Notes!: party systems

Showing posts with label party systems. Show all posts

Saturday, April 12, 2014

Roberts 2012

Introduction

one the one hand, democratic regimes from the 1980s have proven remarkably durable adn resilient to crises (2)
On the other hand, party systems have been far less stable
Paradoxically, democratic consolidation has coincided with a crisis of representation and general disillusionment with the political establishment

but this crisis affects different countries differently

Critical junctures:

neoliberal turn (3)
reactive sequences against neoliberalism!

Modes of political representation based in ISI were undermined by its collapse, specficially among the popular classes

and party systems varied widely in their ability to channel these issues

Broadly, these critical junctures dealigned parties, made their programmatic promises seem less sincere (especially thanks to bait and switch)
Argument:

when a populist/mass-based party undertook economic reform

it often made the transition more politically viable
but also dealigned the party from its constituents (4)

when a right party undertook economic reform

left party was able to channel dissent through the insittuions
party alignment was "reinforced"

in both cases, parties that undertook reforms were vulnerable to leftist challenges

The Puzzle of Party System Stability in Latin America

Presidentialized party systems may result in parties with unaccountable elites, ambiguous programmatic stands, but it doesn't help explain the wide variation in strength and durability of party systems (5)
electoral competition has not stabilized party systems or crystallized partisan identities
During neoliberal transition programmatic differentiation was tough, since there were such acute constraints on policy options available (7)

by contrast, the left turn helped realign some of these party systems

"neoliberal critical junctures and teh reactive sequences they spawned dislodged and reconfigured historic party systems, altering their programmatic alignments in was that heavily conditioned the stability ot partisan competition in the aftermath period" (8)

Market Liberalization and Part system alignments during neoliberal critical junctures

Critical junctures are designed to explain why similar types of political or economic challenges produce different, path dependent patterns of institutional change across a range of cases
suggest neoliberal critical juncture from 1973-1998 (Chavez ended it) (9)
it altered:

the character and purpose of state power
the patterns of association in civil society
the ways in which societal interests and claims were articulated and represented in the political arena (Collier and Handlin 2009, Yashar 2005)

Party systems before market adjustment: (10)

labor mobilizing
elitist (with clientelistic relations to popular sectors)
these preconditions weighed heavily on results of critic juncture, but did not define them entirely

three basic requirements of programmatic structuring of party systems

parties must adopt relatively coherent stands on salient issues that divide teh body politic (11)
policies adopted in office must bear resemblance to election platform

bait and switch severs relationship between electoral verdicts and the content of public policy (12)

there must be meaningful differences/policy alternatives between the competing parties

often not true during ISI crisis

The regionwide transition undermined all three of these basic conditions (13)

lots of policy switching, left/populist parties went along with reforms, or did bait and switch (13)
created internal party dissension among leftish parties
often meant that popular sector connections to parties were severd, replaced with clientelistic relations (14)
BUT if a conservative party initiated transition, and left remained in opposition, no dealignment

Three possible outcomes: table on page 16

parties aligned (contested liberalism), outcome was a durable party system (15)

Brazil, Chile, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Uruguay
Mexico, thanks to creation of PRD which replaced PRI as left
ambiguously Nicaragua (17)

dealigned (bait and witch), or neutral (no real left to contest) results on part system (neoliberal convergence), outcome was not a durable part system

dealigned: Argentina, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela
Neutral: Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay

contested liberalism allowed for dissent to be challenged through stable forms of electoral competition (17)
neoliberal convergence resulted in systems susceptible to destabilizing reactive sequences

17-25 goes through cases and uses electoral data, etc to prove this story

Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Roberts 2002

Roberts, Kenneth M. 2002. "Social Inequalities Without Class Cleavages in Latin America's Neoliberal Era". Studies in Comparative International Development (SCID). 36 (4): 3-33.

