Democracy Against Parties: The Divergent Fates of Latin America’s New Left Contenders (Pitt Latin American Series) [1 ed.] 0822946947, 9780822946946

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DEMOCRACY AGAINST PARTIES

PITT LATIN AMERICAN SERIES Catherine M. Conaghan, Editor

DEMOCRACY AGAINST PARTIES The Divergent Fates of Latin America’s New Left Contenders

BRANDON VAN DYCK University of Pittsburgh Press

Published by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, Pa., 15260 Copyright © 2021, University of Pittsburgh Press All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Printed on acid-free paper 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Cataloging-in-Publication data is available from the Library of Congress ISBN 13: 978-0-8229-4694-6 ISBN 10: 0-8229-4694-7 Jacket design by Melissa Dias-Mandoly

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments   vii List of Abbreviations   ix INTRODUCTION: The Divergent Fates of Latin America’s New Left Contenders   3 CHAPTER 1: Democracy against Parties: Why Some New Parties Collapse and Others Survive   27 CHAPTER 2: The Electoral Collapse of Argentina’s FREPASO    55 CHAPTER 3: The Fatal Schism of Peru’s United Left    80 CHAPTER 4: The Survival of Brazil’s Workers’ Party    109 CHAPTER 5: The Survival of Mexico’s Party of the Democratic Revolution   138 CHAPTER 6: Shadow Cases   162 CONCLUSION: Alternative Paths and Theoretical Implications    179 Notes   193 Bibliography   247 Index   269

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want to begin by thanking Steve Levitsky, Jorge Dominguez, and Fran Hagopian, who spent many dozens of hours helping me to write this book. They discussed my ideas with me, read and commented on drafts, and connected me to their colleagues, despite being busy with professional service, undergraduate teaching, graduate advising, and their own research. I also want to thank Al Montero, who offered useful feedback on an early draft and has been consistently positive and constructive in our interactions. My four case studies are based on roughly a year of fieldwork that I conducted in Brazil, Mexico, Peru, and Argentina. During my time in the field, I interviewed many dozens of individuals, primarily party elites and activists; they are named at the end of the bibliography. I am grateful to all of them for their time and the knowledge they provided. Their observations and recollections helped me to test and revise my arguments and generate new questions and hypotheses. Their stories helped to vivify the book’s subject matter. I also want to thank the staff of the Perseu Abramo Foundation (FPA) in São Paulo. I spent months at FPA, combing through thousands of documents related to the early development of Brazil’s Workers’ Party (PT). FPA staff members provided me with a treasure trove of pamphlets, manuals, and campaign advertisements. Through conversation, they taught me about Brazilian politics and the PT’s internal ideological divisions. Some of the book’s figures, tables, and text first appeared—in identical or similar form—in earlier articles and book chapters. The overlapping content is reprinted here with the publishers’ permission. All specific self-citations appear in the footnotes of the main text. I want to thank the roughly two dozen individuals who anonymously reviewed my article and chapter manuscripts. Their input forced me to refine and expand my theoretical arguments and empirical claims. vii

viii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In closing, I want to thank my friends and family for bringing me joy, laughter, and love. I especially want to thank my brother Chris for his kindness; my brother Collin for his dependability and humor; my brother Dane for seeing the best in me; my sister Greer for her commitment to family; my parents for their decades of unconditional devotion; and Kelsie, my ray of sunshine, for her calming presence and beautiful heart. This book is for all of them.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ARGENTINA ATE CTA CTERA FG FREDEJUSO FREPASO PAIS PCA PJ UCEDE UCR US

Association of State Workers Argentine Workers’ Confederation Teachers’ Confederation of the Argentine Republic Big Front Front for Democracy and Social Justice Front for a Country in Solidarity Open Politics for Social Integrity Argentine Communist Party Justicialist Party, or Peronist Party Union of the Democratic Center Radical Civic Union Socialist Unity

BRAZIL ABC region Santo André, São Bernardo do Campo, São Caetano ABCD region Santo André, São Bernardo do Campo, São Caetano, Diadêma CSBH Sérgio Buarque de Holanda Center CUT Unified Workers’ Central DR Radical Democracy DS Socialist Democracy EL Edgar Leuenroth FIESP Industrial Federation of São Paulo State FO Workers’ Faction MDB Brazilian Democratic Movement MR-8 Revolutionary Movement October 8th PCB Brazilian Communist Party PCdoB Communist Party of Brazil PDS Social Democracy Party PJ Party of Youth ix

x

PMDB PRN PT PSDB

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Brazilian Democratic Movement Party Party of National Reconstruction Workers’ Party Brazilian Social Democracy Party

MEXICO AMLO CD CEN CN CND FDN MORENA NAFTA NI PAN PC PMS PRD PRONASOL PRI PT

Andrés Manuel López Obrador Democratic Current National Executive Committee National Council Democratic National Convention National Democratic Front National Regeneration Movement North American Free Trade Agreement New Left National Action Party Convergence Party Mexican Socialist Party Party of the Democratic Revolution National Solidarity Program Institutional Revolutionary Party Labor Party

PERU Popular Action AP American Revolutionary Popular Alliance APRA APS Socialist Political Action, previously Socialist Popular Action AS Socialist Agreement Change 90 C-90 Peruvian Peasant Confederation CCP CDN National Leadership Committee General Confederation of Peruvian Workers CGTP FIM Independent Moralizing Front Worker, Peasant, Student, and Popular Front FOCEP Popular Force FP IU United Left MIR Movement of the Revolutionary Left MSNP Non-Partisan Socialist Movement PCP Peruvian Communist Party PCP-PR Peruvian Communist Party-Red Fatherland PCP-SL Peruvian Communist Party-Shining Path PCR Revolutionary Communist Party

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

PNP PP PSR PUM SUTEP UDP UNIR VR

Peruvian Nationalist Party Possible Peru Revolutionary Socialist Party Mariateguista Unified Party Unitary Union of Peruvian Education Workers Popular Democratic Unity Union of the Revolutionary Left Revolutionary Vanguard

OTHER COUNTRIES BOLIVIA MAS UNITEL

Movement toward Socialism Universal de Televisión

CHILE PPD UDI

Party for Democracy Independent Democratic Union

COLOMBIA AD M-19 ANAPO M-19 PVC

April 19th Movement Democratic Alliance National Popular Alliance April 19th Movement Colombian Green Party

COSTA RICA FA PAC PLN PUSC

Broad Front Citizen Action Party National Liberation Party Social Christian Unity Party

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC PLD PRD

Dominican Liberation Party Dominican Revolutionary Party

ECUADOR PAIS PSP

Alliance Proud and Sovereign Fatherland Patriotic Society Party

EL SALVADOR ARENA FMLN CD IUDOP

Nationalist Republican Alliance Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front Democratic Convergence University Institute of Public Opinion

xi

xii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

GUATEMALA PAN UNE

National Advancement Party National Unity of Hope

MALAYSIA BN

Barisan Nasional

NICARAGUA FSLN

Sandinista National Liberation Front

PANAMA PRD

Democratic Revolutionary Party

PARAGUAY PEN

National Encounter Party

URUGUAY FA Broad Front CNT National Workers Convention PIN Intersyndical Workers Plenary PIN-CNT Intersyndical Workers Plenary/National Workers Convention VENEZUELA AD Democratic Action COPEI Independent Electoral Political Organization Committee LCR Radical Cause MVR Fifth Republic Movement PSUV Unified Socialist Party of Venezuela PPT Fatherland for All MISCELLANEOUS ASP CEB CEO ISI NACLA NAFTA NGO PR PSI

authoritarian successor party ecclesial base community chief executive officer import substitution industrialization North American Congress on Latin America North American Free Trade Agreement nongovernmental organization proportional representation party system institutionalization

DEMOCRACY AGAINST PARTIES

INTRODUCTION

THE DIVERGENT FATES OF LATIN AMERICA’S NEW LEFT CONTENDERS

As this book goes to press, political parties across the world are reeling. Hundreds of millions of voters have rejected established parties (or party establishments) in recent years and either elected or shown significant support for new or formerly marginal electoral alternatives: Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders in the US, Brexit in the UK, Alternative for Germany, France’s National Front, Italy’s Five-Star Movement and Northern League, Spain’s Podemos, Greece’s Syriza, the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte, Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro. These parties, candidates, and causes span the left and right, but all reject the political establishment in their countries, and many of the relevant leaders have a populist bent. As these players and movements have surged, concerns about democratic stability and the protection of civil liberties have multiplied, even in the world’s developed democracies.1 In recent decades, trends of party erosion, populist ascendancy, and democratic breakdown have plagued the developing world in particular. In much of Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the former Soviet Union, party systems have collapsed or largely decomposed since the early 1990s.2 In most of these countries, durable new parties and party systems have not filled—or in some countries even partially filled—the resulting vacuums.3 The outcome, in more than a few cases, has been the election of political outsiders and the whittling away of democracy through executive degradation.4 Take contemporary Latin America. Since 1990, institutionalized party systems have collapsed in Venezuela and partially collapsed in Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Honduras.5 Of the four party systems that Scott Mainwaring and Timothy Scully labeled “inchoate” in 1995,6 two (Bolivia, Ecuador) have continued to deteriorate, and one, Brazil, is now experiencing partial party system erosion after more than two decades of progress toward institutionalization.7 Most recently, the 3

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established parties of Mexico and El Salvador suffered resounding, historic defeats in mid-2018 and early 2019, respectively. Over roughly the same period, the vast majority of attempts to build new parties in Latin America have failed. More than 95 percent of Latin American parties born in the 1980s and 1990s never took off electorally, and most of those that did take off collapsed shortly afterward.8 Due to these developments, Latin American party systems have become more fragmented and volatile in recent decades, leading to problems of governability and constitutional crises; to the election of various party system outsiders (e.g., Alberto Fujimori in Peru; Hugo Chávez in Venezuela; Rafael Correa in Ecuador; Evo Morales in Bolivia; Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil; Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico; and Nayib Bukele in El Salvador); and in a few cases to democratic erosion at the hands of such figures (e.g., Peru in the 1990s; Venezuela in the 2000s; and El Salvador recently).9 But these trends should not be overstated.10 In many developing countries, new political parties have taken root, and institutionalized party systems have emerged or persisted.11 In such cases, democracy, typically, has become consolidated.12 Again, take Latin America. After the onset of the third wave of democratization in the region in 1978, over a dozen new parties rose to prominence and established themselves as perennial contenders: Bolivia’s MAS; Brazil’s PT and PSDB; Chile’s UDI and PPD; Costa Rica’s PAC; El Salvador’s FMLN and ARENA; Mexico’s PRD; Nicaragua’s FSLN; Panama’s PRD; Peru’s Fujimorista parties; and Venezuela’s PSUV.13 Some Latin American countries maintained stable party systems due to the persistence of old parties and the establishment of new parties alongside them (e.g., Chile, Uruguay, and Mexico). Others developed wholly new institutionalized (e.g., El Salvador) or semi-institutionalized (e.g., Brazil) party systems. In most of these countries, democracy has taken root (e.g., Chile, Uruguay, Mexico, Brazil, and El Salvador until recently). The fact that successful party building has occurred in parts of Latin America—and in parts of Africa, Asia, and the former Soviet Union as well14 —suggests that the era of party building is not over. In the contemporary developing world, successful party ​building is challenging and rare but not impossible. What factors have made party building difficult in the past few decades? Under what conditions does successful party building occur? The recent failure of party building in much of the developing world upended analysts’ early predictions. As dictatorships fell across the former Third World in the 1980s and 1990s,15 the policy and media communities initially reacted with optimism. Many predicted that once electoral competition commenced in these countries, and once elites designed the right

THE DIVERGENT FATES OF LATIN AMERICA’S NEW LEFT CONTENDERS

5

electoral institutions, stable parties and party systems would quickly emerge. Their argument, or implicit premise, was that parties naturally form and take root under democracy—that is, that democracy facilitates party building. A large body of academic literature supported this optimism. Some scholars, most notably John Aldrich, argued that under democracy, political elites have incentives to “turn” to parties.16 On Aldrich’s account, parties help politicians to win elections and reelection by supplying partisan votes along with campaign resources (e.g., financing, physical infrastructure, and professional operatives and activists). The Jacksonian Democratic Party in the United States, he argued, was created so that its founders (e.g., Martin Van Buren) could mobilize sufficient electoral support to win national office. Aldrich also argued that parties facilitate legislative organization and executive/legislative relations, thus helping politicians to implement their preferred policies. The United States’ Federalist and Republican parties, he held, were established so that competing elites such as Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson could more effectively advance their programmatic agendas concerning the proper scope of federal government activities.17 Other proponents of the “democracy facilitates party building” thesis focused on the voter (rather than elite) side of the equation. In his seminal article, “Of Time and Partisan Stability,” Philip Converse argued that under democracy, voters develop partisan attachments through repeated exposure to the same set of partisan options.18 Various scholars, accepting Converse’s argument, identified possible mechanisms by which this process of partisan attachment occurs. Some argued that over time, voters gain a better understanding of what different parties stand for, making their partisan preferences more robust to new information and competing appeals.19 Others argued that the act of supporting a party, especially through voting, makes one more likely to see oneself as a partisan.20 Numerous empirical studies found that partisan attachments grow stronger, more consistent, and more stable as a function of the length of time voters support and vote for a particular party. For example, scholars widely reported an association between age and partisanship in the US, 21 the UK, 22 and other European countries.23 As the foregoing paragraphs indicate, the most influential versions of the “democracy facilitates party building” thesis arose from studies of advanced Western countries, especially the United States. 24 Still, after the third wave, researchers applied the thesis to new democracies and electoral regimes in the developing world. Ted Brader and Joshua A. Tucker found that in post-Soviet Russia, electoral competition, over time, produced increasing levels of partisanship.25 Mainwaring and

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Scully stated in their pathbreaking volume on Latin American party system institutionalization that “no single factor is more propitious for the successful institutionalization of party systems than continuously having elections that are the principal route to state power.”26 Noam Lupu and Susan Stokes used evidence from Argentina in the twentieth century to argue that time spent under democracy facilitates the spread of partisan attachments and thus reduces electoral volatility—assuming that democracy is not “interrupted” by periods of democratic breakdown.27 In this book, I frontally challenge the argument that democracy facilitates party building. Focusing on the experience of electorally prominent left-wing parties born after the onset of the third wave of democratization in Latin America in 1978, 28 I argue, in direct contrast to the above accounts, that democracy impedes party building. I will elaborate this argument in chapter 1, but in brief, how does it work? When new parties collapse, it is usually because they have weak organizations and therefore do not survive early electoral crises. New party elites only have electoral incentives to build strong organizations, however, if they are born under adversity—specifically, if they initially lack access to two major party “substitutes”: mass media and state resources.29 Herein lies the problem. In the contemporary developing world, new parties born under full democracy typically do not face such adverse conditions; that is, they tend to have, or quickly to gain, access to mass media and the state. Thus I argue, in direct contrast to Aldrich, that under democracy, politicians have incentives to turn away from (not toward) parties. Paradoxically, it is where new parties originate under less-than-fully democratic conditions that elites have incentives to invest in organization. The ideal context is not one of repressive authoritarianism, where the cost of party building tends to be prohibitively high. Instead, it is one of liberalizing or competitive authoritarianism, where office seekers have space to organize and reasonable electoral prospects but more limited state and media access than under democracy. My takeaway argument in the book, then, is that new parties born under democracy are more likely to collapse than those born under liberalizing or competitive authoritarianism. This claim is original, and it is the book’s theoretical centerpiece. 30 The implications of this argument are somewhat bleak. Scholars widely agree that institutionalized political parties raise democratic quality and foster democratic consolidation. 31 I agree with this conventional wisdom: parties are good for democracy. Unfortunately, democracy is not good for party building, at least in the contemporary developing world. If elites and ordinary citizens in developing democracies do not

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learn to build robust parties, or to function successfully in their absence, they may be forced to accept a degree of ungovernability and regime instability unfamiliar to previous generations of democratizers. A key corollary of this argument is that party organization matters. In stressing this point, I depart from much of the recent scholarship on parties, which tends to downplay the role of organization. In the past few decades, scholars have argued that given the reach of broadcast media (especially television), parties and politicians no longer need strong “ground games” to appeal to masses of voters and win elections.32 More recently, scholars have emphasized the role of effective branding in party success, positing that parties collapse when their brand (i.e., voters’ image of them) fails.33 These arguments are valuable—and true as far as they go—but parties do not exist in voters’ minds alone. Parties are organizations, not mere brands, and the character of their organizations can determine whether they prioritize electoral competition or constituency representation;34 achieve electoral success;35 pursue subnational office;36 act cohesively in the legislature;37 and, most importantly for our purposes, survive electoral crises during their initial years of existence. In the book, I also present an original explanation of why new parties fatally split. Schism—defined as the defection of a major leader or faction—is a frequent cause of new party death, and in recent decades scholars have begun to examine the origins of schisms in new parties. I contribute to this emerging literature by highlighting an understudied, undertheorized independent variable: the type of party leader. Only a tiny fraction of new parties ever rise to electoral prominence, and of this tiny fraction, a large proportion depend for their initial electoral success on the coattails of electorally indispensable leaders. 38 These externally appealing leaders invariably hold considerable power within their parties. But only some externally appealing leaders are internally dominant. Others are not because of their limited moral authority, weak cross-factional ties, and/or unrepresentative ideological profile. This variation, I argue, can determine whether new parties survive or collapse. New parties with externally appealing, internally dominant leaders rarely suffer schisms. By contrast, those with externally appealing, internally nondominant leaders are vulnerable to deadly splits. By placing much of my explanatory emphasis on parties’ internal characteristics (i.e., organizational strength, sources of cohesion), I am “taking parties seriously” in this book. That is, I am not treating parties as mere units of party systems, or as pawns of external forces (e.g., electoral rules, public opinion, and class structure). Instead, I am treating them as agents in their own right, and complex ones at that. Individual parties vary in their internal characteristics, and because of this vari-

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THE DIVERGENT FATES OF LATIN AMERICA’S NEW LEFT CONTENDERS

ation, they differ in their actions and outcomes, independently of the institutional, structural, and party system context in which they operate. My argument, then, belongs to a broad class of arguments, dating back more than a century, that emphasize the effect of parties’ internal characteristics, or “internal lives,” on their development and fortunes.39 This class of arguments is consistent with organizational theory more broadly (e.g., in sociology and business), which has long acknowledged the role of internal factors (e.g., strategy and administrative structure), as distinct from environmental ones, in determining organizational success.40

LATIN AMERICA’S NEW LEFT CONTENDERS In the book, I test my theoretical arguments through a comparison of successful and unsuccessful “new left contenders” in Latin America. By “new left contenders,” I mean left-wing parties that emerged after the onset of Latin America’s third wave of democratization in 1978 and rose to electoral prominence during their early years of existence. By “leftwing,” I mean that these parties, in their rhetoric and platforms, placed central programmatic emphasis on the reduction of inequality through state action.41 I examine why some of these new left contenders survived the early years of their existence and took root for decades as perennial electoral forces, while others collapsed shortly after achieving initial electoral success. From a theoretical perspective, then, my unit of analysis is the new partisan contender. A new partisan contender is a political party that rises to electoral prominence during its early years of existence. The cases under empirical investigation in this book (Latin America’s “new left contenders”) are a specific subset of new partisan contenders: those belonging to the left and born in Latin America after the regional onset of the third wave. What counts as a party? A party is more than a group that runs candidates for office under a common label;42 this definition would include any multiparty electoral coalition. In my definition, a party is a group of politicians running for office under a common label such that, on balance, members value the “whole” as much as, or more than, the constituent “parts.” In other words, a multiparty coalition is not a party if the constituent parties are clearly more important than the coalition itself (e.g., Chile’s Concertación; and Argentina’s coalition of the Radical Civic Union [UCR] and FREPASO in the late 1990s). Accordingly, I operationalize a party as (1) a legally registered party; (2) a legally registered coalition in which there has been a major effort, involving all major factions, to transform the coalition into a party or permanent coalition (e.g., Peru’s IU in the second half of the 1980s); or

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(3) a legally registered coalition in which the dominant faction prioritizes the coalition’s fortunes over the fortunes of any constituent party, including its own if applicable (e.g., FREPASO from its founding onward). Why do I focus on the Latin American left in this book?43 Latin America is the world’s most unequal region, and extreme inequality arguably creates a natural constituency for the left. Prior to the third wave, governments across Latin America proscribed, defrauded, or repressed the left, and numerous Latin American militaries toppled left governments in military coups.44 When the third wave swept across Latin America during the 1980s, and later when the Cold War ended, Latin America’s left parties had an unprecedented opportunity to contest elections freely, on a region-wide scale, and without substantial fear of fraud, repression, or coups. Yet, in most Latin American countries—including some of the most unequal ones (e.g., Colombia and Honduras)—new left parties either did not emerge; or “flopped” (i.e., emerged but never rose to electoral prominence); or turned out to be mere “flash” parties (i.e., rose to electoral prominence but collapsed shortly thereafter).45 In such cases, working-class and lower-income citizens, instead of voting for left parties, often voted for catch-all clientelistic parties without national redistributive agendas (e.g., Colombia’s Liberals and Conservatives; and Honduras’s Liberals and Nationals) or for antiestablishment outsiders (e.g., Peru’s Alberto Fujimori; Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez; and Ecuador’s Rafael Correa). Populist presidents (e.g., Fujimori, Chávez, and Correa) and dominant governing parties (e.g., Argentina’s Peronist Party [PJ]) faced fewer checks and constraints, leading to corruption, abuse, and even democratic breakdown. By contrast, where major new left parties took root, clientelistic and populist strategies became less effective, and democracies stabilized (e.g., Brazil, El Salvador, and Mexico). Where new left parties won national elections, large-scale redistribution and significant reductions in inequality followed (e.g., Brazil after the PT’s 2002 presidential victory). In sum, the fact that new left parties did not take root in most Latin American countries constitutes an empirical puzzle in light of the region’s extreme inequality, and the divergent fates of these new left parties had normatively significant effects on inequality levels and democratic quality and stability in the region. Who precisely were Latin America’s new left contenders? In 1978, military regimes governed all but a handful of Latin American countries. Over the next decade, most of these regimes fell, with some quickly collapsing (e.g., Argentina’s last military dictatorship) and others gradually liberalizing (e.g., Brazil’s military regime). By the mid-1990s, there were no military regimes and only a few authoritarian regimes (e.g., Mex-

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ico and Cuba) in Latin America. Mexico, under civilian single-party rule throughout the third wave, democratized in 2000. In short, the vast majority of Latin American countries shifted from authoritarian rule to democracy either during or shortly after the third-wave period (1978–1995).46 After the onset of the third wave, new parties emerged in every Latin American country except Cuba. In total, hundreds of parties were born. The vast majority never took off electorally; most of these quickly disappeared, while a small number persisted for decades as marginal parties. A few dozen, however, at least briefly rose to national electoral prominence. These new partisan contenders did not necessarily win national elections, but they seriously vied for national power, and they won enough elections at the congressional level, and often at the subnational level as well, to play major roles in their country’s politics. A subset of these new partisan contenders belonged to the left. Latin America’s new left contenders had much in common, making them a useful population for comparison. For one, they emerged in a common regional and historical context. Latin American countries have broadly similar histories (e.g., Iberian colonial heritage), cultures (e.g., Catholicism), socioeconomic characteristics (e.g., middle-income status and high inequality), and institutional arrangements (e.g., presidentialism and proportional representation). Moreover, Latin America’s new left contenders shared a left-wing program, achieved at least initial electoral success, and emerged in the same rough period (1978–2005). The left faced three broad challenges during this period. First, the debt crisis and implosion of the import substitution industrialization (ISI) model, along with the decline and collapse of the Soviet Union, gave rise to a policy consensus around free markets, or neoliberalism, among Latin American elites. Consequently, the left’s old economic platform (e.g., industrial protectionism, price controls, and nationalization) became less feasible politically. Left parties from the 1980s onward faced pressure to embrace or accept market reforms, even though, in doing so, they risked tainting their image and losing their programmatic distinctiveness.47 Second and relatedly, the decline and fall of international communism produced new ideological divisions within the Latin American left. Forced to grapple with the defeat of revolutionary leftist ideas, sectors of the Latin American left underwent a process of ideological “renovation,” abandoning socialism in favor of social democracy.48 Yet revolutionary leftism did not disappear during the third wave, even after the fall of the Berlin Wall. On the contrary, the radical left remained a nontrivial force in much of Latin America, and internecine conflict between radicals and

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moderates posed a threat to the internal cohesion of left movements and parties.49 Third and finally, the debt crisis, failure of ISI, and neoliberal turn contributed to deindustrialization and the decline of labor unions, limiting the left’s capacity to mobilize and appeal to the popular classes.50 As Latin American governments abandoned protectionism in the 1980s and 1990s, many domestic industries folded and shrank, and the industrial trade unions on which left parties had traditionally depended folded and shrank with them. Deindustrialization, along with rising formal unemployment during the economic “lost decade” of the 1980s, led to a significant expansion of the informal and low-end service sectors of Latin American economies. Compared to industrial workers, these workers were geographically dispersed and occupationally diverse. They were unorganized both across and within occupational sectors. Traditional working-class interests (e.g., union benefits) did not align with theirs. Many in the informal sector viewed themselves as entrepreneurs, not laborers. Due to these factors, left parties had difficulty reaching and appealing to large swathes of the lower-income electorate, particularly while retaining the loyalties of the declining traditional working class.51 In short, the sociological shifts that coincided with the third wave—particularly deindustrialization and the growth of the informal and low-end service sectors—complicated the left’s task of mobilizing and appealing to the popular classes.52 The left also benefited from some common opportunities, especially once the third wave concluded. As already noted, Latin America’s chronically high levels of poverty and inequality gave left parties a natural constituency in the region. Moreover, a set of economic developments beginning in the late 1990s put the left in a particularly advantageous political position. In 1997 Latin America entered into a half-decade-long economic crisis, contracting by 2 percent between 1997 and 2002. This recession led to the electoral defeat of numerous center and center-right governments and eroded public support for neoliberal economic policies. Seizing the opportunity, left candidates won presidential elections across the region during and shortly after the recessionary period. Then, early in the first decade of the 2000s, economic conditions dramatically improved, with skyrocketing commodity prices leading to a sustained economic boom and massive fiscal surpluses. These conditions generated public support for left governments that had recently taken office and enabled them to invest heavily in social programs.53 Amid this common regional backdrop of challenges and opportunities, Latin America’s new left contenders experienced divergent outcomes. Some survived—that is, sustained their electoral relevance for

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THE DIVERGENT FATES OF LATIN AMERICA’S NEW LEFT CONTENDERS

TABLE I.1 NEW LEFT CONTENDERS THAT COLLAPSED Country

Party

Birth

Argentina

Front for a Country in Solidarity (FREPASO)

1994

Colombia

April 19th Movement Democratic Alliance (AD M-19)

1990

Costa Rica

Broad Front (FA)

2004

El Salvador

Democratic Convergence (CD)

1987

Guatemala

National Unity of Hope (UNE)

2002

Paraguay

National Encounter Party (PEN)

1991

Peru

United Left (IU)

1980

Peru

Independent Moralizing Front (FIM)

1990

Peru

Peruvian Nationalist Party (PNP)

2005

TABLE I.2 NEW LEFT CONTENDERS THAT SURVIVED Country

Party

Birth

Bolivia

Movement toward Socialism (MAS)

1995

Brazil

Workers’ Party (PT)

1980

Chile

Party for Democracy (PPD)

1987

Costa Rica

Citizen Action Party (PAC)

2000

El Salvador

Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN)

1992

Mexico

Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD)

1989

Nicaragua

Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN)

1979

Panama

Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD)

1979

Venezuela

Unified Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV)

1997

decades. Others collapsed—that is, disappeared or fell into electoral marginality shortly after rising to electoral prominence. I operationalize new left contenders as Latin American parties born between 1978 and 2005 that centrally emphasized state-led reduction of inequality in official party documents and won at least 10 percent of the vote in a national legislative election (e.g., congressional or constituent assembly).54 Within this population, I classify as cases of survival those that stayed above the 10 percent threshold for five or more consecutive national legislative elections.55 The rest I classify as cases of collapse.56 Survival, then, does not imply multiple generations of electoral relevance. Some parties remain perennial electoral contenders for many generations (e.g., Argentina’s PJ), while others only maintain their electoral success for a generation (e.g., Mexico’s Party of the Democratic Revolution [PRD]). I do not analyze such variation in this book. In theoretical terms, I examine why some new partisan contenders survive the formative decade and last at least a generation, not why, among these survivors, some last for multiple generations or centuries.

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13

Based on my operationalization criteria, I count eighteen Latin American new left contenders (see tables I.1 and I.2). Nine of these collapsed, including Argentina’s Front for a Country in Solidarity (FREPASO), Peru’s United Left (IU), and Colombia’s April 19th Movement Democratic Alliance (AD M-19) (see table I.1). The other nine survived, including Brazil’s Workers’ Party (PT), El Salvador’s Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), and Mexico’s PRD (see table I.2). What explains the divergent trajectories of Latin America’s new left contenders? That is the broad empirical puzzle addressed in this book. From a theoretical perspective, then, my dependent variable is the survival or collapse of new partisan contenders. This dependent variable is fairly distinctive within existing party literature. I investigate individual parties, not party systems57 or ideological partisan clusters.58 I focus on new, not established, parties.59 I ask how new parties maintain electoral prominence, not how they attain it.60 I define success merely as sustained electoral relevance, in contrast to studies that define success, wholly or in part, in terms of presidential victory;61 parliamentary discipline;62 organizational centralization and/or routinization;63 ideological purity or integrity;64 and programmatic stability.65 Most distinctively, I examine successful and unsuccessful cases of party building. This point bears emphasis. I am offering the most systematic analysis to date of left-wing party-building outcomes in contemporary Latin America. Indeed, this book is one of relatively few party analyses that deeply investigates cases of failure, or that thoroughly compares cases of success and failure (although there are notable exceptions).66 Why does this matter? The vast majority of new parties worldwide either flop or collapse. To date, scholars have largely ignored unsuccessful cases of party building, focusing instead on the tiny fraction of new parties that achieve sustained electoral relevance. Take, for example, the classic scholarship on parties and party systems. This literature is predominantly based on studies (mostly historical) of the United States and Western European countries. Since almost all Western polities developed and maintain stable party systems, these theories tend to take successful party building for granted and to focus on factors that shape emerging parties and party systems—such as electoral rules;67 patterns of suffrage expansion;68 social cleavages;69 access to patronage;70 parties’ relationship to external organizations;71 the internal ratio of pragmatists and ideologues;72 centralization or diffusion of power within the national party apparatus;73 and charismatic leadership.74 As a rule, these studies leave aside a more fundamental question: under what conditions do parties and party systems take root in the first place?

