This article analyzes how three South American legislatures (Chile, Colombia and Peru) voted regarding the ratification of the Free Trade Agreement with the United States. My central question is: "What are the factors that determine a legislator's vote regarding approval of the FTA with the USA? Three central hypotheses emerge from the literature: U.S./Latin America relationships produce an ideological cleavage (right -left) between the political parties of the continent, the significance of whether a legislator belongs to the governing coalition within Legislative Power and socio-economic factors linked to legislators' electoral districts. Through application of the logistic regression model, we argue that the ideology of Peruvian legislators explains how they vote regarding the FTA with the USA, indicating that the further to the left the legislator is, the lesser the probability that he will approve that treaty. In the Chilean case, unemployment rates in Chilean representatives' electoral districts demonstrated greater explanatory ability, revealing that at higher inflation rates, the lesser the probability that the FTA with the USA be approved. In the case of the Colombian senate, there is a strong association between a senator's belonging to the government coalition and FTA approval. This reveals the influence of this institutional variable over votes within the Colombian senate. Beyond belonging or not to the government coalition, the political party ideology of Colombian legislators also operates as a factor explaining voting patterns.
Commercial Policy; South American Legislatures; Free Trade Agreement; U.S.A.