Introduction

Social inequality along class "fault lines" is unusually pronounced and appears to be growing (3)
despite inequality growth and economic insecurity, parties are not cleaving the political arena along class lines, but are building cross-class platforms (4)

this is especially true in Latin America, which is contiuning historical subordination of the popular classes

though in the past class cleavages were important, after neoliberal turn party systems now are more elite dominated than before, and the elites dominate the popular classes through diffuse, multi-class forms of representation (5)
Distinction between "segmented" and "stratified" cleavages

segmented cleavages are constructed across class lines (ELITE parties)
stratified cleavages are grounded in class consituencies or organizations (LABOR MOBILIZING parties)

neoliberal critical juncture was hard on stratified parties, made them seek/create more segmented party structures (5-6)
Argumetn is that neoliberal juncture realigned party systems across Latin America toward segmented structures (6)

Economic Crisis, Strucutral Adjustment, and Deepening Social Inequalities

Given teh growth of inequliaty, one could expect rejuvenation of class-based politics (7)

but it's not happening
early protests against neoliberalism were not sustaine
the economic transition drove new wedges between different sectors of the lower classes, diffusing class cleavages

Party Systems and Cleavage Structures in Latin America: Historical Patterns

uses term from European scholars, class cleavages, where a cleavage must: differentiate a group, organize them for political representation, and generate a sense of collective identity (8) (citing Lipset and Rokkan 1967 and Bartolini and Mair 1990)

this rarely happens so neatly in Latin America
most economic identities are rather shallow
labor-backed parties have always had to attract other support as well

better definiton of segmented versus stratified cleavages (9)

segmented cleavages may be grounded in social/cultural distinction, or the may be entirely political

at 1900 modernization began creating a more diversified social structure (10)

the mobilization of workers created intense class conflict
nevertheless, class cleavages were never quite as durable in Latin America as the were in Europe

nor, indeed, were parties organized only within one class...most were at least partially multi-class

this meant that labor either supported historical parties, or became a major supporter of populist/cross-class parties (11)

though populism did not generate strict class cleavages, it did create stratified fault lines that differentiated elite adn mass parties (12)
but the impportance of labor unions as backers for populist and left parties at least meant that some stratficiation occurred in class cleavages for left and labor mobilizing parties

for elite/traditional parties, the relationship with labor was usually patronage-based, and did not encapsulate voters within a party, could be more personalistic (113)

labor movemetns were, thus, weaker in elite-party systems

Countries with l abor-mobilizing parties tended to adopt more and deeper ISI measures, thus the neoliberal turn buffeted both socioeconomic and political connections between parties and popular sectors (14)

Party Systems in the Transition from ISI to Neoliberalism

Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico were regional leaders in ISI, joined by Bolivia, Peru, Venzuela

in all these coutnries, the state became the focal point of social deamnds (15)
thus the fundamental change in development model (from ISI to neoliberalism), and its commensurate withdrawing of the state from development, posed the greater political and economic shock to parties with labor mobilizing party systems (16)

(up to that point) the most stable electoral party systems are those that have eschewed the organization of class cleavages and are grounded in intra-elite schisms (Roberts pulls this back and makes a different claim in a 2012 article!) (18)
Market reforms pose a threat to the resources available for clientelism, but they pose little threat to the segmented organizational logic (19)

in contrast, beoliberalism produced sharp discontinuities in labor-mobilizing systems with stratified organizations
the stratified logic have been undermined by the more individualistic nature of neoliberalism

The Erosion of Class Cleavages in the Neoliberal Era

Argentina, Chile, and Peru demonstrated (in the past) that all three dimensions of class cleavage can develop in Latin America (20-21)
But the new economic model has thrown much of that into doubt (21-26)

the new economic model creates dispersion and segmentation among workers, with only a few having stable jobs, which fragments the labor movement (22)
unionization has also dropped, meaning unions have a smaller political voice
many labor-based parties have relaxed their ties to labor (Levitsky 1998, 2001, 2003, Murillo 1997, 2001)(23-24)
class has also been less important in determining voting patterns (24-25)

The Transformation of Political Representation in Comparative Perspective

Brazil seems the last labor-mobilizing party left, but class still hasn't been important recently as it has in the past for voting (26)
there has been an erosion of stratified axes of electoral competition, and a reinforcement of segmented patterns
labor unions remain political actors, but their ties to parties and state institutions have loosened, their access to policy-making has narrowed, and their voice has diminished (26-27)
suggests their is a "re-oligarchization" of politics

Roberts 2007

"The Crisis of Labor Politics in Latin America: Parties and Labor Movements during the Transition to Neoliberalism". 2007. International Labor and Working-Class History. 72 (1): 116-133.