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TABLE I.3 DEMOCRACY AGAINST PARTIES (LATIN AMERICA’S NEW LEFT CONTENDERS) Survived

Collapsed

Born under democracy

MAS (Bolivia, est. 1995) PAC (Costa Rica, est. 2000) PSUV (Venezuela, est. 1997)

FREPASO (Argentina, est. 1994) AD M-19 (Colombia, est. 1990) FA (Costa Rica, est. 2004) CD (El Salvador, est. 1987) UNE (Guatemala, 2002) PEN (Paraguay, est. 1991) IU (Peru, est. 1980) FIM (Peru, est. 1990) PNP (Peru, est. 2005)

Born under authoritarianism, civil war/major insurgency

PT (Brazil, est. 1980) PPD (Chile, est. 1987) FMLN (El Salvador, est. 1992) PRD (Mexico, est. 1989) FSLN (Nicaragua, est. 1979) PRD (Panama, est. 1979)

TABLE I.4: BIRTH ENVIRONMENT OF NEW LEFT SURVIVORS (1978–2005) Birth environment

Total country years

New Left Survivors

Electoral democracy

318

3

Authoritarianism or civil war/major insurgency

168

6

Existing scholarship on party building in contemporary Latin America similarly selects on the dependent variable. Although the vast majority of recently emerged Latin American parties have flopped or collapsed, scholars have written hundreds of book-length studies on successful cases but only a few such studies that analyze unsuccessful cases in depth.75 This inattention to unsuccessful new parties is methodologically problematic and has inhibited theory building. Without studying unsuccessful attempts to build parties, we cannot fully understand why a small fraction of attempts succeed. ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATIONS

Existing theoretical approaches to party building, while furnishing many valuable insights, shed limited light on the divergent fates of Latin America’s new left contenders. Let us go through several alternative explanations based on existing approaches and assess their usefulness for our puzzle.76 Democracy and Party Building

Take, first, the above-characterized argument that democracy itself, particularly if uninterrupted, should lead to the formation of durable

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15

parties.77 The evidence from Latin America’s new left contenders supports the opposite conclusion (see table I.3). Of the region’s eighteen new left contenders, twelve were born under democracy, and six were born under authoritarian rule. Of the twelve born under democracy, nine collapsed (e.g., Argentina’s FREPASO, Colombia’s AD M-19, Costa Rica’s FA, Guatemala’s MAS, and Paraguay’s PEN), and only three survived (e.g., Bolivia’s MAS and Venezuela’s PSUV). By contrast, all six of the new left contenders not born under democracy survived (e.g., Brazil’s PT, Mexico’s PRD, El Salvador’s FMLN, and Nicaragua’s FSLN). To illustrate the point another way, between 1978 and 2005, Latin American countries collectively spent 318 years under electoral democracy and roughly half as many years (168) under authoritarian rule, civil war, or major insurgency (see Appendix 1). Yet, only one-third of Latin America’s surviving new left contenders (three of nine) were born during 318 “country years” of electoral democracy, while two-thirds (six of nine) were born during just 168 country years of authoritarian rule, civil war, or major insurgency (see table I.4).78 Institutionalist Approaches

Next, take the more specific argument that stable parties emerge in democracies that have the right institutions (e.g., constitutions, electoral laws, etc.). Institutionalist scholarship has posited several relevant arguments in recent decades: that parliamentary systems are superior to presidential systems (especially those with constitutionally strong presidents) in fostering party discipline, autonomy, and cohesion (Samuels and Shugart 2010);79 that vertical centralization is superior to federalism, and plurality electoral systems superior to proportional representation (PR) systems (especially those with open lists and high district magnitude), in reducing party system fragmentation;80 that low legal barriers to entry facilitate new party creation;81 that high legal barriers to entry strengthen incentives for new parties to invest in territorial organization;82 and that generous public financing of parties facilitates new party consolidation.83 This literature offers little insight into the divergent fates of new left contenders in contemporary Latin America. First, much of it does not address which variables contribute to new party survival, instead addressing which variables facilitate new party creation or affect the number of national parties. Second, as already noted, Latin American countries are institutionally similar in important ways. In particular, all are presidential systems and have either PR electoral systems or (in a few cases) electoral systems that include both PR and plurality districts. Third, where Latin American countries do differ institutionally, these

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institutional differences do not correlate with the survival and collapse of new left contenders.84 New left contenders have survived where presidents are constitutionally strong (e.g., Brazil and Chile) and weak (e.g., Mexico); where district magnitude is low (e.g., Chile) and high (e.g., Brazil); where states are federal (e.g., Brazil) and unitary (e.g., Chile and El Salvador); and where legal barriers to entry for party formation are high (e.g., Brazil) and relatively low (e.g., Bolivia). Similarly, new left contenders have collapsed in various institutional contexts (e.g., Argentina, Colombia, Peru, and Guatemala). Notably, new left contenders have survived in institutional contexts considered particularly inhospitable to party building (Brazil)85 and collapsed in institutional contexts specifically designed to foster party building (Peru).86 Left Adaptation

A third approach attributes new left survival to ideological and tactical moderation, or “adaptation.” As noted earlier, when Latin America’s new left contenders emerged, the region was shifting toward neoliberalism, making the left’s traditional economic platform politically infeasible. According to some scholarship, the region’s left parties, to thrive and endure in this environment, had to abandon revolutionary leftism and adopt more moderate policy objectives (i.e., social democracy instead of socialism) and more moderate means of pursuing power (e.g., elections instead of mass mobilization or armed struggle). On this argument, parties that adapted, such as Uruguay’s FA, El Salvador’s FMLN, and Brazil’s PT, were more likely to take root, while parties that failed to adapt, such as Venezuela’s LCR and Peru’s IU, were more likely to collapse.87 This approach has limited utility for our empirical puzzle. To begin, the variable of adaptation does not strongly correlate with the survival and collapse of recent new left contenders in Latin America. While some parties that adapted took root (e.g., Uruguay’s FA, El Salvador’s FMLN, and Brazil’s PT), others collapsed (e.g., Ecuador’s PSP [Patriotic Society Party], and Argentina’s FREPASO). Equally, while some that did not adapt collapsed (e.g., Venezuela’s LCR and Peru’s IU), others took root (e.g., Bolivia’s MAS, Venezuela’s PSUV, and to some extent Mexico’s PRD). The variable of adaptation may have a stronger (albeit far from perfect) correlation with new left presidential victory (e.g., Uruguay’s FA, El Salvador’s FMLN, and Brazil’s PT).88 In addition, it is not clear that parties like Uruguay’s FA, El Salvador’s FMLN, and Brazil’s PT took root because they adapted, or that parties like Venezuela’s LCR and Peru’s IU collapsed because they did not adapt. In chapter 3, for example, I will show that the IU’s radicalism does not adequately explain its collapse.

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Brand Dilution

A fourth approach attributes divergent party-building outcomes to success or failure in brand development. According to Noam Lupu, new parties must develop a brand to establish a partisan electoral base. A party’s brand is what it “stands for” in voters’ minds. To build a strong brand, a new party must distinguish itself from other parties and behave consistently over time, showing commitment to a particular program or group for years. Brand dilution occurs when parties implement policies inconsistent with past positions and/or form strange-bedfellow alliances with previous rivals. On this account, ideological moderation or adaptation did not help Latin America’s new left contenders. Rather, it hurt them by contributing to brand dilution. Lupu argues that if parties dilute their brands, they become electorally dependent on performance and susceptible to short-term retrospective voting.89 If they perform poorly, they are highly vulnerable to collapse.90 Lupu’s approach, while insightful and useful, is incomplete. It suggests that new parties collapse simply because voters reject them. But a subset of new parties survive voter rejection. Many new parties fail to win much electoral support initially. A smaller but still significant number quickly rise to prominence, then hemorrhage support. These electoral crises occur due to numerous possible factors.91 But crucially, some parties survive them instead of flopping or collapsing. In other words, when new parties flop or collapse, it is not merely because voters reject them; it is also because they are ill-equipped to survive voter rejection. Why, then, do some new parties survive electoral crisis, while others do not? As noted above, one of my central claims in this book is that new parties, to be durable, must exist on the ground, not merely in voters’ minds. Put differently, strong parties need strong organizations, not just strong brands. Strong organizations matter precisely because they enable parties to survive and rebound after electoral letdowns and setbacks. In chapters 2, 4, and 5, I will show that Argentina’s FREPASO, Brazil’s PT, and Mexico’s PRD all suffered early electoral crises, but that the PT and PRD survived these crises because, unlike FREPASO, they had strong organizations. In short, a limitation of voter-centered approaches is that they do not take party organization seriously. A second limitation of such approaches is that they do not explain why new parties split. Although electoral crisis (i.e., loss of voter support) is the most common trigger of new party collapse, another common trigger, as noted earlier, is schism. In fact, since the onset of the third wave in Latin America, schisms have been the second most frequent trigger of new party collapse—after

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electoral crisis.92 To maximize the likelihood of survival, new parties must have both strong organizations and sources of cohesion. Thus, we must go beyond voter-centered approaches and ask: What factors facilitate party organization building, and what factors generate cohesion in new parties? Legal Organizational Barriers to Entry

As noted earlier, one strand of institutionalist scholarship posits that high legal barriers to entry strengthen incentives for new parties to invest in organization building. Given my focus on organizational strength, this argument bears attention. Latin American countries vary both crossnationally and internally over time in the stringency of the organizational requirements that new parties must satisfy to acquire legal existence. In some contexts, parties must meet fairly cumbersome organizational requirements to secure legal registry. They may, for example, have to establish formal offices in a certain percentage of municipalities in a certain number of states, or recruit a certain percentage of those states’ populations as members. One might posit that such stringent legal requirements explain why some Latin American new left contenders heavily invested in organization building, and thus why they survived. Margaret Keck, for example, argues in her seminal study of Brazil’s PT that the PT founders expended great effort to meet the burdensome organizational requirements imposed by Brazil’s liberalizing authoritarian regime.93 But this alternative explanation, too, has limited utility for our purposes. First, as observed earlier, new left contenders have constructed strong organizations where legal barriers to entry were relatively low (e.g., Bolivia). Notably, Mexico’s PRD built a strong organization even though, to secure registry, it simply inherited the registry of one of its constituent parties (see chapter 5). Second, where high legal barriers to entry do correlate with successful organization building, the relationship, I posit, is not causal. Stringent legal requirements require new parties to establish offices and recruit members, but if new parties do not have additional incentives to build strong organizations, they will only do the bare minimum necessary for legalization. They will not establish more offices and recruit more members than the law requires. To the extent possible, they will create ghost offices and recruit merely nominal members. They will not erect unnecessary obstacles to membership or place significant burdens on new members. As I show in chapters 4 and 5 on Brazil’s PT and Mexico’s PRD, Latin American new left contenders that built strong organizations did not behave in this way. This approach has an additional theoretical limitation. While legal requirements may create incentives for party elites to invest in territorial

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19

organization, they do not generate masses of party activists, nor do they generate the higher causes that motivate these activists to sacrifice their time, labor, and resources for new parties. Masses of activists and higher causes must come from elsewhere, which brings us to another approach. Access to Mobilizing Structures

Some scholars have argued that success or failure in party organization building depends on whether new parties have access to “mobilizing structures”—that is, preexisting organizations, usually in civil society (e.g., unions, churches, and social movements). Access to mobilizing structures lowers the costs of organization building by giving new parties ready-made territorial infrastructure and organized networks of potential recruits. If new parties lack such access, the argument goes, organization building becomes difficult. One might argue, more specifically, that access to a strong, organized industrial working class is particularly important for party organization building on the left.94 The variable of a strong, organized industrial working class explains very little for our purposes. Earlier, I noted that Latin America’s debt crisis and neoliberal turn significantly weakened unions in the region. Moreover, in some Latin American countries, the unions that remained intact through the economic crisis and structural reforms of the 1980s and 1990s broadly maintained their alliances with traditional populist parties (e.g., Mexico’s PRI and Argentina’s PJ).95 It is unsurprising, then, that almost all the new left contenders in Latin America that built large territorial organizations were not labor-based (e.g., Mexico’s PRD, El Salvador’s FMLN, Nicaragua’s FSLN, Bolivia’s MAS, and Peru’s IU). Brazil’s PT stands as an exception to this trend (see chapter 4 for details on the PT’s labor origins). Thus, while union-centered approaches help to explain the organizational strength of one new left contender (Brazil’s PT), they do not explain organizational strength among Latin America’s new left contenders generally. The variable of access to mobilizing structures more broadly (i.e., not merely to unions) is more explanatorily powerful. The vast majority of new left contenders that built strong party organizations did so on the back of mobilizing structures, whether unions/social movements (e.g., Brazil’s PT, Bolivia’s MAS, and Mexico’s PRD), insurgent organizations (El Salvador’s FMLN and Nicaragua’s FSLN), or previous authoritarian regimes (e.g., Panama’s PRD). As I will argue in chapter 1, access to mobilizing structures significantly facilitates successful organization building. Yet access to mobilizing structures is not sufficient for successful organization building. Even though such access lowers the costs of or-

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ganization building (as already noted), organization building remains time-consuming, labor-intensive, and electorally costly. Thus, as I will argue in chapter 1 and show empirically in chapter 2 (on Argentina’s FREPASO), new parties, including those with access to mobilizing structures, tend to distance themselves from potential feeder organizations, and not to invest even minimally in organization, if they do not have powerful incentives for organization building. In order to understand the determinants of organization building, we must look beyond access to mobilizing structures. External Conflict as a Source of Cohesion

Shifting to sources of cohesion, under what conditions do new parties avoid fatal schisms? Scholarship has long argued that parties prevent defection by dispensing patronage to members.96 But patronage does not generate robust cohesion, as patronage seekers may “jump ship” in the event of electoral crisis.97 Patronage-based cohesion is especially fragile in new parties, which tend to have weak brands and thus are more susceptible to electoral crisis (and the resulting elite defections) than institutionalized parties. In Brazil, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama, and elsewhere, numerous new patronage-based parties suffered enervating splits during the third wave.98 Some analyses have therefore emphasized the importance of going “beyond patronage,” arguing that parties are more likely to avoid schisms during the formative years if they have alternative, or “non-material,” sources of cohesion.99 These analyses have argued, in particular, that periods of elevated polarization and conflict (e.g., revolution, civil war, authoritarian repression, and populist mobilization) generate intraparty cohesion by sharpening “us–them”​distinctions, strengthening collective identities, and fostering perceptions of a “linked fate” among members.100 This conflict-centered approach is useful, to a degree, for explaining variation in the cohesion levels of Latin America’s new left contenders. As noted earlier, only three of nine new left survivors were born during 318 country years of electoral democracy, while six of nine were born during just 168 country years of authoritarian rule, civil war, and major insurgency. Moreover, two of the three survivors born under democracy still developed under conditions of massive social protest and conflict (Bolivia’s MAS and Venezuela’s PSUV). More generally, of the successful cases of party building in the past 150 years in Latin America, a disproportionate number emerged under circumstances of revolution, civil war, insurgency, authoritarian rule, or populist mobilization.101 Conflict-centered approaches, however, leave key facts and variation unexplained. Some new partisan contenders split despite having emerged

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21

in contexts of polarization and conflict (e.g., Peru’s IU, Venezuela’s LCR, and Guatemala’s PAN). Also, during periods of populist mobilization and conflict, antipopulist forces almost never cohere (e.g., anti-MAS forces in Bolivia).102 Moreover, intensity of conflict does not strongly correlate with cohesion levels among new partisan contenders. Both Peru’s IU and Guatemala’s PAN, for example, developed under conditions of civil war where per capita death tolls exceeded those experienced by Brazil’s PT, Mexico’s PRD, Bolivia’s MAS, and Venezuela’s MVR/PSUV. Yet, while the PT, PRD, MAS, and PSUV survived intact as political parties, the IU and PAN both splintered and collapsed. Internal Ideological Divisions

A different approach attributes new party cohesion to ideological unity, or to the absence of major internal ideological divisions.103 Earlier, I observed that internecine conflict between moderates and radicals posed a common challenge for Latin America’s new left contenders. One might argue that such conflict, where it existed, prevented new left parties from becoming or remaining cohesive. This argument, too, has serious limitations. To begin, when ideologically divided parties split, they do not necessarily do so along ideological lines (e.g., Peru’s IU [see chapter 3]). Moreover, many left contenders of recent origin in Latin America took root despite deep moderate/radical divisions (e.g., Uruguay’s FA, El Salvador’s FMLN, Brazil’s PT, and Mexico’s PRD). As I show in chapters 4 and 5, for example, Brazil’s PT and Mexico’s PRD originated as parties of factions (not with factions) and experienced frequent internal conflict in their early years, both between Marxists and social democrats and between institutionalists and advocates of mobilizational tactics. Yet, they remained intact. Coalitions versus Parties

Finally, I argued earlier that some multiparty coalitions can reasonably be treated as parties. Accepting this, one might still argue that multiparty coalitions tend to be more loosely bound than parties and thus more prone to fatal splits. Although this argument is probably true to some extent, it leaves much unexplained. Take parties/coalitions of recent origin in Latin America. Within this population, there are parties that have fatally split (e.g., Venezuela’s LCR, Guatemala’s PAN, and Colombia’s PVC) and multiparty coalitions that have avoided fatal splits (Uruguay’s FA, Costa Rica’s Social Christian Unity Party [PUSC]). Moreover, it is important not to overstate the difference between coalitions (e.g., Uruguay’s FA and Peru’s IU), on the one hand, and parties like Brazil’s PT, Mexico’s PRD, and El Salvador’s FMLN, on the other. Some fronts

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evolve into permanent coalitions (e.g., Uruguay’s FA) or formal parties (Costa Rica’s PUSC).104 Others nearly become formal parties (e.g., Peru’s IU [see chapter 3]). At the same time, mass-based parties, like fronts, are often highly factionalized and experience frequent internal conflict between radicals and moderates. On numerous occasions, these internal conflicts threaten to lead to schisms (e.g., the PT and PRD)105 or do lead to nonfatal ones (e.g., the FMLN). CASE SELECTION AND METHODS

Having reviewed existing approaches, we return to our empirical puzzle: Why did some of Latin America’s new left contenders survive, while others collapsed? Early in this chapter, I very briefly outlined my theoretical arguments: first, new parties are more likely to build robust organizations if they lack access to state and media substitutes, and second, they are more likely to avoid fatal schisms if they have an externally appealing, internally dominant leader. I emphasized that new parties born under democracy, because they are more likely to have state or media access, are more likely to collapse than those born under liberalizing or competitive authoritarian rule. In the book, I test to what extent these arguments explain the divergent fates of Latin America’s new left contenders by conducting a qualitative comparison of “most similar” cases. The most similar method requires me to select two or more cases that represent my population (new left contenders in Latin America); that differ on my dependent variable (survival vs. collapse); that differ on my independent variables of interest (i.e., access to state or media; presence of an externally appealing, internally dominant leader); and that resemble each other, or “approximately match,” on as many other potentially relevant independent variables as possible.106 I infer from this correlation that variation in my hypothesized explanatory variables causes variation in my dependent variable.107 In accordance with the most similar method, I have selected four new left contenders: Argentina’s FREPASO, Peru’s IU, Brazil’s PT, and Mexico’s PRD. In addition to sharing the characteristics common to all new left contenders, these four cases approximately match on a set of additional, potentially relevant dimensions (for a discussion of these additional similarities, see the empirical overview section at the end of chapter 1). Yet, they differ on my dependent variable: two collapsed within a decade of rising to electoral prominence (FREPASO and the IU), while the other two survived their early years of existence and took root for decades as perennial electoral contenders (the PT and PRD). In an effort to solve my broad empirical puzzle—explaining divergent outcomes between Latin America’s new left contenders general-

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ly—I devote the bulk of the book to explaining the divergent outcomes of these four cases specifically. In other words, the narrow empirical question that I thoroughly tackle in this book is: Why did FREPASO and the IU collapse shortly after their initial success, while the PT and PRD survived and took root for decades? In my case studies of these four parties (chapters 2 through 5), I show the causal mechanisms of my theoretical arguments at work. The case studies are detailed narrative analyses, which trace the causal processes leading from my explanatory variables (access to state or media; externally appealing, internally dominant leader) to my dependent variable (survival or collapse).108 The case studies draw on data from thirteen to fourteen months of interviews and archival research in Buenos Aires, Argentina; Lima, Peru; São Paulo, Campinas, and Brasilia, Brazil; and Mexico City, Mexico. In total, I conducted eighty-five interviews with party elites, party activists, party observers, and country-based scholars, and I examined thousands of documents from official party archives, newspaper archives, and interviewees’ personal archives. The case study chapters draw on numerous additional sources, including dozens of published interviews with party members,109 retrospective firsthand testimonies,110 and detailed scholarly analyses conducted by party members.111 While published firsthand accounts and expert secondary analyses furnished most of the evidence necessary for scoring the four cases on my variables, interviews and archives provided most of the evidence necessary for demonstrating causal mechanisms in my case studies.112 Interviews present methodological challenges, as ideas and events that may not have seemed important to participating actors in the moment (e.g., a party’s reliance on mass media or quick access to state resources) might come to seem important in retrospect. For this reason, it is crucial, in interviews, to pose general, open-ended questions, and to listen for unprompted statements, so as to avoid implanting ideas in the interviewee’s mind.113 The validity of interview evidence also depends on repetition across a diverse range of interviews. Insofar as multiple interviewees with different beliefs and loyalties (e.g., radicals and moderates in a particular party) independently confirm that a particular meeting occurred, or that a particular line of thought prevailed among the party elite or activist base, one can be more confident that the interviewees have not erred, confabulated, or provided idiosyncratic, unrepresentative interpretations of events.114 Still, no interviewing technique can wholly circumvent the problems associated with hindsight. Thus, archives are an invaluable source of evidence. Unlike interviews, archives reveal what participants and observers

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thought and expressed in real time, before they knew how events would ultimately unfold.115 I draw on contemporaneous sources for each of my case chapters. These include, but are not limited to, the following: for chapter 2 (FREPASO), the New York Times, the Argentine newspapers Clarín, Página/12, and La Crónica, and the Argentine magazines Gente and Unidos; for chapter 3 (IU), the Lima-based newspaper La República; for chapter 4 (PT), materials from the Perseu Abramo Foundation’s Sergio Buarque de Holanda Center: Documentation and Political Memory and the Edgar Leuenroth Archive at the University of Campinas; and for chapter 5 (PRD), the Mexican magazine Proceso.116 BRIEF ROADMAP AND A NOTE ON SCOPE

The remainder of the book consists of seven chapters. Chapter 1 details my theoretical arguments, then provides an empirical introduction and overview. As already noted, Chapters 2 through 5 present my case studies of FREPASO, the IU, the PT, and the PRD. Chapter 6 provides suggestive evidence of generalizability by applying my theoretical arguments to shadow cases. The concluding chapter identifies alternative paths to new left party building, discusses theoretical implications, and raises questions for future research. Regarding scope, although I focus on Latin America’s new left contenders in this book, my theoretical arguments do not apply exclusively to the Latin American new left. On the contrary, my relatively narrow empirical focus serves a broader purpose: to identify conditions for the survival of new partisan contenders generally—that is, to new partisan contenders across world regions, historical periods, and the ideological spectrum.

THE DIVERGENT FATES OF LATIN AMERICA’S NEW LEFT CONTENDERS

APPENDIX 1: DEMOCRACY, AUTHORITARIANISM, CIVIL WAR/MAJOR INSURGENCY IN LATIN AMERICA (1978–2005) ARGENTINA

1978–1983: Authoritarianism 1983–2005: Democracy BOLIVIA

1978–1985: Authoritarianism 1982–2005: Democracy BRAZIL

1978–1985: Authoritarianism 1985–2005: Democracy CHILE

1978–1990: Authoritarianism 1990–2005: Democracy COLOMBIA

1978–2005: Civil war/major insurgency COSTA RICA

1978–2005: Democracy DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

1978–2005: Democracy ECUADOR

1978–1979: Authoritarianism 1979–2005: Democracy EL SALVADOR

1978–1980: Authoritarianism 1980–1992: Civil war/major insurgency 1992–2005: Democracy GUATEMALA

1978–1996: Civil war/major insurgency 1996–2005: Democracy

25

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HONDURAS

1978–1982: Authoritarianism 1982–2005: Democracy MEXICO

1978–2000: Authoritarianism 2000–2005: Democracy NICARAGUA

1978–1979: Civil war/major insurgency 1979–1981: Authoritarianism 1981–1989: Civil war/major insurgency 1989–2005: Democracy PANAMA

1978–1989: Authoritarianism 1989–2005: Democracy PARAGUAY

1978–1989: Authoritarianism 1989–2005: Democracy PERU

1978–1980: Authoritarianism 1980–1992: Civil war/major insurgency* 1992–2005: Democracy URUGUAY

1978–1985: Authoritarianism 1985–2005: Democracy VENEZUELA

1978–2005: Democracy Source: Reprinted with permission from Steven Levitsky, James Loxton, and Brandon Van Dyck, “Introduction: Challenges of Party Building in Latin America,” in Challenges of Party-Building in Latin America, eds. Steven Levitsky, James Loxton, Brandon Van Dyck, and Jorge Domínguez (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016), Appendix 2, 47–48. *From 1990 to 1992, Peru simultaneously experienced insurgency and populist government. I score Peru as a case of civil war/major insurgency during this period because civil wars and major insurgencies tend to be more polarizing than populism.

CHAPTER 1

DEMOCRACY AGAINST PARTIES Why Some New Parties Collapse and Others Survive

A single theoretical question lies at the heart of this book: Why do some new partisan contenders collapse, while others survive? Let us begin by noting that new partisan contenders collapse in two primary ways: they suffer electoral crises and do not survive (“electoral collapse”),1 or they suffer fatal schisms (“collapse by schism”). In this chapter, I argue that to prevent electoral collapse, new partisan contenders need strong organizations, and to avoid collapse by schism, they need sources of cohesion. The chapter, then, deals with two central questions: Under what conditions do new partisan contenders build strong organizations, and what factors generate cohesion in new partisan contenders? We will address them in turn.

CONDITIONS FOR ORGANIZATION BUILDING One might assume that new parties benefit from receiving positive mass media publicity and from winning national elections. New parties certainly seem to act on this assumption; as a rule, they energetically seek out mass media opportunities, and if they are remotely able, they try to win national elections. I argue, though, that media-fueled voter support and early access to the state paradoxically hurt new parties. Why should this be so? It is useful to begin by recognizing that almost all institutionalized political parties have a large partisan electoral base. To survive in the long term, parties need partisan voters, or individuals who feel an attachment to the party and thus consistently turn out to support it. The key to building a partisan electoral base, as suggested in the introduction, lies in the development of a partisan brand. 2 A party’s brand, as I noted, is the image of it that voters develop by observing its behavior over time. To build a strong brand, a new party must distinguish itself from other parties, and more importantly for our purposes, it must behave consistently over time, showing commitment to a particular program, sociocultural group, or political personality for years.3 27

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It follows that parties are rarely born with strong brands.4 This point bears emphasis. The early (or “formative”) years of party development are unique because, during this time, party brands tend to be works in progress and thus are relatively weak and fragile. Consequently, during their formative periods, parties are more prone to electoral crisis than they are once they have become institutionalized. Often, new parties either fail to take off electorally or hemorrhage voter support after achieving initial success. Existing analyses of party breakdown tend to focus on the causes of such electoral crises.5 But, as I suggested in the introduction, when new parties electorally flop or collapse, as they often do, it is not merely because of electoral crises; it is also because they are ill-equipped to survive them. Nevertheless, relatively few studies have analyzed the factors that affect whether parties (new or established) survive electoral crises.6 Let us ask, then: Why do some new parties collapse after electoral crises, while others endure? TERRITORIAL ORGANIZATION AND COMMITTED ACTIVISTS

The answer is organization. New parties are more likely to withstand electoral crisis if, in the initial years of their existence, they build strong organizations, which I define somewhat parsimoniously as large territorial organizations composed of committed activists.7 Territorial organizations are networks of activists organized into local nuclei or offices in much of the national territory.8 Committed activists (i.e., Angelo Panebianco’s “believers”) are active members with ideological or affective attachments to their party—attachments that transcend their shortterm desire for patronage, wealth, or status, thus elongating their time horizons.9 Large territorial organizations with committed activists benefit parties in various ways. Boots on the ground enable parties to disseminate their brand,10 build and sustain clientelist linkages,11 and mobilize voters for elections​.12 According to Margit Tavits, party/voter linkages established through grassroots organizational work tend to be stronger than those established through media appeals, making territorially organized parties less susceptible—although far from immune—to electoral crisis.13 Territorial organization also facilitates the capture of subnational office, which allows parties to demonstrate the capacity to govern.14 Most importantly for our purposes, though, territorial organizations with committed activists help new parties to survive electoral crisis. This claim finds broad support in existing party literature, as numerous influential studies—including several book-length ones15—have centrally emphasized the role of organizational strength in party survival. Tavits, in her analysis of party trajectories in Eastern Europe’s new democracies,

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argues that parties with large memberships and extensive networks of local offices are “more likely to . . . survive as significant players in the electoral arena.”16 Jennifer Cyr, in analyzing the fates of discredited established parties in Latin America, shows that organizational resources facilitate party survival and revival.17 By what mechanisms does organizational strength help new parties to survive electoral crises? For new parties, electoral crisis generally takes one of two forms: either a new party fares unexpectedly poorly in its first election or two, or it takes off electorally but quickly hemorrhages support. Either scenario implies early brand failure: in the first scenario, the party fails to develop an effective brand early on, while in the second, the party quickly develops an effective brand but subsequently dilutes it. As already noted, Noam Lupu argues that parties with failed brands can maintain electoral support if they perform well in government. But what if a new party with a failed brand also performs poorly in government? Or, what if such a party has not made it into government and thus has no performance record? I argue that such new parties are not necessarily doomed. To be sure, the combination of a failed brand and a weak or nonexistent performance record is likely to prove fatal for a new party that is just a brand. But if a new party is more than a brand—that is, if it is an organization, too—it can survive an electoral crisis. This is for two main reasons. First, brand failure, quite simply, does not imply organizational failure. When party brands fail, territorial organizations may remain intact, especially if party activists are ideologues or believers. Such activists, as noted, have long time horizons.18 If their party experiences a crushing defeat or spends a long period in the political wilderness, they are more likely than patronage seekers to “stick it out.” They may prepare for imminent elections at a different level of government (e.g., municipal instead of national). They may bide their time and wait for an election scheduled several years in the future. Because they are interested in more than just elections, they may shift their focus to nonelectoral activities in the short term (e.g., engaging in social movement activities or doing organizational work for the party). Second, as noted, territorial organization facilitates the capture of subnational office.19 This matters for new party survival. As Jennifer Cyr has observed, when organizationally strong parties suffer national electoral crises, they tend to remain electorally competitive at the subnational level in their territorial bastions. 20 Thus, they can fall back on local and state governments that they control, or they can shift their attention to—and seek to rebuild themselves by—winning subnational elections.

