Personalist Parties Research Articles

What is to be Done? How Radical Leftists Help to Solve the Problem of Personalist Party-Building in Latin America

Political leaders around the world increasingly rely on personalist parties to win elections and govern. While existing scholarship assumes that personalist parties do not build territorial organization, in fact they vary substantially in terms of organizational strength. In this paper, we move beyond existing structural explanations of party-building and focus on the role of party elites’ preferences to explain the source of this variation. Through a mixed-method approach combining process-tracing of the case studies of Venezuela’s MVR/PSUV and Ecuador’s Alianza PAIS and statistical analysis of Latin American parties, we find that party elites’ past political experiences shape whether personalist parties successfully invest in party organization. Party officials who were socialized in radical-left parties are more likely to advocate for party-building and their presence within party cadres is associated with stronger party organization.

How Personalist Parties Undermine State Capacity in Democracies

How do political parties shape state capacity? We argue that democratic leaders backed by personalist parties are more likely than other leaders to undermine impartial state administration. Personalist parties are those where the leader has more control over the party than other senior party elites. Elites in these parties have careers closely tied to the leader, are unlikely to normatively value an impersonal bureaucracy, and lack collective action capacity independent from the leader. Therefore, personalist parties are less likely than other parties to restrain leaders from undermining impartial state administration. Results from various designs for causal inference show that party personalism decreases impersonal state administration, particularly when the party controls a legislative majority. However, party personalism does not influence other dimensions of state capacity, such as fiscal capacity or territorial control. The findings have implications for how political parties enable democratically elected leaders to erode open-access societies and ultimately, democracy.

Особливості формування партійних систем країн Тропічної Африки

The peculiarities of party building in the countries of Tropical (Sub-Saharan, Black) Africa are characterized. It is emphasized that party building takes place within the framework of a non-Western type of political process. The main features of the political process for the countries of Tropical Africa are highlighted: 1) a specific way of organizing power, which combines the principles and institutions of old (traditional, colonial) and new forms of autocracy and democracy; 2) the institution of elections is the only full-fledged democratic institution in Africa, although the procedures for their holding are constantly violated; 3) a long stay in power of one party and the constancy of political leaders; 4) presidential-parliamentary form of government, which is essentially presidential; 5) lack of stabilizing rational bureaucracy; 6) significant (sometimes dominant) influence of the army on the political process; 7) underdevelopment of civil society; 8) weakness of political parties, their clan nature, evolution towards the regime of personal power, populist strategies of their activities; 9) tribalism; 10) hybrid political regime. The main periods of the development of political parties in the countries of Tropical Africa are distinguished and studied: the first: between the First and Second World Wars (the birth of political parties); the second: 1945–1970 (formation of multi-party system); the third: the 80s of the XX century. (dominance of one-party systems); the fourth: starting from the 1990s, the main characteristic of which is the transition to multipartyism.The main characteristics of political parties in Tropical Africa are studied: the impossibility of determining the number of parties; weakness of the organizational structure; narrowed program and ideological spectrum of parties; great typological diversity. A typology of political parties is proposed: 1) Traditional parties of the local elite; 2) Customer batches; 3) Class mass parties; 4) Pluralist mass parties; 5) Nationalist parties; 6) Mono-ethnic parties; 7) Polyethnic (congress) parties (union, coalition of ethnic parties); 8) Religious parties; 9) Fundamentalist parties and neo-totalitarian religious parties; 10) Electoral parties; 11) Personalist parties; 12) Parties-movements; 13) Parties of "new politics"/ one or two topical issues. Conclusions are made regarding the peculiarities of the functioning of political parties in the countries of Tropical Africa in the conditions of democratic transit, as a rule, this is a hybrid political regime.

