From Socialism to Social Democracy

Abstract

Luis Inácio Lula da Silva’s victory in Brazil’s 2002 presidential election brought to power Latin America’s largest leftist party, the Workers’Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores [PT]). The PTwon because it moved to the center, and voters regarded this shift as credible. The party’s transformation is puzzling, because political scientists do not expect strategic flexibility in “mass bureaucratic” parties, which the PT resembles. Although exogenous factors are important, the key to understanding the party’s strategic adaptation lies with its internal institutions, which generate substantial leadership accountability. The weight of pragmatists in the rank and file grew in the 1990s following the party’s success in subnational executive elections and its consequent need to demonstrate results in office. These rank-and-file members could influence the party’s direction because of the party’s internally democratic institutions. The PT’s transformation reveals that strategic flexibility can emerge in mass parties even when the leadership lacks autonomy.

The role of social movements in the ‘second incorporation’ of popular sectors in Bolivia and Argentina

“…I would tentatively argue here that the gradual loss of autonomy suffered by Bolivian territorial movements made them similar, on this aspect, to their Venezuelan counterparts, and offered some arguments to right-wing oppositions. This did not occur to the same extent in the case of the PT in Brazil, where we observed a consistent tendency of "cartelization" (Katz & Mair, 1995) by the party, which often resulted in quite tense movement-party relations -but also in the maintenance of a certain movements' autonomy (e.g., Samuels, 2004;Hunter, 2011).…”

Party Organizations Around the Globe. Introducing the Varieties of Party Identity and Organization Dataset (V-Party)

“…As demonstrated in Figure 3, PT's organizational extensiveness experienced a steady growth until 2005 and remained relatively stable since then. PT is often characterized with inclusive decision-making procedures, where rank-and-file members have ample opportunities to participate in party deliberations and manifest their preferences especially through internal elections for key party posts (Samuels, 2004). In recent years though, many observers noted that the former president and party leader, Lula da Silva, increased its grip over the party organization, which is captured by the drop in the intra-power concentration score (Hunter & Power, 2007).…”

The Electoral Success of the Left in Latin America: Is There Any Room for Spatial Models of Voting?

“…The Workers Party, or Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), is one of the most successful left-wing parties in Latin America's third wave of democratization. Born in 1980 as a typical mass-based party (Meneguello 1989;Keck 1992;Hunter 2010;Samuels 2004;Levitsky et al 2016;Van Dyck 2016), the PT emerged as a platform for the labor movement and other social organizations and intellectuals fighting against the authoritarian regime installed in 1964. From the outset, its programmatic base featured radical rather than moderate socialist ideology but was clearly linked to the expansion of social rights and participatory democracy (Samuels and Zucco 2016).…”