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Organizationally weak new parties lack these survival mechanisms. New parties with no territorial organization at all (e.g., many media-based parties) depend entirely on their brands or performance. If they do not achieve and maintain success in one of these areas, they have no activist networks or subnational governments to fall back on. Parties that do have territorial organization, but whose members are patronage seekers rather than believers, are also vulnerable. In such cases, party workers serve their individual careers, not a higher cause, and thus are more liable to defect if the party electorally underperforms.21 In sum, new parties with territorial organizations composed of committed activists are more durable than those without them. Although a handful of new partisan contenders with weak organizations have taken root in contemporary Latin America (e.g., Chile’s PPD and, until recently, the Brazil’s PSDB), such cases are the exception. Nearly all cases of survival—from the PT, PRD and FMLN on the left to ARENA and the UDI on the right—built and benefited from strong organizations during their formative years.22 We therefore turn to the question: Under what conditions do new parties with territorial organization and committed activists emerge? State, Media, and Incentives for Organization Building

Territorial organization building is a costly endeavor, for two broad reasons. First, investing in party organization requires significant time and labor. Party builders must recruit and incorporate masses of members; house, equip, and staff local offices; establish vertical and perhaps horizontal lines of communication across party organs; develop formal or informal mechanisms for making collective decisions and resolving conflicts; and procure financing for offices, communication, transportation, and salaries, often through membership dues and small donations. These processes take time, require large amounts of volunteer labor, and depend on the donation and pooling of resources. Second, territorial organizations reduce elite nimbleness and autonomy, as party elites must, in some way or another, be accountable to the masses of activists who have joined and helped to build the party.23 Large activist bases may demand institutions of internal democracy that prolong collective decision making. Party activists also tend to be more ideological than ordinary voters. Thus, they often pressure elites to select candidates and take policy stances that turn off voters in the general electorate. 24 For all the above reasons—that is, the time, labor, and reduced elite nimbleness and autonomy associated with organization building—new parties that invest in territorial organization tend to make slow electoral

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progress, at best. Thus, I argue, politicians who can win and maintain office without making significant investments in territorial organization are likely to do so. There are two main alternative routes to electoral success, both of which tend to be quicker, easier, and more vote-maximizing in the short term than organization building. These are (1) the use of state resources and infrastructure for electoral purposes25 and (2) the use of mass media appeals.26 Let us discuss both routes in turn.27 In the developing world, politicians in office often use the state as a “substitute” for parties.28 Such politicians siphon public money for campaign financing, deploy government employees as campaigners, recruit candidates from government agencies, and use public buildings as campaign offices. Since investing in party organization would take longer, require more fund-raising, and impose tighter constraints on elite nimbleness and flexibility, these politicians tend to forgo party organization building altogether, and to rely on the use of state resources and infrastructure to win elections. Henry Hale finds, for example, that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, federal and provincial politicians in post-Soviet Russia systematically used the state—and, to a lesser extent, private businesses—as party substitutes.29 They opted not to invest in party organization building and consolidated their electoral support by mobilizing bureaucratic agencies and diverting state monies for electoral purposes. This dynamic, Hale argues, helps to explain why strong parties, by and large, did not emerge in early post-Soviet Russia. Hale’s argument has an important logical implication. If access to state resources weakens electoral incentives for party organization building, lack of access to state resources strengthens those incentives. Indeed, an extended period in the opposition often serves as a blessing in disguise for office seekers. Such office seekers cannot tap the state for funds, campaigners, and candidates. Effectively, they lack access to a major party substitute that can hinder the construction of territorial party organizations. Yet, in the contemporary period, office seekers who are in the opposition and therefore lack access to state resources do not necessarily need a ground organization to appeal to masses of voters. Why? The answer, as numerous scholars have argued, is mass media. 30 The Brazilian ex-president Fernando Henrique Cardoso memorably stated in the late 1980s, “A TV channel is worth more than a party.”31 Given the extensive reach of radio, television, and (more recently) internet and social media in the contemporary developing world, media-savvy political entrepreneurs can win major elections (including presidential elections) through

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mass media appeals, with little or no party organization behind them. They can appeal to millions of voters instantaneously, autonomously, and without the need for canvassing. Elite incentives to build and maintain territorial party organizations have therefore seriously weakened, and media-based parties and candidacies have proliferated across the world. It is relevant to highlight, in this connection, that media-based new opposition parties and candidates tend to rise rapidly. Often, they quickly attain electoral dominance among a particular constituency. This matters because ideologically proximate elites and activists—including those who would have preferred investing in party organization building— must either ride on the bandwagon of the ascendant media-based party or remain electorally marginal. Consequently, where media-based new parties skyrocket to prominence, there is insufficient time and electoral space (i.e., there is no opportunity) for other territorially organized parties to develop and grow.32 By contrast, in contexts where the political opposition lacks state and media access, the only new parties capable of rising electorally are those that build territorial organizations. Where do conditions of low state and media access arise? Before the age of mass media, new opposition parties across the world could not challenge established regimes or governing parties unless they built large territorial organizations.33 Thus, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, territorially organized opposition parties formed across the ideological spectrum in Western Europe. Examples include the mass confessional parties of Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, Germany, and Italy34 and their labor-based counterparts (e.g., the British Labour Party and German Social Democratic Party). In the contemporary era, many office-seeking opposition groups have access to mass media, but crucially, not all do. In a significant number of contemporary polities, major media outlets deny access to some or all opposition parties and either ignore them or provide negative coverage of them. A disproportionate number of these polities are not full democracies (e.g., Ukraine under President Leonid Kuchma; Malaysia under the governing Barisan Nasional [BN]; and Peru under President Alberto Fujimori), although some are full democracies in which mass media, despite the absence of external inducements and pressures, systematically oppose certain parties or political causes. 35 Such circumstances make it difficult or impossible for media-based new partisan contenders to emerge, and provide opposition office-seekers with a strong electoral incentive to invest in territorial organization. Under these circumstances, the same opposition forces also tend to have strong extraelectoral incentives to invest in territorial organization. Denial of access to mass media feeds a narrative of adversity and

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unfairness and often goes along with other difficult conditions (e.g., resource disadvantage, fraud, and repression) that reinforce this narrative. Opposition forces may conclude that elections are rigged, and that they need territorial organization to guard voting booths (e.g., Mexico’s PRD), mobilize for protest (e.g., Brazil’s PT; Mexico’s PRD; and Bolivia’s MAS), or even engage in armed struggle (e.g., El Salvador’s FMLN; Nicaragua’s FSLN; and some of the constituent parties of Peru’s IU). In short, we must qualify the influential argument that media has eliminated incentives for party building.36 While it is true that the spread of mass media technologies has inhibited party building in the contemporary developing world, it is also true that opposition office seekers still lack mass media access in a significant subset of cases. These conditions, paradoxically, have facilitated the creation of robust new partisan contenders by preventing the emergence of media-based new partisan contenders and strengthening incentives for office seekers to invest in territorial party organization. Having addressed where territorial organization comes from, let us turn to the question, where do committed activists come from? To a substantial extent, committed party activists emerge from the same adverse conditions that give rise to territorial party organizations. There are two mechanisms at play here. First, adverse conditions select for committed activists. In new parties born without state and media access, material resources are limited, 37 and electoral progress is uncertain and slow. Consequently, these new parties cannot provide selective incentives (e.g., elected office and patronage appointments) to most activists in the short term. Such new parties therefore tend not to attract patronage seekers and short-term opportunists. They must rely on leaders and volunteer activists whose convictions trump their short-term ambitions. As a rule, only individuals who are committed to the party’s higher cause are willing to stake their political fortunes on, or volunteer their time and labor to, a new party with limited material resources and weak, uncertain electoral prospects.38 Second, conditions of low state and media access help to generate the higher causes that motivate activists. The existence of a large corps of believers presupposes a higher cause—that is, a cause for masses of individuals to believe in. Parties must provide some type of incentive to activists, and if they cannot provide selective incentives (e.g., electoral success, jobs, and money), they must offer collective incentives: an identity and/or set of goals shared widely by party activists, which transcend individuals’ desire for wealth, power, and status.39 Higher causes can come from ideologies. According to Stephen Hanson, the transformational ideologies of French Republicanism, Russian

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Communism, and German Nazism facilitated party survival in contexts of extreme political instability and uncertainty by providing activists with “long-term visions of the political future” and therefore artificially elongating their time horizons.40 More importantly for our purposes, though, higher causes can also emerge from periods of intense polarization and conflict.41 High-​stakes conflicts such as civil wars, revolutions, populist movements, and antiauthoritarian struggles stir passions, cement loyalties, and help to mobilize the founding generation of activists who are so vital to building robust party organizations. As I will detail below, conditions of low state and media access are empirically associated with antiauthoritarian struggle. Before proceeding, let me highlight that I am treating rank-and-file ideologues as beneficial rather than harmful to new parties. In doing so, I am making a fairly atypical argument within existing party literature. Quite a few scholars have found that the presence of ideologues negatively affects new parties in various ways.42 I offer a contrasting perspective, positing and attempting to show empirically that, at least at the ground level, ideologues decisively contribute to new party survival. Mobilizing Structures and Means for Organization Building

To succeed in building territorial organizations, new parties need means in addition to incentives. As noted in the introduction, mobilizing structures (i.e., preexisting organizations such as unions) provide these means.43 More specifically, mobilizing structures furnish new parties with personnel (local activist networks, experienced elites); infrastructure (buildings, offices, vehicles, computers, telephones, fax machines); institutions of collective decision making; and visibility, credibility, and constituency ties. They therefore reduce the costs and help to solve the coordination problems inherent in organization building. If politicians cannot inherit or appropriate preexisting organizations and deploy them for partisan ends, they may find organization building prohibitively costly or simply impossible. Although the state apparatus itself sometimes serves as a platform for organization building,44 mobilizing structures tend to come from civil society organizations such as trade unions,45 peasant associations,46 social movements (e.g., ecological and indigenous),47 churches and church groups,48 guerrilla armies,49 paramilitary networks,50 and more. Numerous comparative studies have demonstrated that access to mobilizing structures often makes the difference between successful and unsuccessful party building, whether in Europe,51 Africa,52 or Latin America.53 Of the nine surviving new left contenders in Latin America, seven had a clear organizational inheritance (i.e., all except Chile’s PPD and Costa

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Figure 1.1. Incentives and means for organization building

Rica’s PAC), and most of these drew from civil society—such as unions and social movements (Brazil’s PT, Mexico’s PRD, and Bolivia’s MAS) and guerrilla armies (the FMLN and FSLN).54 (See Appendix 2.) Democracy against Parties

My argument so far is that new parties are more likely to build strong organizations if they lack state and media access. Herein lies the central problem identified in the book: new parties born under democracy are more likely to have state and media access, and therefore less likely to build strong organizations, than new parties born under certain forms of authoritarian rule. Why? By definition, authoritarian regimes exclude the political opposition from state structures by banning multiparty elections (e.g., China); or filtering out ideologically unacceptable candidates (e.g., Iran); or, more commonly in the post–Cold War era, tilting the electoral playing field against the opposition through tactics such as fraud, repression, and the politically discriminatory use of courts, bureaucratic agencies, and public funds.55 Contemporary authoritarian regimes place particular emphasis on limiting opponents’ media access. Through selective licensing, bribes, sanctions, and outright ownership of major media companies, they ensure that national media support the regime and ignore or attack the opposition.56 By contrast, democracies permit multiparty elections and open contestation and protect basic civil liberties including freedom of speech and the press. Consequently, new opposition parties under democracy are more likely to gain media visibility, make effective media appeals,

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and win office quickly. Since the onset of the third wave of democratization in Latin America, conditions of open electoral competition and widespread media access have enabled politicians of diverse ideological backgrounds to substitute successful mass media appeals for grassroots campaigns and in many cases to gain rapid access to state resources and institutions. These elites have underinvested in organization building, constructing ephemeral personalistic vehicles (e.g., Alberto Fujimori’s C-90 and Alejandro Toledo’s PP in Peru; and Fernando Collor’s PRN in Brazil) or organizationally weak “flash” parties (e.g., Colombia’s AD M-19 and Argentina’s FREPASO). I am not arguing that authoritarianism as such is more conducive to successful party building than democracy. Rather, I am arguing that certain types of authoritarianism are. Authoritarian regimes vary widely, and many inhibit party building. Some authoritarian regimes weaken or destroy opposition parties.57 Others are so repressive as to make even clandestine party building virtually impossible (e.g., Cuba). With the exception of insurgent successor parties (e.g., the FMLN and FSLN), opposition party building under authoritarianism is most likely to occur in contexts of low to moderate repression—for instance, under competitive authoritarian rule (e.g., Mexico during the 1980s and 1990s) or during periods of authoritarian liberalization (e.g., Brazil from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s or Chile in the late 1980s). Such contexts are favorable for party building because, on the one hand, the opposition does not have access to state and media substitutes for organization building, but on the other hand, the opposition does have space to engage in political activity, opportunities to contest elections (at least in the near future), nonelectoral incentives to organize, and access to mobilizing structures involved in the struggle for democracy. Moreover, state repression actually facilitates organization building when it is low to moderate rather than extreme. First, such repression strengthens opposition selection pressures by weeding out activists unwilling to face violent attack or imprisonment. Parties born in contexts of violence or repression thus tend to be composed of an unusually large number of rank-and​-file​ideologues.58 Second, such repression leads to an escalation of the political conflict between regime and opposition. Under conditions of repression, regime opponents often come to see themselves as at war with the regime.59 In effect, facing state violence strengthens the higher cause that motivates antiauthoritarian activists. In summary, democracy impedes the formation of durable new partisan contenders. As highlighted in the introduction, while strong parties may be good for democracy, a disproportionate number of them find their roots in periods of undemocratic rule.

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Figure 1.2. Democracy against parties

How is the argument that I have presented so far distinctive within existing party literature? I am not the first to identify organizational strength as a key determinant of electoral success and survival,60 or to observe that strong party organizations emerge from adversity.61 Indeed, Margit Tavits advances versions of both claims (although our works differ in many particulars62). Yet, the particular cluster of adverse conditions that I identify as conducive to successful party building—lack of access to state resources and mass media, plus low to moderate state repression—is distinctive within the literature.63 More distinctive and significant is my observation that these ideal conditions for party building tend to arise not under democracy but under certain forms of authoritarian rule. In addition, various scholars have, like me, argued that events during the formative period of party development have lasting effects, and several have, like me, placed explanatory emphasis on whether parties originate in or out of office (i.e., internally or externally). I add to these arguments in two main ways. First, I show that the formative years—and, more specifically, internal or external origins—can dictate whether new parties become institutionalized in the first place. By contrast, scholars such as Maurice Duverger, Angelo Panebianco, and Shefter, take successful party building for granted.64 They solely investigate institutionalized parties and show how variables during the formative period, including internal or external origins, shape these parties’ long-term character (i.e., how they “solidify,” to use one of Panebianco’s formulations).65 Second, I emphasize that, unlike the historical parties examined by Shefter and others, contemporary parties with external origins might still have

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access to mass media, and thus that they might still have weak incentives to invest in organization. In other words, it is not merely external origins, but instead the combination of external origins and limited media access, that facilitates successful organization building. In closing this section, I would like to make several clarifying remarks. First, democracy is not an independent variable in my account. My central independent variables (so far) are state and media access. I have simply noted a negative association between these independent variables and the regime type, democracy. Second, the relationship between these independent variables and my dependent variable (survival vs. collapse) is probabilistic, not deterministic. New partisan contenders born with state and/or media access may survive, and those born without state or media access may collapse.66 I only argue that those born with state and/or media access are more likely to collapse than those that are born without state or media access and do not face extreme repression. Nevertheless, I will argue that varying levels of state and media access were outcome-determinative in the cases of Argentina’s FREPASO (chapter 2), Brazil’s PT (chapter 4), and Mexico’s PRD (chapter 5). Third and finally, although conditions of low state and media access (and moderate repression) facilitate successful party building, there are costs to party building under such adverse conditions. Precisely because new parties that face significant adversity tend to attract ideologues, not pragmatists, they often evolve into “niche parties.”67 Rather than targeting the median voter, niche parties tend to remain at the ideological extremes, thereby limiting their capacity to win elections. Origins under moderate forms of authoritarianism, then, may simultaneously hinder parties’ electoral performance and contribute to their long-​term survival. Chapters 4 and 5, for example, will show that although Mexico’s PRD and Brazil’s PT were slow to adopt vote-​maximizing strategies (which contributed to successive electoral defeats), their niche origins helped them to survive the formative years.

SOURCES OF COHESION So far, I have analyzed why some new partisan contenders, but not others, survive electoral crises. But, as I have already noted, electoral crises are not the only triggers of new party collapse. After electoral crisis, schism—that is, the defection of a major leader or faction—is the most common trigger.68 It is therefore critical to ask: What factors reduce the likelihood of fatal schisms in new partisan contenders? Internal conflict is a normal feature of party life. Parties have to make collective decisions on candidate selection, congressional lists, election

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platforms, alliances, and much more. They also have to decide on the rules and procedures for making these collective decisions. Especially in more heterogeneous parties, leaders and factions may conflict in all of the above areas, and such conflicts can lead to schism. Schisms, thus, are a risk for political parties. New parties are especially at risk. One reason, as we have seen, is that they typically lack strong brands, which in established parties raise the cost of exit for office seekers and patronage seekers. New parties also tend to lack institutionalized procedures for collective decision making and conflict settlement. Consequently, parties often split shortly after creation, and when they do, they usually fail. Recently in Latin America, numerous prominent new parties have fatally split: Venezuela’s Radical Cause (LCR), which attained national relevance in the early 1990s; Guatemala’s National Advancement Party (PAN), which won the presidency in 1995; the Colombian Green Party (PVC), which finished second in the 2010 presidential election; Union of the Democratic Center (UCEDE), Argentina’s third most successful party in the 1980s; and Peru’s IU. Notably, new partisan contenders with large territorial organizations, while more durable amid electoral crises, are especially prone to fragmentation and schism. Why? First, it is rarely feasible to build a large territorial organization without incorporating ideologically, socioeconomically, and regionally heterogeneous groups.69 Second, as already argued, territorially organized parties tend to have a high proportion of ideologues, and ideological political movements of all stripes have centrifugal tendencies, as factions may prioritize narrow doctrinal purity over pragmatism and compromise. Ideological parties are often plagued by sectarianism and internal divisions (e.g., Latin American communist parties). Nevertheless, many new partisan contenders avoid or survive schisms despite having large territorial organizations and deep internal divisions. Take Latin America’s new partisan contenders. Most of the ones that survived intact and took root were territorially organized and factionalized (e.g., Brazil’s PT, El Salvador’s FMLN and ARENA, Chile’s UDI, Mexico’s PRD, and Nicaragua’s FSLN).70 What explains such variation? EXTERNALLY APPEALING, INTERNALLY DOMINANT LEADERS

A key variable, I argue, is the type of party leader. As noted in the introduction, scholars of party building tend to shy away from leadershipcentered explanations for fear of excessive voluntarism and therefore fail to conceptualize differences between leaders systematically. Moreover,

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those who do focus on the role of leaders tend to view dominant or charismatic political leaders as prejudicial to parties.71 According to these scholars, personalistic figures, because their appeals are typically nonprogrammatic, often hinder the development of partisan brands. Angelo Panebianco claims that when parties founded by charismatic leaders undergo the necessary “transfer of authority from . . . leader to . . . party . . . very few . . . survive.” 72 These arguments have merit; history offers numerous examples of leaders who have abandoned, destroyed, or undermined the authority of their own parties. It is critical to highlight, though, that dominant leaders can facilitate successful party building as well. Indeed, for new partisan contenders, such leaders are often essential to survival.73 A large number of the most stable and successful parties in the contemporary developing world depended for their initial electoral rise, early internal cohesion, and even long-term partisan brand strength on particular leaders. To date, scholarship has paid relatively little attention to this fact. Thus, the question of what type of leader is good for party building remains undertheorized.74 In what follows, I will argue that the presence of a particular kind of leader—one who combines external appeal with internal dominance—generates robust cohesion in new partisan contenders. How does this argument work? Externally Appealing Leaders

Largely due to early brand weakness, only a handful of new parties ever take off electorally.75 A striking proportion of these new parties owe their initial electoral success not to their brand, but to a single externally appealing leader.76 In new parties with weak brands, nationally popular leaders appeal to voters outside organized partisan constituencies, lifting these otherwise marginal parties to national prominence. In effect, externally appealing leaders substitute for strong partisan brands by delivering votes that the party otherwise would not receive. Particularly in presidential systems, the external appeal of party leaders can be a crucial source of mass support for incipient parties. As David Samuels and Matthew Shugart have shown, presidential systems compel parties to nominate politicians with broad popular appeal. Parties without viable presidential candidates rarely become electorally competitive, and noncompetitive parties rarely endure. In Latin America, which is universally presidentialist, party founders or presidential candidates often have played a crucial role in making new parties electorally competitive. In special cases, they have laid the foundation for lasting partisan brands (e.g., Peronism, Fujimorismo, and Chavismo), but even in more

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institutionalized parties—such as the AP and APRA in Peru; the PLN in Costa Rica; the AD and COPEI in Venezuela; the PRD and PLD in the Dominican Republic; and, more recently, El Salvador’s ARENA, Brazil’s PT and PSDB, and Mexico’s PRD—they have played a vital role in early efforts to mobilize popular support.77 In addition to making many new parties electorally viable, popular leaders help to generate cohesion in new partisan contenders. Just as strong partisan brands provide electoral incentives against defection in established parties, a popular leader’s coattails provide electoral incentives against defection in many new parties. In new parties with a popular leader, lower elites depend electorally on the leader’s coattails and may hope or expect to receive patronage from him or her. Thus, they have electoral and career incentives not to defect, and to remain on good terms with the leader. Yet popular leaders do not necessarily generate cohesion. Indeed, new parties that electorally depend on a single leader are vulnerable to fatal schisms; after all, if the electorally indispensable leader defects, the party will be likely to collapse. In recent decades, several new partisan contenders in Latin America have collapsed following the defection of an externally appealing leader. Peru’s IU disbanded shortly after Alfonso Barrantes defected in 1989.78 Guatemala’s PAN virtually disappeared after Álvaro Arzú and presidential candidate Óscar Berger left the party in the early 2000s.79 Colombia’s PVC did not recover from the exit of its presidential candidate and best-known figure, Antanas Mockus. In some cases, electorally indispensable leaders become embroiled in irresolvable conflicts with vital rival factions, and the resulting impasse leads to a fatal split. Venezuela’s LCR, for example, collapsed after its popular leader, Andrés Velásquez, expelled the party’s core radical bloc due to ideological differences and a personal rivalry with the radical leader, Pablo Medina.80 My central argument is that if leaders combine external appeal with internal dominance, the risk of such schisms decreases substantially. This leads to several questions: What is internal dominance? Where does it come from? By what mechanisms do externally appealing, internally dominant leaders reduce the likelihood of schism in new partisan contenders? Internal Dominance

An internally dominant leader is a leader with uncontested, preeminent power in a party—who, in common parlance, stands “head and shoulders” above the rest of the party elite. When a single figure dominates, no other elite can seriously contend for the lead nomination (e.g., the

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presidential nomination in presidential systems) or advocate for the leader’s expulsion without being marginalized. A party cannot make major decisions that go against the will of an internally dominant leader. Internal power comes from multiple sources. One source, undoubtedly, is external appeal, which, as already noted, enables leaders to control the electoral fortunes and public sector careers of lower elites. If a singularly popular leader defects from a party, lower elites will lose votes and patronage opportunities. Thus, in a new party with a highly popular leader, lower elites have material incentives to remain in the party and accommodate the leader. They may support him in internal debates despite disagreeing with his views, or support his presidential nomination despite otherwise preferring a different candidate. Nevertheless, electoral indispensability does not necessarily make a leader internally dominant. Why? First, in some parties, important factions are not fundamentally driven by electoral incentives (e.g., Mexico’s early PRD; Peru’s IU; and Venezuela’s LCR). To the extent that party members are ideologues rather than pragmatists, they will assign less weight to a leader’s external appeal in their decision-making calculi, reducing the leader’s internal leverage. Second, and more centrally for our purposes, externally appealing leaders may lack additional or supplemental characteristics (i.e., characteristics other than external appeal) that are critical for maximizing internal support and leverage. Internal power comes from numerous, potentially complementary sources, and external appeal is just one. Internal dominance requires additional sources. What are some of these additional sources? I highlight three. The first is cross-factional ties. In internally riven parties, a leader who has productive, constructive relationships with all top factional leaders, and therefore can act as a hub in cross-factional discussions and negotiations, may be “indispensable” for mediating disputes and brokering accords.81 Such a leader, naturally, gains leverage over elites who value party unity. Leaders who disengage from internal party affairs, or who lack or fail to maintain constructive, working relationships with major factions, cannot serve as cross-factional mediators and brokers (e.g., Barrantes of Peru’s IU; Andrés Velásquez of Venezuela’s LCR; and Óscar Berger of Guatemala’s PAN). A leader does not necessarily need charisma or ideological appeal to establish cross-factional ties.82 In recent decades, a number of high-profile party leaders who succeeded in developing hub-and-spokes relations across factionalized parties were not especially charismatic or ideologically representative, nor did they control significant patronage resources, during their ascent (e.g., François Mitterand of France’s Socialists,

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Figure 1.3. Sources of internal power

Helmut Kohl of Germany’s Christian Democrats, Carlos Menem of Argentina’s Peronists).83 Because it takes time to develop cross-factional ties, a leader with strong preexisting cross-factional ties may be essential in the case of new parties. Here, one finds variation. Some leaders have strong preexisting cross-factional ties, often because they led their parties’ formative struggles and, in this role, closely collaborated with various secondary leaders and feeder groups (e.g., Lula of Brazil’s PT). Other leaders do not. In fact, in certain cases, individuals are chosen to lead new parties precisely because they are relative outsiders, lack ties to all major factions, and thus do not empower any one faction at the expense of others (e.g., Barrantes of Peru’s IU). Moral authority is a second internal power source. Moral authority means credibility and respect among party activists, usually due to one’s preparty background. Here, too, one finds variation. Many figures become party leaders despite lacking moral authority (e.g., Josef Stalin of the Soviet Communist Party; Helmut Kohl of Germany’s Christian Democrats).84 This may be especially likely to happen when a new party intentionally chooses a neutral outsider as leader (e.g., Barrantes of Peru’s IU). By contrast, certain party leaders command deep respect or reverence among the base. Some of these have a quasi-mystical quality: they are seen by party activists as fundamental to party identity or as the incarnation of its higher cause. Such stature may stem from revolutionary ancestry (e.g., Cárdenas of Mexico’s PRD); class status (e.g., Lula of Brazil’s PT); heroism (e.g., Charles de Gaulle of France’s Republicans); hardship (e.g., Nelson Mandela of South Africa’s African National Congress); or leadership in the party’s formative struggles (e.g., Lula; and Robert Mugabe of the Zimbabwe African National Union). Moral authority can also be rooted in personal charisma.85 A third internal power source is ideological representativeness. Although internal attitudes are usually heterogeneous, and although lead-

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DEMOCRACY AGAINST PARTIES

Figure 1.4. External appeal, internal dominance

ers tend to have significant programmatic autonomy from the base,86 ideological representativeness of one’s party matters. Naturally, leaders tend to be more internally appealing and to command broader internal support insofar as their views and positions correspond to those of the party elite and rank and file. To the extent that their views and positions deviate from prevailing stances among party members, they are more vulnerable to internal challenges (e.g., Barrantes of Peru’s IU) and to irresolvable conflict with vital factions (e.g., the LCR’s Andrés Velásquez). In sum, internal power does not come from external appeal alone. It also comes from cross-factional ties, moral authority, and ideological representativeness. Each of these sources of internal power is potentially independent of the others,87 although some often reinforce others.88 These sources independently contribute to a leader’s internal power, and I will treat them as having approximately equal weight. The more of these sources, and the more of each source, that a leader has, the more internally powerful he will be. Consequently, new party leaders, even externally appealing ones, vary on the spectrum of internal power. Simply put, some are internally dominant, while others are not. For new partisan contenders, this variation can make the difference between fatal schism and survival. How Externally Appealing, Internally Dominant Leaders Prevent Schisms

Externally appealing, internally dominant leaders considerably reduce the likelihood of fatal schisms in new partisan contenders. Beyond furnishing coattails and dispensing patronage, they facilitate collective decision making and prevent conflict from emerging, escalating, or going unresolved. How? A key difference between new and institutionalized parties is that very few new parties—especially those that are heterogeneous and

DEMOCRACY AGAINST PARTIES

45

mass-based—have efficient, routinized, collective decision-making procedures. Often, new party factions, drawn from diverse regions, classes, and sectors, lack horizontal ties to each other. Although some parties eventually develop strong internal institutions,89 new parties must do so from scratch and avoid alienating major factions in the process. Internal institution building, thus, is delicate and gradual. Many new parties simply lack formal procedures in key areas (e.g., Venezuela’s LCR; and Mexico’s early PRD).90 Some make decisions by elite consensus or supermajority (e.g., Peru’s IU and Venezuela’s LCR). Almost none have high-quality internal democracies.91 As a result, new parties frequently cannot, through institutional channels, aggregate members’ preferences, collectively decide and act, and adjudicate conflicts. In such circumstances, schism becomes a risk, as important conflicts may go unresolved, and important reforms may be stymied. Externally appealing, internally dominant leaders help to solve these problems. First, they found and anchor dominant factions, which control parties’ internal machinery and facilitate collective action and decision making (e.g., the PT’s Lula and the PRD’s Cárdenas).92 Second, they shape and even dictate the outcome of internal debates (e.g., on campaign strategy and alliances). Leaders with moral authority, for example, can convince factional leaders to make concessions, or to moderate or change platforms, to broaden their parties’ popular appeal (e.g., the PT’s Lula in the early 2000s).93 Internally dominant leaders sometimes use their control over the distribution of party candidacies and posts as leverage in internal debates (e.g., the PRD’s Cárdenas). The inability to shape internal party debates in these ways may motivate a leader to defect (e.g., the IU’s Barrantes). Third, an internally dominant leader can informally function as a party’s preference aggregator, decision maker, and final arbiter. In parties with little internal democracy and weak horizontal ties between factions, a leader with strong cross-factional links can collect a wide range of viewpoints and preferences and factor them into party decision making (e.g., the PRD’s Cárdenas). Crucially, internally dominant leaders are given significant leeway to make decisions and take actions in the name of their parties (e.g., Victor Raúl Haya de la Torre in Peru’s APRA; Juan Perón in Argentina’s PJ; Roberto D’Aubuisson in El Salvador’s ARENA; Jaime Guzmán in Chile’s UDI; the PRD’s Cárdenas; and the PT’s Lula). In some cases, their word is effectively law, meaning that they can arbitrate conflict and impose party lines (including controversial ones) unilaterally. Morally authoritative leaders are less likely to be viewed as fakes, traitors, or sellouts if they seek to modify their party’s ideological or programmatic agenda over time, or if, for practical

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DEMOCRACY AGAINST PARTIES

gain, they act contrary to base-level preferences or sacrifice party principles and precedents (e.g., the PT’s Lula in the early 2000s).94 If denied such freedom of action and maneuvering room, leaders are more liable to defect (e.g., the IU’s Barrantes) or come to an impasse with a vital rival faction (e.g., LCR’s Andrés Velásquez). In short, just as electorally indispensable leaders substitute for partisan brands, internally dominant leaders—in all the above ways—substitute for institutions of collective decision making and conflict resolution, and in doing so, they help parties to “speak in a single voice” and withstand internal conflict. Fourth, and crucially, in presidential systems, externally appealing, internally dominant leaders tend to win their parties’ presidential nominations with limited internal contestation or dissent (e.g., the PT’s Lula and the PRD’s Cárdenas). As a result, their parties rarely suffer crippling nomination battles. This is critical for cohesion, given that presidential candidate selection is a winner-take-all choice with singularly high stakes. Party leaders who are not internally dominant, even if they are electorally indispensable, may face serious opposition in their pursuit of presidential nominations (e.g., the IU’s Barrantes). In such cases, schism may result, as whoever is not nominated, or fears not being nominated, might defect (e.g., Barrantes). Before concluding this section, I want to make two clarifying points. First, my leadership-centered argument is primarily structuralist, not voluntarist. To be sure, a leader’s internal dominance is not wholly static; external events as well as leaders’ own contingent decisions can lead to short-term changes in their cross-factional ties, moral authority, and ideological representativeness. Nevertheless, a leader’s prior endowments (e.g., preexisting cross-factional ties and political background) largely determine the parameters and likelihood of such change. It is much easier to maintain and build on preexisting cross-factional ties, for example, than to establish cross-factional ties from scratch after a party is founded. Similarly, it is much easier to establish moral authority if one has a symbolically resonant pedigree or a background as a hero or leader of a political or social movement. Internal dominance, then, is seldom a pure product of individual effort, prudence, or savvy. It tends to be based, in large measure, on objective endowments: electoral clout, preexisting cross-factional links, ancestry, and backgrounds of leadership, heroism, or hardship. Second, externally appealing, internally dominant leaders are neither necessary nor sufficient for preventing new party schisms. New partisan contenders may avoid schisms in the absence of such a leader, and they may suffer fatal schisms despite the presence of such a leader. My

DEMOCRACY AGAINST PARTIES

47

argument here is, again, probabilistic: externally appealing, internally dominant leaders reduce the likelihood of fatal schisms in new partisan contenders. I will argue, though, that the role of the leader was outcome-determinative in the cases of Peru’s IU (chapter 3), Brazil’s PT (chapter 4), and Mexico’s PRD (chapter 5).

SURVIVAL AFTER THE FORMATIVE PERIOD What happens to parties after the formative period? The conditions that lead new parties to build strong organizations, and that help them to avoid schisms, do not necessarily last more than five or ten years. Parties that are born without media and state access later gain access (e.g., the PT and the PRD). The formative struggles that produce higher causes end or subside (e.g., civil wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua; Brazil’s new union movement; Mexico’s pro-Cárdenas movement; and Bolivia’s water and gas wars and regional autonomy protests). Externally appealing, internally dominant founding leaders die, retreat from active involvement, or even defect (e.g., Cárdenas in 2014). What factors, then, enable parties to survive in the decades after the formative period? I identify two main ones. The first and most important is the development and maintenance of a strong brand. As noted earlier in this chapter, parties must demonstrate consistency over a span of years in order to develop a strong brand. Thus, parties are rarely born with strong brands, and they often depend on the coattails of popular leaders for electoral relevance during their initial years of existence. Yet, of the new partisan contenders that survive their first five to ten years, many succeed in developing strong brands by consistently supporting particular policies or ideals during this embryonic period. Voters learn what they stand for and come to believe that just as they have consistently behaved a certain way in the past, they will continue to behave that way in the future. A segment of the electorate—drawn from the population of voters who prefer them to other parties—thereby develops partisan attachments.95 Brand strength is critical for survival after the formative decade, when parties cannot necessarily count on the particular set of external conditions, or on the particular externally appealing leader, responsible for lifting them to electoral prominence. By providing a high and relatively stable electoral floor, strong brands reduce the likelihood of electoral collapse and elite defection in the longer term. There is no guarantee, of course, that new partisan contenders will develop strong brands during their first five to ten years of existence, or that, if they do, they will maintain them in subsequent decades. Insofar as parties do not develop or maintain strong partisan brands, they will remain electorally dependent on performance, popular candidates, and/

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or particular external conditions, leaving them vulnerable to collapse if they perform poorly; if those popular candidates die, defect, or retire; or if the relevant external circumstances change. Mexico’s PRD, for example, diluted its brand after surviving the formative decade and became electorally dependent on a popular candidate (i.e., Andrés Manuel López Obrador). López Obrador’s 2012 defection and 2018 presidential victory on a non-PRD ticket triggered the PRD’s recent collapse (see chapter 5). A second factor that contributes to survival after the formative period is continued organizational strength. As argued earlier in this chapter, it is hard to build a large territorial organization. Yet parties that build such organizations tend to maintain them if they survive their first five to ten years of existence. One of the main causes, paradoxically, is that organizationally strong parties often gain access to state resources after five to ten years, and access to state resources, while inhibiting organization building, facilitates organizational maintenance and expansion. Why? In the long run, parties do not run purely on enthusiasm and collective incentives. As noted earlier, the adverse conditions that select for believers and produce their higher causes end or subside, and thus, both a party’s internal demand for believers and the external supply of believers tend to diminish over time (without necessarily disappearing). At the same time, though, as parties develop their brands and win more elections, they come to have more selective incentives at their disposal (e.g., access to elected office, public sector appointments, and public financing), which allows them to expand their organizational reach and create more paid positions within the party organization. They can use public and party patronage to attract new activists and retain the services of old ones. Both the PT and the PRD, for example, have distributed tens of thousands of public sector positions to party loyalists and used public party funds to finance the organizational penetration of new regions and localities (see chapters 4 and 5). Territorial organization does not merely help new parties to survive initially; it also contributes to success and survival after the formative period. As discussed earlier in this chapter, territorial organization helps new parties to spread their brand, build strong party/voter linkages, construct and nurture clientele networks, and win subnational elections in territorial bastions. Winning subnational elections, as noted, not only gives parties an opportunity to demonstrate the capacity for governance, it also, per Jennifer Cyr, fortifies parties—including established ones— in the event of national electoral crises.96 In sum, the conditions for electoral success and internal cohesion change after the first five to ten years. As parties exit the formative pe-

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49

riod, strong brands become critical, giving parties stable electoral floors and furnishing incentives against elite defection. Patronage and public finance also become critical, greasing the wheels of party machinery after formative struggles have subsided. But new parties have to build territorial organizations in the first place, and they need sources of cohesion while their brands are still fragile and under construction. Thus, the explanatory variables that I have highlighted in this chapter—low state and media access and externally appealing, internally dominant leaders—are critical for the survival of new partisan contenders.

