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According to the United Nations, among the fourteen most unequal countries in the world, half are in Latin America and the other half in Sub-Saharan Africa. Nine of them, including the top three, have been considered democratic for at least the past fourteen years. In this paper I propose a theory to understand the circumstances that are likely to make policies that promote higher equality difficult to arise in new democracies. I develop a theoretical model linking voters' preferences to representatives' policy choices where the ideological position of newly formed parties is not known to the public. This entails a learning process for voters that can slow down the adoption of effective inequality reducing policies. This includes the often observed pattern of poor voters electing non-left wing representatives. The model's implications for the evolution of different candidates' constituencies are empirically tested using individual level data for presidential elections in Brazil since democratization. Results suggest that the sorting out of voters into constituencies for specific incumbents is indeed a gradual process most likely shaped by the retrospective evaluation of policies adopted in practice. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on growing literatures regarding the effects of increasing sub-national electoral competition and programmatic party commitments in Latin America, this paper offers an explanation of state-level judicial change in Brazil and Mexico. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]