-1- Party Systems and Electoral Volatility during Latin America's Transition to Economic Liberalism

This paper provides an article-length overview of the first half of a book manuscript that is forthcoming from Cambridge University Press. It is not intended to be a stand-alone piece; there are some loose ends in the paper that are addressed elsewhere in the larger manuscript. Nevertheless, the paper sketches out the core arguments from the first half of the book about party system transformation in Latin America's neoliberal era. This part of the book explains the development of " elitist " and " labor-mobilizing " party systems in 20 th century Latin America, links these party systems to different patterns of socioeconomic development, and explains why the transition to neoliberalism in the 1980's and 1990's produced more severe economic crises and greater political disruption in the labor-mobilizing cases. The second half of the book analyzes this neoliberal " critical juncture " in selective elitist and labor-mobilizing cases, explaining different patterns of party system adaptation, realignment, and decomposition during the transition to neoliberalism.