors day. Party Replacement Volatility across legislative elections
of preexisting parties. This can be problematic, as parties formed by splits
trended upward from the 1980s to the 2000s, and variation in
do not always adhere to the older party’s program (e.g., Mexico’s PRD split
from the PRI, Costa Rica’s PAC split from the PLN; see Roberts 2014). this subtype of volatility increased substantially, especially
Further, parties often run under coalition labels that disband postelection in the post-2000 period. Volatility among stably competing
(e.g., Guatemala’s 2011 short-lived UNE-GANA coalition). Mainwaring parties, in contrast, has remained relatively constant since
and Zoco (2007) offer a more nuanced approach, by taking the largest re-
the 1990s. For presidential elections, volatility caused by both
sulting party from a split as the continuation of the prior and coding as the
predecessor of a merger the party that received the most votes during the
party replacement and vote shifts across extant parties de-
last election (see also Powell and Tucker 2014). We define each party name clined slightly in the recent period. Whereas volatility among
change as a new observation, even if the new party is the direct successor of established parties accounted for a greater portion of total
an extant party or the product of a merger or split (we exclude minor volatility in the 1980s, average party replacement volatility
changes, e.g., the inclusion or exclusion of articles [a, an, the]). This most
increased in the 1990s and accounts for a substantially greater
closely approximates voters’ experiences: changes in names imply infor-
mation costs. Thus, our measures of party replacement volatility are ceiling portion of all volatility observed than does stable party vola-
measures that capture the maximal volatility caused by party entry/exit. tility. We further note that, while volatility has tended to in-
3. Some argue that only electorally relevant parties (those that won a crease over this period, there are some countries (e.g., Mexico)
given percentage of the total vote [usually 2%, 5%, or 7%]) should be
where the trend does not hold. The region-average patterns do
included in analyses of system dynamics because including smaller parties
may bias estimates upward (Moraes 2015). Yet, excluding small parties
not change across different thresholds, as illustrated by the left
simplifies the political space in ways that do not reflect citizens’ decision- versus right panes of figure 1.
making environments. Variation in threshold use and levels has been
haphazard, although evidence from Eastern Europe suggests similarity in
results across thresholds (see Powell and Tucker 2014). We affirm this 4. DGDP and Inflation data come from the World Bank Development
conclusion for Latin America: measures of Party Replacement and Stable Indicators database; Exchange Rate data, from the International Monetary
Party Volatility for the lowest (0) vs. the highest (7%) thresholds are highly Fund. We use election-year economic indicators when elections were held
correlated, at .97 and .84, respectively. in October or later.
1020 / Electoral Volatility in Latin America Mollie J. Cohen, Facundo E. Salles Kobilanski, and Elizabeth J. Zechmeister
Figure 1. Trends in subtypes of volatility across time, Latin America. Left, no threshold applied; right, 7% threshold applied
In sum, upward trends in Latin American volatility are
driven largely by new party entry and party exit.5 These dy-
namics have been facilitated by reforms that, in several cases,
have made it easier for new parties to form and compete; by
low party loyalty among much of the public (see Cohen
2017); and by frequent experimentation in party branding by
populists. In contrast to findings from Eastern Europe and
Africa, in posttransition Latin America, a state of disequi-
librium persists as parties and the voting public repeatedly
churn through new options, frequently tossing out the status
quo in favor of new alternatives that offer hope for better
outcomes.
THE CONTINGENT RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN
ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE AND VOLATILITY
While previous scholarship has found that economic con-
ditions shape electoral volatility in Latin America (Main-
waring and Zoco 2007; Remmer 1991; Roberts and Wibbels
1999), this relationship has not been explored for more re-
cent times and for volatility subtypes in the region. We oper-
ationalize economic performance as inflation, exchange rate,
and change in GDP (gross domestic product) in the year be-
fore the election. We control for the effective number of parties
and candidates competing and analyze legislative and presi-
dential elections separately. We present results using the no-
5. As stated in n. 2, the measure counts rebranding as a new party
entry; this liberal coding strategy allows us to define the upper bound on
volatility levels, avoids arbitrary decisions in distinguishing a new party
from a rebranded party, and reflects changes that complicate politics and
make programmatic voting more difficult.
threshold measure; we find no substantive difference using a
7% threshold.6
Data columns 1–4 of table 1 replicate models (e.g., Rem-
mer 1991) linking economic performance to volatility in the
decade after transitions to democracy across the region (1980–
90). For the 1980–90 period, considering the party replace-
ment measure, inflation and contractions in GDP predict
more volatility in legislative elections, and inflation is sig-
nificant for presidential elections. Growth negatively pre-
dicts stable party volatility in legislative elections in the
1980s, while we find no relationship between economic in-
dicators and stable party volatility in presidential elections.
The 1980s were a volatile time, and some elements of the
economy predict electoral volatility. Yet, that result is epoch
contingent.
Table 1 columns 5–8 show results from a similar set of
models for the whole time period. The difference is stark:
across a broader range of cases, economic performance var-
iables do not reach statistical significance. The only possible
exceptions come from adopting a more generous threshold
for statistical significance and, even then, only for inflation
and exchange rate in one model (col. 8).7 Results estimated
for each decade reveal the same thing: after the economic
6. We include country fixed effects for the 1978–2016 models but,
because of the small number of cases from 1980 to 1990, do not include
fixed effects in those models.
7. The bivariate correlation among the three variables ranges from
0.03 to 20.13 for the full data set. Findings are robust to the stepwise
inclusion of economic variables. See tables A4–A6. While we control for
some political measures, we acknowledge that the decision to focus pri-
marily on the economy could leave the analyses vulnerable to bias, if there
are omitted relevant variables that are collinear to these measures.
 Volume 80 Number 3 July 2018 / 1021