New Parties, Fractionalization, and the Increasing Duration of Government Formation Processes in the EU Member States

In the last decade, several new parties gained representation in the EU member countries, contributing to additional polarization and fragmentation. This also affected the transfer of power from one government to the next, a period that is sometimes characterized by long negotiations where party leaders bargain over the composition and policy objectives of a new cabinet. Analyzing data for the 28 EU countries, this article shows that since 2008 the time for government formation has noticeably increased in most of the EU countries and, in line with the relevant literature, the index of fractionalization (effective number of parliamentary parties) is its best predictor. We did not find, however, a significant correlation between the electoral success of new parties and increases in the duration of cabinet bargaining.Related ArticlesKostadinova, Tatiana, and Petia Kostadinova. 2016. “Party Promises, Voter Understanding, and Mandate Responsiveness in East European Politics.” Politics & Policy 44 (1): 5‐34. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12145Millard, Frances. 2009. “Poland: Parties without a Party System, 1991‐2008.” Politics & Policy 37 (4): 781‐798. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747‐1346.2009.00198.xPasquino, Gianfranco. 2014. “Italy: The Triumph of Personalist Parties.” Politics & Policy 42 (4): 548‐566. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12079

The Disappearance of Political Cultures in Italy

Following the collapse of the Italian party system in 1994, post-war Italian political cultures have all but exhausted themselves, if not disappeared completely. First, the Ulivo (Olive Tree) in 1996–1998, then, the Partito Democratico in 2007–2008, attempted without much conviction to formulate a new political culture combining several traditions and heritages. This article will explore how and why the PD failed in its attempts. It will also look at the status of other political cultures, especially the federalist and the liberal, supposedly relaunched by Berlusconi in 1994. It will conclude with some reflections on the appearance of personalist parties and leaders’ narratives and provide an assessment of the present situation with specific reference to the attempt by the PD leader, Matteo Renzi, to give birth to a so-called ‘Partito della Nazione’. Is there any future for new political cultures in the Italian political system? Will the Italian party system ever be revived?

Endogenous ballot structures: The selection of open and closed lists in Colombia’s legislative elections

What are the incentives for parties to personalize electoral competition? This paper proposes that both open and closed lists give congruity, rather than tension, to the interests of party leaders and candidates. However, the efficacy of each list type depends on the electoral returns expected from promoting the partisan and personal vote. To test this argument, we analyze the choices of parties over the ballot structure by leveraging an unusual institutional feature of the Colombian legislative elections, wherein parties are allowed to present either an open or a closed list, varying their choices across electoral districts and contests. Our empirical analysis shows that parties are more likely to open their lists in high-magnitude districts and wherever they have a strong, local electoral organization. We also find a positive relationship between the selection of closed lists among personalist parties, providing evidence to previous arguments proposing a closed list as a tool to concentrate campaign efforts behind a particular candidate.

Norms, Corruption, and Voting for Berlusconi

Why do people vote for corrupt politicians? Taking Silvio Berlusconi as an example of a politician who continually succeeded in attaining public office despite corruption accusations, corruption charges, and corruption convictions, I explore several hypotheses to understand voter support for Berlusconi. I show that social norms that justify corruption in one's peer group extend to voting and increase the likelihood of supporting Berlusconi at all points on the ideological spectrum. This work builds on previous work in psychology and sociology and brings into question assumptions that voters fail to sanction corrupt politicians because of a lack of information. By focusing on individual-level political behavior, this article shows that increased information on corruption by the media and others may not have the intended effect: perceiving corruption as common may increase tolerance for corruption, rather than encouraging voters to punish corruption. Related Articles Pasquino, Gianfranco. 2014. “Italy: The Triumph of Personalist Parties.” Politics & Policy 42 (4): 548-566. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/polp.12079/abstract Lagunes, Paul F. 2012. “Corruption's Challenge to Democracy: A Review of the Issues.” Politics & Policy 40 (5): 802-826. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2012.00384.x/abstract Caillier, James. 2010. “Citizen Trust, Political Corruption, and Voting Behavior: Connecting the Dots.” Politics & Policy 38 (5): 1015-1035. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2010.00267.x/abstract Related Media The Quality of Government Institute. http://www.qog.pol.gu.se/ The Comparative Study of Electoral Systems. http://www.cses.org/ Talk by Jeremy Weinstein on a project examining political accountability around corruption and performance in Uganda. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6w3_w360rw

