Samuel Handlin
Samuel Handlin (PhD, University of California, Berkeley) studies political economy and electoral politics in developing countries, with a regional emphasis on Latin America. During his academic year at the Kellogg Institute, he will work on a book manuscript, “The Politics of Polarization: Legitimacy Crises, Left Political Mobilization, and Party System Divergence in South America, 1990–2010.”
The research seeks to explain how and why polarizing party systems—marked by significant programmatic competition and the politicization of class cleavages—emerged in some countries while more integrative party systems consolidated elsewhere. Handlin plans to add the cases of Bolivia and Uruguay to the project, which was originally developed as a comparison of Chile, Brazil, and Venezuela.
Handlin is the coeditor and coauthor (with Ruth Berins Collier) of Reorganizing Popular Politics: Participation and the New Interest Regime in Latin America (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009). He will teach a spring course on parties and electoral politics in the developing world.
