Moral and Economic Dimensions of Partisanship

• In Event: Programmatic and Populist Party Structuration in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

While most Latin American parties traditionally formed around issues of class and economics, moral issues, such as abortion and same-sex marriage, have gained salience. As such, these new issues are not only redefining inter-partisan competition, they are also creating new challenges for parties’ internal cohesion. Using the PELA survey of Latin American legislators, we thus evaluate parties’ cohesion (agreement) on moral and economic issues over time in order to evaluate the relative impact of moral versus economic issues on parties and the party systems. We first hypothesize that because they are newly salient, and because compromise positions are less obvious, moral issues will generate greater internal conflicts than economic issues. As such, we expect that legislators with stronger positions on these issues will take different positions with respect to coalitions, presidential powers, and party discipline. We also hypothesize that because moral issues have generated internal partisan divisions (especially among the left), we will detect some realignment of party systems that better align legislators in accord with their views on these issues.

Authors

• Scott Morgenstern, University of Pittsburgh

• João V. Guedes-Neto, Fundação Getúlio Vargas