What institutional arrangements best connect the policy preferences of citizens to the actual policy outputs of their governments? The authors of this book, Brian F. Crisp, Santiago Olivella, and Guillermo Rosas, characterize representation as a series of linkages (the chain of representation). These linkages connect citizens to representatives through the electoral process and policy makers to legislative outputs through the policy-making process (PMP), and the authors focus on the institutions that shape each of these processes. With this characterization, they answer the book’s main question by focusing on economic policies and preferences in Latin American presidential systems. Though the book’s framing and focus are decidedly general, the first part of the book describes a fascinating set of regional trends that are effectively in tension with one another; the second part describes the extensive institutional variation across the region, which sets up a potential resolution in the analysis that part III provides.

Part I offers extensive descriptive information on the policy preferences of citizens and lawmakers and actual policy outputs. Chapter 3 describes the economic policy preferences of citizens in 18 Latin American countries, based on Latinobarometer and AmericasBarometer survey data. These data show an over-time fluctuation in Latin Americans’ preferences for more market-driven economic policies (pro-market) or more state intervention in the economy (pro-state). Figure 3.1 shows how preferences trended pro-market until 2001 and then again from approximately 2004–7, with pro-state turns in public opinion in the early aughts and since 2008. Chapter 4 features a survey of lower-house legislators from the Parliamentary Elites of Latin America (PELA) Project (1993–2013). From these surveys the authors capture the policy preferences of lower-house lawmakers, impute the preferences of senators, and infer presidential policy preferences from questions legislators were asked about the executive. These data (figure 4.4) show a secular over-time trend toward increasing pro-state preferences among legislators (though this preference plateaus for senators from approximately 2005) and show executive preferences eventually moving in a pro-state direction after a period of increasing pro-market policy preferences until approximately 2001. Chapter 5 completes these policy-related descriptions with an index developed to evaluate the pro-market/state orientation of economic policies adopted in Latin America over this time period. Of the six economic policies the authors highlight, three remained rather stable in their orientation, whereas the three that did show change over time all trended in a pro-market direction.

Taken together, the chapters in part I suggest a tension, with citizen policy preferences oscillating between pro-market and pro-state orientations, policy maker preferences trending more consistently pro-state, and enacted policies moving in a more pro-market direction if they shifted at all. But of course, representation does not occur at the regional level, and the authors are very sensitive to cross-national variation in all their indicators, providing extensive information on variation and heterogeneity. At the same time, they show (consistent with other research) that cross-country variation in these indicators is smaller than the differences we observe over time, which suggests meaningful gaps in representation for at least some Latin American countries.

The chapters in part II demonstrate extensive institutional variation across Latin America, both in terms of how constraining or permissive electoral systems are (which roughly maps onto majoritarian vs. PR systems, though with attention to specific features like district magnitude, seat allocation formulas, and thresholds) and the respective policy-making powers of legislative chambers and the president. This second part, then, offers the potential resolution to the tension presented in part I. Essentially, the authors leverage the region’s institutional variation so that we might understand the institutional circumstances under which citizens’ policy preferences are translated into meaningful representation, perhaps to a better degree than regional trends would suggest.

Part III analyzes the impact of institutions on representation. The analysis of electoral systems effects (chapter 9) finds high levels of representational congruence and responsiveness for very permissive electoral systems. More surprising is the authors’ finding that very constraining electoral systems also offer high levels of representation—particularly when considered in terms of a one-to-one correspondence between median citizens and policy makers. In general, it is those systems that are neither most permissive nor most constraining that do the worst job of reflecting citizen preferences in the preferences of the representatives they select. Analysis of the PMP (chapter 10) finds lawmakers’ preferences represented in policy outputs’ congruence but not responsiveness; it also finds that executive powers matter more for achieving policy congruence. Finally, the authors consider the entire chain of representation—from citizen preferences to policy outputs (chapter 11)—with models that account for both electoral systems and the PMP. Here they find a tension between congruence and responsiveness. Legislature-empowering PMPs produce better congruence between citizen preferences and policy but reduce responsiveness. Strong executives allow for more responsive policies but at the cost of overall congruence between citizen and lawmaker preferences.

Part III calls into question the conventional wisdom about the representation/accountability trade-off that we often associate with electoral systems, showing that both highly permissive and highly constraining electoral systems can offer better representation; the findings regarding outcomes of the PMP suggest that the more important representational trade-off to consider may be between congruence and responsiveness. The only aspect of the PMP that I think is underexplored and potentially consequential is the role of political parties, because partisan control of different branches of government may alter the impact of the relative strength of those branches—a consideration distinct from the market friendliness of parties for which the authors already account.

There is not enough space in this review to detail the additional contributions made by this book, but I mention several here. The authors offer a number of compelling arguments about how best to measure representation and to use multiple conceptualizations: not only responsiveness and congruence but also considering both average preferences among citizens and lawmakers and the distributions of those preferences. Further, their use of survey data rather than behavioral data such as voting, on the logic that the former are more likely to be sincere and the latter potentially more strategic, is compelling. Finally, their inclusion of actual policy outcomes is also important. At the end of the day, what is the point of democratic representation if not to produce policy? The authors also offer several methodological innovations and provide readers with extensive replication information. Chief among these contributions are the scaling techniques used to allow for comparisons among public opinion, lawmaker preferences, and ultimately policy outputs (chapter 6). The other major methodological contribution is the use of simulations to produce baseline expectations for representation, against which actual representation is evaluated (chapter 7.4).

Ultimately, this book offers general insights into representation in presidential systems, indicates the circumstances under which citizen preferences are going to be most closely reflected in lawmaker preferences and institutional outputs, and suggests reasons for the disparate trends we observe in Latin America regarding economic policies and policy preferences. Under certain electoral rules, citizens end up with representatives who reflect their preferences, and under certain PMPs actual policy outputs respond to citizens’ preferences. Here, though, arises the disconnect: empowered legislators do not translate citizen preferences into policy, even when their and citizens’ preferences are more closely aligned. In Latin America’s presidential systems, the role of the executive is crucial, both for enacting policies most congruent with lawmaker preferences and for responding to changes in citizen policy preferences.