Italy: The Triumph of Personalist Parties

The fall of the Berlin Wall, a major anticorruption investigation in 1992, and the electoral referendum of April 1993 provoked the collapse of the Italian party system and led to the disappearance of the parties that had governed Italy since December 1946. Acting as a political entrepreneur, the media magnate Silvio Berlusconi founded, shaped, and led his own personalist party. Providing social, economic, and political representation to a wide variety of sectors of the middle class, small entrepreneurs, shopkeepers, and artisans, Berlusconi has dominated Italian politics for almost 20 years. One way or another, all Italian parties have followed suit, becoming personalist and personalized. A product of the merger between the former Communists and left‐wing Christian Democrats, the moderately progressive Democratic Party (PD) had resisted the trend until recently. With Matteo Renzi's unstoppable ascent to the offices of party secretary and prime minister, even the PD became personalistic.

Personalist Parties in the Third Wave of Democratization: A Comparative Analysis of Peru and Bulgaria

In this article, we deploy the concept of personalism in a comparative study of two Third Wave democracies, Peru and Bulgaria. What factors explain the prevalence and success of personalistic parties? We analyze in rich detail the personalist parties that emerged in Peru and Bulgaria, focusing on the role of leaders and on parties' organizational development (or lack thereof). Adopting an institutionalist approach, we assess the impact of party regulation and financing, electoral rules, and domestic regime type (as well as international institutions) on these political entrepreneurs. We conclude that institutions did incentivize and constrain personalistic leadership, although other factors were also relevant. And while organized parties are now scarce in both countries, party politics in Peru is even more personality driven than in Bulgaria.

Toward a Theory of Personalist Parties: Concept Formation and Theory Building

Personalistic leadership—the exercise of authority vested in influential individuals based on personal attributes rather than organizational role—is a political phenomenon not limited by time or space. But what do we mean when we say that a political leader or a party is “personalistic”? While the theme of personalist leadership is not absent from political analyses, there is a lack of scholarly consensus on core elements of the concept itself. The goal of this article is to define in clearer terms what personalism is and how it differs from concepts such as charisma, populism, and anti‐establishment politics. We introduce a parsimonious definition based on intra‐organizational power and identify a party as personalist if two conditions are met: a dominant leader and a weakly structured organization. Finally, we present a more comprehensive typology of parties based on those two criteria and briefly illustrate the utility of our approach for explaining personalist formations as a distinct organizational type.

Opposition Parties and the Urban Poor in African Democracies

Africa’s urban poor increasingly represent a key constituency for electoral mobilization. Opposition parties, which are pivotal for democratic consolidation, have nevertheless exhibited disparate success at obtaining votes from this constituency. To explain why, this study focuses on the case of Zambia and draws on interviews with political elites as well as a survey of informal sector workers in Lusaka. Instead of vote buying, ethnic alignments, or economic voting, these data show that the urban poor’s voting decisions are related to the strategies used by political parties to incorporate them into the political arena. Opposition parties that employ populist strategies are more likely to win support from the urban poor than parties reliant on alternative modes of mobilization. The advantages of a populist strategy include greater differentiation from the myriad of purely personalistic parties in Africa and greater congruence with the policy priorities of the urban poor, including service delivery and jobs.

The political and partisan determinants of patronage in Latin America 1960–1994: A comparative perspective

Abstract. Countries vary substantially in the level of political patronage exercised in their respective political systems. This article examines how hypotheses generated by the literature on economic, institutional‐partisan and electoral factors account for variation in the level of political patronage in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru. Political patronage – operationalized as the proportion of spending on personnel to total spending, both at the central government and ministerial levels – is examined through a pooled cross‐sectional time‐series regression. Previous spending on personnel has the most consistent effect on political patronage, while the influence of political variables is more ambiguous. In contrast to conjectures that tie personalism and clientelism, it is shown that the presence of personalist parties in the legislature is negatively associated with patronage spending. Subsequently, the evolution of personnel expenditure in Argentina and Peru is traced, based on qualitative evidence and interview data.