The 2023-24 Center for Inter-American Policy and Research Speaker Series: Violence, Inequality and Democracy in the Americas, explores challenges to democratic politics and effective governance in the region. Speakers will present cutting-edge research on the politics of criminal violence and civil conflict, protest movements, militarization, and democratic backsliding in diverse countries of Latin America. The Series engages students, faculty, and community members in dialogue on the most pressing issues facing the region today. This week’s talk will be given by John Polga-Hecimovich from the U.S. Naval Academy on the topic “Latin America: Between Governability Crises and an Impeachment Trap?”
Impeachment has become more prevalent across Latin America in recent years. This project maps the evolution and use of impeachment as a legislative tool, surveys the prevalence of impeachment trials and presidential interruptions in the region, and shows how the use of impeachment has increased significantly—but only within a subset of countries. It proposes two complementary explanations for these patterns: 1) the presence of acute governability crises in Latin America, especially since 2019; and 2) the existence of an impeachment trap, by which the presence of one impeachment process is likely to result in the appearance of a subsequent one. Like a ‘coup trap’, the impeachment trap occurs when a presidential interruption fails to provide relief from underlying political, economic, and social problems, thus resulting in its further use. An examination of the data provides evidence for the effect of governability crises as well as impeachment traps on Latin American presidential instability.
