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There is a resurgence of interest in political parties. This resurgent interest embraces a minimalist definition of political parties, according to which any group that competes in elections and receives a handful of votes qualifies as a party. Parties, however, are expected to contribute to democratic representation, and the party politics literature has extensively shown that many “parties” do not fulfill this expectation. These entities that possess some but not all defining features of political parties can be considered diminished subtypes of the category. A thorough conceptualization of diminished subtypes could improve the analytical value of the study of political parties and of other forms of electoral political organizations. In this article, therefore, we put forth a new typology of diminished subtypes of political parties based on the presence or absence of two primary attributes: horizontal coordination of ambitious politicians during electoral campaigns and while in office and vertical aggregation to electorally mobilize collective interests and to intermediate and channel collective demands.

Party system institutionalization (PSI) is a critical dimension of modern democracies. However, conventional approaches to institutionalization do not include party systems’ ability to adapt and respond to challenges that emanate from society, one of the crucial traits in Huntington’s definition of institutionalization. We discuss conventional approaches to the analysis of PSI. Building upon the idea of social orders put forth by North, Wallis, and Weingast, we argue that the analysis of institutionalization at the level of party systems must consider the system’s ability to provide open access and to include all sectors: that is, the system’s ability to incorporate demands that emanate from society. We propose a new conceptualization and operationalization of PSI, and we present a new data set of PSI indicators for 18 Latin American countries. Finally, we analyze the data to assess the level of PSI and type of party system in each Latin American country.

The professionalization of politics and the disappearance of party organizations based on activists seems an inescapable trend. This article shows, by studying the Broad Front of Uruguay as a deviant case, the relevance of organizational rules for explaining the reproduction of party activism. Using data from both an online survey of people differing in their levels of engagement with the Broad Front and in-depth interviews with party activists, we show that those with relatively low levels of engagement—“adherents”—and activists differ in their willingness to cooperate with the party and in the time they devote to party activities. Also, we find that reducing the perceived efficacy of political engagement strongly decreases activists’ self-reported willingness to engage with the party, while this reduction has no effect upon adherents. These findings suggest that the design of organizational rules that grant a political role to grassroots organizers can promote party activism.

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RESUMENEste artículo analiza el primer año de gestión del tercer gobierno consecutivo del Frente Amplio en Uruguay. El repaso de los principales eventos políticos ocurridos durante el año da cuenta de las dificultades que tienen los partidos como el Frente Amplio para gobernar bajo mandatos de izquierda cuando las perspectivas económicas son negativas. La pérdida de dinamismo económico, las presiones inflacionarias, el deterioro de las cuentas públicas y la concomitante reducción del espacio fiscal, catalizaron los conflictos entre el gobierno y sus bases sociales. El deterioro del frente externo ha puesto en cuestión a uno de los gobiernos más exitosos de la región en los últimos diez años que, ante un escenario desconocido, intenta navegar entre la consolidación de su agenda distributiva y de crecimiento.Palabras clave: Uruguay, Frente Amplio, elecciones, economía política. ABSTRACT This article analyzes the first year of Frente Amplio's third government in

Parties are central agents of democratic representation. The literature assumes that this function is an automatic consequence of social structure and/or a product of incentives derived from electoral competition. However, representation is contingent upon the organizational structure of parties. The connection between a party and an organized constituency is not limited to electoral strategy; it includes an organic connection through permanent formal or informal linkages that bind party programmatic positions to social groups’ preferences, regardless of the electoral returns. This article analyzes how the Movimiento al Socialismo (Movement toward Socialism, MAS) in Bolivia and the Frente Amplio (Broad Front, FA) in Uruguay developed two different forms of relationship with social organizations that result from the interplay of historical factors traceable to the parties’ formative phases and party organizational attributes. Party organizational features that grant voice to grassroots activists serve as crucial mechanisms for bottom-up incorporation of societal interests and demands.

645revista de ciencia pOLítica / vOLumen 30 / nº 3 / 2010 / 645 -667 * Los autores agradecen los comentarios recibidos hacia el manuscrito original en el seminario permanente que se realiza en el instituto de ciencia política de la pontificia universidad católica. adicionalmente agradecemos los aportes de sergio toro y de los dictaminadores anónimos de la Revista de Ciencia Política.