Latin American party systems / Herbert Kitschelt [and others].

Includes bibliographical references (pages 359-381) and index.

Print version record.

Political parties provide a crucial link between voters and politicians. This link takes a variety of forms in democratic regimes, from the organization of political machines built around clientelistic networks to the establishment of sophisticated programmatic parties. Latin American Party Systems provides a novel theoretical argument to account for differences in the degree to which political party systems in the region were programmatically structured at the end of the twentieth century. Based on a diverse array of indicators and surveys of party legislators and public opinion, the book argues that learning and adaptation through fundamental policy innovations are the main mechanisms by which politicians build programmatic parties. Marshalling extensive evidence, the book's analysis shows the limits of alternative explanations and substantiates a sanguine view of programmatic competition, nevertheless recognizing that this form of party system organization is far from ubiquitous and enduring in Latin America.

Introduction: party competition in Latin America -- 1 Patterns of programmatic party competition in Latin America -- Part I: Describing Programmatic Structuration: 2 Issues, ideologies, and partisan divides: imprints of programmatic structure in Latin American legislatures -- 3 Left-right semantics as a facilitator of programmatic structuring -- 4 Political representation in Latin America -- 5 Ideological cohesion of political parties in Latin America -- Part II: Causes and Correlates of Programmatic Party System Structuration: Explaining Cross-National Diversity -- 6 Long-term influences on the structuring of Latin American Party systems -- 7 Democratic politics and political economy since the 1980s: transforming the programmatic structure of Latin American party systems? -- 8 Programmatic structuration around religion and political regime -- 9 Programmatic structuration and democratic performance -- 10. Conclusion.

English.

eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - Worldwide