Introduction

the neoliberal turn dislocated the mode of political representation of the popular (working) class(es), as this incorporation was rooted in the state-led development model (116)

domestic consumption was previoulsy the driver of the economy
this meant that wages generally rose over time, and unions flourished (117)

"An elective affinity existed, then, between strong developmentalist states, mass party organizations, and dense trade-union movements"
the neoliberal disruption undercut organized labor both in the political realm and in teh workplace

Party System Differentiation Under ISI: Elitist and Labor-Mobilizing Patterns

elitist

19th century oligarchic parties (or new, elite-driven parties) (Colombia, Uruguay, Paraguay)
attracted support from the popular classes but did not drive union creation/membership (118)

Labor-mobilizing

new parties (usually)
party could be populist (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela) of leftist (Chile, Nicaragua after 1979)
in these countries, level of trade union membership and degree of organizational concentration were much higher, which usually is read as meaning unions were much stronger in these places
labor-mobilizing countires tended to have a deeper commitment to ISI (119), elitist countries didn't stray nearly as far from liberal economic development (120)

the depth of ISI system also helps predict which countries made neoliberal turn last

stabilization was frequently delayed until a deep crisis
needed austerity measures were usually worse, "shock treatment"
contractions, crises, and disequilibria were not as strong in elite countries(121)
paradoxically, the places with teh strongest labor movements endured the deepest and most painful wage cuts, adjustment (122)

But what were the political consequences?!

Economic Crisis, Market Reform, and the Transformation of Political Representation

after neoliberal adjustment, there was an erosion of the social alignments and organizational forms that distinguished elite and labor-mobilizing party systems (123)

the groups (unions) that used to supply grassroots activists, identities, and loyal voters are now much weakers
at the same time, mass media has become more prevalent

NEW parties: top-down, largely detached from an increasingly individualized, independent, and more volatile electorate

with the dominance of neoliberal thinking, party programs have converged a great deal (124)
bait-and-switch occurrences by many left and populist parties in 1980s and 1990s meant:

they were saddled with the political costs of the transition, and
the transition weakened their traditional supporters (125)
this has forced many of these parties to seek new connections with the electorate, and they tend to do so using patron-clientelism, leadership appeal, or political marketing (instead of offering to change the economic system)

The Puzzle of Electoral Volatility in Latin America

lots of intraregional differences in electoral volatility (126)
volatility increased in the context of growing economic stability and democratic consolidation in the 1990s

thus volatility is not explained by "tough economic times"

party systems anchored in mass parties saw lots of dislocation in the 1980s and 1990s during transition, whereas elite party systems were relatively stable (127)

BUT recent divisions in elite party states f Uruguay and Colombia suggest the elite/mass differentiation isn't perfect either

Overall, it seems that voters just don't identify with any party nearly as strongly as they used to (128)

this volatility is especially striking given that many of these parties had all the institutionalization that should have made them very stable (129)

strong grassroots organizations
linkages to social blocs

as labor unions grew weaker and more detached from political parties, electoral competition became less polarize but also less programmatic, less grounded in popular interests, and more fluid and personalistic

Conclusion

"Latin America's widely noted 'crisis of representation' is, at least in part, a crisis of a particular type of socialpolitical representation" (130)
the Left might be able to fix this, but it's a long way away from being able to do that/actually doing that (130-131)

Monday, August 19, 2013

Wibbels and Roberts 2010

Wibbels, Erik, and Kenneth Roberts. 2010. "The Politics of Economic Crisis in Latin America". Studies in Comparative International Development. 45 (4): 383-409.

Introduction

Most quantitative models show that strong unions and powerful left parties are associated with severe economic crises (383)
BUT some evidence that the combination of left parties and strong unions can actually alleviate inflationary crises
crisis differ in depth, duration, and frequency (384)
but crises also need to be analytically separated from neoliberal economic reforms (previous scholarship tends to conflate these things)
authors examine three types of crises (385)

inflationary
growth
fiscal

Political conditions tested:

are new democracies more vulnerable to crises?
what effects do sub-regime variables have, including executive powers, party systems, and electoral competition?
how organized/powerful is labor and the left?