EMPIRICAL OVERVIEW Having detailed my theoretical arguments, I turn now to an overview of my core empirical analysis (chapters 2 through 5), in which I conduct a qualitative, most-similar-cases comparison of Argentina’s FREPASO, Peru’s IU, Brazil’s PT, and Mexico’s PRD. These four cases have a number of features in common beyond those shared by the region’s new left contenders generally. To begin, they were the single most electorally successful left parties born during the third wave in their respective countries. All four were born in the political opposition, without access to state resources. All four initially had strong ties to nationally organized mobilizing structures. None of the four won the presidency during its first decade of existence. All four suffered early electoral crises: FREPASO faced a major electoral setback in 2001, shortly after taking national office as the junior partner in a coalition with the Radical Civic Union (UCR); the IU lost its first presidential election in a landslide 1985 and, more significantly, failed to retain the Lima mayoralty in 1986; the PT experienced a major letdown in its first electoral contest (the congressional and subnational elections of 1982); and the PRD suffered crushing landslide defeats in its first two national elections (the 1991 congressional and 1994 general elections). The four parties also had roughly similar factional divisions—that is, they were heterogeneous fronts composed of radical and moderate tendencies that frequently engaged in ideological conflicts and power struggles. None of the four emerged from armed conflict, in contrast to new left contenders like El Salvador’s FMLN and Nicaragua’s FSLN; this is analytically relevant because, as suggested earlier, origins in violent conflict can produce internal cohesion.97 All four had an electorally indispensable leader who could trigger electoral collapse by defecting (Lula [PT], Cárdenas [PRD], Álvarez [FREPASO], Barrantes [IU]). Each of these leaders, during the party’s first decade of existence, suffered either significant reputational damage or an electoral setback that weakened his image of electoral clout. Finally, three of the four main

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30% 20% 0%

10%

Seat Share in Chamber

40%

FREPASO (Argentina)

1993

1995

1997

1999

2001

20%

30%

Figure 1.5. All congressional electoral performances (FREPASO, IU, PT, PRD). Since FREPASO ran in coalition in 1997, 1999, and 2001, vote share data specifically on FREPASO are unavailable for those years. Thus, I use seat share data. Revised, consolidated, and updated, with permission, from Van Dyck, “Paradox of Adversity: New Left Party,” figures. 5.2–5.4, 144, 149, 155, and “Paradox of Adversity: Contrasting Fates,” Appendix B, 191–92.

0%

10%

Vote Share in Chamber

40%

IU (Peru)

1985

1990

30% 20% 10% 0%

Vote Share in Chamber

40%

PT (Brazil)

1982

1986

1990

1994

1998

2002

2006

2010

2014

2018

2009

2012

2015

2018

30% 20% 10% 0%

Vote Share in Chamber

40%

PRD (Mexico)

1991

1994

1997

2000

2003

2006

DEMOCRACY AGAINST PARTIES

51

TABLE 1.1 ORGANIZATIONAL STRENGTH, TYPE OF LEADER, SURVIVAL OR COLLAPSE (FREPASO, IU, PT, PRD) Territorial organization with committed activists?

Externally appealing, internally dominant leader?

Survived or collapsed

FREPASO (Argentina)

No

Yes

Collapsed (electoral collapse)

IU (Peru)

Yes

No

Collapsed (collapse by schism)

PT (Brazil)

Yes

Yes

Survived

PRD (Mexico)

Yes

Yes

Survived

cases (the PRD, IU, and FREPASO) had weak institutions of internal decision making and conflict settlement,98 which is analytically relevant because a key function of internally dominant leaders, as argued above, is to substitute for such institutions. Despite these similarities, they experienced divergent outcomes, as noted in the introduction. More specifically, FREPASO and its precursors participated in five congressional elections, passing the 10 percent threshold in the middle three (1995, 1997, 1999), suffering an electoral crisis in the fifth in 2001, and disintegrating.99 The IU, created mere months after Peru’s 1980 general election, only participated in two congressional elections, easily passing the 10 percent congressional threshold in 1985, splintering in 1989, barely reaching 10 percent in the 1990 congressional election, and disbanding soon after.100 By contrast, the PRD, after first passing the 10 percent congressional threshold in 1994, stayed above it for eight consecutive congressional elections (1994–2015). Similarly, the PT, after first passing the 10 percent congressional threshold in 1990, has stayed above it for eight consecutive congressional elections (1990–present). In 2018, the PRD fell below the 10 percent congressional threshold for the first time since 1991, and it could disappear entirely within the next several years.101 The PT has brighter near- to medium-term survival prospects, but it, too, suffered a setback in 2018, falling from 13.9 percent of the congressional vote share to just above the 10 percent threshold. Nevertheless, both parties survived their formative decades and seriously contested power for at least a generation. Thus, by my operational criteria, they are clear cases of survival. In chapters 2 through 5, I analyze the causes of these four parties’ divergent trajectories. I show that FREPASO (chapter 2) and the IU

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TABLE 1.2 CONDITIONS FOR TERRITORIAL ORGANIZATION WITH COMMITTED ACTIVISTS (FREPASO, IU, PT, PRD) Access to the state

Access to mass media

Access to mobilizing structures

Large territorial organization with committed activists?

FREPASO (Argentina)

None

High

High

No

IU (Peru)

Limited

Limited

High

Yes

PT (Brazil)

None

None

High

Yes

PRD (Mexico)

None

None

High

Yes

Operationalization criteria for variables related to organization building (e.g., state and media access, mobilizing structures) have a relatively short, five-year time frame because office seekers’ incentives and capacities in the initial few years almost invariably determine whether leaders will invest in, and succeed in building, a solid, durable organization during the formative decade. Source: Expanded with permission from Van Dyck, “Paradox of Adversity: Contrasting Fates,” table 1, 175.

(chapter 3) collapsed in different ways due to different factors. FREPASO collapsed in the face of electoral crisis because it did not build a large territorial organization composed of committed activists. The IU collapsed by schism because it had an externally appealing but internally nondominant leader. By contrast, both the PT and PRD (chapters 4 and 5, respectively) built large territorial organizations composed of committed activists and had externally appealing, internally dominant leaders. Consequently, they both survived electoral crises and avoided fatal schisms (see table 1.1). Why did FREPASO not build a strong organization, while the PT, PRD, and IU did? In chapter 2, I show that FREPASO, during its formative decade, lacked access to state resources but had full access to mass media. Consequently, its founders did not invest even minimally in organization building. In chapters 4 and 5, I show that, by contrast, the early PT and PRD lacked access to both state resources and mass media and therefore did invest in organization building. Not coincidentally, FREPASO was born under consolidated democracy, while the PT and PRD were born under liberalizing military rule and competitive singleparty rule, respectively (see table 1.2). With respect to the variable of organizational strength, the case of the IU (chapter 3) is less straightforward but still broadly reinforces my theoretical arguments. The IU inherited territorial party organizations

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53

TABLE 1.3 SOURCES OF INTERNAL DOMINANCE (FREPASO, IU, PT, PRD) External appeal

Crossfactional ties

Moral authority

Ideological representativeness

Internally dominant?

Álvarez (FREPASO)

High

Strong

Medium

High

Yes

Barrantes (IU)

High

Medium

Low

Medium

No

Lula (PT)

High

Strong

High

High

Yes

Cárdenas (PRD)

High

Strong

High

High

Yes

Criteria for the leadership-centered variables have a ten-year time frame—as opposed to the five-year time frame of the organization-related variables—because a party’s scores on these variables remain relevant for the entirety of the formative decade. If, for example, a leader is not internally dominant throughout a party’s formative decade, a schism might result at the end of that decade (e.g., Peru’s IU). Source: Reprinted with permission from Van Dyck, “External Appeal, Internal Dominance,” table 1, p. 8, and “Why New Parties Split,” table 1, p. 902. TABLE 1.4 EXTERNAL APPEAL AND INTERNAL DOMINANCE OF LEADER (PT, PRD, FREPASO, IU) Is leader externally appealing?

Is leader also internally dominant?

Externally appealing, internally dominant leader?

FREPASO (Argentina)

Yes

Yes

Yes

IU (Peru)

Yes

No

No

PT (Brazil)

Yes

Yes

Yes

PRD (Mexico)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Source: Reprinted with permission from Van Dyck, “External Appeal, Internal Dominance,” table 2, p. 9, and “Why New Parties Split,” table 2, p. 902.

Figure 1.6. External appeal and internal dominance of leader (PT, PRD, FREPASO, IU)

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and committed activists from its constituent parties. These constituent parties were founded years or decades before the IU’s creation and built their organizations under conditions of little or no access to state and media. In addition, the IU, despite emerging under Peru’s nascent democracy, had limited state and media access in its early years and continued to invest in territorial organization during this time. Finally, why is it that the externally appealing leader of the IU (Barrantes) was not internally dominant, while the externally appealing leaders of FREPASO (Álvarez), the PT (Lula), and the PRD (Cárdenas) were? In chapters 2 through 5, I show that all four of these leaders were electorally indispensable to their parties, but that Barrantes, in contrast to the others, had low moral authority and only medium cross-factional ties and ideological representativeness (see tables 1.3 and 1.4 and figure 1.6). As chapter 3 details, this difference was not primarily a product of Barrantes’s character flaws or poor decision making; rather, it was a product of his comparatively weak preexisting endowments (e.g., his unremarkable pre-IU political record and his weak cross-factional ties prior to the IU’s founding). Having previewed the book’s central comparative findings, let us turn to the case study chapters. We begin with Argentina’s FREPASO.

APPENDIX 2 TABLE 1.5 NEW LEFT SURVIVORS’ BIRTH ENVIRONMENTS AND MOBILIZING STRUCTURES Party

Year of birth

Birth environment

Mobilizing structures

MAS (Bolivia)

1995

Democracy

Social movements

PT (Brazil)

1980

Authoritarianism

Social movements

PPD (Chile)

1987

Authoritarianism

None

PAC (Costa Rica)

2000

Democracy

None

FMLN (El Salvador)

1992

Civil war/insurgency

Insurgent successor

PRD (Mexico)

1989

Authoritarianism

Social movements

FSLN (Nicaragua)

1979

Civil war/insurgency

Insurgent successor

PRD (Panama)

1979

Authoritarianism

Authoritarian successor

PSUV (Venezuela)

1997

Democracy

Social movements

Source: Drawn with permission from Levitsky, Loxton, and Van Dyck, “Introduction,” table 1.2, p. 24.

CHAPTER 2

THE ELECTORAL COLLAPSE OF ARGENTINA’S FREPASO

When FREPASO lost its image, it lost everything. Héctor Mazzei (FG member)

Argentina transited to full democracy in 1983, following the abrupt collapse of its last military dictatorship (1976–1983). Over the next couple of decades, two established parties dominated Argentine politics, the Peronist Party (PJ) and Radical Civic Union (UCR). Of all the new parties that emerged to compete with the PJ and UCR during the 1980s and 1990s, the center-left Front for a Country in Solidarity (FREPASO), anchored by a smaller party called the Big Front (FG), was the most significant. FREPASO rose rapidly in the mid- to late 1990s. In 1999 a coalition of the UCR and FREPASO won the presidential and congressional elections, ending a decade of PJ government. Around this time, party members and observers assessed (or assumed) that FREPASO was becoming institutionalized as Argentina’s third major party. In 1998 two scholars and FREPASO members, Marcos Novaro and Vicente Palermo, expressed “profound optimism” about the “political changes . . . associated with FREPASO’s emergence and development.”1 In 2000 the left-wing political elite and scholar Juan Abal Medina completed a doctoral thesis titled “The End of the Two-Party System and the Formation of the Big Front.”2 Steven Levitsky argued that, with the 1999 victory of the UCR/FREPASO coalition, Argentine politics was “normalizing”— that is, Peronist dominance was ending, alternation of power was becoming routinized, and the threat of anti-Peronist coups was receding.3 But in 2001 FREPASO vanished after suffering an electoral and reputational crisis precipitated by economic calamity. Why did FREPASO collapse rather than surviving this crisis? 55

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THE ELECTORAL COLLAPSE OF ARGENTINA’S FREPASO

CASE SUMMARY The founders of the FG and FREPASO entered the Argentine electoral fray in 1990, under conditions of consolidated democracy, press freedom, and a well-developed national mass media. From the onset of their party-building project, they enjoyed virtually unrestricted access to these media. They were also in perpetual campaign mode, contesting national elections every year or two. Building a territorial organization would have consumed time, labor, and resources during this period, and an activist base demanding accountability would have placed procedural and ideological constraints on the FG/FREPASO leadership. Thus, even though the party leader Carlos “Chacho” Álvarez and his elite allies in the front had access to national mobilizing structures—especially anti-neoliberal labor unions—they believed that the creation of a party organization would prevent them from adopting electorally expedient policy stances, responding rapidly to events, and making decisions and mounting campaigns quickly and efficiently. The short-term electoral incentive to rely on media and to bypass organization building was therefore overwhelming. The FREPASO leadership kept unions and other mobilizing structures at arm’s length and relied almost exclusively on media to reach voters. In 1994 the FG began its rise to national prominence by successfully appealing to traditional supporters of the PJ’s historical partisan rival, the UCR. To attract these voters, the FG shifted from the left to the center and sought to distinguish itself from other parties by responding to current events rapidly and effectively. Over the next half decade, FREPASO established itself as Argentina’s third electoral force. Party elites, particularly Álvarez, pushed the party to the center and proved highly adept at crafting electorally resonant messages and using mass media to disseminate those messages. Through press conferences, speeches, public actions, and interviews covered by the nation’s leading broadcast and print outlets, FREPASO garnered the support of millions of Argentines. It did so directly and instantaneously, without the intermediary of a territorial organization. Indeed, FREPASO never invested, even minimally, in organization building. This choice to rely exclusively on media, and to forgo organization building, was FREPASO’s blessing and curse. On the one hand, it rose rapidly—far more quickly than Brazil’s PT, for example (see chapter 4). Yet, even at its electoral apex, the party had virtually no grassroots existence. Consequently, when electoral crisis struck, FREPASO lacked networks of committed activists on the ground. It was a brand without an organization, and when the brand failed, the party promptly vanished.

THE ELECTORAL COLLAPSE OF ARGENTINA’S FREPASO

57

MEDIA-FUELED GROWTH AND ORGANIZATIONAL WEAKNESS FREPASO’s origins lie in a 1990 schism within the PJ. The PJ leader, Carlos Menem, won the Argentine presidency in 1989, becoming Argentina’s second posttransition president after Raúl Alfonsín (UCR). Although Menem campaigned on a traditional PJ platform, promising a major wage increase and other prolabor policies, on taking office his administration, to combat a severe economic crisis, rapidly implemented a spate of neoliberal reforms. Menem’s reforms provoked a significant backlash within left-leaning sectors of the PJ.4 In protest of Menem’s “alliance with neoliberalism,” as well as his administration’s delegative governing practices5 and decision to pardon military officials implicated in crimes committed during the Argentine Dirty War, eight federal deputies with roots in the Federal Capital of Buenos Aires—led by Chacho Álvarez—defected from the PJ and formed an independent legislative bloc, the Group of Eight.6 The Group of Eight operated on the margins of Argentine electoral politics for several years. Their original intention was to pick off PJ supporters by assaulting Menem’s economic policies and governing practices. After performing abysmally in subnational and national elections in 1991, the Group of Eight, under the name Front for Democracy and Social Justice (FREDEJUSO), joined with several other Peronist splinter parties to create the Big Front (FG). The FG’s founding parties included FREDEJUSO; the social democratic, center-left Intransigent Party; and the Southern Front, a more radical, nationalist left alliance headed by the filmmaker and politician Fernando “Pino” Solanas, and containing, among other groups, dissident sectors of the Argentine Communist Party (PCA). The FG outperformed most forecasts in the 1993 congressional elections, winning 3.5 percent of the national vote and three congressional seats. Álvarez performed especially well. The FG’s list of congressional candidates from Buenos Aires city, which Álvarez headed, received almost 15 percent of the vote, sufficient to elect two members of congress (Álvarez along with his ally Graciela Fernández Meijide). The result established Álvarez as the face of Argentina’s new, modern, social democratic left. Notably, the FG’s strong performance among ex-UCR voters enabled the PJ to defeat the UCR in the Federal Capital for the first time since 1973. Nevertheless, the FG remained a marginal force at the national level. The Group of Eight and their allies had failed to attract disaffected PJ supporters. Unless a major change occurred, the FG seemed unlikely to surpass 5 percent of the national vote.7

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Political opportunity struck after the congressional elections of October 1993. In December 1993, the PJ and UCR forged the Olivos Pact, in which ex-president Alfonsín pledged that the UCR would support amending the Argentine constitution to allow Menem to run for a second term. The Olivos pact provoked a middle-class backlash. The Argentine public broadly supported Menem’s neoliberal reforms, which ended the economic crisis of the late 1980s. Yet, as Menem’s first term progressed, middle-class voters became concerned that the administration’s governing tactics—corrupt deal making, circumvention of the legislature through executive decree, court packing—were undermining the country’s political institutions. Negotiations between the PJ and UCR regarding Menem’s reelection, followed by the signing of the Olivos Pact, intensified voter concerns and made the UCR appear complicit in Menem’s executive overreach and institutional tampering. The UCR’s perceived subordination to Menem provoked a negative reaction from its middle-class constituency—many of whom no longer found in the UCR a representative outlet for their opposition to Menem.8 Thus, in the lead-up to and aftermath of the Olivos Pact, a nationally significant segment of voters, predominantly disaffected ex-Radicals, became electorally unmoored.9 This presented the FG with its first opportunity to garner a large national following. The FG recognized and seized the opportunity. Over the next five years, the FG, followed by FREPASO, rose from electoral marginality to national power, becoming Argentina’s third electoral force. How did the FG and FREPASO achieve this swift success? FG/FREPASO’S MEDIA-FUELED RISE

The answer is mass media. The founders of FG/FREPASO began their independent electoral foray under conditions of consolidated democracy, press freedom, and an increasingly politically influential broadcast media. At the turn of the 1990s, Argentina had been democratic for nearly a decade. It was among the richest, most educated countries in Latin America and had a vibrant free press and growing media consumer base. The political importance of broadcast media, especially television, increased significantly in the early 1990s, a period described as the “apex of videopolitics” in Argentina.10 According to a 1995 Latinobarometer poll, Argentines consumed more television news on a daily basis than any other Latin American population. Argentines also consumed newspaper news at a higher rate than most of their Latin American neighbors;11 the vast majority of urban middle-class Argentines were newspaper readers. Mass media outlets operated independently of public authorities; the national press played a key role, for example, in exposing government abus-

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es and holding elites accountable during the 1990s.12 Broadcast networks and newspapers competed to attract readers, listeners, and viewers and chose their content accordingly.13 During the early to mid-1990s, national print and broadcast media, in a reflection of changing middle-class opinion, became highly critical of the Menem administration. Newspapers (e.g., Clarín) and television news programs regularly highlighted corruption, the erosion of checks and balances, and weak rule of law under Menem.14 Media opposition to the Menem administration intensified during the Olivos Pact negotiations and signing.15 A critical contributor to the FG’s rise was that party leaders recognized the disaffection of urban middle-class voters and correctly gauged which positions would resonate with it. An equally critical contributor, though, was that they recognized the importance of staking out such positions quickly and expressing them in an accessible and broadly appealing manner so that mass media would gravitate to the FG and give the party regular national exposure.16 FG leaders stood out in this regard, “[taking] greater advantage than anyone of the expansion of videopolitics.”17 Álvarez’s media charisma crystallized in late 1993, when he became the most visible critic of Menemism, elite collusion, and corruption during the Olivos Pact negotiations and backlash.18 During this period, he “began to be required by the press” due to his charisma, eloquent critiques, and rapid responses to events.19 As soon as Menem’s reelection plan came to light, Álvarez and the FG leadership consistently and vocally opposed it in major media outlets. In September 1993 in the newspaper Página/12, Álvarez denounced the proposed constitutional reforms as an attempt to “[perpetuate] a man . . . in power at the cost of threatening the country’s institutional system.”20 A month later, in Clarín, the FG ran an advertisement referring to itself as the “true opposition” and calling on the country’s social and political forces to “halt the hegemonic pretension of the Menemist regime.”21 On the day the Olivos Pact was signed, Álvarez publicly inveighed in Página/12 that Menem and Alfonsín were “cut from the same cloth.”22 At this stage, the FG held a firmly anti-neoliberal posture. From inception, the Group of Eight had been left-wing and anti-neoliberal, interested primarily in serving lower-income Argentines who had struggled through the economic dislocations of the 1980s, and who seemed destined to struggle more amid the coming neoliberal transformations. 23 Both during and (for a short period) after the signing of the Olivos Pact, anti-neoliberalism remained central to the FG’s discourse. On December 4, 1993, for example, Álvarez, in an interview for the newspaper La Crónica, stated that the Olivos Pact “not only has given the president the

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possibility of reelection, but also legalizes—and this is more important . . . —the [neoliberal] adjustment model under way.”24 In the early months of 1994, he called Menem’s labor flexibilization law “terrifying” in the newspaper, La Crónica, 25 and presented the FG as a “third way” between “old state capitalism” and Menem’s “savage capitalism” in the magazine, Gente. 26 In the April 1994 constituent assembly elections, which took place in this context, the FG rose to national electoral prominence. Behind the campaign slogan, “A Constitution without Mafias,” the FG won 13 percent of the national vote, up almost ten percentage points from the congressional election just months earlier.27 Of the FG’s thirty-one successful candidates, twenty-five came from Buenos Aires province and twelve from the Federal Capital alone. FG’s voters were largely urban, middle-class voters formerly sympathetic to or affiliated with the UCR. 28 On the basis of these election results, FG leaders concluded that critiques of corruption, elite deal making, and collusion resonated with electorally accessible voters. Evidently, these voters believed that the FG and Álvarez most effectively articulated their main concern of the election season: Menem’s institutional manipulation and the UCR’s subordination to Menem. By contrast, the FG’s critiques of neoliberalism had generated little voter enthusiasm for years. This made sense. The neoliberal reforms passed during Menem’s first term (1989–1995) had brought relative economic stability and steady, substantial growth to Argentina. In part for this reason, the PJ’s lower-income electoral base remained loyal to the PJ despite Menem’s neoliberal turn, and urban middle-class voters from the early to mid-1990s concerned themselves not with materialist issues, but with postmaterialist valence issues such as corruption, ethics, and institutional integrity.29 Accordingly, following the 1994 election, the FG founders adapted their programmatic brand. They became less ideological and developed a flexible, responsive, and rapid style designed to maximize the FG’s electoral appeal to floating voters. To some extent, they embraced cualunquismo, a term “denot[ing] not an ideological standpoint but, rather, a set of ideas that pandered to the opinions of ordinary people.”30 Party leaders, especially Álvarez, moderated or downplayed—and in some instances even disavowed—the leftist, anti-neoliberal rhetoric and proposals that they had advanced in previous years and made anticorruption and ethics more central to their platform.31 This more ideologically flexible approach freed the FG’s leaders to forge alliances with nonleft forces. Thus, after the April 1994 constituent assembly elections, Álvarez and fellow FG leaders, despite media calls

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for Álvarez to contest the presidency in 1995 on an FG ticket, 32 favored a broader alliance, which they regarded as necessary to defeat the PJ. The country’s center and left opposition remained fragmented, and the FG “needed to reorganize it.”33 The FG thus set about forging a series of new alliances, which eventuated in the creation of the center-left FREPASO in late 1994. FREPASO was, primarily, a coalition between the FG and the center-right ex-governor of Mendoza province, José Octavio Bordón.34 Bordón, as well as other members of FREPASO, did not share Álvarez’s critical views of neoliberalism, and FG elites coined the term “transversality” to describe the “common cement,” such as opposition to corruption, that held together the party’s various groups. 35 In mid-1995, FREPASO mounted a serious bid for the presidency on a platform of anticorruption, competent governance, and horizontal accountability. During the electoral campaign, FREPASO largely depended on “the support of independent mass media,” in contrast to the PJ, which enjoyed the backing of the country’s strongest unions and business groups.36 The Bordón/Álvarez presidential ticket placed second with 29 percent of the vote. FREPASO more than sextupled the FG’s 1993 congressional vote share, jumping from 3.5 percent to almost 21 percent, and nearly tying the UCR, which garnered 22 percent of the vote. FREPASO also relegated the UCR to third place in the presidential race for the first time in UCR history.37 Still, FREPASO lost to the PJ by an unexpectedly large margin. FREPASO’s leaders calculated that, to defeat the PJ, an even broader alliance would be necessary.38 Thus, in the lead-up to the 1997 congressional election, FREPASO and the UCR came together. The UCR distanced itself from the PJ and Menem administration, and FREPASO’s leadership took a bold step, allying with the UCR to create a broad, centrist, anti-Menem electoral coalition, the Alliance for Work, Justice, and Education (henceforth, Alliance). The move provoked significant controversy within FREPASO, as the UCR was a centrist party of the establishment that, at Olivos, had supported Menem’s alteration of the constitution.39 Yet, FREPASO’s leaders generally agreed that the UCR and FREPASO were unnecessarily dividing Argentina’s middle-class non-Peronist vote. They considered it electorally imperative, in the short term, to set aside programmatic differences, articulate common principles and policy objectives, and unite to unseat the PJ. The leaders of both parties assessed that neither party could win a three-way presidential contest in 1999. Following the lead previously taken by FREPASO, the Alliance branded itself as a centrist coalition, principally focused on defeating Menem and restoring clean government and horizontal accountability.

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The 1997 and 1999 elections marked the apex of FREPASO’s electoral trajectory. The Alliance won the 1997 congressional elections with a large national plurality, receiving 46 percent of the national vote and defeating the PJ by almost ten percentage points. In the 1999 general election, the Alliance decisively defeated the PJ in both the presidential and congressional contests, with Fernando de la Rúa (UCR) and Álvarez winning the presidency and vice presidency, respectively.40 The FG’s rise, then, was swift. In 1991 the different groups that would later form the FG elected just one official in the entire country (a municipal councilor in Buenos Aires), and in 1993, the FG elected just three congressmen and four municipal councilors. A mere six years later, FREPASO held the vice presidency of Argentina (Chacho Álvarez), the mayoralty of Buenos Aires (Aníbal Ibarra), the deputy governorship of the province of Mendoza, a senatorial seat, thirty congressional seats, sixteen other mayoralties, seventy-one provincial legislative seats, and nearly two hundred municipal council seats. Scholars and observers widely attest that mass media, especially television, were the “primary engine” of this rapid growth.41 Given the FG and FREPASO’s middle-class voter base, both broadcast and print media connected them to their target constituency. FG and FREPASO leaders made heavy use of both types of media throughout the 1990s, and they were highly nimble and charismatic in articulating prevailing middle-class concerns. FG leaders appeared in Clarín and other major newspapers constantly, and they “made intense and efficient use” of broadcast media, “specializ[ing] . . . in the use of press conferences, television and radio programs, and media interviews as arenas for speechmaking and political displays.”42 In the words of one member, television news anchors, radio hosts, and newspaper journalists, throughout the 1990s, “lived off” the charismatic, articulate leaders of FG/FREPASO.43 Meanwhile, the PJ and (before 1997) UCR members “complained that the media explicitly supported Álvarez’s party.”44 Chacho Álvarez, in particular, was a “media phenomenon” who “charmed the media with [his] irreverence toward the traditional rituals of politics, [his] ease of manner and speed.”45 In short, “growth was made possible by the media. Without such coverage, it would be nearly impossible to explain how . . . [FG/FREPASO] could become so quickly installed in the national political arena.”46 INCENTIVES AGAINST TERRITORIAL ORGANIZATION

As the FG and FREPASO rose, its leaders did not invest, even minimally, in territorial organization. This was not because they lacked means. Party leaders had ties or access to various mobilizing structures, some

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national in scope. These included unions, most notably the Argentine Workers’ Confederation (CTA); social movements such as the piqueteros; small political parties such as the Communists, Socialists, Southern Front, and Intransigent Party; and splinter groups from the UCR and Christian Democrats.47 The CTA bears emphasis. When the Group of Eight defected from the PJ in 1990, unions were, and had long been, the PJ’s core constituency.48 The PJ managed to preserve strong union ties despite adopting neoliberal policies under Menem in the late 1980s and early 1990s.49 Still, Menem’s market and fiscal reforms provoked a significant backlash within two important, PJ-affiliated unions: the Association of State Workers (ATE), a public sector umbrella union, and the Teachers’ Confederation of the Argentine Republic (CTERA), a national teachers’ union. Because the ATE and CTERA had national infrastructures and mass memberships, they were considered “the two big ones” (i.e., the two major anti-Menem unions) in Argentina during the 1990s.50 In 1991 a group of left-wing ATE leaders, including Germán Abdala, Victor De Gennaro, Claudio Lozano, and Alicia Castro, defected and formed the independent, antineoliberal CTA. They were joined by CTERA’s leadership (e.g., María Sánchez, Adriana Puiggrós, and Eduardo Macaluse) and membership. Given that the FG originated as an anti-neoliberal party, CTA leaders and rank-and-file members tended to support it. Numerous FG elites (all subordinate to Álvarez) wished to build a labor-based party explicitly modeled on Uruguay’s FA and Brazil’s PT—and warned of the consequences if FG/FREPASO did not do so.51 In 1995 the Argentine sociologist Julio Godio wrote that FREPASO would be co-opted if it did not incorporate workers.52 In 1996, a group of FREPASO members wrote and circulated a text recommending that the party link with social movements (principally unions) and institute internal democracy. Other FG elites regularly urged Álvarez to involve left activists more fully in party life and decision making.53 Álvarez and his inner circle did not take these recommendations.54 The FG and FREPASO did establish informal ties to, and maintain dialogue with, unions and other social movements and activist networks. Several CTERA leaders, for example, joined FG/FREPASO, became important elites, and brought their rank-and-file supporters with them (e.g., María Sánchez, Adriana Puiggrós, and Eduardo Macaluse). The FG maintained “close” informal ties to the CTA for much of the 1990s, initially through Germán Abdala, who died in 1993, and later through the leader Victor de Gennaro.55 Yet, by design, the FG and FREPASO never solidified or formalized ties to the unions and the organized left. On the contrary, throughout

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the 1990s, Álvarez and other party leaders deliberately and consistently kept these actors at a distance. From the beginning, for example, the FG maintained “full autonomy” from unions,56 and in the mid-1990s it severed ties with the Communist Party and the Southern Front.57 In light of these facts, the party member and ex-deputy Eduardo Jozami argues, in his critical analysis of FREPASO’s rise and fall, that the party leadership, especially Álvarez, missed an opportunity to incorporate social organizations sympathetic to FREPASO, including the CTA, the piquetero movement, and the Communist and Socialist parties.58 Jozami repeatedly observes that FREPASO could have taken a path more akin to the FA’s (Uruguay) or the PT’s (Brazil).59 FREPASO, in other words, chose not to invest in organization, in contrast to Latin American new left parties like Brazil’s PT, Uruguay’s FA, Mexico’s PRD, and El Salvador’s FMLN. One might object to this argument, of course, on the ground that FREPASO did not have access to comparable mobilizing structures. The PT, for example, emerged from a large, vibrant labor movement and Catholic grassroots networks (see chapter 4), the PRD from urban popular movements, rural unions, and former PRI networks (see chapter 5). Although this counterargument is reasonable, it does not explain FREPASO’s extreme organizational weakness. A decade after formation, FREPASO had virtually no organizational presence on the ground (about which more below). If FREPASO had invested in organization building by tapping into the above-described mobilizing structures (e.g., the CTA), it may not have been able to build as large or as mobilized a party organization as the early PT or PRD did, but it still could have recruited a sizable membership and established a far-reaching territorial presence. FREPASO’s leaders, again, chose not to invest in organization. In the words of one member, they “could have built” a strong organization.”60 Yet, because of their media access, “they understood that they could link themselves directly with society, with citizens, without needing recourse to intermediate organizations.”61 Thus, we must ask why the FG’s founders chose not to invest in territorial organization. The answer is that organization building entailed significant costs, which party founders could avoid by pursuing a mediabased strategy. First, the labor associated with building a large territorial organization—for example, recruiting and training activists and elites and establishing local offices and communication systems across the country—would have diverted energy and resources while important elections loomed.62 Throughout the 1990s, FREPASO’s founders were engaged in a “permanent campaign,”63 competing in national elections in 1991 (congressional), 1993 (congressional), 1994 (constituent assem-

