Periodization and Party System Institutionalization in Latin America: A Reply to Mainwaring

The study of party system institutionalization in Latin America is complicated by the fact that political development in the region has been indelibly marked by period-specific stages and challenges of capitalist development. These periods are associated with distinct patterns of social mobilization, class conflict and political incorporation or exclusion of labour and popular constituencies. These patterns heavily condition the programmatic structuring of partisan competition and its impact on party system institutionalization. Important theoretical insights can be derived from the study of intra-regional variation in period-specific challenges and effects, but this requires careful attention to the factors that differentiate cases.

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Party System Institutionalization in Contemporary Latin America*

Party Systems in Latin America ◽

10.1017/9781316798553.003 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 34-70 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Scott Mainwaring

Keyword(s):

Latin America ◽

Party System ◽

Party System Institutionalization

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Party System Institutionalization, Party Collapse and Party Building

Government and Opposition ◽

10.1017/gov.2016.21 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 51 (4) ◽

pp. 691-716 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Scott Mainwaring

Keyword(s):

Latin America ◽

Democratic Party ◽

Party System ◽

Party Systems ◽

Time And Space ◽

Party Building ◽

Good For ◽

Party System Institutionalization ◽

Over Time

This essay reviews five important recent books on party system institutionalization, party collapse and party building. The first section analyses broader lessons about party system institutionalization derived from these books. What have we learned about how party system institutionalization varies over time and space and about its causes? All five volumes underscore the difficulty of institutionalizing democratic party systems in contemporary Asia, Africa and Latin America. At the same time, they demonstrate that there have been some successful cases of party building and party system institutionalization. In all three regions, variance across countries is great. The three books on Latin America show that sharp conflict and programmatic differences are good for institutionalization, partially countering earlier arguments about the perils of polarization. Across regions, erstwhile authoritarian ruling parties have sometimes helped to forge institutionalized party systems under competitive regimes. The rest of the essay analyses the three single-authored books in some detail and provides brief overviews of the two edited volumes.

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The International Monetary Fund, Party System Institutionalization, and Protest in Latin America

Latin American Politics and Society ◽

10.1111/j.1548-2456.2016.00309.x ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 58 (2) ◽

pp. 26-48 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Sergio Béjar ◽

Juan Andrés Moraes

Keyword(s):

Latin America ◽

International Monetary Fund ◽

Latin American ◽

Party System ◽

Theoretical Argument ◽

Anecdotal Evidence ◽

Main Hypothesis ◽

Political Development and Political Decay

World Politics ◽

10.2307/2009286 ◽

1965 ◽

Vol 17 (3) ◽

pp. 386-430 ◽

Cited By ~ 260

Author(s):

Samuel P. Huntington

Keyword(s):

Latin America ◽

Political Participation ◽

Political Institutions ◽

Political Development ◽

Social Mobilization ◽

Political Organizations ◽

Fast Growing ◽

World Today ◽

The World ◽

Civilized Society

Among the laws that rule human societies,” de Tocqueville said, “there is one which seems to be more precise and clear than all others. If men are to remain civilized or to become so, the art of associating together must grow and improve in the same ratio in which the equality of conditions is increased.”1 In much of the world today, equality of political participation is growing much more rapidly than is the “art of associating together.” The rates of mobilization and participation are high; the rates of organization and institutionalization are low. De Tocqueville's precondition for civilized society is in danger, if it is not already undermined. In these societies, the conflict between mobilization and institutionalization is the crux of politics. Yet in the fast-growing literature on the politics of the developing areas, political institutionalization usually receives scant treatment. Writers on political development emphasize the processes of modernization and the closely related phenomena of social mobilization and increasing political participation. A balanced view of the politics of contemporary Asia, Africa, and Latin America requires more attention to the “art of associating together” and the growth of political institutions. For this purpose, it is useful to distinguish political development from modernization and to identify political development with the institutionalization of political organizations and procedures. Rapid increases in mobilization and participation, the principal political aspects of modernization, undermine political institutions. Rapid modernization, in brief, produces not political development, but political decay.

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Parties and Regime Change in Latin America

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics ◽

10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.1671 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Laura Gamboa

Keyword(s):

