Abstract
Early advocates of decentralization lauded it as a strategy for strengthening democratic institutions, but later scholarship has emphasized decentralization’s negative consequences, especially for political parties. This article argues that the impact of political decentralization on established parties is shaped by the context in which the reforms occur, with poor economic performance and limited programmatic differentiation making parties more vulnerable to the challenges posed by decentralization. The article explores how decentralization under such circumstances has contributed to party decay in Latin America, where declining support for established parties has been significant, in some places undermining democratic stability and governability. The article employs cross-national time-series analysis and case studies. The quantitative evidence indicates that political decentralization weakens existing parties in contexts of poor economic conditions and little ideological differentiation in the party system. Case studies elaborate the processes through which decentralizing reforms together with economic conditions and party linkages affect party systems.
Highlights
Political decentralization through the establishment of separate subnational elections was commonly, but not uniformly, implemented in Latin America and elsewhere during the 1980s and 1990s
I begin with a detailed analysis of Venezuela, a country in which political decentralization occurred amid poor economic performance and limited ideological differentiation, contributing to significant decay of all the major parties in the system
Bolivia exhibited generally improving economic performance but declining ideological differentiation in the years following the establishment of new levels of subnational elections, which contributed to weakening the traditional parties and allowed the emergence of new actors better adapted to the decentralized context
Summary
Political decentralization through the establishment of separate subnational elections was commonly, but not uniformly, implemented in Latin America and elsewhere during the 1980s and 1990s. Parties are more likely to rely on clientelism, making them susceptible to the resource and organizational challenges posed by decentralization.7 When decentralization multiplies electoral contests, clientelist linkage requires parties to unearth enough material benefits to contest not just occasional national elections, and numerous subnational ones (Gutiérrez Sanín 2007, 275ff; Luna 2008).
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