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bly), 1995 (general), 1997 (congressional), and 1999 (general). The period from late 1993 to mid-1995 was especially blurry. In October 1993, the FG was electorally marginal; by April 1994, the FG was Argentina’s third electoral force; and in May 1995, the FG, virtually unknown outside the capital city of Buenos Aires just eighteen months earlier, mounted a serious bid for the presidency. As one party member succinctly put it: “There was no time to build an organization.”64 Chacho Álvarez provided the same assessment in a 1997 interview, stating that he and fellow party leaders could not devote energy to organization building with major elections constantly on the horizon.65 Jozami writes, “The most heard phrase among the front’s leaders sounded anxious: ‘We don’t have time.’”66 Second, if the FG had incorporated a large rank-and-file membership, its leaders would have been under pressure, or perhaps compelled, to give the base an important role in internal decision making. Doing so would have had two main effects. First, it would have slowed the response time of FG leaders. Argentine voters valued speedy decision making from their political representatives.67 A party observer recalled that journalists often appeared with a microphone, and the party had to respond.68 FG leaders therefore prized the capacity to react quickly to important political news and events. Álvarez wanted to “move nimbly.”69 The leadership “always fought to have freedom of action, hoping not to be tied down by institutional procedures when making decisions. . . . The party’s nucleus . . . considered Álvarez’s speed of response an important requirement.” 70 The desire for nimbleness played a major role in leaders’ decision not to invest in organization. As Jozami observed, “Sometimes it’s more comfortable to make decisions with four friends in a room . . . than to go to twenty different localities in the city of Buenos Aires to see what the members think.” 71 One interviewee contrasted FREPASO with his own Socialist Party. The president of the Socialist Party, he stated, could not speak publicly for the party before holding a meeting with the membership. In contrast, Álvarez “just held a press conference.” 72 Álvarez explicitly argued for his approach by citing the low efficiency of the alternative: “Many of the things done since 1989, if I had consulted about them, we would still be debating them.” 73 Second, giving unions and left activist networks an important role in internal decision making would have denied FG leaders, especially Álvarez, the ideological and tactical flexibility necessary to maximize short-term electoral advantage. Unlike the FG’s target voters, anti-Menemist unions and left political activists in Argentina in the 1990s were primarily concerned with economic policy and redistribution (as well as, to some extent, foreign affairs). One former party member described the

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typical leftist during this period as “statist (intervencionista), populist, and anti-imperialist.”74 A party base composed of union members and left activists might have nominated unelectable candidates or pressured FREPASO candidates to refuse alliances or take electorally suboptimal policy positions (e.g., opposition to neoliberalism during the mid- to late 1990s). These positions would have satisfied the base but alienated the much larger number of moderate, disaffected, middle-sector voters who the FG and FREPASO were successfully targeting. “Faced with the difficult task of appealing to voters in Argentina in the 1990s, Álvarez and his followers found the discourse of traditional left-wing Peronists constraining.” 75 Álvarez stated in 1994: “In the Big Front there are two projects. Some want a testimonial front; they want us to simply bear witness in next year’s election. But the people see us differently. They want us to govern. . . . The activists, like the old left, think that we have to be very hard-line about this or that, and I think we need to aim to win in 95.” 76 As FREPASO moved to the center during the second half of the 1990s, its linkages with anti-Menemist labor unions eroded and “became confrontational on several occasions.” 77 When Álvarez publicly expressed support for the Law of Convertibility and several of Menem’s privatization policies, Victor De Gennaro, leader of the CTA, was “enraged.” 78 The CTA severed ties with the FG and FREPASO when the party leadership, as part of the Alliance government during the economic crisis, refused to support a round of CTA strikes.79 FREPASO’s informal ties to sectors of CTERA remained strong for a longer period but frayed completely after the Alliance took office.80 By keeping unions and left activist networks at a distance, Álvarez and fellow elites could make the most electorally rational decisions on program, coalitions, and party candidacies without consulting members.81 Instead of involving activists in party decision making, FG leaders restricted major decisions to a small circle of elites—the “big table.”82 They decided, in top-level meetings, that FREPASO should pursue a national strategy, build coalitions, moderate its economic program, and use open primary elections and elite negotiations to nominate electable candidates and reject radical ones. In the words of one former member, this “hypercentralization” of decision making allowed for “extreme operational flexibility.”83 In the characterization of Jozami, left-wing intellectual debates did not take place within FREPASO, but in magazines like Unidos, Crisis, Señales, and La Mirada. “FREPASO’s political decisions,” he writes, “had little to do with any debate of ideas.”84 Unsurprisingly, many figures—including both FG/FREPASO elites and left activists supportive of FG/FREPASO—opposed the various

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decisions made by Álvarez and the FG/FREPASO leadership. Some criticized Álvarez for pushing forward too quickly—for “rushing the party into national competition before it had anything like a nationwide organization.”85 Graciela Fernández Meijide stated in the mid-1990s, “Álvarez is impulsive, he pushes ahead, never stopping to see what was built. He is used to the politics of fait accompli: moving first and explaining later.”86 In the words of Darío Alessandro, “The only thing I emphasize [about Álvarez’s rise to stardom] is that it’s been very fast.”87 Others focused negative attention on the party’s elitist, undemocratic decision-making structure. The FG leader María Elena Naddeo reflected, “Decision making became increasingly exclusionary, increasingly concentrated in the most high-profile political figures.”88 This “began to occur in a way not desired, not wanted, by the political activists.” The Socialist leader Héctor Polino recalled, “Decisions were made, but we found out through the newspapers, like everyone else. So, an alliance cannot persist over time if it isn’t based on respect for the diverse forces that intervene, that have to form part of a sphere of discussion, and of democratic decision making.”89 Along similar lines, Jozami writes, “Presence on television constituted the principal form of relationship not only with the public but with supporters.”90 In an interview, Jozami recalled that whereas in the electorally marginal FREDEJUSO it was easy to resolve differences because “there were fifty of us,” the FG was one of Argentina’s “big political forces” and “it is necessary to encourage ways of resolving things when thousands of people participate.” 91 This was particularly necessary, Jozami argued, given that the FG sought, rhetorically, to deepen Argentine democracy. The party itself, he implied, must model this process of democratic deepening. The aforementioned Naddeo remarked, in reference to Álvarez’s unilateral decision to create the Alliance in 1997, “It seems to me that by not consulting in constituting the Alliance, [the front] loses that subculture, . . . that enthusiasm that had been constitutive, no?”92 Perhaps needless to say, many party elites and supporters also objected to the leadership’s decision to push the party toward the ideological center. In late 1994, Pino Solanas, the left-wing leader of the Southern Front, publicly criticized the FG for accepting neoliberalism, and after the FG held its ground, he exited the party. Some left-wing activists and cadres stopped supporting FREPASO during the second half of the 1990s, particularly in reaction to Álvarez’s unilateral decision to ally with the UCR in 1997. A socialist and ex-FG member, for example, recalled that he and other left activists “held their noses” and supported the FG through 1995 and 1996 but, in good conscience, could no longer do so after the formation of the Alliance.93 A radical FG elite cited

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programmatic dilution as the central grievance of other radical elites and supporters, and the one that ultimately led to the departure of various leftists in the late 1990s.94 Along similar lines, one FG founder, left journalist, and eventual defector described the party’s unwillingness to sustain a “radical critique of Menemism” as its “greatest deficiency.” 95 Yet, these critics had no electoral leverage, and evidently, most of them, as well as the vast majority of FG/FREPASO supporters, were unwilling to defect from FG/FREPASO in protest. By and large, leftwing supporters of FG and FREPASO remained loyal, at least in practice. Although left party leaders, unionists, activists, and voters generally objected to the FG’s alliances, its watered-down policy proposals, and its closed, undemocratic decision-making structure, they had very little independent electoral support and would have become politically irrelevant if they had supported, joined, or sought to build more ideologically pure left parties. Only the most committed, doctrinaire left voters would support a left alternative to the FG. So, left activists and leaders swallowed their pride and rode on the FG/FREPASO bandwagon.96 Despite their objections and critiques, “still, where Álvarez went, everyone went. . . . All the public opinion, all the media, and many [on the left] followed him.” 97 FG leaders recognized and took advantage of their leverage. On occasion, they even publicly reminded left-wing members and outside left critics that FG/FREPASO, with its large and growing middle-class support base, did not need the radical left to succeed. One FG member recalled a 1994 television interview in which Chacho Álvarez, when asked for a reaction to radical internal critiques, stated: “Either they change [their views], or they leave.” “He didn’t even hold a meeting,” the party member recalled.98 As we will see below, by the time leftists started defecting from the FG in large numbers (1999–2001), the support of the Argentine left was the least of the FG’s concerns. In summary, if FG leaders had invested in territorial organization, they would have been less nimble, less ideologically and tactically flexible, and slower to gain support. Wanting to make decisions rapidly and with relatively few ideological constraints, they viewed party organization as a heavy encumbrance.99 In interviews, numerous ex-FG members used the same word, “burden” (lastre), to describe how FG leaders, particularly Álvarez, viewed party organization.100 The leaders of the FG and FREPASO depended almost entirely on media for their political success. After 1991, “the idea of building a solid and stable party organization was never in [the] minds” of “Álvarez and his followers.”101 FG leaders chose not to incorporate sympathetic civil society organizations and activist networks, which nevertheless jumped and stayed on

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the FG bandwagon. Thus, not only did the FG’s media access eliminate incentives for its leaders to invest in organization, but also, the party’s meteoric, media-fueled ascent crowded out other potential opportunities for left-wing party organization building in Argentina during the 1990s. FG/FREPASO’s Low Access to State Resources

It should be highlighted that the FG’s leaders had little access to state or financial resources throughout the 1990s. The FG spent the entire decade without executive power at the national or subnational level. “Before 1999, [FG/FREPASO] had no access to resources and positions within the executive branch (either at the local or national level).”102 The FG and FREPASO also lacked strong ties to the economic elite.103 Indeed, a significant part of the FG’s appeal and self-conception lay in its unwillingness to be bought or swayed by material incentives.104 Before 1999, the FG and FREPASO’s resources amounted to: (1) the annual public party fund, a relatively small sum determined by parties’ share of congressional seats, and (2) legislative office jobs, which FREPASO deputies and senators distributed primarily to party members.105 These resources were “not at all sufficient” to fuel a national machine.106 The electoral triumph of the Alliance in 1999 marked FG/ FREPASO’s first major executive victory, as FREPASO and its precursors previously had not elected a single governor or mayor of a major municipality.107 Of the Alliance’s ten cabinet appointments, two went to FREPASO: Chacho Álvarez named Graciela Fernández Meijide head of the Ministry of Social Development and Alberto Flamarique secretary of labor. In 2000 FREPASO’s Aníbal Ibarra won the mayoralty of the Federal Capital. Also from 1999 to 2000, FREPASO elected Mendoza’s deputy governor, a federal senator, thirty federal deputies, sixteen mayors, seventy-one provincial legislators, and nearly two hundred municipal councilors.108 Thus, the FG did gain significant access to state resources roughly a decade after the Group of Eight’s 1990 defection from the PJ. But before that, for nearly a decade, the FG and its founders were in the opposition, without access to patronage and finance. Thus, it was not access to the state but access to mass media that weakened the FG and FREPASO’s incentives to invest in organization. THE (MEAGER) SIZE OF FG/FREPASO’S TERRITORIAL ORGANIZATION

By the end of the 1990s, FREPASO dominated the left political spectrum, but it was a tiny elite cadre with no base-level structures.109 In the FG’s First National Meeting, only 18 of 2,112 districts in Argentina’s interior sent delegates (i.e., less than 1 percent of interior districts). FREPASO’s member/vote ratio—a common indicator of partisan en-

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TABLE 2.1 TERRITORIAL ORGANIZATION WITH COMMITTED ACTIVISTS? (FREPASO) Access to the state

none

No presidential, gubernatorial, or major mayoral victory in the first five years

Access to mass media

high

Democratic regime with free press, high newspaper readership and television viewership, and private media not systematically biased against the left, in first five years

Mobilizing structures

high

Access to the CTA, piqueteros, small left and centrist parties and splinter groups during the first five years

Territorial organization with committed activists?

no

Only five employees on payroll and “ghostlike” existence outside the media arena roughly a decade into existence

capsulation—was very low in the mid-1990s (1 percent).110 Before the party’s collapse, in 1998, party members Marcos Novaro and Vicente Palermo noted as much, writing that “the FG and then FREPASO seem to have an almost ghostlike existence outside of the media arena.”111 Even at its electoral apex, FREPASO’s activist base was vanishingly small, its organizational apparatus “practically non-existent.”112 At the end of the 1990s, FREPASO had only five full- or part-time mid-level employees on the payroll.113 One campaign strategist for the Alliance put it simply: “There was no organization.”114

CHACHO ÁLVAREZ’S EXTERNAL APPEAL AND INTERNAL DOMINANCE Despite their relatively small size, the FG and FREPASO had significant internal tensions. The FG originated as a heterogeneous front comprising Peronist defectors (e.g., the Group of Eight), the traditional left (e.g., Socialists and Intransigents), human rights groups and figures (e.g., Graciela Fernández Meijide), and ex-Christian Democrat leaders (e.g., Javier Auyero).115 The socialist faction headed by Pino Solanas was unambiguously statist and nationalist, calling for a “total break with the current economic model” and greater internal democracy within the FG.116 The departure of this faction in 1994 reduced internal tensions but did not eliminate, or even significantly diminish, the problem of internal programmatic difference, especially as, during the second half of the 1990s, the FG allied with a succession of actors to its right (e.g., José Octavio Bordón, then the UCR). One consequence of the FG’s heterogeneity, according to various members and commentators, was its already noted lack of a stable programmatic identity. “FG failed to synthesize a coherent new position” from the “disparate political and ideological identities” of its members, “[causing] a constant erosion of strength and cohesion.”117 The FG’s

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programmatic stances, as we have seen, changed depending on circumstances and party leaders’ calculations of political expediency. The FG also, like Mexico’s PRD (chapter 5), had weak institutions of collective decision making and conflict resolution. The party lacked accepted formal procedures in key decision-making areas such as program, alliance policy, and candidate selection.118 “Its formal rules did not constitute everyday practice nor were they taken into consideration when planning individual courses of action. Rules were no more than a collection of norms subject to constant redefinition.”119 In short, the FG and FREPASO had serious internal divisions and never developed rules for making collective decisions and resolving internal conflicts. Despite this, they never suffered a fatal split. Why? Like Brazil’s PT (chapter 4) and Mexico’s PRD (chapter 5), the FG and FREPASO avoided debilitating schisms largely due to the presence of a singularly electable, internally dominant figure. That figure was Chacho Álvarez. CHACHO ÁLVAREZ’S EXTERNAL APPEAL

From late 1993 onward, Chacho Álvarez was, far and away, the most electorally potent elite in the FG. In the April 1994 constituent assembly elections, months after Álvarez’s initial rise to national prominence, the “Chacho Álvarez phenomenon . . . erupted,” with the FG winning 14 percent of the vote nationally and 38 percent in the Federal Capital.120 “From that moment onward, Chacho began to have influence not only over the front [FG], which he had always had, but also with the other sectors that were drawn to FREPASO.”121 As of late March 1994, Álvarez “was the candidate with the most positive image in Buenos Aires city, with 45 percent support.”122 Surveys around this time indicated that Álvarez was more popular than the PJ and UCR’s presidential candidates.123 “Media emphasized that [Álvarez] was one of a few candidates who could cross the city [of Buenos Aires], be recognized and greeted by the majority, and, above all, receive neither insults nor gestures of annoyance or distrust.”124 Álvarez became a “mass phenomenon” during this time, to such a degree that he opted not to run for mayor of Buenos Aires because two million Argentines expressly wished he would run for the presidency.125 Group of Eight member Darío Alessandro thus described Álvarez “as the one with greatest projection outside the party . . . who produce[d] the best politics externally. . . . There is not a single case of a guy,” he stated, “who, out of nowhere, without organization . . . makes the president of the Republic tremble.”126 Álvarez’s electoral potency followed from his charisma, his debating prowess, and his capacity to capitalize on changing circumstanc-

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es, as well as from the reach and influence of mass media, especially television, in Argentina in the 1990s. By the mid-1990s, Grupo Rating summarily advised public figures not to debate Chacho Álvarez; it was a losing proposition.127 FG members, observers, and scholars noted Álvarez’s media savvy, “original ideas,” and “rhetoric that brought society together.”128 In the mid-1990s, Eduardo Jozami summarized Álvarez as having “great political initiative” and the capacity “[to see] what might happen tomorrow. . . . Chacho has caught on to some of the key features of Argentine politics in recent years: . . . the ineffectiveness of [traditional politicians’] rhetoric; the importance of media, above all television; . . . the relevance of the issues of corruption and ethics; the ability to put forward, permanently, new issues.”129 Álvarez’s singular external appeal acted as a powerful source of cohesion. Fellow FG members understood that their own electoral fortunes depended on Álvarez, and thus they had strong electoral incentives to remain in the FG. But importantly, Álvarez was also internally dominant. This followed, in part, from his electoral indispensability. Yet it is telling that Álvarez was internally powerful before the “Chacho Álvarez phenomenon” erupted. Where did Álvarez’s internal power—and, from 1994 onward, his internal dominance—come from? THE SOURCES OF ÁLVAREZ’S INTERNAL DOMINANCE

From the Group of Eight’s inception, Álvarez was its “natural leader.”130 The Group of Eight made decisions by consensus until late 1991, but Álvarez, in reality, led the group, playing the primary role, for example, in founding the FG. His “leadership was based on a widespread consensus that identified him with the FG and its development.”131 Álvarez’s early preeminence stemmed from personal magnetism, and from the trust and respect he commanded among fellow Group of Eight members. Before he was a significant electoral force, Group of Eight members considered him an incorruptible politician willing to take principled stands (e.g., defecting from the governing PJ on ideological grounds; or refusing to accept corporate money in building the FG). When his national profile rose in the mid-1990s, Álvarez became indispensable to the FG’s electoral progress. This fact considerably increased his internal power and allowed him to displace the more radical Fernando “Pino” Solanas as the FG’s internally dominant figure.132 The 1993 legislative election, in which Álvarez outperformed forecasts and other FG members, made him the “undisputed leader” of FG.133 Álvarez’s electoral ascendance—together with the FG’s programmatic shift to the center after the 1994 constituent assembly election—led Solanas

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to exit the party in November 1994, thus cementing the FG’s status as a moderate, center-left party. At this point, Álvarez was both electorally indispensable and internally dominant. Álvarez had strong crossfactional ties and was ideologically representative, particularly from the mid-1990s onward. After the departure of Pino Solanas, Álvarez was, without question, the central node in the FG’s network, and because the FG was a club, not a mass organization, Álvarez did not need to appeal to large swathes of activists to represent the FG ideologically. He only had to appeal to elites. Thus, it mattered that “Álvarez was FG’s most representative leader for almost three-quarters of the members of the party Congress.”134 Of course, part of what made Álvarez representative was that he was not programmatically rigid or dogmatic. His positions shifted depending on circumstances, and he and the top FG leadership granted lower elites significant autonomy: “[The FG’s heads] did not impose their views on certain subjects, such as the direction of individual members’ actions or the way intermediate leaders should function in each field.”135 Importantly, Álvarez was the only figure in FG and FREPASO who combined a high degree of external appeal with a high degree of internal power. Other figures had either external appeal or internal power but not both. The aforementioned Solanas, for example, was an internally powerful figure. In the early 1990s, he was widely viewed as the only elite capable of uniting Argentina’s traditional left (consisting of various socialist groups and parties, including Solanas’s own Southern Front) and the more modern center-left. “His name was the magic key that united almost twenty small parties and groups,” from ex-Peronists to the traditional left to the center-left.136 On this basis, Solanas, initially, was the FG’s leader. Yet Solanas never had anything approaching Álvarez’s external appeal. Thus, when Álvarez’s electoral star rose in 1994, Álvarez eclipsed Solanas. Solanas left the party not only in protest of the FG’s shift toward the ideological center, but also in recognition of his own powerlessness relative to Álvarez. José Octavio Bordón, FREPASO’s 1995 presidential candidate, was, in a sense, the opposite of Solanas. He had external appeal but was untrusted, unrepresentative, and weakly linked. In contrast to Álvarez, he had low moral authority within the FG. Party members, by and large, did not trust him, as he had not sided with the FG in previous years when the party had harshly criticized Menem.137 Furthermore, he was not ideologically representative and lacked crossfactional ties. Indeed, the FG reached out to him because he was an outsider, more conservative than the FG, and influential with a different constituency.138 Thus, despite being FREPASO’s presidential candidate in 1995, Bordón never

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rivaled Álvarez for control of FREPASO’s anchor, the FG—nor did he seek to do so.139 HOW ÁLVAREZ GENERATED COHESION IN FG/FREPASO

Álvarez dominated the internal affairs of FG/FREPASO from early 1994 onward. His role within FG/FREPASO resembled Cárdenas’s role within the early PRD (see chapter 5); that is, FG/FREPASO was weakly routinized, and Álvarez substituted for institutionalized decision-making procedures.140 The leaders of FG/FREPASO made the front’s most important decisions informally. This informal decision-making process existed in parallel with, and effectively supplanted, the front’s formal institutions.141 The front’s leaders thus had “the highest level of autonomy in an almost perfect example of . . . cadre parties or centralized clubs.”142 More specifically, though, Álvarez made party-level decisions. The front’s “weak internal institutionalization gave Álvarez the autonomy to generate novel political initiatives.”143 To a greater degree than Lula and even Cárdenas, Álvarez was his party’s decider. Wrote Pazos and Camps in 1995: “Some considered—and continue to consider—the FG the party of one man.”144 According to one ex-FREPASO member, “everything was managed in a very personal manner, fundamentally by Chacho Álvarez.”145 To be sure, Álvarez regularly consulted with an inner circle of elites. According to the top FG elite Graciela Fernández Meijide, “in general, the decisions about alliance policies, who was or was not going to be candidate, was decided at the ‘small table.’ Most of the time Chacho Álvarez made the proposals, not because the ideas occurred to him from out of nowhere, but because he had discussed things with me or he had chatted about it with [Carlos] Auyero and then he brought it to the table.”146 Yet Álvarez held ultimate authority. In the words of one FG elite, “the final word is practically in Chacho’s hands in alliance policy, etc.”147 According to another, Álvarez was “responsible for all important decisions.”148 His proposals were “handed down to the front as FREPASO’s decision. In this way, the vast majority of activists and members of FG did not participate in decision making.”149 More specifically, Álvarez dictated the FG’s decisions on platform, public statements, alliances, and candidate selection. As early as 1994, he was aware of his unique power within the FG and used it to marginalize Solanas and the Communists and to adopt positions “very distant from the FG’s early rhetoric.”150 Álvarez made the decision to ally with Bordón to create FREPASO and, later, to ally with the UCR to create the Alliance.151 To select important candidates, Álvarez and the small table

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TABLE 2.2 EXTERNAL APPEAL, INTERNAL DOMINANCE? (FREPASO’S CHACHO ÁLVAREZ)

External appeal

high

FG/FREPASO’s perennial lead candidate (except in the 1995 presidential election); elected vice president in 1999; essential to party’s electoral rise and progress

Crossfactional ties

strong

Central node in FG/FREPASO, which was an elite network, from the mid-1990s onward

Moral authority

medium

Led the nucleus of party founders from 1990 onward; considered principled, incorruptible by copartisans, especially before the late 1990s

Ideological representativeness

high

Considered the FG’s most representative leader by three-quarters of the FG National Congress (polled in 1999)

Internal dominance?

yes

From the mid-1990s onward, was FG/FREPASO’s central, often sole, decider; dictated party positions, often unilaterally and without consultation

“set aside the party’s formal rules,” which stipulated primary elections, and handpicked the figures that they “considered the best candidates for the general election regardless of their internal support.”152 Candidates selected in this informal manner included “Graciela Fernández Meijide (for Senator in 1996, Deputy in 1997, President in 1998 and Governor in 1999), Álvarez (for Deputy in 1993, President in 1995, Deputy in 1997 and Vice-President in 1999), Aníbal Ibarra (for mayor of Buenos Aires in 1995 and 1999), and Carlos Auyero (for governor of Buenos Aires in 1999).”153 The FG members’ trust in Álvarez’s leadership was critical. Without their firm trust, he would not have been given such autonomy and leeway. “Álvarez took the organization to its limits, repeatedly placing it at risk. Within the party, this was perceived as a tendency to jump to unknown but nevertheless widely trusted courses of action.”154 Fittingly, in deciding to resign the vice presidency and retire from politics (about which more below), Álvarez consulted with virtually no one, including no members of the front’s top leadership. Graciela Fernández Meijide recalled, “He left without consulting any of us.”155 One FG leader recalled that when Álvarez resigned the vice presidency, members received a call “in the name of Chacho Álvarez, who had already tendered his resignation without consulting us.”156 In summary, Chacho Álvarez helped the FG to cohere, and it was his combination of external appeal and internal authority that proved critical. His coattails created incentives against defection, and he was trusted to make decisions for the party.157

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FREPASO’S COLLAPSE AMID CRISIS As noted at the beginning of this chapter, by the late 1990s, FREPASO members and most outside observers assumed that the party would endure and become institutionalized. In the wake of Bordón’s landslide loss in mid-1995 and acrimonious exit in early 1996, Álvarez and FREPASO, explicitly unfazed,158 rebounded and allied with the UCR to defeat the PJ in the 1997 congressional election. Party members Marcos Novaro and Vicente Palermo described the “survival of the electoral defeat in May 1995 and of Bordón’s departure in February 1996” as “proof that the Front was consolidating as a force and as a moderately institutionalized political space.”159 They confidently referred to FREPASO’s “durability,” writing that “FREPASO does not constitute a circumstantial episode, a necessarily short-lived media phenomenon. . . . Neither [the rise of Duhalde in the PJ nor that of De la Rúa in the UCR] puts at risk [FREPASO’s] durability.”160 With similar confidence, left elite and scholar Juan Manuel Abal Medina wrote in the late 1990s that the FG had already become “a political organization rooted in a large sector of the population and, consequently, capable of overcoming defeats and internal conflicts.”161 According to some, FREPASO’s rise and apparent consolidation heralded a new era of partisan competition in Argentina. Álvarez162 and other party leaders assessed—in line with Steven Levitsky’s argument in “Normalization”— that the Argentine party system was “normalizing.”163 Going forward, they suggested, the once-dominant PJ would face two serious national contenders with durable organizations and large, stable constituencies. Yet FREPASO fell as suddenly and dramatically as it had risen. Like Brazil’s PT and Mexico’s PRD, FREPASO faced early crisis. The Alliance’s assumption of office coincided with the worst social and economic crisis in contemporary Argentine history. Thus, not only did FREPASO face the “difficulties any newborn party faces in directing the executive,” it was “forced to do so in extremely harsh times.”164 The economy grew anemically in 1998 and shrunk by 4 percent in 1999, producing the first recession in nearly a decade. The Alliance inherited a contracting economy, masses of newly unemployed voters, and a ballooning national debt. The De la Rúa administration quickly implemented a series of austerity measures. But the recession persisted. The Alliance now owned Argentina’s economic disaster, creating a political crisis for the country’s new governing coalition. The Alliance’s political crisis intensified in late 2000, when a major corruption scandal broke, centering on allegations of bribery in the Sen-

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ate. According to federal charges, eleven senators—eight from the PJ and three from the UCR—accepted millions of dollars in exchange for supporting a labor market reform bill proposed by the Alliance.165 Media reports alleged that the payments originated in the offices of two Alliance ministers, Intelligence Minister Fernando de Santibañes (UCR) and Labor Minister Alberto Flamarique (FREPASO). The combination of economic calamity and corruption scandal generated a profound crisis for the UCR and FREPASO. The Alliance had won power on a platform of anticorruption. Through its participation in the Senate bribery scheme, the Alliance offended voters, violated its central campaign promise, and rendered itself indistinguishable from the PJ on the image-making valence issue of corruption. The scandal thus threatened to dilute and destroy the coalition’s brand.166 Through September of 2000, Álvarez maintained public support for De la Rúa but privately urged him to fire De Santibañes and Flamarique, arguing that only drastic measures would preserve the Alliance’s credibility.167 De la Rúa ultimately refused, and in early October, Álvarez resigned as vice president of Argentina (provoking significant internal criticism168). Announcing his resignation to the press, he stated, “I am very ashamed a sixteen- or seventeen-year-old should feel politics is similar to crime.”169 Álvarez unsuccessfully attempted to reenter De la Rúa’s cabinet in March 2001. In May 2001, he stepped down as president of the FG. Later, he led a short-lived movement of independent citizens against the PJ and UCR.170 It is worth making explicit that Álvarez’s actions in late 2000 and early 2001 did not amount to a schism. That is, he did not defect from the FG. Although he resigned the vice presidency and later stepped down as FG president, he did not take these actions due to conflict with his party, or in order to compete against it. Unfortunately for FREPASO, Álvarez was essential to the party’s brand, and to its internal functioning and internal morale.171 He was the core of the front—the “incomparable figure,” in the words of Graciela Fernández Meijide. She recalled, “When he resigned from the big table and didn’t even show up to tell us . . . at that point, for me, it had ended.”172 The FG elite Eduardo Jozami recalls that “the final decline of FREPASO . . . begins with the retirement of Chacho. . . . There, yes, a notable disaggregation comes.”173 “His retirement close[d] the cycle irreversibly.”174 The final blow to FREPASO came a year after Álvarez’s resignation, in the October 2001 midterm congressional elections. FREPASO remained intact following Álvarez’s departure, but Argentina’s economic and fiscal crises deepened. As Argentine voters took to the polls,

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the economy was still contracting, and official unemployment hovered around 20 percent.175 Voters punished the entire governing class but especially the Alliance and especially FREPASO. The sum of null votes, invalid votes, and votes for marginal parties rose fourfold, to 49 percent of the vote total. The PJ’s vote share increased only marginally, from 32 to 36 percent. The Alliance’s vote share fell by half, from 44 percent to 23 percent. For FREPASO, the outcome was especially dire. Whereas the UCR lost only one-fourth of its congressional seats (24 of 89), FREPASO lost nearly two-thirds (22 of 37). Two months later, President De la Rúa resigned amid riots, and the PJ returned to power in early January 2002. The Alliance lay in tatters. FREPASO did not have the organization necessary to survive. It was little more than a brand, such that “when [it] lost its image, it lost everything.”176 In the wake of the 2001 election, the front, already having suffered many defections, amounted to a small club of elites, most in the national legislature and one, Aníbal Ibarra, in the Federal Capital’s mayoral seat. There were no organizational redoubts: no local networks of committed activists, no FREPASO governorships or mayoralties (save in Buenos Aires). The party brand had stopped delivering; the electoral benefits of party membership had disappeared. The remaining members thus defected, joining the PJ, smaller left parties, or PJ satellite parties. In the words of one member, “each [party member] returned home.”177 Reflecting on how rapidly FREPASO disappeared once its image was tarnished, an Alliance strategist invoked a metaphor: “Building an image through the media is like building with mud.”178 In his explanation of FREPASO’s collapse, Noam Lupu places explanatory emphasis on the party’s brand dilution and poor performance, not its organizational weakness. On Lupu’s account, FREPASO collapsed due to two factors. First, it diluted its left-wing brand in the second half of the 1990s by entering into a strange bedfellow alliance with the UCR and by endorsing orthodox economic policies that it had once opposed. Second, it performed poorly. As we saw, the UCR/FREPASO electoral coalition took national office as Argentina was entering one of the worst economic and social crises in its history. Voter backlash due to this crisis—and due to the 2000 corruption scandal, which partially implicated FREPASO—put the nail in FREPASO’s coffin.179 In my view, this is an insightful but incomplete account. FREPASO faced severe challenges, to be sure; the experience of governing amid economic crisis (especially with a diluted brand) would seriously hurt any party at the ballot box. But FREPASO was ill-equipped to survive electoral failure because it had an extremely weak organization. It was fragile because it only existed in Argentine voters’ minds.