Early reporting of results:

different types of crises are independent and have distinct political correlates
neither powerful executives nor high levels of democracy are correlated with crisis events or duration
strength of electoral left and labor are correlated to more frequent crises...
BUT left in power + strong unions can facilitate early exits from crises

Methodological considerations

drawbacks to current literature

economic crises are often conflated with economic performance (386)
crises differ in depth and duration

any attempt to relate crises to political factors needs to include factors that explain variation in severity and duration

Crises vary in type

are some type of governments more prone to certain types of crises?

finally, really need to disentangle crises from neoliberal turn (387)

explanation of their variables (387-388)

The Political Determinants of Economic Crisis

most of these hypotheses built off existing literature
regime level of analysis:

literature supports two hypotheses regard new democracies, combined to form this one hypothesis: (388-389)
H1: Economic crises will be more severe and prolonged in new democracies (389)

sub-regime level

party system fragmentation is an impediment to economic efficiency (Haggard and Kaufman 1995; Mainwaring 1999) -- mans executive can easily get legislative majority and push reforms/policies
BUT also: fragmented party systems could make it less likely the executive will have legislative majority, and just add more veto players (Tsebelis 1995) -- meaning parties will have short-time horizons and not want to enact unfavorable policies

but more veot players may result in gridlock, a sort of backdoor to stability, which will improve investors' outlook
H2: the severity and duration of crises will have a U-shaped relationship with the number of effective political parties (390)

close electoral compeititon could result in both parties uniting behind reforms, realizing that their future ability to govern may be constrained iuf current crisis isn't dealt with

H3: economic crises will be more severe and prolonged in less competitive electoral environments

presidents with a ton of power can push reforms

H3: economic crises will be longer and more severe when the chief executive is weaker (391)

Labor and the Left (392)

H5a: economic crises will be longer and more severe when labor mobilizing or populist parties are strong
H5b: economic crises will be longer and more severe when organized labor movements are strong
H5c: economic crises will be longer and more severe when combined strength of left and labor is high

Finally, politics should have the greatest impact on financial crises, less impact on inflationary crises, and the least impact on growth crises (393)

Research Design

crises are measured as deviations from the regional mean performance for the entire period under study (394)

13% of country-years experienced GDP crises
11% of country-years experienced inflationary crises
11% of country-years experienced fiscal crises
the correlations between these crises are quite low

countries predisposed to one type of crisis are not necessarily predisposed to another (395)

on average, GDP crises (1.5 years) are shorter than fiscal crises (3.4 year) which are shorter than inflationary crises (5 years)
also, depth and duration are distinct

Results and Discussion

"politics play a much stronger role in producing crises than they do in year-to-year performance" (397)

more significant effect on the probability of inflationary and fiscal crises than growth crises

Strongest indicators: labor and the Left

strong left significantly increases probability of inflationary crises (397)
strong unions significantly increases probability of inflationary crises , even more than left parties(398)

BUT!!!! electoral strength of the left increases probability of inflationary crises ONLY WHEN UNIONS ARE WEAK (398-399)

strong left and labor unions allows governments to negotiate pacts between labor and capital on wages, investment, and employments that can temper redistributive demands (399)

Other important indicators

new regimes are more likely to have inflationary and/or fiscal crises (400)
political competition was not significant
increasing the power to the chief executive increases the probability of a fiscal crisis (emphasis in original)

party system fragmentation is weird...has an inverted u-shaped relationship with inflationary and fiscal crises (401)

could be that fragemented party systems block adjustment, but do block risky policies that could result in crisis
My take: that sounds unlikely...fitting the theory to the data, not finding an explanation

global economic conditions are not associated with inflation or fiscal crises
Outside of the variables on the left and labor unions, no other variable is consistent across all the models (401)

Duration of crisis

political variables provide less insight into this (402)
left will increase inflationary crisis length when labor is weak (402-403)
left + labor = shorter inflationary crises (by about 3 months) (403)
crises are shorter as party system fractionalization increases (404) -- ?????

Conclusions

the most important factor seems to be the nature of party-society linkages (405)
countries with conservative parties and weak labor unions were less susceptible to crises in general

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Roberts 2003

Roberts, Kenneth M. 2003. "Social Correlates of Party System Demise and Populist Resurgence in Venezuela". Latin American Politics and Society. 45 (3): 35-57.

