Historical Timing and Party Building in “ Third Wave ” Democracies : The Latin American Experience

IntRoDuCtIon theorists of democracy routinely assert that party systems perform a series of vital functions for representative governance. If that is the case, " third wave " democracies—those born through the spread of representative institutions to new countries and regions since the mid-1970s (Huntington 1991)—would appear to be in serious trouble, as many are characterized by weak, volatile, or fragile party systems. At the elite level, political entrepreneurs in many " third wave " democracies form, discard, and switch parties at a dizzying pace, offering voters little continuity on the " supply side " of the political marketplace. At the mass level—the " demand " side—voters often neither trust nor identify with political parties, and they refrain from developing durable partisan loyalties, much less joining party organizations. not only are voters " mobile, " switching their partisan preferences from one election cycle to the next, but in many contexts they are prone to support independent " outsiders " or populist figures whose primary appeal seems to be their detachment from established party organizations. not surprisingly, prominent voices have expressed concerns that weak party systems may jeopardize the stability of new democratic regimes or at least diminish the quality of democratic representation (Mainwaring and Zoco 2007). It is possible, of course, that party system weakness is a temporary phenomenon that is destined to pass as new democratic regimes consolidate and partisan loyalties congeal over time. Much theorizing on the subject suggests that this should be the case. Converse (1969), for example, argues that party system stability only develops over time as political learning and socialization occur, allowing voting behavior and partisan identities to become " habituated " (see also Zuckerman, Dasović, and Fitzgerald 2007). Recent research on new democratic regimes and party systems in post-communist eastern europe lends some support to this proposition, as electoral volatility in the region tapered off over time after reaching exceedingly high levels in the early election cycles that followed regime transitions (Powell and tucker 2009). the Latin American experience during the " third wave " of democratization, however, casts a dark cloud over such guardedly optimistic expectations. Partisan instability in the region 2 Historical timing and Party Building in " tHird Wave " democracies during the first decade of re-democratization in the 1980s was hardly unexpected; after all, party systems had to be revived or, in some cases, reconstituted following extended periods of political proscription …