Programmatic and Populist Party Structuration in Comparative Perspective

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Most models of democracy assume political parties that aggregate and represent voters’ policy positions and allow voters to elect representatives who are ideologically closest to them. In reality, however, the extent to which political representation meets these expectations varies widely across countries. This panel explores variations in the programmatic or ideological structuration of political party competition, a necessary condition for meaningful democratic representation, and the challenges that populism presents for democratic representation. Specifically, the papers offer different perspectives on the organization of party competition around different issue dimensions (economic, socio-cultural, moral), the cohesion of political parties’ policy programs, and the relationship between these features of political parties, populism, and democratic principles. To analyze variations in the programmatic or dimensional structuration of party systems, the papers on this panel rely on original data sources which the authors have helped build. These sources include expert surveys, the Chapel Hill Expert Survey (CHES-LA) and the Political Representation, Executives and Political Parties Survey (PREPPS), and the Parliamentary Elites in Latin America survey (PELA), an elite survey.

Sub Unit

• Division 11: Comparative Politics

Individual Presentations

• Programmatic and Non-Programmatic Party System Structuration in Latin America - Nicolás de la Cerda, Tulane University; Cecilia Martinez-Gallardo, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Jonathan Hartlyn, Univ North Carolina, Chapel Hill

• Populism, Ideology and Democratic Values in Latin America and the MENA Region - Nina Wiesehomeier, IE University; Abdelkarim Amengay, Doha Institute for Graduate Studies

• The Four Latin American Rights: A Programmatic Framework - Asbel Bohigues, University of Valencia; Aldo Adrián Martínez Hernández, Center for Economic Research and Teaching (CIDE) Central Region

• Moral and Economic Dimensions of Partisanship - Scott Morgenstern, University of Pittsburgh; João V. Guedes-Neto, Fundação Getúlio Vargas

Chair

• Scott Mainwaring University of Notre Dame

Discussant

• Matthew Singer University of Connecticut