International economic relations in Latin America: a study on the perceptions of parliamentary elites

Abstract This article analyzes the perceptions of parliamentarians from 17 countries in Latin America about economic and international relations. The central issue is to identify the determinants of parliamentarians’ preferences. The article seeks to identify which are the determinants that influence the options expressed by parliamentarians, putting in contrast their options for political and economic relations between countries in the region vs. their options for other countries and the main economic powers. The analysis is divided into two parts. The first one is comparative, with descriptive statistics and network analysis. After this analysis, legislatures/countries are compared at the aggregate level. The second part goes down to the level of individual parliamentary behavior, seeking to estimate, with the application of linear regression models (OLS), the weight of different predictors for the formation of their preference structures. The article concludes that parliamentarians' preferences are strongly determined by contextual (structural) variables and a high degree of economic pragmatism, but political ideas continue to have some relevance. Although to a lesser extent, the ideology and preferences for state-regulated economies also help to understand why some parliamentarians defend more political and economic regionalism than others.

摘要 本文针对拉丁美洲17国议员对经济与国际关系的认知展开分析。核心议题为明确议员偏好的决定因素：本文旨在厘清影响议员表态倾向的各类决定因素，对比其对本区域内国家间政治经济关系的立场，与对区域外国家及主要经济强国的立场差异。本分析共分为两部分：第一部分为比较分析，涵盖描述性统计与网络分析环节，完成该分析后将从总体层面比较各国议会/国家的相关情况；第二部分则聚焦个体议员行为层面，通过应用线性回归模型（OLS），估算不同预测因子对议员偏好结构形成的影响权重。本文结论指出，议员的偏好主要由情境（结构）变量与高度的经济实用主义所决定，但政治理念仍具备一定影响力；尽管影响程度相对较弱，意识形态与对国家调控型经济的偏好，同样有助于解释为何部分议员相较其他议员更支持政治与经济区域主义。