Parties under Stress: Using a Linkage Decay Framework to Analyze the Chilean Party System

Morgan, Jana; Meléndez, Carlos

doi:10.1177/1866802x1600800302

Cited by 19 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…To see this effect in Chile, we examine the interaction of populist attitudes with social ideology. Although mainstream political parties have sometimes had difficulties taking into account this programmatic dimension (Luna and Altman 2011; Morgan and Meléndez 2017), voters in Chile have become increasingly divided over social issues such as divorce and abortion (Blofield 2006). In our unconditional model of the 2013 survey, these issues were better predictors of vote choice than economic ideology.…”

Section: The Activation Of Populist Attitudesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Activation of Populist Attitudes

2018

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Most studies see demand for populist forces driven by broad sociological factors that make certain issues salient among specific constituencies. However, this argument is not normally tested at the individual level. We propose a theory of populist voting which argues that populist attitudes are themselves important predictors of voting, interacting with ideological positions. We test this theory through a comparison of recent voting in Chile and Greece, two countries where the contexts for activating populist attitudes are very different. We find that despite similar levels of populist attitudes across both countries, these attitudes explain much more of the vote in Greece than they do in Chile, and that in both countries they interact with ideological positions in predictable ways.

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Section: The Activation Of Populist Attitudesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Activation of Populist Attitudes

2018

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“…4 Yet, registration rates and turnout as a percentage of the voting-age population (i.e., all individuals eligible to vote regardless of registration status) gradually declined over the course of the next two decades as fewer newly eligible voters registered to vote. This steady decline prompted the government to reform the system in 2011 (Barnes and Rangel 2014; Morgan and Meléndez 2016).…”

Section: Compulsory Voting and Electoral Participationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Subnational Patterns of Participation: Compulsory Voting and the Conditional Impact of Institutional Design

Barnes

Rangel

2018

Political Research Quarterly

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Cross-national studies of turnout find that compulsory voting has the strongest impact on participation, boosting turnout by 10 to 18 percent. We argue that in the absence of compulsory voting, other institutional factors such as small district size, strong electoral competition, and moderate candidate fragmentation may be similarly effective at mobilizing turnout. Where voting is mandatory, these factors should instead primarily influence how people vote once they are at the polls—diminishing levels of invalid voting, and consequently increasing effective turnout. We take advantage of the abolition of compulsory voting in Chile to test our expectations immediately before and after reform, in the exact same electoral districts. Using this unique subnational research design, we leverage data from more than 1,000 mayoral elections over the course of three electoral cycles and across 345 municipalities to examine patterns of turnout and invalid voting. Results show that small district size, strong electoral competition, and moderate candidate fragmentation are effective at reducing invalid voting when turnout is compulsory, and fostering higher levels of turnout when voting is voluntary.

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“…As a result, Chile's major parties did not decay following decentralization. Rather, their legislative seat share increased eight points in the 1993 elections and declined by less than two points in 1997, and recent indications of deterioration in the Chilean party system (Morgan and Meléndez 2016) have occurred well after the threat from decentralization had passed.…”

Section: Party Survival In Chile 1990smentioning

confidence: 99%

Political Decentralization and Party Decay in Latin America

Morgan

2022

Lat. American Res. Rev.

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Early advocates of decentralization lauded it as a strategy for strengthening democratic institutions, but later scholarship has emphasized decentralization's negative consequences, especially for political parties. This article argues that the impact of political decentralization on established parties is shaped by the context in which the reforms occur, with poor economic performance and limited programmatic differentiation making parties more vulnerable to the challenges posed by decentralization. The article explores how decentralization under such circumstances has contributed to party decay in Latin America, where declining support for established parties has been significant, in some places undermining democratic stability and governability. The article employs cross-national time-series analysis and case studies. The quantitative evidence indicates that political decentralization weakens existing parties in contexts of poor economic conditions and little ideological differentiation in the party system. Case studies elaborate the processes through which decentralizing reforms together with economic conditions and party linkages affect party systems. Estudios tempranos sobre la descentralización celebran el efecto positivo de dichos procesos sobre las instituciones democráticas. En contraste, estudios más recientes enfatizan las consecuencias negativas de la descentralización, especialmente para los partidos políticos. Este artículo argumenta que el impacto de procesos de descentralización sobre los partidos políticos depende del contexto en que dichas reformas ocurren. Específicamente, contextos de pobre desempeño económico y falta de diferenciación programática hacen a los partidos más vulnerables a los desafíos planteados por la descentralización. El artículo explora como, en dichas circunstancias, la descentralización ha contribuido al deterioro de los partidos políticos latinoamericanos, en algunos casos debilitando la estabilidad democrática y gobernabilidad. El artículo incluye un análisis estadístico y de casos. El primero muestra como la descentralización debilita los partidos existentes en contextos de pobre desempeño económico y falta de diferenciación ideológica en el sistema de partidos. El segundo ilumina los procesos mediante los cuales las reformas de descentralización, junto con condiciones económicas y mecanismos de vinculación partidaria, afectan al sistema de partidos políticos. Political decentralization through the establishment of separate subnational elections was commonly, but not uniformly, implemented in Latin America and elsewhere during the 1980s and 1990s. International actors like the World Bank as well as intellectuals and reformers advocated strengthening subnational governments and decentralizing elections (Nickson 2011). These reforms were endorsed as a strategy for promoting efficiency, accountability, and transparency (e.g., Dillinger 1994). As a result, politicians seeking to improve governance or please lenders often turned to decentralization (Kornblith 1998; O'Neill ...

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Parties under Stress: Using a Linkage Decay Framework to Analyze the Chilean Party System

Cited by 19 publications

References 37 publications

The Activation of Populist Attitudes

The Activation of Populist Attitudes

Subnational Patterns of Participation: Compulsory Voting and the Conditional Impact of Institutional Design

Political Decentralization and Party Decay in Latin America

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