Seminar “Institutionalisation of the party system in Latin America”
The success of elections in the Southern Cone depends not only on the characteristics of the candidates but also on the functioning of the party system.
The challenges and perspectives on the institutionalisation of the party system in Latin America was the subject of a seminar held at the CIDOB Foundation on 20 and 21 November, and which featured the participation of leading specialists.
In the first section of the seminar, the specialists debated the measurement and dimensionality of the de-institutionalisation of the party system in the region, while highlighting the need to innovate conceptually in order to explain institutionalisation in the case of South America. They also analysed the effects of ideology on voting and the factors that determine voters' behaviour. The second section focused on the processes of change, institutionalisation and de-institutionalisation in the Southern Cone. Using case studies, the panellists examined party-based institutionalisation and political alternation in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay, as well as the collapse of party systems in Andean countries, using a historical institutionalised approach. Participants also discussed the political restructuring of the social foundations of party competition in Chile, as well as the nationalisation and institutionalisation of parties in Argentina in the 20th century.
In the third section of the seminar, the participants tackled the effects of the institutionalisation of parties, both on the careers of politicians (in the case of Colombia) as well as on legislative careers and their determining factors in Brazil, Chile and Uruguay. Likewise, the specialists analysed the effects of the personalisation of politics in Latin America, and its links with the level of de-institutionalisation of the party system. Another subject that came in for particular scrutiny was the analysis of electoral volatility and its links with budgetary policies according to the institutionalisation of political parties, as well as economic crises and electoral responses.
During the course of the seminar, the specialists discussed the institutionalisation of party systems in Latin America, in an attempt to find the limits that exist in the theory, to seek new concepts to explain new phenomena and to tackle the challenges arising in the region.