Professor Taylor Boas Publishes Book (with Cambridge) on Presidential Campaigns in Latin America
Taylor Boas, Assistant Professor of Political Science, recently published his book, Presidential Campaigns in Latin America with Cambridge University Press. Boas focuses on the strategies that presidential candidates in new democracies use. He argues that they learn and adopt strategies through “contagion” such that a distinctive campaign strategy develops in each country as candidates follow whatever the first successful president does. To support this thesis, Boas uses a mix of interviews and analysis of campaign ads over an extended period in three countries, and then conducts further tests in 10 other new democracies. This book builds on, and joins, Boas’ other work on campaigns and politics in Latin America that has been published in journals such as World Politics and the American Journal of Political Science.