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In chapters 4 and 5, I will provide comparative evidence that further supports this argument. Both Brazil’s PT (chapter 4) and Mexico’s PRD (chapter 5) suffered early, life-threatening electoral crises (the PT in 1982, the PRD in 1991 and 1994). It was far from obvious during the first half of the 1980s that the PT would survive intact,180 or in the early 1990s that the PRD would survive intact.181 But in contrast to FREPASO, the PT and PRD had strong ground organizations and persevered. Another useful piece of comparative evidence comes from FREPASO’s senior coalition partner (1999–2001) and former rival, the centrist UCR. As noted, the UCR, like FREPASO, suffered a massive electoral crisis due to the economic calamity and corruption scandal of the late 1990s and early aughts. Notably, since De la Rúa’s resignation in 2001, the UCR has not fielded a serious presidential contender. But unlike FREPASO, the UCR, amid electoral crisis, had a large territorial organization and activist networks in much of the country.182 Thus, as Jennifer Cyr would predict, it persevered in local and regional strongholds.183 To this day, the UCR remains an important, albeit diminished, force, at both the national legislative and subnational levels.184 FREPASO, then, is a case of electoral collapse. Its leaders substituted media appeals for organization building and rose rapidly, but the party proved fragile amid electoral crisis. It is important to highlight, again, that FREPASO did not die by schism. Like Brazil’s PT and Mexico’s PRD (see chapters 4 and 5), FREPASO, as we have seen, had in Chacho Álvarez an electorally indispensable, internally dominant leader who generated the cohesion necessary to prevent fragmentation. By contrast, Peru’s new left contender, the United Left (IU), died by schism, illustrating that the presence of an electorally indispensable, internally nondominant leader can result in fatal new party splits. To the case of the IU we now turn.

CHAPTER 3

THE FATAL SCHISM OF PERU’S UNITED LEFT

Barrantes was accepted as a candidate but contested as a leader. Aldo Panfichi (IU member)

Months before Peru’s 1990 presidential election, and mere weeks before important subnational elections, Alfonso Barrantes, the ex-president and perennial lead candidate of Peru’s United Left (IU) coalition, defected with a small group of allies to compete against the IU. In the previous presidential election of 1985, Barrantes, as the IU’s candidate, had won a quarter of the vote and placed second behind Alán García of the American Revolutionary Popular Alliance (APRA). Barrantes’s defection both split and alienated Peru’s left electorate.1 In the 1990 presidential election, the IU, with Barrantes gone, received a mere 8 percent of the vote. Barrantes, with the IU label and party machines no longer behind him, fared even worse, winning a paltry 5 percent. Neither Barrantes nor the IU recovered. Barrantes retired from politics, while the IU continued to fragment and eventually collapsed. The IU’s collapse was a consequential event. During the 1980s, the IU established itself as one of Peru’s three leading electoral forces, alongside APRA and Popular Action (AP). In the four national elections that the IU contested with Barrantes as its lead candidate—nationwide municipal elections in 1980, 1983, and 1986, and the 1985 general election—it averaged nearly 30 percent of the national vote. At the time of its schism, the IU had an opportunity to capitalize on the electoral weakness of its two main competitors, APRA and AP. Most preelection polls through mid-1989 indicated that if Barrantes had run as the IU’s presidential candidate in 1990, he would have won or finished second behind right-of-center candidate, Mario Vargas Llosa. In either scenario, Alberto Fujimori would not have reached the second round and thus 80

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could not have been elected president.2 The IU’s schism, then, may have enabled Fujimori’s pivotal 1990 presidential victory. In addition, before its split, the IU competed with the powerful Shining Path insurgency for control and influence in Peruvian civil society. The Shining Path steadily grew in strength over the course of the 1980s, and at the grassroots level, the IU’s radical wing served as one of the only bulwarks against the Shining Path’s advances—that is, one of the only forces capable of preventing the Shining Path from capturing or disarticulating peasant federations, labor unions, shantytown associations, student groups, and other popular organizations.3 When the IU disintegrated, its radical constituent parties became electorally irrelevant and less capable of steering revolutionary youth away from the Shining Path. The IU’s collapse thus facilitated the Shining Path’s rapid growth during the 1990–1992 period. Perhaps the most enduring legacy of the IU’s collapse is that, in recent decades, Peru has had one of the weakest partisan lefts in Latin America. During the 1980s, few informed observers of Latin American politics would have predicted such an outcome; indeed, many would have predicted the opposite. APRA had vacated the left side of the political spectrum decades earlier, creating a mobilizational and electoral opportunity for the new and traditional Marxist parties that anchored the IU. These parties sought socialist transformation, differing with each other only on the appropriate tactics and timeline. They were electorally potent, as evidenced by their strong performances before and after the IU’s creation. They were organizationally formidable, with tens of thousands of cadres serving in their ranks. Peru’s lower and middle classes were remarkably well-organized and predominantly linked to them, so that the IU, relative to other left parties in Latin America, had an almost unrivaled array of ties to popular associations and other civil society organizations (e.g., student groups and teachers’ unions).4 Why did the IU fatally split? In the introduction and chapter 1, I argued that, to be durable, new partisan contenders need strong organizations but also sources of robust cohesion. Especially in heterogeneous new parties, something must be present to counteract or neutralize internal tensions (e.g., a powerful inherited brand, shared experiences of violent struggle, or an externally appealing, internally dominant leader). The IU is an example of a new party with a strong organization but without a source of robust cohesion. The goal of this chapter is to explain why the IU suffered a fatal schism, while other new left contenders in Latin America did not. Comparing the IU to Brazil’s Workers’ Party (PT; chapter 4) and Mexico’s Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD; chapter 5) is particularly

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useful, given that the IU, like the PT and PRD (and unlike FREPASO), had a strong organization. Indeed, the IU has quite a few analytically relevant features in common with the PT and PRD: it was a massbased, heterogeneous new left party; it was internally divided and conflict-ridden between moderate and radical factions; and it was electorally dependent on the coattails of an externally appealing leader (Alfonso Barrantes). Moreover, neither the PT, nor the PRD, nor the IU had an inherited brand or origins in violent struggle; by contrast, two other surviving new left contenders in Latin America (El Salvador’s FMLN and Nicaragua’s FSLN) had both of these sources of cohesion. Despite these various analytically relevant similarities, the PT and PRD remained intact, while the IU suffered a fatal schism. What made the IU different?

CASE SUMMARY As the IU rose to prominence in the 1980s, it depended on the leader Alfonso Barrantes for its national electoral success. Throughout the decade, no Peruvian left figure emerged who rivaled Barrantes in popularity. Even in the late 1980s, after Barrantes’s image of electoral prowess had begun to decline due to successive electoral losses, his status as the IU’s most electable elite remained virtually undisputed. Yet, in contrast to FREPASO’s Álvarez, the PT’s Lula, and the PRD’s Cárdenas, Barrantes was not internally dominant. In part, this was because his electoral clout held only limited importance for IU radicals; radicals made up most of the IU’s leadership and partisan base, and while they cared about and participated in elections, they did not centrally prioritize vote maximization or presidential victory. Even more importantly, Barrantes lacked moral authority and strong crossfactional ties and clashed ideologically with most of the IU’s base and roughly half of its elites. Consequently, his internal power rested almost exclusively on external electoral clout, particularly as the 1980s drew to a close. Barrantes’s weak position within the IU can be traced, in large measure, to the circumstances of his selection as the IU leader. Given the sectarianism of the IU’s constituent parties, coalition leaders at the IU’s inception were unwilling to cede the IU’s presidency and lead candidacy to internal rivals. Barrantes came from outside the IU; he was independent and perceived as neutral between the parties. His external origins made him an acceptable choice as leader but also limited his internal power. He entered the IU without preexisting sources of moral authority on the Peruvian left, and without strong preexisting crossfactional ties to the left’s major leaders. These facts about Barrantes are widely recognized by scholars. Less recognized is their significance. Barrantes’s low profile on the Peruvi-

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an left, his unremarkable background, and the weakness of his preexisting linkages to left factions constrained his leadership possibilities. They limited his ability to command respect within the IU; to develop crossfactional ties; to facilitate compromise and moderation; to impose programmatic and procedural decisions; and (by the end of the 1980s) to garner sufficient support for his presidential nomination. Largely for these reasons, he and a club of allies defected, with fatal consequences for the IU.

ADVERSITY AND ORGANIZATION BUILDING The IU was a socialist electoral coalition founded in September 1980, shortly after the May 1980 general election that marked Peru’s full transition from military rule to democracy. During the era of military rule (1968–1980) that immediately preceded Peru’s democratization and the IU’s founding, Peru’s left was almost uniformly Marxist-Leninist, as well as extremely fragmented and sectarian. Each of Peru’s major left parties produced numerous offshoots: seven parties traced their roots to the Peruvian Communist Party (PCP, est. 1928), thirteen to the Revolutionary Vanguard (VR, est. 1965), eight to the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR, est. 1962), and seven to the Trotskyist movement.5 Numerous others had independent origins. During the 1960s and 1970s, Peru’s left parties were not electorally oriented; they were either guerrilla groups (focos) or vanguardist organizations. With some exceptions—most notably, Peru’s oldest Communist Party, the Soviet-aligned PCP (est. 1928)—they were revolutionary, seeking, in the short to medium term, to destroy the “bourgeois state” through violence, assume state power, and engineer socialist transformation. 6 The process of creating a broad left electoral front in Peru involved two major steps. First, the forces of the revolutionary left had to decide to participate in elections. This step occurred between the 1978 constituent assembly elections and the May 1980 general election. Peru’s largest Maoist parties (Red Fatherland [PCP-PR], Shining Path [PCPSL]) and multiple factions of the VR chose not to participate in the 1978 election, but every well-known left force in Peru except the Shining Path participated in the 1980 general election. Second, Peru’s left parties had to unite with each other. This step occurred between the May 1980 general election and the November 1980 municipal elections. In both the 1978 constituent assembly election and the May 1980 general election, the left ran highly divided, and not just between radical and moderate camps but also between parties and coalitions within each camp.7 Although the left fared quite well in 1978,

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garnering 30 percent of the vote, the election proved anomalous; one of two leading parties, the AP, boycotted it, and it took place at a time of intense public discontent and near-peak social mobilization, which led to above-average turnout for the left. In the 1980 general election, the left’s collective vote share fell by more than half, and no left party won more than 5 percent of the congressional or presidential vote. Thus, with nationwide municipal elections set for November of the same year (including the Lima mayoral race), most of Peru’s largest left forces, in a historic decision, united to create the IU. At its founding, the IU consisted of six parties and coalitions. All were socialist, and all but one—the Revolutionary Socialist Party (PSR)— were Marxist-Leninist. The three main constituent parties of the IU were the PCP; the Union of the Revolutionary Left (UNIR, est. 1980), a Maoist front dominated by PCP-PR (est. 1964); and Popular Democratic Unity (UDP, est. 1977), a new Marxist coalition anchored primarily by the VR (est. 1965) and secondarily by the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR, est. 1962). The most significant change in the IU’s internal makeup would come in 1984, when the UDP dissolved itself, and a new party was created in its place, the Mariateguist Unified Party (PUM). The PUM, like the UDP, was anchored by the VR and MIR. The three remaining constituent parties of the IU at the time of the IU’s founding were the Revolutionary Communist Party (PCR, est. 1974), the product of a schism in the VR; the aforementioned PSR (est. 1976), created by former military officials and technocrats sympathetic to the left-wing military dictator General Juan Velasco (1968–1980); and the Trotskyist Worker, Peasant, Student, and Popular Front (FOCEP, est. 1980), a vehicle for the left politician Genaro Ledesma, and a small remnant of the much larger FOCEP coalition that, under the direction of the peasant leader Hugo Blanco, had performed strongly in the 1978 constituent assembly election. Shortly after the IU’s founding, another party, Socialist Political Action (APS, est. 1967; originally Socialist Popular Action) joined the coalition. The APS was founded by and organized around Gustavo Mohme, whose influence stemmed from his position as the founder and editor of Peru’s most important left-leaning newspaper, the Lima-based La República (est. 1981). Finally, the IU included several independent, nonpartisan elites with moderate left tendencies and Christian influences, most importantly Henry Pease and Rolando Ames. Henry Pease would become a formal member of the IU’s national executive committee in the early 1980s. The IU did not have to build a territorial party organization; it was born with one. Almost all its constituent parties had formed at least a

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decade before the IU’s founding and built organizations under conditions of low state and media access, mainly for extraelectoral purposes (e.g., mobilization and revolution). These parties, collectively, had a presence in much of Peru’s national territory. The revolutionary UNIR and UDP and the more moderate PCP were vanguardist organizations, each with thousands of disciplined cadres drawn selectively from intellectual circles and the student and labor movements. The other four founding parties—the PCR, PSR, FOCEP, and APS—had weaker organizations. They were either electoral vehicles for individual figures (FOCEP and the APS) or elite clubs (the PCR and PSR). Although the latter four parties made important electoral contributions to the coalition, the first three—the UNIR, UDP, and PCP—provided the vast majority of cadres and activists throughout the 1980s.8 Despite emerging under democracy, the IU never had high access to state resources or mass media. During the 1980s, the IU won one significant executive position, the mayoralty of Lima, for a three-year period (1983–1986). At the IU’s birth, mass media did not play a major role in Peruvian electoral politics. Newspaper readership was limited, and television was not yet a major political medium.9 Moreover, politically conservative elements controlled the main television networks.10 Also, the IU had much weaker financing than APRA and the AP and thus could purchase little television or radio time. The only major media outlet sympathetic to the IU was the aforementioned La República, which only affected elite opinion (at least directly). These conditions generated selection pressures and electoral incentives for organization building; consequently, the IU’s territorial organization grew over the course of the 1980s. Much of the IU’s organizational growth came from nonpartisan IU supporters. From the early 1980s onward, a large majority of core IU supporters did not belong to any constituent party. Before the IU’s only national congress, held in January 1989, the leadership undertook a mass membership drive and registered between 130,000 and 150,000 members.11 The organizer of the drive, Henry Pease, estimated that, at most, one-third of these individuals belonged to IU constituent parties. Rolando Ames recalled that whenever he visited neighborhoods to talk to IU supporters, most people did not belong to a party. They belonged to the IU, he said; it was “Barrantes and the little IU flag.”12 IU parties also had extraelectoral incentives to invest in territorial organization during the 1980s. As below sections will detail, the IU’s radical parties prioritized mobilizational capacity and revolutionary preparedness over electoral success, particularly during the second half of the 1980s, and expanded their bases with these objectives in mind.

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TABLE 3.1 TERRITORIAL ORGANIZATION WITH COMMITTED ACTIVISTS? (IU) limited

No presidential victory but one major subnational victory (Lima mayoralty) in the first five years

Access to mass media

limited

Democratic regime with a free press, but the role of mass media in electoral politics was limited in the early 1980s, and private media were controlled by conservative elements—with notable exceptions (e.g., La República)—during the first five years

Mobilizing structures

high

Access to the CGTP, SUTEP, miners’ union, and CCP in the first five years

Territorial organization with committed activists?

yes

Credentials given to nearly 1 percent of Peruvians (130,000–150,000 of 20 million) less than a decade into existence; overwhelmingly reliant on volunteer activism throughout the formative decade

Access to the state

If one counts active, nonpartisan IU supporters in addition to IU constituent party members, the IU, with respect to territorial organization, resembles the early PT and PRD (see chapters 4 and 5). Given Peru’s population size at the end of the 1980s (approximately 20 million), the above 130,000–150,000 figure indicates that the IU, nine years after formation, had a member/population ratio of nearly 1 percent. In proportional terms, this places the IU between Brazil’s PT and Mexico’s PRD ten years into their existence; the PT was smaller, the PRD larger. Further, according to Jason Seawright, in both 1980 (the IU’s birth year) and 1985, the IU had stronger civil society ties than all major parties in Peru, Venezuela, and Argentina, including those with deep societal roots (e.g., Argentina’s PJ and Venezuela’s Democratic Action [AD]).13 More specifically, the PCP controlled the General Confederation of Peruvian Workers (CGTP);14 the UNIR controlled the country’s largest teachers’ union, the Unitary Union of Peruvian Education Workers (SUTEP); and the UDP/PUM controlled the potent national miners’ union and church-backed Peruvian Peasant Confederation (CCP). The UDP/PUM also held considerable influence among fishermen, steel and iron workers, the student movement, and shantytown squatter associations.15 The IU’s ground organization and civil society partners were important assets, both for mobilizing voters and for surviving setbacks. Territorial organization contributed significantly to some of the IU’s best electoral performances. Local activist networks helped the coalition to win dozens of mayoralties over the course of the 1980s, and Guillermo Herrera attributes the IU’s 1983 mayoral victory, in particular, to the local efforts of its constituent parties (as well as to Barrantes’s personal charisma).16 Later, the IU survived a disappointing loss in the 1985 pres-

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idential election and a crushing—indeed, life-threatening—defeat in the 1986 Lima mayoral race.17 After the coalition fragmented in 1989 and 1990, its constituent parties survived and persisted as marginal electoral players, further reinforcing the book’s argument that strong organizations help parties to survive electoral crises. The IU’s problem, in short, was not organizational weakness. It had a territorial organization, and this organization provided roughly the same benefits to the IU that it did to Brazil’s PT and Mexico’s PRD. The IU’s problem was that it electorally depended on an internally nondominant leader, Alfonso Barrantes, and thus was vulnerable to fatal schism.

BARRANTES’S EXTERNAL APPEAL AND INTERNAL WEAKNESS As noted earlier, the parties and coalitions of the IU originally united due to a common electoral calculation. Significant differences between radical and moderate forces remained, as did numerous narrower, sectarian divisions. In the description of the radical IU leader Javier Diez Canseco, the IU, from inception, was a front for maximizing left electoral performance and distributing candidacies, not one with a common program.18 Further, there were personal rivalries; each party and coalition had a leader or group of leaders with political aspirations, as illustrated in the May 1980 general election, when five IU elites, mere months before the IU’s creation, competed against each other. Consequently, it was very important to prevent impositions by one constituent party on another, as such impositions could lead to defections. The IU’s leaders thus devised a consensus-based internal decision-making structure. All official IU decisions would be made by the National Leadership Committee (CDN), which originally consisted of one leader of each party (the PCP, PSR, PCR, and FOCEP) and two leaders of each coalition (the UDP and UNIR).19 The CDN also, from the IU’s inception, included the president (or “coordinator”) of the IU. Any member of the CDN could veto a major coalition decision (e.g., a proposed parliamentary list or a proposed candidate for president of the IU or mayor of Lima). This unanimity requirement gave the IU’s smallest parties disproportionate decision-making weight, equal to that of the largest parties.20 It served the purpose, though, of making it impossible, at least formally, for one constituent party to impose its will on another.21 The single most important and potentially contentious decision confronting the newborn IU was who to make president and lead candidate of the coalition. The spot went to Alfonso Barrantes. In mid-1980, the CDN named Barrantes IU president as well as IU candidate for the Lima mayoral race in November 1980. Barrantes was a labor lawyer, a socialist, and, like nearly all of the IU’s constituent parties, a Marx-

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ist-Leninist.22 As a young man, he had been a member of the APRA Youth. He then became a renowned APRA student leader at the University of San Marcos, serving as president of the San Marcos University Federation. Barrantes briefly joined the PCP but left in the late 1950s amid rising Sino-Soviet tensions. Barrantes identified with Maoism but never joined a Maoist party. In the late 1970s, he briefly became a member of the UDP but did not belong to or affiliate with any of its constituent parties (the VR and MIR). As part of the UDP, he participated in the presidential electoral alliance that ultimately selected the peasant leader Hugo Blanco as its candidate. During this time, Barrantes maintained a somewhat close relationship with Red Fatherland (PCP-PR), a reflection of his Maoist sympathies. Barrantes was selected as IU president and lead candidate for two reasons. First, many members of the CDN, all of whom held veto authority, did not want a rival party leader to receive the IU’s top position. If the IU’s leader came from one of the IU’s constituent parties, the effect might be to politicize the positions of coalition president and lead nominee, rather than keep those positions neutral between constituent parties.23 The leader’s party might then come to be seen, wrongly, as the IU’s main party, or as a first among equals within the coalition. If the leader won the Lima mayoralty or presidency, the benefits to his party, in terms of reputation and patronage, might be disproportionate. For these reasons, the CDN, as a body, preferred the selection of an independent figure. Even as late as the late 1980s, it remained “unthinkable” that a party member could be IU president.24 Barrantes fit this bill. He did not belong to, or evidently favor, any of the IU’s constituent parties. He did not have an organizational base of his own. A big part of his appeal as a leader, in other words, was that he lacked preexisting ties to Peru’s various left forces. His assumption of the leadership role did not seem to tilt the organizational balance of power within the IU in any particular direction. IU members and analysts thus used terms such as “balancing factor,” “balancing leader,” and “transactional element” to refer to Barrantes. The political analyst Fernando Tuesta, in a 1987 editorial for La República, described Barrantes as a “sum of opposites, equal to zero.”25 Second, and critically, Barrantes seemed capable of appealing, electorally, to the less politicized, less organized sectors of Peru’s lowerincome population. Although Barrantes was not a tested candidate for public office, it was calculated that, due to his communication skills, humble background, and ease with ordinary people (especially those of modest means), he would be an effective campaigner and coalition figurehead. More specifically, he would help the left to appeal to masses

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of voters not committed to the partisan left—especially poor voters, but also middle-income ones. ALFONSO BARRANTES’S EXTERNAL APPEAL

The IU attained national electoral prominence in the early 1980s and remained nationally prominent for the rest of the decade. While a number of factors contributed to this success, 26 Barrantes’s popular appeal was essential. Why? As noted, IU’s constituent parties had significant support within Peru’s organized popular and middle sectors. But many social organizations in Peru were not tied to the partisan left, and more importantly, the majority of Peruvians were simply unorganized. Throughout the 1980s, Peru was overwhelmingly poor, and most poor Peruvians, urban and rural, were not active participants in labor or peasant unions or squatter associations. Moreover, the population of unorganized poor—largely consisting of urban shantytown residents working in the informal economy—increased significantly over the course of the 1980s (about which more below). This population was a large, untapped constituency. Its members tended to be “floating” voters who “lacked any stable partisan or ideological identity” and had often voted for conservative figures and parties in the past.27 Many were suspicious of or unmoved by revolutionary rhetoric. Their electoral preferences generally determined the outcome of national elections.28 These facts mattered. They went a long way toward explaining, for example, why left parties received only 14 percent of the vote nationally in May 1980. They suggested, more generally, that the partisan left, on its own, could not win national electoral contests in Peru—or even come close.29 To contend for national power, the IU needed votes outside its organized partisan constituencies. It was crucial, then, that Barrantes had a “common touch and popular appeal” that “enabled him to attract electoral support that far surpassed that of the organized constituencies of the left parties.”30 Barrantes humanized and softened the partisan left’s image. In contrast to many of his IU counterparts, he was seen as nonmilitant and personable. He had provincial roots and conveyed a rural simplicity. He avoided rhetoric that alienated ordinary voters and came across as friendly and good-humored in speeches and interviews. He displayed particular fondness for children, regularly invoking them in his speeches and coming to be known, affectionately, as Tío Frejolito (Uncle Bean).31 He was also reputedly honest. Despite his high public profile, and even after becoming Lima’s mayor, he did not enrich himself or develop expensive habits, always (for example) driving the same sky-blue Volkswagen Beetle.32 Finally, he

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was articulate, educated, and well-informed on a wide range of political and economic issues.33 This cluster of attributes made him very popular, and because of his popularity, he drew in pragmatic, left-leaning voters attracted to the combination of a united partisan left and an electable leader. A brief review of the IU’s electoral history furnishes evidence of Barrantes’s long electoral coattails. The IU first competed in the nationwide municipal elections of November 1980. Half a year earlier, in the May 1980 general election, the left, collectively, had won 14 percent of the national vote. In November 1980, Barrantes placed second in the Lima mayoral race, and the IU, which did not include all the left leaders and parties that ran in May 1980 (e.g., Hugo Blanco), won thirteen mayoralties and received 23 percent of the national vote. 34 Three years later, in the 1983 municipal elections, Barrantes won the Lima mayoral election, and the IU won thirty-three mayoralties and almost 30 percent of the nationwide municipal vote total, second only to APRA.35 Notably, Barrantes won fifteen of the sixteen Lima districts with the highest concentrations of shantytowns, reflecting his appeal among the urban informal poor.36 Two years later, in the 1985 general election, the IU consolidated its 1983 gains. As the IU’s presidential candidate, Barrantes, who had gained national visibility since becoming Lima’s mayor, 37 placed second behind APRA’s Alán García, and the IU finished second to APRA in the congressional race, winning nearly a quarter of the seats. In 1986, Barrantes lost the Lima mayoral race by a narrow margin, but both Barrantes and the IU won a higher percentage of the national vote than in the 1983 municipal elections. Barrantes defected from the IU just weeks before the November 1989 municipal elections and did not run against the IU. The IU still managed to win approximately 20 percent of the national vote, but in the 1990 presidential election, once Barrantes’s defection was definitive and widely publicized, and once he was actually competing against the IU, the United Left won just 8 percent of the vote. Barrantes’s singular electoral clout was rarely disputed within the IU, even after he lost the 1985 presidential and 1986 Lima mayoral elections. Admittedly, these losses partially tainted his image of electoral prowess and led some IU members and observers—especially those generally opposed to him—to overestimate the IU’s electoral prospects without him.38 But as Maxwell Cameron observes in his in-depth analysis of the IU’s schism, the IU radicals who most opposed Barrantes “recognized,” even in the late 1980s, “that Barrantes was the leader with the widest popular appeal—and that the withdrawal of Barrantes could weaken [the IU’s] electoral prospects.”39 Until the end of the decade, the IU “remained heavily dependent on the populist appeal of Barrantes to garner

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electoral support beyond the organizational networks of the coalition’s vanguard parties.”40 In fact, as the IU’s organized constituencies eroded over the course of the 1980s,41 the presence of a popular figure like Barrantes became more critical. At the time of its formation, the IU had a social base at near peak strength due to decades of urbanization and industrialization and the social mobilizations of the late military period (i.e., the late 1970s). Over the course of the IU’s existence, the left’s social base weakened: the mass protests of the late 1970s ended, the Shining Path captured or disarticulated many civil society organizations (e.g., peasant associations and student groups), and a massive economic crisis in the late 1980s weakened unions and led to an expansion of the urban informal sector.42 Barrantes, as emphasized, had particular appeal among this growing subset of the population. Those who wanted Barrantes to be the IU’s 1990 presidential nominee repeatedly underlined that he remained the IU’s strongest candidate and was probably the only left candidate who stood any chance of winning.43 They warned that if Barrantes departed, a large segment of the electorate would leave with him and likely shift its support to APRA, causing an electoral setback or disaster for the IU and a potential victory for APRA.44 Top IU leaders vigorously sought to prevent Barrantes’s exit until the end. The PCP’s secretary general, Jorge del Prado, for example, made “excessive concessions, seeking [Barrantes’s] reincorporation in the failed hope that he would accept being the front’s 1990 presidential candidate.”45 Retrospectively, IU members, including Barrantes’s fiercest critics, almost universally acknowledge his unrivaled popularity.46 Javier Diez Canseco, leader of the PUM and probably IU’s most powerful radical figure and Barrantes’s fiercest opponent, stated in 2011 that Barrantes was “indisputably the left’s most charismatic leader.”47 Henry Pease stated that “without Barrantes, IU was nothing.”48 Other radical and moderate IU members offered similar assessments.49 THE SOURCES OF BARRANTES’S INTERNAL WEAKNESS

In short, Barrantes’s lack of dominance within the IU did not stem from a deficit of external appeal. On the contrary, no left figure emerged during the 1980s who could rival Barrantes in electoral clout. Indeed, Barrantes’s unmatched external appeal gave him significant leverage within the IU. When he was elected mayor of Lima, Peruvian media and public opinion began to identify him with the IU, and he became more powerful than the IU, “above” the CDN.50 By the time of the 1985 presidential election, for example, the “parties had almost

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completely lost the ability to modify the decisions adopted between Barrantes and his campaign director.”51 Throughout the IU’s existence, coalition elites across the ideological spectrum, by their own admission, had a strong electoral incentive not to defect from the IU, given their reliance on Barrantes’s coattails.52 IU radicals “knew they needed him.”53 “Few dared to criticize him because they believed that . . . without him, the United Left would split or disappear.”54 Notably, for the entirety of the IU’s existence, none of the three main constituent parties and no major secondary IU leader ever defected from the coalition. Yet Barrantes was not internally dominant, especially during the second half of the 1980s. As Tanaka usefully summarizes in reference to the late 1980s, “it is interesting to note the enormous distance between a Barrantes well-positioned in the electoral preferences of the citizenry and his situation of extreme weakness within the left. . . . The separation between the electoral arena and internal party arena, the difficulty of investing the capital accumulated in one in the other, appears clearly.”55 What factors weakened Barrantes internally? Barrantes’s electoral indispensability did not translate into internal dominance for two broad reasons. First, IU radicals, who controlled the IU’s internal organization, were not primarily motivated by the desire to maximize vote share or govern on a large scale, and by the end of the 1980s, some of them regarded the prospect of an IU presidential victory as worrying and potentially counterproductive. These facts reduced Barrantes’s internal electoral leverage. Second, and crucially, Barrantes did not have additional sources of internal power (i.e., sources other than external appeal). He had little moral authority; he was not ideologically representative of the predominantly radical IU; and far from having strong crossfactional ties, he had a toxic, dysfunctional relationship with radical IU leaders almost from the beginning of the IU’s existence. All these problems worsened toward the end of the 1980s. In what follows, I will expound both arguments, but to provide necessary context, I must begin with a summary of the IU’s moderate/radical divide and a description of escalating moderate/radical tensions in the second half of the 1980s. The IU’s Moderate/Radical Divide

On questions of program and tactics, the IU was divided between radicals and moderates. IU radicals included the largest single party in the coalition, the UNIR; the two largest new left parties, the VR and the MIR (which, as indicated above, came together in the UDP and later merged to form the PUM); and the smaller new left party, FOCEP.