Latin America ◽

Political Parties ◽

Party System ◽

Regime Change ◽

Party Systems ◽

Democratic Politics ◽

Democratic Institutions ◽

Party Leaders ◽

Party System Institutionalization

The importance of political parties has been at the heart of the debate about regime and regime change. Parties are essential actors for democratic politics. They can trigger transitions from and to democracy, polarize making democracies vulnerable to breakdown, or manage conflict to protect democratic institutions. However, not all parties or party systems are equal. The levels of fragmentation, polarization, and institutionalization in any given party and/or party system are key to understanding the rise, fall, and survival of democracy. In Latin America, the literature has focused, mostly, on party and party system institutionalization. In general, scholars agree that institutionalization fosters democracy. The organizational strength and embeddedness of political parties in society and the extent to which they interact regularly in stable ways, they argue, is key to the survival of democratic politics. There are instances, however, that suggest that this relationship is more problematic than the literature assumes. In contexts of crisis, highly institutionalized parties and party systems can be slow to adjust to new groups or demands and stiffen party leaders’ ability to respond to new issues. When facing a polarizing potential autocrat, for instance, high levels of party and party system institutionalization could hurt more than help democracy. They can reduce the ability of politicians to attract moderate voters from opposing parties, hinder their capacity to counteract antisystemic trends in order to lead opposition efforts, or limit the extent to which they can reach across the aisle to build ideologically diverse prodemocratic coalitions.

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Market Reform, Programmatic (De)alignment, and Party System Stability in Latin America

Comparative Political Studies ◽

10.1177/0010414012453449 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 46 (11) ◽

pp. 1422-1452 ◽

Cited By ~ 47

Author(s):

Kenneth M. Roberts

Keyword(s):

Latin America ◽

Party System ◽

Party Systems ◽

System Stability ◽

Reform Process ◽

Economic Adjustment ◽

Democratic Regimes ◽

Partisan Competition ◽

The Impact ◽

Leftist Parties

Although democratic regimes in Latin America since the early 1980s have been surprisingly durable, party systems in much of the region continue to experience very high levels of electoral instability. A critical juncture approach to institutional change suggests that variation in party system stability is related to the impact of market liberalization in the 1980s and 1990s on the programmatic alignment—or dealignment—of partisan competition. Market reforms that were adopted by conservative leaders and opposed by a major leftist rival aligned party systems programmatically, allowing societal opposition to be channeled into institutionalized forms of competition that were highly stable in the postadjustment era. By contrast, bait-and-switch reforms adopted by populist or leftist leaders were programmatically dealigning for party systems, leaving them vulnerable to highly destabilizing reactive sequences in the aftermath to the reform process—including mass social protests, the demise of historic conservative parties, and the outflanking of traditional populist or leftist parties by more radical, anti-neoliberal outsiders. The political dynamics of market-based economic adjustment thus heavily conditioned the ways in which party systems would process the postadjustment revival of populist and leftist alternatives in the region.

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Party system volatility, regeneration and de-institutionalization in Western Europe (1945–2015)

Party Politics ◽

10.1177/1354068815601330 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 23 (4) ◽

pp. 376-388 ◽

Cited By ~ 51

Author(s):

Alessandro Chiaramonte ◽

Vincenzo Emanuele

Keyword(s):

Latin America ◽

Data Analysis ◽

Eastern Europe ◽

Party System ◽

Western Europe ◽

Central And Eastern Europe ◽

Electoral Volatility ◽

Political Actors ◽

Long Time ◽

Party System Institutionalization

Despite a great flourishing of studies about Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe, the issue of party system institutionalization has been widely neglected in Western Europe, where the presence of stable and predictable patterns of interactions among political actors has been generally taken for granted for a long time. Nevertheless, party system institutionalization is not something that can be gained once and for all. This article proposes a theoretical reconceptualization and a new empirical operationalization of party system (de-)institutionalization. Furthermore, it tests the presence of patterns of de-institutionalization in Western Europe from 1945 to (March) 2015 (336 elections in 19 countries) by using an original database of electoral volatility and of its internal components (regeneration and alteration). Data analysis shows that Western Europe is facing great electoral instability and party system regeneration and that many countries have experienced sequences of party system de-institutionalization, especially in the last two decades.

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Testing the Causal Mechanisms in Additional Cases

10.1093/oso/9780198807872.003.0008 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Paul D. Kenny

Keyword(s):

Twentieth Century ◽

Latin America ◽

Case Studies ◽

Democratic Party ◽

Party System ◽

Liberal Democratic Party ◽

System Stability ◽

Relative Autonomy ◽

Causal Mechanisms ◽

Liberal Democratic

Case studies of Indonesia and Japan illustrate that party-system stability in patronage democracies is deeply affected by the relative autonomy of political brokers. Over the course of a decade, a series of decentralizing reforms in Indonesia weakened patronage-based parties hold on power, with the 2014 election ultimately being a contest between two rival populists: Joko Widodo and Subianto Prabowo. Although Japan was a patronage democracy throughout the twentieth century, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) remained robust to outsider appeals even in the context of economic and corruption crises. However, reforms in the 1990s weakened the hold of central factional leaders over individual members of the LDP and their patronage machines. This was instrumental to populist Junichiro Koizumi’s winning of the presidency of the LDP and ultimately the prime ministership of Japan. This chapter also reexamines canonical cases of populism in Latin America.

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