his personal support in the worst moments of my Houston's life have largely exceeded
the role of an advisor and made him a friend for life.
Another member of my committee is responsible of a huge part of my academic
career. Ernesto Calvo was my first employer, my first supervisor, my first mentor and
also the first guy in showing me a different world: the one where people can be 100%
rigorous at scientific work and also a nice and modest person. Emesto continuously
gave me incentives to challenge my own skills and provided all his support during the
good, the regular and the bad moments. His generosity and hospitality (shared with his
wife Isabella Alcaniz) helped improve my performance in a Ph.D. program that looked
impossible at the beginning, due to language, cultural and emotional pitfalls. For me, it
is a real pleasure and a pride to have a friend and a mentor like Ernesto.
The rest of my dissertation committee have been outstanding contributors to this
piece. Randy Stevenson was a permanent engine of new ideas, the strict critic of
thoughts that seemed "clear, detailed and Uncontroversial" and the Leviathan that
monitored that theoretical hypotheses and empirical models be looking at the same
picture. Royce Carroll played the "Roger Federer" role: he was responsible of sending
me every idea back, highly improved, plenty ðf evidence, and forcing me do better than
my best. Hours of discussions at Royce's office helped me depict a more comprehensive
and coherent group of ideas. Having had such a talented and committed young
professor in my committee was also a good source of reference about how to be a
successful scholar in the future. My most sincere thanks, Royce! Finally, Ron Soligo gave
me his valuable perspectives from the field of economics.
Many other people at Rice have contributed to this dissertation. Lafmy Martin
and Monika Nalepa gave me their insightful perspectives at the Comparative
workshops and also in the classroom. My other professors at Rice can't be excluded
from the thanks: Keith Hamm, Bill Reed, Gina Branton, Bob Stein, John Ambler, Ashley
Leeds, Melissa Marschall and Ric Stoll contributed in many different ways to my
development as a political scientist. They all showed the best predisposition for every
question, every doubt and also every incoherent opinion of mine about American or
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