Latin Americans of African descent and the indigenous populations, among the poorest people in the world, are not active or engaged in national politics. But since the 1980s, some Latin American governments have sought to end the disparity by decentralizing certain powers to give marginalized groups a greater voice.

West Virginia University political science professor Karleen Jones West is studying whether the decentralization reform movement, which gives more roles to local and regional government, has been effective.

“The decentralization process taking place in Latin America gives the opportunity at the individual level for traditionally marginalized populations to feel that they are being represented,” she said.

Her research is sponsored by the Latin American Public Opinion Project and the United States Agency for International Development. The project has collected data about public opinion in various Latin American countries for more than two decades.

To conduct her research, West will study a large collection of surveys in the project’s library to determine whether marginalized groups in Latin America feel they are benefiting from the decentralization processes.

She will collect data from 16 Latin American countries and examine if marginalized populations agree that decentralization makes the government more accessible and if they feel that their democratic governments represent their interests.

West’s research interests cover comparative politics and indigenous groups in Latin America, and her 2008 doctoral dissertation focused on ethnic party success in Ecuador. She also co-authored the paper “Credibility vs. Competition: The Impact of Party Size on Decisions to Enter Presidential Elections in South America and Europe,” forthcoming in “Comparative Political Studies,” and authored “Programmatic or Personalistic? Pachakutik Strategies in Ecuador’s 2006 Elections,” published in “The Latin Americanist: SECOLAS Annals Edition.” Her conference papers explore ethnic party dynamics and the interplay of different levels of government in Latin America.

For more information, contact Karleen Jones West, assistant professor of political science, at (304) 293-3811 or Karleen.West@mail.wvu.edu.

-WVU-

aw/6/13/11

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