Burgess and Levitsky 2003

Burgess, Katrina and Steven Levitsky. 2003. "Explaining Populist Party Adaptation in Latin America: Environmental and Organizational Determinants of Party Change in Argentina, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela." Comparative Political Studies. 36: 881-911.

1. Introduction
1. changes in trade and production altered the working class (882)
2. fall of Soviet Union altered international political situation
3. These changes compelled mass-populist parties to rethink their platforms and social coalitions
4. populist parties changed their coalitions in very different ways across LAm
5. two level framework:
1. Parties incentives to adapt = economic + political conditions
1. deep economic crisis and weak left alternatives created incentives to turn to neoliberalism
2. Organizational capacity to adapt = fluidity of leadership hierarchies + autonomy of chief executive
1. more fluid structures and stronger executive leads to great adaptive capacity (883)
6. Four “cases: all four experienced similar economic pressures
1. PJ in Argentina --> medium neoliberal --> stable electoral base
2. PRI in Mexico --> high neoliberal --> losing ground-but-stable electoral base
3. no neoliberal, electoral collapse:
1. Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (APRA) en Peru
2. Acción Democrática (AD) in Venezuela
4. VARIATION CAUSED BY EXTERNAL INCENTIVES AND ABILITY TO ADAPT
2. Explaining Populist Party Adaptation
1. Mini-lit review
1. informal workers are a much more tenuous support base for populist parties compared to old working class (Roberts 1998) (884)
2. This article contextualizes previous approaches that relied only on leadership as cause of party adaptation (885)
2. Environmental factors: Electoral and Economic Environment
1. Electoral environment, two possible challenges
1. center/center-right parties that attract middle class, leave populist parties with only working class constituents (885-886)
2. further left parties may draw off support of the urban informal sector and poor (886)
2. Economic environment, depends on depth of crisis
1. extreme crises, like hyperinflation, mean that any means (read: neoliberal means) are worth it since cost of letting crisis continue outweighs cost of abandoning traditional statist program (887)
2. moderate crisis, change less necessary
3. Party Organization: Capacity to Adapt
1. fluidity of party hierarchy
1. more fluid, less bureaucratic, easier leadership change = better able to adapt (887-888)
2. degree to which office-holding leaders are autonomous from parties
1. essentially a measure of bureaucracy of intra-party relations (888)
3. Applying the Framework
1. lack of market reform was closely associated with electoral decline in 1980s/90s (889)
2. PJ: Adaptation and Electoral Success: 1989 Menem neoliberal surprise, little intraparty resistance (890-891)
3. PRI: Adaptation and Survival: really ramped up with Salinas (891), Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas defected, but generally no intraparty resistance (892)
4. APRA: Failed Populism and Electoral Decline: 1985 Alan García stayed populist, Peru descends into hyperinflation, APRA collapses in 1990s
5. AD: Blocked Reform and Electoral Decline:
1. 1984 Jaime Lusinchi implemented tough austerity measures, but abandoned them once recovery came and relied heavily on oil revenue (893)
2. Carlos Andrés Pérez 1989, “The Great TUrnaround” neoliberalism, blocked by AD itself (intraparty)
4. Incentives to Adapt
1. variables: inflation rate, GDP growth rate, balance of payments the year President was elected (894)
1. PJ = high incentives to adapt (895)
1. deep crisis from a heterodox administration (895)
2. no threat from the left (895)
3. story:  Menem faced credibility gap with foreign investors, crisis started under UCR heterodox government, no threat from left, and PJ needed to better attract middle class anyway (896)
2. PRI and AD = medium incentives: (895)
1. moderate crisis (895)
2. weak to mixed electoral incentives (895)
3. PRI story: Mexico had a bit of a credibility gap, and faced threats from right (PAN) and left (PRD). (897) ME: Essentially, Mexico doesn’t quite fit this framework
4. AD Story: Venezuela had two short-lived crises (898); reforms were started but increase in oil revenues and government spending usually fixed them (898); economic hardships usually seen by public as mismanagement and corruption, not failure of economic model (899); AD faced no electoral challenge, but one minor one came from the left, so added to disincentive (899)
3. APRA = disincentives:
1. moderate crisis inherited from ORTHOdox government (895)
2. intense left wing competition (895)
3. story: poor economic performance in the 1980s was associated with IMF-style austerity program under center-right government (897-898), Since 1950s APRA had shifted toward the right, and leftist military dictator meant that left made a lot of inroads, threatened APRA’s working class constituency (898)
5. Capacity to Adapt (899)
1. PJ is really fluid and flexible (see Levitsky 2003) (900),and executives have a lot of autonomy: “government controls the party” (901)
2. PRI is relatively fluid, but not extremely fluid.  Real cause is the chief executive’s massive autonomy from party (902)
3. APRA is “strategically flexible” (read: it’s a populist party) but does not have a fluid party structure (903).  Importantly: executive has a lot of autonomy, though APRA also has it’s own power autonomous from Prez
4. AD: bureaucratic party with low leadership autonomy.  started acting like an opposition party when Pérez initiated reforms (904)

Page 905	Hi incentive to adapt	Medium incentive	low incentive
High capacity to adapt	PJ (adapted)	PRI (adapted)
Medium Capacity			APRA (no adapt)
Low capacity		AD (no adapt)

6. Putting the Variables Together/Conclusion
1. “In this context, Salinas’ decision to accelerate and deepen neoliberalism was rather bold” (905) Meaning: Mexico doesn’t fit our model very well
2. “...the strategies of individual parties may have profound party systemic implications as well” (907)
1. Systems in Argentina and Mexico stayed stable
2. Systems in Peru and Venezuela collapsed