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IU moderates included Barrantes; the PCP; three relatively small new left parties, the PCR, PSR, and APS; and independent left Christians, including Henry Pease and Rolando Ames. The UNIR, UDP/PUM, and PCP anchored the IU’s internal organization, providing (as already noted) the vast majority of its cadres and activists. The UNIR and UDP/PUM were radical players, whereas the PCP was moderate. The PUM (est. 1984) was smaller than the UNIR, but, on most accounts, it was the IU’s leading radical party from the mid1980s onward because of its revolutionary image.56 With respect to organization, civil society linkages, and even electoral support, the radical parties were superior to the moderate ones. From the IU’s inception, the UNIR and UDP/PUM, jointly, had a much larger membership and much more extensive civil society ties than the PCP. Moreover, around the midpoint of the 1980s, the internal balance of forces shifted further in the radicals’ favor. In the 1985 congressional election, the PUM and UNIR won significantly more seats than their moderate counterparts.57 The PUM expanded tremendously in 1985 and 1986.58 In 1986 and 1987, all three leading parties—the PUM, UNIR, and PCP—shifted to the left due to pressure from party youth and established military arms.59 By the late 1980s, IU radicals, to a greater degree than before, “dominated the internal organization of the United Left.”60 What distinguished IU radicals and moderates? Although all of the IU’s parties and top leaders were socialist, and almost all were MarxistLeninist, IU radicals and moderates differed on how to pursue socialist transformation in the short to medium term. IU moderates sought to effect change in the short to medium term primarily or exclusively through participation in Peru’s democratic institutions—that is, by winning office and implementing a socialist agenda to the extent possible. Radicals, in contrast, expected and prepared to make revolution in the short to medium term. They believed that Peru’s state and democratic institutions were vulnerable and ought to collapse. In their view, the left had to be organizationally prepared to defend itself and seize power in a revolutionary confrontation of forces, and subsequently to lead a successful revolution on the strength of an extensive, well-organized base. Thus, their priorities were to penetrate, mobilize, and link civil society organizations, and to arm themselves if necessary. Radicals, of course, did value participation in Peru’s democratic institutions; otherwise, they would not have joined the IU or participated in elections at all. But they participated in the electoral process, largely, to campaign and to engage in legislative opposition. Campaigns and legislative opposition helped them to maintain and bolster their visibility,

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and to attract activists and organizations to their parties and causes. In short, IU radicals contested elections during the 1980s more to accumulate forces than to govern. Indeed, some radicals were openly wary of governing. They assessed that the IU would be incapable of effective public administration, arguing that local governments lacked adequate resources,61 and that the IU lacked the organizational heft necessary to staff an effective presidential administration and implement and safeguard a transformative left-wing agenda.62 Several radical leaders stated that governing might actually harm the left in the long term. If the IU moved from opposition to government, they believed, the IU’s message would be diluted, and the IU would be held responsible for Peru’s chronic problems of governance. For these reasons, radicals, as a bloc, were more ambivalent and cautious than their moderate counterparts about taking executive power.63 Polarization between IU moderates and radicals intensified in the late 1980s, as hyperinflation, economic contractions, and the advance of the Shining Path insurgency convulsed Peru. A central strategic question faced the IU: How should the coalition respond to Peru’s security and economic crises, which threatened the stability of the country’s fledgling democratic regime? Moderates, for their part, saw a golden electoral opportunity for the IU, as Alán García and APRA had lost virtually all public support, and the AP remained discredited due to Fernando Belaúnde’s unsuccessful presidency (1980–1985).64 IU moderates wanted to preserve Peru’s state and democratic institutions, build on the IU’s electoral gains during the first half of the decade, and capitalize on the reputational collapse of APRA and the AP, the IU’s two main partisan rivals.65 This strategy, however, would require attracting the middlesector voters who had supported Fernando Belaúnde (AP) in the 1980 presidential election and Alán García (APRA) in 1985.66 To attract these middle-sector voters, the IU would have to moderate its rhetoric and proposals. Accordingly, IU moderates in the second half of the 1980s categorically rejected armed struggle and supported collaborating with the APRA government and Peruvian armed forces to defeat the Shining Path insurgency, stabilize the economy, and save Peruvian democracy.67 Radicals responded differently to the crisis of the late 1980s. As Peru’s state and democratic institutions began to tremble, they, instead of seeking to preserve these institutions, prepared to capitalize on their collapse. They judged—arguably rationally 68—that Peru had entered a revolutionary situation, that “social polarization and struggle” could “[overwhelm] the electoral framework,”69 and thus that the short-term need to prepare for revolutionary confrontation took priority over the pursuit of victory in the 1990 presidential election.70 During this time, as already

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noted, the IU’s three main parties—the PUM, UNIR, and PCP—all shifted to the left due to pressure from revolutionary youth wings, and all three established military arms.71 Radicals despised APRA for its ideological shiftiness and opportunism in previous decades and therefore advocated “frontal opposition to [Alán García’s] APRA government.” 72 Radicals refused to side with the Peruvian army against the Shining Path, accusing both organizations of serious human rights violations.73 Finally, radicals opposed tacking to the center for electoral gain. Moving to the center and making an accord with APRA and the military, they believed, would dilute the IU’s left-wing image74 and might put the IU in government at a time of insoluble crisis. Both scenarios would damage or even destroy the IU’s reputation and, in doing so, undermine radicals’ primary objective: to attract and organize activists and groups at the base level (and steer them away from the Shining Path) in preparation for revolutionary confrontation.75 IU Radicals’ Low Prioritization of Elections

A key implication of the radicals’ worldview, for our purposes, was that Barrantes’s electoral coattails held limited value for them. IU radicals did not regard electoral performance—their own, much less the IU’s— as the primary short- or medium-term concern. Some were wary of governing and hence of winning the executive positions that Barrantes sought. These perspectives hardened toward the end of the decade. By the late 1980s, radicals “were less interested in building the widest possible electoral base for the United Left than in building an organized, revolutionary alternative to existing power structures.” 76 Many radicals considered a 1990 presidential victory secondary; some considered it counterproductive and potentially threatening.77 All these factors reduced the internal leverage that Barrantes gained from his long electoral coattails. Barrantes’s Lack of Additional Sources of Internal Power

Even more importantly, though, popular appeal was the main “card” that Barrantes had to “play” within the IU. His most significant shortcoming as IU leader was that his internal power rested on little more than electoral leverage, particularly as the 1980s drew to a close. That Barrantes lacked additional sources of internal power followed, in large measure, from the conditions of his selection as coalition leader. As detailed above, because IU constituent parties were sectarian, IU founding leaders were unwilling to cede the coalition’s reins and lead nomination to a partisan rival. Barrantes was unaffiliated with the parties and regarded as fairly neutral between them. His independence and

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neutrality, combined with his electoral potential, made him the consensus choice as leader.78 Yet, almost by definition, neutral, independent members are weakly rooted in their parties. They typically lack the political background and factional ties associated with internally dominant leaders. So it was with Barrantes: his external origins made him acceptable but limited his internal power. When selected as IU leader, Barrantes was an unknown labor lawyer and minor figure on the Peruvian left. He had never held public office. More importantly, for three decades, he had not played a leadership role on the left. Unlike various IU figures, he had not constructed or headed a party. He had not visibly engaged in the popular mobilizations incented by President Juan Velasco (1968–1975) or the mass movement to topple President Morales Bermúdez (1975–1980). Barrantes, in short, was not a founder of the IU, in contrast to coalition leaders such as the PUM’s Javier Diez Canseco and the PCP’s Jorge del Prado. As one proBarrantes IU elite observed, Barrantes “did not found the IU but was called to preside over it.” 79 Barrantes’s Low Moral Authority

Barrantes thus entered the IU with low moral authority. Neither his name (which was unknown in 1980) nor his background gave him significant legitimacy among Peru’s left activists and cadres. Throughout the 1980s, IU elites and commentators openly argued that he did not deserve to be IU leader. In December 1981, the IU congressman Horacio Cevallos wrote: “[Barrantes] does not represent any of the organized political sectors, nor does he represent the masses. He is a novice lawyer, and we have made him, a substitute, a center forward in the leadership of the left.”80 After Barrantes resigned as IU president in the summer of 1987, the left editorialist Fernando Tuesta critically highlighted Barrantes’s pre-IU record: On what basis did they elect [Barrantes IU leader]? . . . For his political record? . . . That does not appear to be the reason. . . . It is enough to review what is noted as most noteworthy in his political career: a dip in the San Marcos pool when he was the Aprista president of the [San Marcos Student Federation] in an act against Nixon; the pen given to him by Zhou Enlai on a trip to China in 1964 with which he signed his entry application to the PCP; and after that . . . 1980.81

Members have retrospectively articulated similar views. Osmar Gonzales states, “The parties maintained that Barrantes was their creation; that the front was the result of the popular movement, and that [Barrantes’s] personalized leadership was a contingent consequence.”82

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In the analysis of the IU elite Santiago Pedraglio, Barrantes was the IU’s electoral head but not a political leader, ideologue, or strategist. He had a lot of outside support and a number of great qualities, but he was independent and lacked a party. Unlike Lula of Brazil’s PT, Pedraglio pointed out, Barrantes played no role in the IU’s origins. Thus, “his weight was very limited.” If Barrantes had been the head of a popular movement or political party, the internal dynamic, he stated, would have been totally different.83 It is noteworthy, finally, that although many IU members and commentators cited Barrantes’s extraordinary ability to connect with voters, none ever described him as the coalition’s “moral leader”—a phrase often used to describe Lula in the early PT and Cárdenas in the early PRD (see chapters 4 and 5). Barrantes’s Limited Ideological Representativeness

In addition to lacking moral authority, Barrantes was a moderate and therefore did not ideologically represent the predominantly radical IU. This became a significant structural problem in the late 1980s, when (as described above) the IU’s internal balance of power shifted further in the radicals’ favor and the ideological gulf between IU moderates and radicals widened. Barrantes had a tense relationship with many IU radicals from the IU’s inception, but this relationship negatively escalated and became quite hostile during the second half of the 1980s. The fundamental reason was simple: Barrantes took moderate, not radical, positions on the central questions that polarized the coalition. Tactically, Barrantes was institutionalist and electorally oriented, not revolutionary. Further, his “leadership style favored vertical ties between voters and the candidate over horizontal linkages between popular sectors” and “gave priority to the individual voter over collective action.” For radicals, this constituted “a direct challenge” to the “project of developing new organs of popular power at the grass roots.”84 As the IU shifted to the left in 1986 and 1987, and later, as Peru plunged into crisis, the ideological gulf between Barrantes and IU radicals widened. In the mid-1980s, radicals had begun to object to the close relationship between Barrantes (then mayor of Lima) and the Peruvian president Alán García of APRA (1985–1990). Radicals argued that García was using Barrantes to marginalize IU radicals and thus tame and divide the IU.85 In 1986 and 1987, this perception, which became widespread among IU radicals, fueled two pivotal conflicts between Barrantes and the IU base. First, after Barrantes’s loss to Jorge del Castillo (APRA) in the Lima mayoral race of November 1986, Barrantes

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presided over a postelection rally attended by thousands of IU activists who believed that fraud had occurred. At the beginning of the rally, the crowd began to chant, “Fraud,” and after Barrantes did not immediately address the issue, he was booed for several minutes. The booing began in the PUM and UNIR contingents before spreading across the plaza. Second, months later, at the PCP’s Ninth Congress in late May 1987, Barrantes again was booed, especially by the PCP Youth, and again, those booing were critical of Barrantes for not denouncing fraud in the 1986 mayoral election, and for meeting with García the day before the congress to discuss the fraud, thereafter urging the left to be serious, responsible, and mature.86 Shortly after the PCP’s Ninth Congress, Barrantes resigned as IU president. Later in the decade, as Peru plunged into security and economic crisis, Barrantes argued that the IU should commit to democracy, work to preserve Peru’s democratic regime by collaborating with APRA and the army, and prioritize presidential victory in 1990.87 Barrantes’s arguments, echoed by coalition moderates, had virtually no influence on radicals. Throughout 1989, the IU’s leading radical party, the PUM, refused to repudiate armed struggle categorically.88 According to his own account, Barrantes realized after the 1985 presidential election that the IU’s moderate and radical tendencies did not have a common program. He observed, correctly, that while during the first half of the 1980s radicals had largely shelved the idea of taking power by violence, the idea resurged around the midpoint of the decade, as Peru’s security crisis deepened. According to Barrantes, this realization weighed heavily in his decision not to campaign seriously for reelection as Lima mayor,89 and to resign as IU president in mid-1987.90 Throughout the late 1980s, Barrantes and his allies made no secret of their animus toward IU radicals, repeatedly deriding their “vanguardist militarism,” dismissing their views as infantile and ultraleftist, and—after January 1989—demanding to no avail that the PUM categorically reject armed struggle, as the IU had voted to do in its session on political theses at its first and only national congress.91 Importantly, not only did Barrantes ideologically differ with IU radicals, he also differed with leading IU moderate players (e.g., the PCP and Henry Pease) in several key areas. He favored the exit of the IU’s radical parties and assigned little or negative weight to extraelectoral forms of mobilization and attempts to institutionalize the IU’s internal decision-making processes. In Barrantes’s view, these factors and pursuits either distracted from or directly impeded his goal of establishing a direct connection with the Peruvian voting public and leading the left to national electoral victory. By contrast, leading moderate players (e.g.,

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the PCP and Pease) valued and prioritized IU unity, nonelectoral forms of social mobilization, and the institutionalization of the IU’s internal political process.92 As we will see shortly, these ideological differences between Barrantes and leading moderates would end up mattering. Barrantes’s Limited Crossfactional Ties

Finally, Barrantes never had strong crossfactional ties, and the factional ties that he did have weakened over the course of the 1980s. As already discussed, the IU’s constituent parties required a neutral independent at the IU’s helm to maintain the coalition’s internal balance of power. Because Barrantes was an outsider, he did not enter the IU with strong preexisting relationships across factions. Moreover, as IU president, he did not act as a crossfactional broker or arbiter.93 He did serve as a “balancing factor” until his 1983 mayoral victory. Yet his relationship with the IU’s most radical leaders,94 which was tense and occasionally conflictual from the IU’s inception, completely deteriorated after he became mayor of Lima. By 1985 Barrantes openly lobbied for the expulsion of the PUM and UNIR, especially the former. After his loss in the November 1986 mayoral election, Barrantes opted for “marginalization from the practical affairs of the alliance.”95 He did not attend CDN meetings between December 1986 and April 1987 and only attended three (one for just a few minutes) between April 1987 and his resignation as IU president in June 1987.96 Barrantes’s lack of involvement in CDN meetings made it impossible for the IU to resolve internal disagreements, particularly Barrantes’s disagreements with Javier Diez Canseco of the PUM. The radicalization of the PCP’s youth wing, and the associated booing that Barrantes received at the PCP’s Ninth Congress, helped to precipitate Barrantes’s resignation in early June of 1987.97 In resigning as IU president, Barrantes abandoned the formal pretense of standing above faction or representing the entire coalition. He broadcast his resignation without prior consultation, addressing IU supporters and stating that some IU leaders did not deserve an explanation. In his speech, he criticized unspecified “pro–Shining Path” elements within the IU. Before this period (late 1986 to mid-1987), Barrantes enjoyed the support of the PCP, the organizational anchor of the IU’s moderate forces. But as the PCP shifted to the left, and as Barrantes distanced himself from the IU and its partisan bases (especially the more radical youth wings of the PUM, UNIR, and PCP), the PCP adopted a different posture toward Barrantes. Whereas the PCP initially belonged firmly in the pro-Barrantes camp, beginning in 1986–1987 the PCP was more internally divided vis-à-vis Barrantes and therefore more neutral vis-à-vis the

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Barrantes-radical cleavage within the IU. Barrantes’s resignation as IU president was a major turning point; after he resigned, the PCP publicly stated that it no longer insisted on Barrantes’s presence in the CDN, and IU moderates divided into pro-Barrantes (e.g., the PSR and PCR) and neutral (e.g., PCP) forces. As the IU polarized, the role of crossfactional broker was assumed by the neutral98 or “independent”99 bloc of IU moderates, consisting of the PCP, APS, and left Christian independents (e.g., Pease and Ames).100 This bloc “for a long period fulfilled the role of counterweight between the two extremes.”101 The leaders of the neutral bloc firmly opposed any divisions or expulsions within the IU, believing that it was critical to keep both Barrantes and the radical parties.102 During the second half of the 1980s, the neutral bloc sought to fuse the radical and moderate sectors of the IU into a single party. Toward the end of the 1980s, neutral bloc leaders such as Henry Pease and Jorge del Prado regularly met with Barrantes, on the one hand, and with radical leaders, on the other, in an attempt to maintain coalition unity.103 The PCP, in particular, attempted to play an integrative role in the late 1980s, insisting on the inclusion of all the parties, including the PUM,104 and also seeking to retain Barrantes.105 Both pro-Barrantes forces and IU radicals sought to forge an alliance with the PCP to gain the upper hand within the coalition.106 But the PCP, until the end, “wanted it all.” It consistently supported Barrantes as the IU leader and top candidate while also supporting the unity of the radical and moderate parties. This was a hard balance to strike, given that during the second half of the 1980s, Barrantes and his allies (e.g., the PSR and PCR) did not support the unity of the moderate and radical parties. The PCP was very flexible with Barrantes, giving him a lot of leeway and supporting him “at almost any cost” while continuing to take clear positions against the expulsion of the radical parties and “in defense of the institutionalization of IU.”107 In short, by the late 1980s, Barrantes did not lead the IU. He led one of its factions: a small bloc of intransigent IU moderates—sometimes called the “reformist bloc”108—which advocated the expulsion of the PUM and UNIR.109 Far from having crossfactional ties, Barrantes headed one of the two IU factions between which a third one—the neutral bloc—mediated. Several factors help to account for the weakness of Barrantes’s crossfactional ties. These include his weak preexisting crossfactional ties; the high degree of polarization within the IU, which made it difficult for a moderate like Barrantes to find common ground with coalition radicals;

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TABLE 3.2 EXTERNAL APPEAL, INTERNAL DOMINANCE? (THE IU’S ALFONSO BARRANTES)

high

The IU’s lead candidate throughout the 1980s; won the Lima mayoralty in 1983 and narrowly lost his 1986 reelection bid; placed second in the 1985 presidential election

medium

By the late 1980s, headed one of two bitterly opposed factions between which relations had broken down and a third faction (the “neutral bloc”) mediated

Moral authority

low

Largely unknown on the left prior to the IU’s founding; had not played a prominent leadership role in left activities of the 1960s–1970s; never led an IU party

Ideological representativeness

medium

A moderate in a predominantly radical coalition throughout the IU’s existence

Internal dominance?

no

Could not force the IU to moderate in the second half of the 1980s; could not impose himself as the 1990 IU presidential nominee

External appeal

Crossfactional ties

Barrantes’s lack of moral authority; and, according to numerous participants and commentators, Barrantes’s own personal shortcomings.110 In sum, Barrantes was not an internally dominant figure. In the clever formulation of a moderate cadre: “Barrantes was accepted as a candidate but contested as a leader.”111 Evidence of Barrantes’s internal weakness dates back to the early 1980s. On numerous occasions, Barrantes threatened to resign, or temporarily did resign, for a variety of reasons: public critiques by leaders within the IU; intractable disagreements with these leaders; demands from these leaders that he regarded as illegitimate or excessive; attempts by rivals to contest his power by promoting alternative candidates; boycotts of his candidacy by radical parties and leaders; and the experience of being booed by activists at IU rallies and party congresses.112 Thus, although Barrantes’s resignation as IU president and defection from the IU (about which more below) may seem like surprising and drastic actions on first glance, when viewed in context, they merely mark the end of a long process of near-resignations and near-defections.

BARRANTES’S FATAL DEFECTION By the late 1980s, Barrantes’s status in the IU had become a central, and highly divisive, topic of debate within the coalition. The final, fateful challenge to Barrantes’s leadership came in 1988 and early 1989, when the IU was highly polarized internally, and when Barrantes was both isolated and vulnerable—isolated because he had resigned the IU presidency and lost the steadfast support of the PCP, and vulnerable because

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he did not hold office and had lost his last two elections (1985 presidential and 1986 Lima mayoral). Over the previous few years, a group of IU independents, led by Henry Pease and Rolando Ames, had undertaken an initiative to (1) make the IU a party, not a coalition; (2) offer IU membership to nonpartisan IU supporters; and (3) internally democratize the IU. Under the system proposed by Pease and Ames, IU members would elect the CDN; their slogan was, “One member, one vote.” These measures would have shifted the balance of power from the IU’s largest constituent parties (e.g., the PUM, UNIR, and PCP) to Barrantes. For most of the 1980s, the IU, by not registering and enfranchising nonpartisans, systematically underrepresented Barrantes’s active, committed supporters (relative to constituent party members) in the CDN.113 The faction that supported internal democratization grew rapidly. In 1986 or 1987, the IU established a commission charged with organizing the coalition’s first national congress. The IU named Henry Pease the commission’s coordinator and put Rolando Ames in charge of the congress’s commission on political theses.114 Before the congress, Pease proposed a national membership drive. The IU approved the proposal and put Pease in charge of it. As noted earlier, the IU registered between 130,000 and 150,000 members in the lead-up to the congress, and the vast majority of these members did not belong to IU constituent parties. Yet, efforts to make the IU a party and to democratize the IU did not succeed. To make the IU a party and institute internal democracy, 75 percent of CDN members would have had to grant their approval. Yet, the only players in the IU that consistently, unambiguously supported its conversion into a party and its adoption of internal democracy were the pro-Barrantes parties (e.g., the PSR and PCR) and the nonpartisan independents (e.g., Pease and Ames). Consequently, although the IU did carry out a membership drive, and although it did hold a congress in January 1989, a shifting set of IU constituent parties, throughout the second half of the 1980s, repeatedly blocked or diluted efforts to convert the IU into a party and democratize it.115 This continued through 1989, both at the IU congress (about which more below) and in the lead-up to the 1989 municipal elections.116 At the IU’s first and only congress in January 1989, radicals retained control of the CDN, and debate centered on whether Barrantes should receive the 1990 presidential nomination.117 Hypothetically, a CDN elected by active IU supporters, both partisan and nonpartisan, likely would have come under the control of IU moderates and ensured that Barrantes received the IU’s 1990 presidential nomination. Instead, the CDN, controlled by radicals who preferred not to nominate Barrantes,

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decided that a closed primary election would determine the nominee. Radicals stated their intention to field a candidate who would compete against Barrantes. Although members of the neutral bloc (e.g., the PCP and Pease) supported Barrantes’s nomination, they were unwilling to commit to splitting from the radical parties if Barrantes did not receive the nomination. Why? In their view, if they split from the radical parties, they would kill the IU by dividing the three main parties (the PUM, UNIR, and PCP) from each other, and thus would annul the decade-long effort to unite the left and institutionalize a left party. Further, if Barrantes won the presidency, he would not be able to govern as effectively because he would lack the support of the radical parties and their many civil society partners. Also, the radical parties, if cast out of the IU and made electorally irrelevant, would be less capable of steering revolutionary youth away from the Shining Path. It was important to IU radicals to remain united with the members of the neutral bloc, especially the PCP. Thus, had the neutral bloc threatened to split from the radical parties if Barrantes did not receive the nomination, Barrantes might have had enough leverage to persuade IU radicals to give him the nomination without a primary election.118 As it happened, instead of threatening to defect with Barrantes, the PCP leader Jorge del Prado and left Christians encouraged Barrantes—energetically and repeatedly—to submit to the closed primary election that the CDN, selected at the First Congress in January 1989, had instituted. Unable to impose his candidacy undemocratically, Barrantes faced a dilemma: he could run in a closed primary election and risk being defeated by a radical candidate, or he could defect from the IU with a small club of moderate allies and run in the first round of the presidential election without the IU’s label and machines behind him. Barrantes believed, with reason, that he might lose a closed primary election, as the parties of the radical bloc had an internal mobilizational advantage over moderates.119 He evidently calculated that his best chance of winning Peru’s presidency was to contest the first round on a new, non-IU ticket. If he reached the second round (a seemingly plausible prospect in late 1989), a center-left coalition that included the core of the IU would be likely to coalesce around him. By this rationale, Barrantes defected from the IU. Barrantes’s defection killed the IU. When Barrantes defected instead of submitting to the closed primary election, the neutral bloc remained in the IU and tried, unsuccessfully, to salvage it without Barrantes. Through informal elite negotiation, IU party leaders selected Henry Pease as the coalition’s presidential candidate. Pease won just 8 percent

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of the 1990 presidential vote, while Barrantes, newly divorced from the IU and competing against its label and machines, garnered a mere 5 percent. Shortly after, Barrantes retired from politics, and the IU, mortally wounded, continued to splinter and collapsed. One might argue that the 1990 presidential election results, in which the IU outperformed Barrantes, call into question Barrantes’s electoral indispensability. This argument is unpersuasive. If any IU leader other than Barrantes had defected with a small elite group and run independently in 1990, as Barrantes did, that person likely would have received less than 1 percent of the vote. (The radical bloc leader Javier Diez Canseco actually did run on his own in 2006 and received 0.5 percent of the vote.) By the mid- to late 1980s, the IU had developed a following among a segment of committed left voters, while Barrantes had developed a following among a segment of lower-income voters who would not otherwise vote for the IU. The combination of the IU and Barrantes had been potent, attracting a large number of additional voters who were neither hard-core IU partisans nor hard-core Barrantistas, but who did support an alliance between the partisan left and the popular Barrantes. The IU with Barrantes, in other words, was greater than the sum of its parts. Thus, when the IU and Barrantes split, both suffered electorally. “By running two slates with similar ideological profiles, the Left confused the electorate and made voting for either faction tantamount to wasting a vote.”120 A large segment of voters fled to nonleft tickets, especially that of Alberto Fujimori. The IU retained the parties’ organized constituencies and the IU brand (i.e., whatever remained of the image of a united left). Barrantes retained the hard-core Barrantista vote. The fact that the former (the IU parties’ organized constituencies plus the IU brand) defeated the latter (Barrantes’s personal brand) is notable but does not suggest that Barrantes’s coattails were unnecessary for the IU’s national rise. Barrantes may have needed the IU, but the IU clearly needed Barrantes as well. In short, the 1990 presidential election results are consistent with the view that Barrantes had unrivaled external appeal within the IU, and that his coattails decisively contributed to the coalition’s national rise. In sum, the IU fatally split because it electorally depended on a figure who could not impose his own candidacy or run on the program he preferred—a figure, in other words, who did not dominate the IU’s internal affairs. Unlike the PT and PRD, the IU had an electorally indispensable but internally nondominant leader.121 This fact proved fatal for the coalition. In closing, it is worth noting that during interviews with the author, one IU scholar and four IU members belonging to different blocs, all

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familiar with Lula and Brazil’s PT, cited leadership as a key variable—or the key variable—distinguishing the IU from the PT.122 Several of these statements were unprompted. Take, for example, the perspective of Henry Pease. Pease had personal connections to Lula and the PT, and in an interview with the author, he summarized that Lula, unlike Barrantes, was a “unifier.” He stated that there was a “huge distance” between the two leaders, and that he was “absolutely sure” that the biggest difference between the IU and the PT was the leader. If Barrantes had been like Lula, Pease stated, he would have negotiated with the parties, shown his face at meetings, and fully participated in the IU’s national congress in 1989 instead of leaving midway through. Whereas Lula built and organized the PT, Barrantes missed a golden opportunity to build the IU. IU independents, Pease stated, were going to give Barrantes power.123 Or, take the perspective of the leading radical Javier Diez Canseco. In an interview with the author, Diez Canseco identified leadership as a major factor distinguishing the IU and PT. Barrantes was more of a balancing factor, he stated. Barrantes was indisputably the Peruvian left’s most charismatic leader, supported by a “huge political charisma.” In this respect, Barrantes was similar to Lula, who was also charismatic. But Lula was not a balancing factor between PT factions. Lula had his own initiative and proposals. Lula was more linked to action and decision making, unlike Barrantes, who did not make decisions easily. Lula was involved with social mobilization, unlike Barrantes. Thus, in contrast to Barrantes, Lula had a “ton of weight in the interior of the party.”124 Some scholars have suggested that the IU collapsed because, in contrast to parties like Brazil’s PT and the Chilean Socialists, it did not “adapt,” or moderate. Is this argument—that the IU collapsed because of its radicalism—true? I would argue not, for three reasons. First, IU radicals did not force Barrantes to defect. They accepted that he could participate in the internal primary election, and they agreed, in the event of a Barrantes victory, to participate in the 1990 presidential election as part of the IU.125 Thus, it was far from obvious in the late 1980s that Barrantes would defect.126 But Barrantes did choose to defect, and he did so against the wishes of most IU moderates, who remained in the IU (i.e., in alliance with the radicals). Moreover, in informal negotiations following Barrantes’s defection, the radicals assented to the nomination of a moderate (Henry Pease) rather than a radical as the IU’s 1990 presidential candidate. Second, it was not a function of the IU’s radicalism or failure to adapt that it happened to have an electorally indispensable, internally contested leader. A leader with external appeal and internal dominance could have emerged on the Peruvian left in the 1980s. Several IU elites had

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strong ties across the radical and moderate blocs, even in the late 1980s (e.g., Henry Pease, Rolando Ames, and Jorge Del Prado). Other elites within the IU’s radical bloc had moral authority and support among the IU’s base (e.g., Javier Diez Canseco and Hugo Blanco). To imagine an externally appealing, internally dominant IU leader, we need only conceive a hypothetical scenario in which one of these leaders (e.g., a moderate with crossfactional ties like Pease, or a radical with internal moral authority like Diez Canseco) also happened to have Barrantes’s popular appeal. To call such a scenario structurally implausible due to the IU’s radicalism seems an overstatement. Indeed, it is noteworthy that the leader of Brazil’s PT, Lula da Silva, had great clout with PT radicals despite being a moderate (see chapter 4), and that the leader of Mexico’s PRD, Cuauthémoc Cárdenas, was his party’s most electable figure despite consistently aligning himself with the PRD’s radical faction (see chapter 5). These facts suggest that, in a possible world, an IU radical could have been externally popular, or an IU moderate—perhaps one with greater moral authority and stronger crossfactional ties than Barrantes—could have held sway over IU radicals. It was misfortune, not structural necessity, that prevented such a leader from emerging on the Peruvian left in the 1980s. Third, the IU’s radicalism did not make it electorally marginal. On the contrary, if the IU had not split, it would have remained a major national electoral player. In early to mid-1989, the IU held a notably advantageous electoral position. In contrast to FREPASO, the IU had an undiluted brand. As we saw in chapter 2, toward the end of its formative decade, FREPASO diluted its brand by shifting rightward on economic policy and allying with the centrist UCR. By contrast, the IU, throughout the 1980s, remained consistently anti-neoliberal and never allied with a major party to its right. At least in this way, the IU’s radicalism was electorally beneficial, not harmful.127 Moreover, because the IU was in the opposition at the end of the 1980s, the profound crisis that gripped Peru during this time created a golden electoral opportunity for the IU. At the time of Barrantes’s exit, Peru’s economy was in recession and a hyperinflationary spiral, and the brutal Maoist Shining Path insurgency was capitalizing on the economic crisis by making rapid territorial advances. Although these conditions worsened voter perceptions of the party establishment (of which the IU, arguably, was by then part), and of the partisan left specifically (due to the brutality of the Maoist Shining Path), on balance they helped the IU by discrediting APRA, the governing party and the IU’s main rival. Polls in 1988 and early 1989 forecast that the IU would place first or second (behind the outsider candidate Mario Vargas Llosa) in the first round of the 1990

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presidential election.128 Immediately prior to Barrantes’s defection, then, the IU had an opportunity to become Peru’s most electorally successful partisan force. Moreover, the IU performed remarkably well after Barrantes’s defection. In the 1990 congressional election, although 5 percent of voters supported Barrantes, and although an unknowable and almost certainly larger number of former and prospective IU supporters flocked to nonleft alternatives—especially Alberto Fujimori and his Change 90 (C-90)129—the IU still garnered 10 percent of the vote. In short, if the IU had not split, it would have remained a national electoral player, regardless of whether Barrantes had remained at the top of the ticket. Alternatively, one might argue, in opposition to my thesis, that the IU fatally split because it had particularly extreme moderate/radical divisions. Kenneth Roberts, for example, gestures toward this argument. Despite a shared socialist orientation, the IU’s constituent parties were sectarian and ideologically divergent, with social democratic elements and unreformed, revolutionary Marxist-Leninist ones. Peru’s profound crisis of the late 1980s—hyperinflation, recession, insurgent violence, and near state collapse—polarized the IU’s radical and moderate forces. Roberts suggests that given this degree of internal ideological polarization, the IU was bound to split.130 But this argument, too, is unpersuasive. As noted, and as Roberts himself acknowledges, IU moderates did not split from IU radicals; only a small subset of IU moderates—Barrantes and a club of allies—chose defection over continued collaboration in 1989. The IU’s only major moderate party (the PCP) and most of its moderate leaders remained in the coalition (i.e., in alliance with the radical bloc). They did so despite the fact that, on the major programmatic and tactical questions dividing the IU in the late 1980s, they sided with Barrantes and opposed the radicals. This fact is critical because it demonstrates that, to explain the IU’s fatal schism, the variables of internal polarization and ideological division are inadequate. I have argued that the IU’s electorally indispensable figure, Alfonso Barrantes, was not internally dominant, and that the IU fatally split as a result. Chapters 4 and 5, on Brazil’s PT and Mexico’s PRD, reinforce this argument. In contrast to Barrantes, the early PRD leader Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas had a name and pedigree that carried immense weight on the Mexican left, and the early PT leader Lula da Silva led his party’s founding struggles and had strong preexisting ties to the PT’s main factions. Due to these and other factors (e.g., high ideological representativeness), Lula and Cárdenas, like FREPASO’s Chacho Álvarez, dominated their parties’ internal affairs. Lula and Cárdenas repeatedly

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won presidential nominations with ease, even under challenging circumstances. Lula tamed the PT radicals. Cárdenas functioned as the informal decider and arbiter of the PRD. Lula and Cárdenas were frequently described as their parties’ “moral” leaders. As a consequence of these leadership differences, I will argue, the early PT and PRD avoided fatal schisms. The PT and PRD also built strong organizations that made them durable. In this respect, they contrast with FREPASO, not with the IU. The PT and PRD formed under liberalizing and competitive authoritarian rule, respectively, and constructed large territorial organizations composed of committed activists. As a result, both survived early electoral crises. Let us turn, then, to the PT (chapter 4) and the PRD (chapter 5).

CHAPTER 4

THE SURVIVAL OF BRAZIL’S WORKERS’ PARTY

ORGANIZATION. Caption in large, bold capital letters under Lula headshot (PT campaign sticker, 1982) The PT had [in Lula] a charismatic internal leader. Lincoln Secco (PT member and historian)

Of the four parties featured in this book, Brazil’s Workers’ Party (PT) is the most successful. It has consistently contended for national power since the late 1980s. To date, its candidates have held over a dozen governorships and over two thousand mayoralties, including São Paulo’s. It has received at least 10 percent of the vote in every congressional election since 1990. In the 2000s and 2010s, it established itself as Brazil’s leading party, winning the presidency four consecutive times (2002, 2006, 2010, and 2014). Given Brazil’s growing presence on the global stage, the PT is not just the most important new party in Latin America; it is one of the most important in the world. Dozens of scholars have studied the PT in depth. The bulk of existing literature examines the PT’s ideological and internal transformations over the decades1 or particular PT policies such as participatory budgeting2 and the internationally well-known Bolsa Família (Family Grant) conditional cash transfer program.3 This chapter addresses a more basic, and less commonly asked, question: Why did the PT survive and become institutionalized in the first place?