Table 1. Economic Predictors of Volatility (Ordinary Least Squares)

1980–90 1978–2016

Party Replacement Volatility Stable Party Volatility Party Replacement Volatility Stable Party Volatility

Legislative Presidential Legislative Presidential Legislative Presidential Legislative Presidential

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)

Inflation (ln) .08** .07** 2.00 .02 .01 .01 .00 .031
(.02) (.02) (.01) (.02) (.02) (.02) (.01) (.02)
DGDP 2.02* 2.01 2.01* 2.01 2.00 2.01 .00 2.00
(.01) (.01) (.00) (.01) (.00) (.00) (.00) (.00)
Exchange rate (ln) .02 2.01 2.02 .00 2.02 2.03 .01 .011
(.01) (.01) (.00) (.01) (.01) (.03) (.01) (.01)
N 26 23 26 23 134 116 134 116
R2 .38 .39 .48 .24 .57 .63 .33 .36

Note. Robust standard errors, clustered by country, in parentheses. Year control included. GDP p gross domestic product.
1 p ! .10.
* p ! .05.
** p ! .01, two-tailed.

and political crises of the 1980s, there is no robust link be-
tween the economy and electoral volatility in Latin America.
CONCLUSION
Understanding electoral volatility is critical to assessments of
democratic party politics. We contribute to this effort with a
new database of Latin American electoral outcomes that is
more comprehensive in scope and source documentation
than databases that are currently in use. We affirm the rel-
evance and traveling capacity of a recent framework for
electoral volatility—party replacement and established party
subtypes—to the Latin American region. We document con-
tinued persistence in volatility (Roberts 2014) that runs coun-
ter to conclusions reached by scholars examining other third-
wave democracies. Finally, while we affirm a classic finding
in scholarship on volatility in Latin America—that economic
factors are relevant to political turnover in the 1980s (e.g.,
Remmer 1991; Roberts and Wibbels 1999)—we show that this
link is ephemeral. Overall, economic factors are not robust
predictors of electoral volatility in Latin America. Scholars
seeking to explain the frequency by which Latin American
parties enter and exit, and win and lose, will need to broaden
their scope to consider other factors as they engage the LAPALE
database to move scholarship forward.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank Jon Hiskey, Vicky Murillo, Luis Schiumerini,
Giancarlo Visconti, Hye Young You, and participants in the
Vanderbilt Political Science Department’s Graham Sympo-
sium for feedback on early versions of the project. We also
thank the journal’s anonymous reviewers for their feedback.
We are grateful to Oscar Castorena, Alyssa Chvasta, Roberto
Colón, and Christine Huang for their assistance in finalizing
the LAPALE data set and supplemental material. We thank
Dieter Nohlen and his coauthors for creating the excellent
electoral database that sparked this project. A previous ver-
sion of this manuscript was presented at the 2016 meeting of
the Midwest Political Science Association.
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