Peru’s attempt at populism in 1980s ended in inflationary spiral and political upheaval (35)

many assumed populism was now dead, thanks in part to to Washington Consensus (35-36)

Rise of Washington consensus undermined the party and labor institutions that had been the left in LA (36)

void left after these parties collapsed was filled by personalistic leaders who cultivated direct relationship with the masses

appears to be a dialectical relationship between the demise of traditional representative institutions and the eruption of new forms of populism

Chávez was a master of the politics of antipolitics
he capitalized on and deepened public antipathy toward established institutions

Populism asirse most forcefully during times of political and economic crisis, when established patterns of representation are breaking down and have yet to be replaced with new ones (37)

first period in the 1920s
another period in the 1980s

BUT, given Venezuela’s strong institutions, no one would have guessed they would crumble and be replaced by populism (38)

these were founded on a mix of corporatist and clientelistic linkages that could not withstand the decline of the oil economy and several attempts at market liberalization (38-39)
then successive administrations by each dominant party failed to fix the economy (39)

Dominant theories provide no reason why Venezuela’s system would collapse (41)

institutionalism, structuralism, rational choice, and political culture
all focused on two critical variables, design of political institutions and oil money
BUT Coppedge (1990) argues that over-institutionalization can be just as problematic as under-institutionalization
Cartelization and bureaucratic routinization made the AD overly rigid, restricted its ability to adopt economic reforms (Levitsky 2001 and Corrales 2000) (42)
along the lines of Crisp (2000) parties became frozen in status quo, allowing them to control policymaking and keep new groups out of politics and new issues off the agenda
undependable oil revenues eventually left parties unable to fund their clientelistic relations (structural approach)
political culture: oil created rentier mentality, people supported democracy only as long as the money flowed...when money stopped, no one cared for democracy (Romero 1997)

Venezuela’s parties were more bureaucratic, but they did not differ significantly from other LA countries in their societal bonds (43)

their bonds were made through ISI, and were strained by the 1980s (43-44)
Venezuela’s system was set up more along corporatist lines, to complement clientelism (44)
in 1980s Venezuela avoided hyperinflation because labor tempered its demands thanks to connections between unions and parties (45)

Economic and political trauma worse in countries with labor based parties, as old forms of representation totally erode

to replace corporatist linkages, many parties had to form larger networks of more contingent clientelism (46)

VENEZUELAN CASE

post-1958 party system had corporatism and clientelism (46-47)
everyone participated in distribution of oil rents, capitalists, campesinos, middle-class, workers (48)
by 1970 two dominant parties were almost indistinguishable from each other
plunging oil prices in the 1980s emasculated campesino and unions, and new independent union movement stripped out more voters from corporatist system (48-49)
neoliberal reforms in 1989 generate violent backlash, military repressed riots (49)
organized labor lost its ability to channel opposition to neoliberal reforms because they stayed too close to party (49-50)
Venezuela’s parties were unable to maintain balance of: distributing enough payouts to reproduce collective identities, but not so much as to harm macroeconomic health (50)

parties continuing use of patronage in hard times increased their delegitimization (51)

Prolonged economic crisis + social change = erosion of corporatist and clientelist linkages

both parties lost legitimacy since neither were able to fix the problem (52, 53)

Chávez replaced party-based mediation between state and society with direct, personalistic relationship between president and masses

Levitsky and Cameron 2003

Levitsky, Steven, and Maxwell A. Cameron. 2003. "Democracy without Parties? Political Parties and Regime Change in Fujimori's Peru". Latin American Politics and Society. 45 (3): 1-33.

Introduction

In the 1990s, party system in Peru totally disintegrated (1)
The weak and fragile opposition failed to check Fujimori’s dismantling of institutional limits on his power...he only fell out of power after a corruption scandal
Goals:

explain party system decomposition (2)

Fujimori’s success really drove this home

regime implications of a party system collapse

political figures stopped acting as horizontal checks to power
proliferation of candidate-centered movements eroded oppositions ability to act collectively

prospects for rebuilding parties in Peru?

current politicians lack the incentive and capacity to build new parties

Why Parties Matter in a Democracy (3)

parties act as cues to voters (Mainwaring and Scully 1995, Mainwaring 1999)
parties also allow short-sighted politicians make longer-term plans (Aldrich 1995)
Parties protect against one group taking complete control, politics becomes the arena for all powerful actors to duke it out (army, working class, etc etc), rather than in the streets
Strong parties increase governability (3-4)
parties help hold elected leaders accountable (4)
parties limit power of executive
parties socialize elites, thereby limiting power of outsiders
PARTIES FACILITATE COLLECTIVE ACTION (5)

Democratic Breakdown and Party System Collapse in Peru (6)

