Michael Coppedge

Associate Professor of Political Science
(PhD, Yale University, 1988)
Academic Office:
238 Hesburgh Center
574-631-7036
email: mcoppedg@nd.edu
www.nd.edu/~mcoppedg/crd/

Geographic focus: Latin America (Venezuela, Andean countries); cross-regional

Thematic interests: Democratization, quality of democracy; Latin American parties and party systems; Venezuelan politics; Methodology of comparative politics.

Current research: The conditions that promote stable democracy, especially in Latin America, and the factors that have shaped party systems in eleven Latin American countries, employing both case studies and quantitative analysis.

Selected publications: coauthor with Daniel Brinks, “Two Persistent Dimensions of Democracy: Contestation and Inclusiveness,” Journal of Politics 70:3 (July 2008); “Continuity and Change in Latin American Party Systems,” Taiwan Journal of Democracy 3:2 (December 2007); “Theory Building and Hypothesis Testing: Large- vs. Small-N Research on Democratization,” in Gerardo Munck, ed., Regimes and Democracy in Latin America, Vol. I: Theories and Findings (2007); coauthor, “Diffusion Is No Illusion: Neighbor Emulation in the Third Wave of Democracy” Comparative Political Studies (May 2006); “Explaining Democratic Deterioration in Venezuela Through Nested Inference,” in Frances Hagopian and Scott Mainwaring, eds., The Third Wave of Democratization in Latin America (2005); “Soberanía popular versus democracia liberal en Venezuela,” in Jorge I. Domínguez and Michael Shifter, eds., Construyendo gobernabilidad democrática (2005); “Latin American Parties: Political Darwinism in the Lost Decade,” in Larry Diamond and Richard Gunther, eds., Political Parties and Democracy (2001); “The Dynamic Diversity of Latin American Party Systems,” Party Politics (October 1998); Strong Parties and Lame Ducks: Presidential Partyarchy and Factionalism in Venezuela (1994). Numerous articles on comparative and Latin American politics in Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Studies, The Journal of Democracy, and Studies in Comparative International Development, among others.

Working Papers: #341 (with Angel Alvarez and Lucas González) Drugs, Civil War, and the Conditional Impact of the Economy on Democracy; #294 Venezuela: Popular Sovereignty versus Liberal Democracy; #268 Venezuela: Conservative Representation Without Conservative Parties; #244 Classification of Latin American Political Parties.