Social or political cleavages? A spatial analysis of the party system in post-authoritarian Chile

Abstract

Lipset and Rokkan’s (Party system and voter alignments: cross national perspectives, Lipset and Rokkan eds., New York: Free Press, pp. 1–64, 1967) sociological model of cleavages and the so-called “freezing hypothesis” dominate theorizing about party system formation. Torcal and Mainwaring (Br. J. Polit. Sci. 33:55–84, 2003) show the relevance of a purely political cleavage for structuring the party system in the case of Chile, challenging the freezing hypothesis’s claims. They also dispute case-specific research that argues Chile’s party system still reflects a “three-thirds” division between Left, Right, and Center. Revisiting this debate, our study employs spatial maps of the party system. Such political-economy models are rare in studies of Latin American politics. The application here supports a democratic/authoritarian political cleavage in Chile.