Party Crisis, Outsider Politics, and the 1992 Autogolpe

In the late 1980s parties fell into crisis

radically changed electorate:

final expansion to universal suffrage
large scale urban migration
expansion of urban informal sector

at the same time, there was a deep recession (6-7)
AND the Sendero Luminoso guerilla movement

In 1990 political outsider ALberto Fujimori won the presidency (thanks to a few contingent things) (7)
Fujimori’s election further weakened democracy

Peru was experiencing a democratic collapse, and Fujimori had no party to help him combat this
so Fujimori opted for an authoritarian strategy to save his presidency

Authoritarian Success and the Rise of Political “Independents” (8)

Fujimori’s 1992 autogolpe successfully convinced the electorate that it was necessary to overturn “false democracy” (Paredes Castro et al. 1992)

Fujimori got very popular
Fujimorista factions won big majority of elections in 1992

Fujimori (in 1992) able to defeat BOTH inflation AND Sendero Luminoso
Peru is only place where anti-party president was able to end economic crisis (9)

when opposition parties defended democratic institutions, popular opinion was actually AGAINST them/that issue

TWO LESSONS for Peruvian politicians at that time (10)

defending pre-autogolpe democracy was not viable (many adopted ambiguous positions re: autogolpe)
parties no longer needed (Fujimori didn’t create one)

New Parties = “disposable”, one-election vehicles (11-12)

“Peru’s party system was created anew at each election” (12)

Party Weakness, Caesarism, and the Failure of the Democratic Opposition

Atomized system of politics was consolidated in 1990s (13)

parties played little role in Fujimori’s downfall
environment where defense of democracy and party-building were widely perceived as unprofitable

Destruction of Mechanism or Horizontal Accountability

between 1995 and 2000, Fujimori dismantled most checks of the 1993 Constitution (14)

when Constitutional Tribunal (TC) tried to block Fujimori, Fujimori simply dismantled TC (15)

opposition did not have enough elected officials to call a referendum

Peruvians opposed Fujimori’s abuses, but could not channel opposition/protests into a sustainable movement
atomized politicians shied away from taking on the government, further hindered cohesion of opposition (16)

The 2000 Transition: Opposition Weakness and Collapse from Within

Fujimori systematically oppress opposition candidates in 2000 (17)
Fujimori caught up in scandal when his party, Perú 2000, didn’t technically get enough real signatures to have Fujimori on the ballot

yet major parties did not fight this scandal out

In second round of elections, remaining opposition leader refused to compete against Fujimori, damaged his legitimacy (18-19)

Fujimori still won, and faced protest from internal and external sources (19)
BUT none of these sources were able to dislodge Fujimori from power

Fujimori was even able to construct a new governing coalition by bribing and coopting individual members of the opposition to become members of his bloc (these politicians became known as “transfugas”) (19-20)

party weakness meant the parties had no mechanism to induce these politicians to stay in the fold (20)

BUT, then a video surfaced in 2001 of a transfuga literally being paid to join Fujimori (21)

Congress and the President both lost legitimacy
Montesinos, Fujimori’s head of Intelligence, had an large video archive of Fujimori/ista bribery
Fujimori resigns rather than be open to blackmail

Change and Continuity in the 2001 Elections

The country’s democratic institutions were thoroughly reformed after Fujimori resigned
But electoral politics remained very candidate-centered (22)

The Prospects for Part (Re)Building in Peru (25)

Resignation of Fujimori means government no longer repressing opposition candidates
Institutionalists: Institutions were fixed-ish after 2001, which is good
BUT historical-structuralists:

no stable parties have been created since full suffrage (24), usually stable parties come after big social cleavages (23-24)
Changes in class structure and technology have atomized voters, and also made it easier to access these voters despite their atomization (24)
mass media also means politicians don’t need party mechanisms

1990s may have been a critical juncture for party system in Peru...since established parties failed, politicians have had little incentive to create new ones (outside personalistic vehicles) (25)

What new parties do emerge will likely be loose coalitions with tenuous linkages to society (26)

CONCLUSION: Democracy without Parties?

without parties, increased likelihood of (27)

executive-legislative conflict
executive abuse of power
corruption
successful outsider/anti-system candidates

parties provide democratic goods (see lit review), without them these goods aren’t provided
CONUNDRUM:

“...parties are among the least credible democratic institutions in Latin America today, yet democracy without them is nearly inconceivable”