'Break-In Parties' and Changing Patterns of Democracy in Latin America

Thomas Kestler,Silvana Krause,Juan Bautista Lucca

doi:10.1590/1981-38212016000100004

Abstract

Although Lijphart's typology of consensus and majoritarian democracy can be regarded as the most widely used tool to classify democratic regimes, it has been rarely applied to Latin America so far. We try to fill this gap by adapting Lijphart's typological framework to the Latin American context in the following way. In contrast to previous studies, we treat the type of democracy as an independent variable and include informal factors such as clientelism or informal employment in our assessment of democratic patterns. On this basis, we aim to answer the following questions. First, how did the patterns of democracy evolve in Latin America over the two decades between 1990 and 2010 and what kind of differences can be observed in the region? Second, what are the institutional determinants of the observed changes? We focus on the emergence of new parties because of their strong impact on the first dimension of Lijphart's typology. From our observations we draw the following tentative conclusions: If strong new parties established themselves in the party system but failed to gain the presidency, they pushed the system towards consensualism. Conversely, new parties that gained the presidency produced more majoritarian traits.

Highlights

Lijphart's typology of consensus and majoritarian democracy can be regarded as the most widely used tool to classify democratic regimes, it has been rarely applied to Latin America so far
How did the patterns of democracy evolve in Latin America over the two decades between 1990 and 2010 and what kind of differences can be observed in the region? Second, what are the institutional determinants of the observed changes? We focus on the emergence of new parties because of their strong impact on the first dimension of Lijphart's typology
Lijphart's framework, has to be adapted to the Latin American context in two respects: first, informal aspects have to be included into the operationalization of the defining variables, and second, more emphasis has to be put on aspects of institutional change by choosing shorter periods of assessment

Summary

Silvana Krause

Lijphart's typology of consensus and majoritarian democracy can be regarded as the most widely used tool to classify democratic regimes, it has been rarely applied to Latin America so far. Lijphart's framework, has to be adapted to the Latin American context in two respects: first, informal aspects have to be included into the operationalization of the defining variables, and second, more emphasis has to be put on aspects of institutional change by choosing shorter periods of assessment. We restrict our analysis to the first of the two possible perspectives: Break-in parties are treated as independent variables and their impact is discussed with regard to the executives-parties dimension only For this purpose, we put forward the following hypothesis: If strong break-in parties established themselves in the party system but failed to gain the presidency, they pushed the system towards consensualism. In some cases break-in parties accentuated the pluralistic structure of the party system, while in others a process of re-concentration set in during the 2000s, due either to the failure and disappearance of break-in parties or to the collapse of established parties (SEAWRIGHT, 2006)

Score Scale*

Arg Bol Bra Chi Col Ecu Mex Per Uru Ven

Findings

Conclusion