Latin American Traditional Parties, 1978-2006. Electoral Trajectories and Internal Party Politics

Parties are the major actors democracies. They have been acknowledged repeatedly as the critical link between voters, representatives and guarantors of democratic governance. Without them, a democracy can hardly be said to exist because they are the principal links between government and society.

Parties are the major actors of political representation in democracies. They have been acknowledged repeatedly as the critical link between voters, representatives and guarantors of democratic governance. Without them, a democracy can hardly be said to exist because they are the principal links between government and society. However, parties can lose their representative capacity, and be challenged by disaffected electorates that pursue other alternatives for political involvement. This book focuses upon the electoral weakening of Latin America's traditional parties. These parties dominated the political arena in the region during the last decades of the twentieth century. They played a significant role in the legitimation of democratic politics in particular when countries transited from authoritarian regimes in the late 1950s (Colombia and Venezuela) and later on, in the late 1970s (e.g., Ecuador) and 1980s (e.g., Argentina, Uruguay, Chile). Latin American traditional parties structured post-authoritarian political and party systems; they defined the rules of the democratic game (i.e., electoral systems); they became consolidated as the principal agents of political representation and were the main actors in policy-making processes. However, by the beginning of the 21st century (2000-2005) many of them faded, and political outsiders with antiestablishment discourses as well as new parties and political movements flourished.

Table of ContentsList of Tables · xiList of Figures · xiiiPreface · xvAcknowledgments · xixIntroduction · 1Latin American Traditional Parties · 8Case Studies · 23Plan of the Book · 27Chapter OneDeterminants of Parties' Electoral Performance:Traditional Explanations Reconsidered · 29Economic Conditions · 29Political Context: the Impact of Scandalsand Institutional Settings · 37Conclusion · 45Chapter TwoThe Internal Organization of Latin American Parties · 47Organization of Parties and Their Adaptive Capacity · 48Institutionalization and Internal Structure of Parties · 51Intraparty Conflict and Ideological Adaptation · 55Ideological and Programmatic Coherence · 57An Alternative Argument: the Effect of Parties' InternalFeatures on Their Electoral Trajectories · 59The Internal Organization of Parties · 60viii latin american traditional parties, 1978-2006Operationalization of the Internal Characteristicsof Parties · 70Conclusion · 77Chapter ThreeCase Studies: Traditional Parties in Colombia and Venezuela · 79The Origins and Early Trajectories of Traditional Parties · 81The Origins of Traditional Parties · 81Political Pacts in Colombia and Venezuela and theConsolidation of "New" Party Systems · 84Economic and Political Crises · 92Colombia · 92Venezuela · 95Electoral Systems and Institutional Engineering · 97Colombia · 97Venezuela · 108Internal Structure of Traditional Parties · 113The Liberal Party (PL) · 113The Conservative Party (PC) · 116Democratic Action (AD) · 120Social Christian Party (COPEI) · 124Recapitulating · 128Conclusion · 130Chapter FourThe Effects of Parties Internal Organization on TheirElectoral Performance, 1978-2006 · 133Data · 134Dependent and Independent Variables · 137Analysis · 141The Effects of Parties' Internal Characteristics · 144The Effects of Contextual and Institutional Variableson Parties' Electoral Performance · 151Conclusion · 156Conclusion · 157