Challenges of party-building in Latin America

Nearly four decades since the onset of the third wave, political parties remain weak in Latin America: parties have collapsed in much of the region, and most new party-building efforts have failed. Why do some new parties succeed while most fail? This book challenges the widespread belief that democracy and elections naturally give rise to strong parties and argues that successful party-building is more likely to occur under conditions of intense conflict than under routine democracy. Periods of revolution, civil war, populist mobilization, or authoritarian repression crystallize partisan attachments, create incentives for organization-building, and generate a 'higher cause' that attracts committed activists. Empirically rich chapters cover diverse cases from across Latin America, including both successful and failed cases

1 Introduction; Defining and Measuring Party-Building; Explaining Successful Party-Building: A Conflict-Centered Approach; The Centrality of Conflict; Organizational Inheritance; New Debates and Issues for Research; Democracy, Authoritarianism, and Party-Building; Party-Building and the State: A Double-Edged Sword?; The Role of Party Leaders; The Paradox of Populism; Structure of the Volume Part I Party-Voter Linkages and Challenges of Brand-Building2 Historical Timing, Political Cleavages, and Party-Building in Latin America; Linkages, Cleavages, and Party System Alignments; Critical Junctures and Party System Alignment; Programmatic (De)alignment and Party System Institutionalization in Comparative Perspective; Programmatic Alignments and Party System Stability; Conclusion; 3 Building Party Brands in Argentina and Brazil; Party Brands and Mass Partisanship; Building and Diluting the FREPASO Brand in Argentina; Building the PT Brand in Brazil Party Perceptions and Partisanship: Testing Individual-Level ExpectationsParty Brands, Timing, and the Success of New Parties; 4 Segmented Party-Voter Linkages; Sequencing Explanations of Party Origins and Consolidation; Linkage Segmentation and Harmonization: A Framework; Segmented Appeals in Unequal, Fragmented Societies; The Challenge of Harmonization; The Argument at Work: The Cases of Chile and Uruguay; The Case of the UDI; The Case of the FA; Comparing the Cases; Conclusion; Part II Challenges of Organization-.Building; 5 The Paradox of Adversity; The Argument: The Paradox of Adversity State, Media, and Incentives for Organization-BuildingMobilizing Structures and the Means for Organization-Building; Adversity and Activist Commitment; The Role of Authoritarianism; The Argument at Work: New Left Party Survival and Collapse in Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina; The PT in Brazil; PT Organization-Building: State, Media, and Mobilizing Structures; Selection Effects and Activist Commitment; Surviving Crisis in 1982; The Institutio