CASE SUMMARY I argue that the PT took root because of early adversity, not despite it. Founded in 1980, the PT originated in mass struggle against Brazil’s 109

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liberalizing military regime. It sought electoral success but lacked access to finance and state resources. Not until 1988, when the PT member Luiza Erundina won the São Paulo mayoral election, did it win its first major executive election. The early PT also lacked access to media. Under military rule and early posttransition civilian rule, the PT operated in a closed and largely hostile mass media environment dominated by the Globo network. PT leaders thus had electoral incentives to invest in territorial organization; only by developing a large, volunteer organization could they appeal to Brazil’s electorate. They also had extraelectoral incentives, as mobilizational capacity enabled them to exert pressure on late military and early posttransition governments. Mobilizing structures in civil society provided the means for PT organization building. The PT’s founders belonged to and drew activists from three groups that led Brazil’s democratizing struggle at the grassroots level: the organized Marxist left, the grassroots Catholic left, and, above all, the autonomous new union movement. Early PT activists were driven by a higher cause that went beyond opposition to military rule. Leaders branded the PT, and the base viewed it, as a novelty in Brazilian history: the first authentically popular, bottom-up political force in a polity historically dominated by elites. It was this popular, bottom-up quality, embodied by Lula da Silva and other new unionist leaders, that inspired hundreds of thousands of Brazilians to contribute to the PT. The PT built the strongest party organization in Brazil, which enabled it to survive a major initial setback in the 1982 congressional and subnational elections. By the late 1980s, the PT had developed Brazil’s strongest left-wing partisan brand and become institutionalized as a national contender. The PT leader Lula da Silva combined singular external appeal with internal dominance. Due to his leadership in the mass movement against Brazil’s military dictatorship, he was a national figure when the PT formed, and the early PT electorally depended on his coattails. He also had moral authority within the PT due to his humble origins, working-class status, and leadership role in the party’s founding struggles. He came into the PT with strong crossfactional ties and strengthened those ties as party leader. In ideological/programmatic terms, he represented the predominantly moderate PT, drawn primarily from his own new union movement. Because he combined external appeal and internal dominance, he generated cohesion in a party characterized by frequent internal conflict between moderates and radicals. He received the PT’s presidential nomination four times, with virtually no dissent or internal contestation. In an effort to broaden the party’s electoral appeal, he persuaded its radical tendencies to moderate. The PT did not suffer a major schism in the 1980s or 1990s.

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The case of the PT thus illustrates that origins in adversity lead to the construction of strong party organizations, equipping new parties to survive electoral crisis; and that externally appealing, internally dominant leaders help to generate cohesion in new partisan contenders.

ADVERSITY AND ORGANIZATION BUILDING The PT emerged from Brazil’s “new unionism” and thus is a rare example of a labor-based new left contender in Latin America. Brazil underwent considerable industrial development in the 1960s and 1970s, with the number of unionized workers growing from 1.5 million in 1960 to over 10 million in 1978.4 Because the late Médici (1969–1974) and Geisel (1974–1979) military governments rolled back some of the more draconian labor policies of their predecessors, Brazilian unions, even the more militant ones, initially remained on the sidelines of the movement to end military rule. But in late 1977, a World Bank study revealed that the Médici government had doctored inflation figures in 1973, dramatically underreporting rising costs to keep workers’ indexed wages low in real terms. The revelation led to mass labor mobilization among a set of autonomous unions in the industrial belt of Greater São Paulo, known as the ABC (or ABCD) region.5 Since the early 1970s, these unions had explicitly rejected Brazil’s long-standing corporatist system of state/labor relations. The São Bernardo Metalworkers’ Union, headed by Lula da Silva (union secretary since 1972), was at the center of the new autonomous labor movement, which became known as the new unionism.6 The new unionism rapidly grew in size. By 1978, it included nearly 3 million workers, roughly a quarter of Brazil’s industrial working class.7 In the late 1970s, Brazil’s Catholic left became heavily involved in the autonomous labor struggle.8 From the early 1960s to the mid-1970s, tens of thousands of Catholic grassroots groups (CEBs, or “ecclesial base communities”) sprouted up in rural areas, middle-class urban neighborhoods, and slums (e.g., those encircling the city of São Paulo).9 By the mid-1970s, Brazil had approximately 40,000 CEBs.10 In the formulation of Frei Betto,11 CEB members tended to share working-class backgrounds and core values (e.g., grassroots empowerment and opposition to inequality) with the new unionism, and CEBs thus naturally “complemented” the movement.12 Sectors within Brazil’s Marxist left also became involved in the autonomous labor struggle. Although there was tension between the new unionism and Brazil’s largest Marxist parties (PCB, PCdoB, MR-8),13 many defectors from these parties, as well as several smaller Marxist groups, joined and contributed to the militant labor movement.

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In the second half of the 1970s, social and political opposition to Brazil’s military regime broadened and coalesced into a national movement.14 The balance of power between regime and opposition only shifted decisively, however, with the rise of the new unionism. As the new unionism took off, it “soon established itself at the forefront of the democratic opposition forces”15 and widened its objectives from labor reform to democratization and socialism. As the democratic opposition movement reached peak strength, Brazil’s controlled transition to democracy accelerated. In late 1979, amid social unrest and an economic slowdown, President Figueiredo (1979–1985) scheduled direct state and local elections for 1982, to be held concurrently with federal legislative elections. In 1982 the government legalized the creation of new parties for the first time since 1965. By 1978, a view had taken hold within the new unions that autonomous workers needed political representation. Thus, in January 1979 new unions approved the creation of the PT, and in 1980 the PT became an official party. THE EARLY PT’S LOW ACCESS TO STATE RESOURCES

During its first decade of existence, the PT had virtually no access to state resources or private finance. On creation, the PT—due to its undeveloped partisan brand, its radical image, and the presence of the established center-left party, the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB), on its right flank—attracted few left-wing political elites. Brazil’s three largest Marxist parties—the aforementioned PCB, PCdoB, and MR-8— immediately joined the more electorally prominent MDB. In total, only ten elected officeholders, all progressive MDB defectors, joined the PT in 1979–1980. All ten held legislative posts at the federal or state level: one in the senate, four in the lower house of congress, and six in the São Paulo state assembly.16 Although the PT’s MDB defectors provided valuable office space, telecommunications equipment, and administrative staff,17 these organizational resources represented a negligible fraction of what PT leaders would need to secure registry, much less to build a national party. In a country with over twenty states and over four thousand municipalities, the PT did not hold a single executive post in 1979–1980. The PT continued with minimal state resources for nearly a decade. Before 1988, the PT elected just three mayors, two in small cities in 1982 (Diadêma, São Paulo, and Santa Quitéria do Maranhão, Maranhão, in 1982) and one in the larger Fortaleza, Ceará, in 1985. Only in 1988 did the PT win a major subnational executive election, the mayoralty of São Paulo. In the same year, the PT won thirty additional mayoral elections—two in state capitals (Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul,

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and Vitória, Espírito Santo)—and crossed the 10 percent threshold in congressional seat share. In 1992 the PT won two small governorships, in the Federal District of Brasília and the state of Espírito Santo. The PT did not win the presidency or a major governorship (i.e., in São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Bahia, or Rio de Janeiro) before 2000. In short, in a country with a federal government, more than twenty state governments, and over four thousand municipal governments, the PT did not hold a single executive post on creation and did not win its first significant executive positions (the mayoralty of São Paulo and some small governorships) until roughly a decade after its founding. The early PT was also weakly financed. It depended for revenue on several sources: dues from ordinary members;18 dues from PT public officeholders; the federal party fund, with each party’s allotment determined by its percentage of congressional seats; and external donations. From the early 1980s to the mid-1990s, most party funding came from PT officeholders’ dues;19 in March 1982, the PT mandated that PT public officeholders contribute an extraordinarily high 30 percent of their salaries to the party, roughly ten times the percentage given, on average, by their counterparts in other Brazilian parties. 20 During this time, the remainder of PT financing came mainly from the federal party fund, despite the PT’s modest presence in the national legislature. 21 The early PT avoided ties to business and the economic elite, calling itself a “party without sponsors.” Corporate contributions remained “taboo” until the mid-1990s and only became an explicit national objective in the aughts. 22 Federal law prohibited donations from unions, which deprived the PT of a revenue source available to many classic European labor-based parties (e.g., Britain’s Labour Party or Sweden’s Social Democrats). 23 The PT thus experienced great penury until the late 1980s and remained financially weak until the second half of the 1990s. Annual party revenue did not surpass US$1 million until the 1990s.24 It is unsurprising, then, that countless PT fliers from the 1980s exhorted activists and supporters to make small donations in addition to contributing campaign labor. (For a sample of relevant quotations from early PT fliers, see Appendix 3.) In summary, the early PT operated under serious resource constraints. Early party leaders could not offer offer activists state patronage or financial rewards; they could only offer a limited number of paid party and union jobs. Given Brazil’s size, these inducements were grossly insufficient to grease the wheels of a national party machine. Selective incentives played almost no role in the PT’s development until the late 1980s, and only a marginal role until the second half of the 1990s.

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THE EARLY PT’S LOW ACCESS TO MEDIA

The early PT also lacked access to mass media. Television became consolidated as a mass medium in Brazil in the 1970s during the military dictatorship (1964–1985).25 By the late 1970s, a large majority of Brazilians learned about politics from television. Television ownership increased during the 1980s, such that by around 1990, almost 90 percent of Brazilians obtained political information primarily or exclusively from television, and over three-quarters of Brazilian households owned a television.26 In general, Brazilians placed more trust in television than in their political institutions. 27 When the PT formed (1980), Brazil’s military regime exercised substantial control over media. For decades, Brazilian presidents had enjoyed the exclusive right to distribute broadcasting licenses and concessions and had systematically granted these licenses and concessions to progovernment figures. 28 During the military dictatorship, for example, presidents made a standard practice of awarding concessions to local and regional bosses on the basis of political loyalty, “creating the new phenomenon of electronic clientelism.”29 Following the transition to civilian rule, the politicized distribution of television and radio licenses increased. The practice “reached a new level” under President Sarney (1985–1990), 30 and “political favoritism” remained “the only criterion” for awarding broadcasting concessions through the abbreviated tenure of Sarney’s successor, Fernando Collor (1990–1992).31 As of the early 1990s, two-thirds of local television licenses in Brazil fell under the direct or indirect control of politicians who had received presidential concessions. 32 As Sarney and Collor were right-of-center politicians, and as Sarney had been a major ally of the military regime until shortly before the transition to civilian rule, there was little turnover among subnational media owners after the transition. Just as the traditional political bosses of the military era retained their rural clientelistic voting blocs, 33 the electronic bosses of the military era kept their subnational media empires.34 In 1993 Armando Rollemberg, president of Brazil’s Journalists’ Union, summarized: “Today, all the political groups that benefited from the dictatorship and the Sarney government are the owners of the television and radio in our country. This is bad because these groups no longer represent majority public opinion. The country changed. . . . [It] rejected the military dictatorship. But the military’s supporters have control of the media in our country.”35 The upshot was that, throughout the PT’s formative decade and beyond, Brazil’s mass media establishment was “profoundly biased toward

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candidates of the [r]ight.”36 At the center of this mass media establishment lay the shrewdly profit-seeking Globo conglomerate. 37 By the time the PT formed, Globo (est. 1962) was the only Brazilian media company that held top positions across hard news, television, radio, and print media.38 Under the military dictatorship, local and regional media barons made heavy use of Globo programming; in most Brazilian states, the leading television channel featured news content from TV Globo, 39 and the leading newspaper obtained hard news from the Globo News Agency. As of the early 1970s, TV Globo’s flagship, prime-time news program, Jornal Nacional (est. 1969), had the highest nightly news ratings in Brazil by a wide margin. TV Globo’s news monopoly strengthened in the second half of the 1970s,40 such that by 1980, the year of the PT’s formation, 75 percent of the Brazilian population was a “captive audience” of TV Globo’s programming, and 60 million viewers tuned in nightly to watch Jornal Nacional.41 As of 1982, TV Globo was the fourth largest television network in the world.42 TV Globo became even more dominant in the years after Brazil’s 1985 transition to civilian rule. Indeed, Globo and its chief executive officer (CEO) Roberto Marinho reached the “apogee” of their “political power” during the Sarney (1985–1990) and Collor (1990–1992) presidencies.43 In the 1989 presidential campaign, for example, TV Globo’s “share of the national television audience was consistently above 59 percent . . . and as high as 84 percent during prime time.”44 Congressman Paulo Ramos observed that for legislative candidates, appearances on TV Globo, which Roberto Marinho occasionally vetoed, often made the difference between electoral victory and defeat.45 As late as the early 2000s, TV Globo remained Brazil’s “dominant network” and Jornal Nacional “the main TV news bulletin in the country.”46 Throughout its early development, the PT faced systematic bias from TV Globo. CEO Roberto Marinho was a “first-hour revolutionary,” having openly supported the 1964 military coup when it was occurring.47 Brazil’s military regime nurtured TV Globo in its infancy and systematically gave the network preferential treatment.48 TV Globo reciprocated by providing coverage favorable to the regime. This “reciprocal relationship” reached its “maximum limit” during the last military presidency— that of Figueiredo (1979–1985)—which coincided with the PT’s first half decade of existence.49 During this period, TV Globo functioned as the regime’s unofficial mouthpiece and shaped its broadcasting to weaken and defame regime opponents.50 In some cases, TV Globo’s manipulation and censorship exceeded military dictates.51 Illustrative examples abound. When the new unionists led a general strike in 1980, TV Globo underreported the number of striking

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workers, misrepresented union demands, and aired statements from an industrial manager while cutting statements by Lula from the broadcast.52 In the PT’s first high-profile attempt at municipal governance (Diadêma, 1982–1986), the party “did not enjoy a sympathetic national press; there was extensive reporting of intraparty conflict and of the PT’s mistakes in Diadêma, and very little coverage of successful efforts.”53 When Brazilian oil workers carried out a major strike in the summer of 1983,54 TV Globo “minimized the action of the strikers” and “put emphasis on the critical positions toward the strike made by executives . . . and government representatives.”55 Perhaps most notoriously, Globo initially refrained from covering the movement for direct elections, then the largest mass movement in Brazilian history, which the PT led at the grassroots level.56 As a matter of policy, Globo systematically minimized the movement’s major protests and demonstrations in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, and Curitiba.57 TV Globo’s progovernment, anti-PT bias persisted after the transition to civilian rule, despite the passage of posttransition reforms that gave parties legal tools to respond to such practices. TV Globo supported Tancredo Neves and José Sarney in the 1985 elections and provided favorable coverage of pro-Neves rallies.58 It awarded rebroadcasting contracts to allies of Sarney and Collor.59 In the late 1980s and 1990s, TV Globo supported Fernando Collor60 and Fernando Henrique Cardoso against the PT. TV Globo’s flagship program, Jornal Nacional, bears emphasis here. From its inception in the late 1960s, Jornal Nacional consistently took a progovernment—and more specifically propresident—point of view.61 Its most well-known breach of neutrality occurred in 1989, when after the final presidential debate between Fernando Collor and the PT’s Lula da Silva, the show gave Collor 50 percent more airtime than Lula and edited debate excerpts to portray Collor as assertive and appealing, on the one hand, and Lula as defensive, gaffe-prone, radical, and dangerous, on the other.62 Disparate provision of airtime marked TV Globo’s coverage of the 1989 campaign more generally. “During June and July [1989],” for example, “Collor’s share of airtime was significantly more than that of his two major challengers combined,”63 and in the three weeks before the first round, Lula received the fifth most coverage despite receiving the second highest vote share.64 Obviously, these facts were not lost on early PT organizers. During the early posttransition years, PT leaders and activists constantly complained about systematic media bias and pressed for media reform. Many PT members who ran for legislative and Constituent Assembly seats in 1986 and 1988 (e.g., Plínio Arruda Sampaio and Geraldo Siqueira) listed

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the democratization of media as a central platform point. In an undated, Sarney-era PT newspaper interview, Jorge Baptista, a journalist and PT member, stated that “in a country of our dimensions, a political fact only becomes a political fact when it manages to pass through the mass media” (capitals in original). Baptista advocated for popular “control of concessions” so that concessions would cease to be “a privilege of the president . . . used to benefit the most well-connected, the closest to home.”65 A 1992 PT election campaign manual stated: “In Brazil, elections have long been characterized by radio and television abuses. In numerous elections, we have witnessed . . . instances of electoral propaganda in radio and television programs, which end up directly interfering in the electoral process. . . . We know that . . . the stations will highlight some candidates. What we cannot allow is for the stations, on the pretext of providing news, to make open propaganda for their favored candidates and against their opponents.”66 In a 1993 interview, Lula identified the hegemony of Globo as a central impediment to full democratization in Brazil: “Democracy presupposes freedom of communication, speech . . . There won’t be democracy without the democratization of mass media. . . . If you have one outlet that every day talks to 60 or 70 million people, and the control of the messages falls to a team taking ideological orders from one man [Roberto Marinho] . . . one is deprived of any possibility of democracy.”67 It should be noted that, before 1985, Brazilian parties did not have a media platform of their own. Federal law prohibited parties from purchasing television and radio time, and the Lei Falcão (in effect from 1976 to 1985) placed major restrictions on public radio and television advertisements, only permitting parties to display static party logos and candidate pictures and blurbs. In the years after the 1985 revocation of the Lei Falcão, access to public television remained highly unequal, and the PT still had to cram party and candidate advertisements into very short time slots. PT candidates often stressed these points.68 INCENTIVES FOR ORGANIZATION

In light of the above conditions, the PT, to have a chance at success, had to invest in organization. No new left party born in the early 1980s, no matter how media-savvy, could have acquired a national following through media appeals.69 In my archival and interview research, I unearthed countless campaign pamphlets, activist manuals, internal analyses, and member statements stressing the party’s penury and inhospitable media environment, as well as rival parties’ massive advantage in media, finance, and patronage. The same materials tended to emphasize that these disadvantages made organization and activism electorally vital for the PT:

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The activist base was the only thing I had in 1982. . . . There was no space at all in the small, medium, or large media. (Djalma Bom, 1982 congressional candidate)70 [Local PT candidate Claudio Barroso] depended exclusively on the sacrifice and effort of comrade groups. . . . He didn’t have resources. (PT bulletin, 1982)71 We’re reaching the finish line of this electoral campaign. More than ever, economic power counts. The PT’s campaign evidently depends on other powers: the energy and will of those who believe in this platform. (Campaign flier for Eduardo Suplicy, São Paulo gubernatorial candidate, 1986)72 In contrast to other parties, we rely exclusively on the strength of our activists. (Campaign letter to PT activists for Francisco “Chico” de Souza, São Paulo state deputy candidate, 1986)73 We’ll have to confront the economic power and electoral machines of the bosses, even the anti-democratic division of free propaganda time on TV (one of the many maneuvers against the PT). It will be with the collaboration and effort of the workers themselves that the PT carries its message to the population. (Campaign flier for Clara Ant, São Paulo state deputy candidate, 1986)74 We’re going to confront economic power with creativity and intense work. (PT campaign bulletin for Olinto Alves Leite and Wallace Dellamagna Sant’Ana, São Paulo federal and state deputy candidates, 1986)75 The PT had much less money than the other parties. . . . The activist base was everything. (PT founder Ricardo de Azevedo, in reference to early campaigns)76 I was . . . not very much of the mass media. My process for building a mandate was always very linked to the grassroots party and the grassroots union movement. (Paulo Rocha, in reference to his early congressional campaigns as PT candidate)77 Collor . . . and others have the machines of the bourgeoisie to sustain them: planes, million-dollar fundraisers, free time on TV, press coverage happen one after the other under our eyes. To contain this situation an unprecedented activist effort is necessary. (PT presidential campaign bulletin no. 9 of 14, 1989)78

The early PT also had extraelectoral incentives to invest in organization, especially during its first half-decade of existence. “The primary interest of most party leaders between 1983 and 1985,” for example, “was in social action.” 79 Party leaders devoted themselves, in particular, to expanding the new unionism through the creation of the Unified Workers’ Central (CUT), and to leading the mass movement for direct elections at the grassroots level. In early 1984, the party’s top priority was not

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upcoming elections; it was the mass movement for direct elections.80 Indeed, the party leadership was so focused on the extraelectoral sphere during the 1983–1985 period that in mid-1985, several leaders openly worried that the party would abandon its institutional objectives, focus exclusively on social action, and not last another year.81 THE EARLY PT’S ACCESS TO MOBILIZING STRUCTURES

The PT built a strong organization by drawing from three mobilizing structures in civil society: the new unionism, the Catholic left, and the Marxist left.82 The new unionism led the PT’s founding and provided it with more leaders and members than any other feeder organization.83 New unionists became PT leaders and members, and their offices and homes became PT offices and meeting places. Over the course of the 1980s, the new unionism expanded and broadened to new occupational sectors, driving concomitant growth within the PT organization.84 The new unionism centrally represented the party, too; in December 1988, after the election of the third consecutive trade unionist to the party presidency, Lula stated that it would distort the PT’s nature not to have a union member in that position.85 The Catholic left played a vital role in the organizational development of the PT. Catholic leftists, particularly young priests and CEB members, overwhelmingly joined or supported the early PT.86 Many CEB members created PT nuclei, and some CEBs simply became PT nuclei.87 Tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of CEB members became PT members.88 Because of the Catholic Church’s extensive geographical reach, CEBs significantly expanded the PT’s early territorial organization, especially in rural and peripheral urban areas.89 Brazil’s Marxist left had a complicated and in some ways competitive relationship with the early PT.90 When the PT formed, Brazil’s three largest Marxist parties (the PCB, PCdoB, and MR-8) were gradualist and institutionalist.91 All three thus joined the MDB—and subsequently the PMDB (est. 1981)—instead of the PT, as the MDB had more national clout. Yet many PCB, PCdoB, and MR-8 members defected to join the PT during the late 1970s and early 1980s (e.g., José Genoino, Paulo Fonteles, Manoel de Conceição, and Jamie Santos). The PT also attracted several more radical Marxist groups such as the Trotskyist Workers’ Faction (FO), which dissolved into the PT wholesale.92 Marxists did not provide the PT with a very large social base; in 1991 only 10 percent of PT members had past or present affiliations with political organizations of the “extreme left.”93 Yet Marxists still contributed valuably. Due to their experience, education, and discipline, they exercised disproportionate influence in shaping the early PT’s ideology and

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program,94 organizing nuclei and offices,95 training activists,96 advising elites,97 and assuming national leadership positions.98 Still, their “importance . . . was always greater internally than externally,”99 as they had a limited ability to influence voters. Thus, “the CEBs and new unionism were the two most important social vectors of the PT’s formation.”100 The national PT organization depended on the bottom-up initiative and human, financial, and infrastructural resources of these civil society feeder organizations. Due to time and resource constraints, the early PT leadership could not make a significant material or logistical contribution to the formation of local PT organs and nuclei. Major national leaders visited local organs and civil society organizations to give speeches and provide encouragement and advice,101 and the largest PT offices disseminated manuals for setting up and sustaining nuclei, offices, and electoral committees.102 But this was all. The national party leadership did little more than encourage local civil society leaders to build local nuclei and offices from the ground up—to assume party leadership roles, to use volunteers and administrative resources from their own organizations and movements, and to pool participating individuals’ resources, labor, and creative energies.103 THE SIZE OF THE EARLY PT’S TERRITORIAL ORGANIZATION

During its formative period, the PT far surpassed the organizational and electoral requirements imposed by law.104 PT members built the most internally vibrant of Brazil’s major parties, with the largest volunteer activist base and one of the largest territorial infrastructures. The early PT organization emerged in various regions. Activist networks, base-level nuclei,105 and offices sprouted up in the industrial and urban municipalities of the Southeast (e.g., São Paulo and Minas Gerais) and the South (e.g., Rio Grande do Sul and Espírito Santo) and in some rural states (e.g., Acre and Pará) due to the presence of civil society feeder organizations in these areas. Initially, during the 1979–1981 period, PT membership grew rapidly. Whereas in May 1980, the PT had roughly 30,000 members,106 by June 1981, this number had multiplied by seven to approximately 200,000 members, or 0.36 percent of the national voting-age population. By July 1981, the PT had state offices in 21 (of 26) states and more than 20,000 members in 4 of these states: São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, and Rio Grande do Sul.107 After 1981, the PT’s membership and formal infrastructure expanded in a steadier manner. At 0.36 percent in 1981, the PT’s membership as a proportion of the voting-age population rose to 0.44 percent in 1984, to 0.60 percent in 1988, and to 0.74 percent in 1995.108 During the second half of the 1980s, the PT, largely due to the

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new unionism’s expansion into rural and new urban areas, made considerable organizational advances outside São Paulo state.109 Whereas in 1985, the PT had municipal offices in roughly a quarter of Brazil’s over 4,000 municipalities,110 by 1989, the ratio had risen to nearly half.111 SELECTION EFFECTS AND MEMBER COMMITMENT IN THE EARLY PT

The early PT organization was strong not only because of its territorial size but also because of the commitment of its members. “By 1988 political commentators counted the party’s ability to call upon its activists for social and political campaigns as a political resource that almost made up for its lack of financial resources.”112 PT members’ early commitment resulted, in large part, from selection pressures. The process of organization building was extremely difficult and required immense effort.113 First, because the PT did not co-opt many elites from outside the party, it had to identify, recruit, and train its own candidates—enough, in fact, to run full electoral slates, which was a legal requirement.114 Second, the PT had to recruit and register hundreds of thousands of new members in hundreds of municipalities. Early organizers thus engaged in extensive person-to-person recruiting. They generally worked without pay and could not offer material inducements to prospective members. Nor did they want to attract members on that basis; from the beginning, PT organizers wanted each new member to make a politically conscious choice in joining the party.115 The task of these organizers was to inspire or persuade individuals to make such a choice, and to donate their time, labor, and resources to the nascent PT accordingly. Third, some early PT members faced hostility and repression, both before and during the PT’s formative years. During the hard-line era of military rule, Marxists bore the brunt of state violence. Autonomous urban labor suffered little extreme repression in the 1970s and 1980s, but state authorities did, on numerous occasions, intervene in unions, break up strikes, and arrest union leaders.116 During the PT’s formative years, no feeder group suffered greater repression than autonomous rural workers and the actors who helped to organize them (above all, the Catholic left). Between 1975 and 1989, rural oligarchic forces, sometimes aided by state authorities, killed more than one thousand rural workers in agrarian conflicts.117 In the rural states where the early PT established a strong presence (e.g., Acre and Pará), “the PT necessarily reflected these struggles.”118 Although the general public often did not know about or assign much importance to such repression, the PT did. In campaign materials from the 1980s, PT leaders and activists frequently referred to the repression of urban and rural laborers to galvanize and grow the party base.119

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Many early PT members have emphasized the sheer difficulty of the formative years. Take, for example, these retrospective statements from two early PT leaders: The hardships were immense. You cannot imagine how hard it was to create the PT. . . . You cannot imagine the difficulties of forming the PT. [People] thought we wouldn’t meet the legal requirements. But the thing went forward, with all the difficulties we had. . . . We would travel into the countryside, without anything, with an old Volkswagen Beetle, and we did not have money. During that period, at midnight, the tolls opened at midnight allowing us to pass for free, so we would wait. . . . Everything was very difficult.120 [My] political campaign [for federal deputy in 1982] was assumed by all the activists. There were people who made notes on bread paper and gave them to people. . . . It was really complicated, involving a lot of sacrifice and suffering. . . . If it was hard here in the capital [the city of São Paulo], it was much worse in the interior. . . . How were we going to organize the PT in the 120-something municipalities necessary [for legalizing the party]? It was an insane task. I was Secretary of Organization [in the state of São Paulo] without any organization, without a cent. We slept in the homes of community participants, we ate in their homes, and they often had little to eat. . . . That’s how we built the PT in all of Brazil, with the efforts of each individual, in each place, with each person’s resources. It was born from the strength that each person possessed.121

All the adverse conditions that the early PT faced—high legal barriers to entry, scarce resources, low media access, repression, slow electoral progress—created powerful selection pressures. Building the PT was nonremunerative and laborious. In some cases, the risk of repression raised the cost of participation and activism (e.g., for rural workers in Northern Brazil). The PT had dim short-term electoral prospects at the national level. These conditions weeded out political opportunists and selected for ideologically committed early joiners.122 The early PT’s strong ideological bent shone through in its frequent and explicit rejection of short-term electoralism. Take, for example, the PT’s first electoral charter, approved at the March 1982 national preconvention, which treated the upcoming elections as a short-term episode in a long-term struggle for economic and political transformation: “The [upcoming] elections represent . . . only an episode, a particular moment in our permanent political activity, oriented toward the final objective of building a socialist society.” During the next subnational electoral cycle (1986), the party leader Gumercindo Milhorem Neto echoed the sentiment: “Winning an election doesn’t mean winning power.”123

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THE EARLY PT’S HIGHER CAUSE

What higher cause motivated these early PT members? It was not mere opposition to the military dictatorship; otherwise, members might have joined the (P)MDB. It was not a shared ideology, precisely; the early PT’s socialism was intentionally vague and open-ended, so as not to alienate the many moderate and radical leftists under the party’s umbrella. Rather, it was the ideal of grassroots struggle, and the vision of creating an authentically popular party, “without sponsors,” that could put ordinary Brazilians in charge of the state. Early members and supporters valued the PT’s roots in popular civil society and regarded the PT as a novelty in Brazilian history: the first serious partisan contender founded and led by the popular classes, in a polity historically dominated by elites.124 The PT’s popular movement origins, authentic working-class leadership, and mass of energetic grassroots support gave it a special mystique and inspired people across the left spectrum, including Marxists.125 By way of illustration, consider early campaign materials, which tended to focus on the popular character of the PT, not on the characteristics of individual PT candidates (who often shared platforms verbatim and ran unitarily). Countless homemade and party-produced pamphlets and fliers emphasized that political change could only come “from the bottom up” (de baixo para cima); that winning power meant putting workers and other ordinary Brazilians in public office; and that the PT alone advanced these goals because it mobilized such individuals and made many of them political candidates.126 Importantly, the above features distinguished the PT from the (P) MDB—something that early PT leaders and activists often emphasized.127 Luiz Dulci, a PT leader from the state of Minas Gerais, for example, explained why the PT, in its earliest days, did not join or ally with the progressive faction of the MDB, the Popular Faction: Look, it wasn’t due to differences in political platform. . . . The legislators of the MDB did in fact have deep democratic convictions and sincere social commitments, but theirs was a traditional vision of the party . . . with an exclusively institutional conception of politics. They had causes in common with Lula and with us [the PT], but they did not give the same weight as we did to social movements, or to the whole of civil society; they didn’t think it was possible to create a party from the bottom up, truly participatory, in which the popular classes acted directly and above all became politically educated in order to lead the state one day.128

PT members thus saw their party as a vehicle for transforming Brazil’s historically elite-dominated political system. They knew that success

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TABLE 4.1 TERRITORIAL ORGANIZATION WITH COMMITTED ACTIVISTS? (PT) none

No presidential, gubernatorial, or major mayoral victory in the first five years

Access to mass media

none

Mass media, including the dominant Globo network, not independent of the military regime during the PT’s first five years (and systematically biased against the left for more than a decade afterward)

Mobilizing structures

high

Access to new unions, CEBs, and the Marxist left during the first five years

yes

0.43 percent of Brazilians (625,000 of 146.3 million) were PT members, and nearly half of Brazilian municipalities had PT offices, less than a decade into existence; overwhelmingly reliant on volunteer activism throughout the formative decade

Access to the state

Territorial organization with committed activists?

in this endeavor, given the PT’s utter marginality in the 1980s, would require dogged persistence. Accordingly, as already suggested, party leaders often downplayed the significance of winning elections in the short term. The PT managed to maintain its grassroots, popular mystique well into the 1990s—and, to some degree, beyond. TERRITORIAL ORGANIZATION AND ELECTORAL PROGRESS IN THE EARLY PT

The PT’s organizational growth drove much of its electoral progress in the 1980s.129 Rachel Meneguello finds that between 1982 and 1988, the PT’s electoral results robustly correlate with preelection organizational strength. In places with local PT offices and large PT memberships prior to elections, the PT performed well, independently of other factors, even rally attendance.130 This was likely because in municipal as well as state and federal legislative elections, “the presence of a local party organization was important for mounting a campaign,”131 and ground organization and person-to-person contact played key, even decisive roles.132 Naturally, as the party organization steadily expanded over the course of the 1980s (as described earlier), the PT’s electoral results gradually improved. At the congressional level, for example, the PT experienced an “incremental growth in support” during the 1980s,133 progressing from 4 percent (1982) to 7 percent (1986) to 10 percent (1990) of seats in congress. Notably, the relationship between organizational presence and electoral success continues to hold, especially in mayoral and legislative elections.134 The early PT’s lack of success in large executive elections (e.g., the 1982 gubernatorial election in the state of São Paulo) demonstrated, however, that even an exceptionally strong grassroots organization (and a popular candidate, Lula) could not compete with the media empires

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and patronage machines at the disposal of PT opponents. One party founder and intellectual opined that for major executive elections, the early PT’s free time slot on national television mattered more than the entire activist base.135 THE EARLY PT’S SURVIVAL OF CRISIS IN 1982

The PT’s strong organization fortified it amid early crisis. The PT suffered its most crushing setback very early, in the 1982 municipal, state, and congressional elections. The party entered this electoral season, its first, with great optimism due to the grassroots fervor, “great energy of struggle,” and unexpectedly large rally audiences associated with the PT’s 1982 campaigns.136 Most PT members believed that Lula—given his national profile and strong performance in the preelection debates—would win the governorship of the state of São Paulo, arguably the second most important office in Brazil, and certainly the most important of those contested in 1982.137 Lula himself stated at the PT’s final preelection rally in 1982, “We will see after this rally that Gallup, Veja, Globo, and O Estado de São Paulo will choke on their polls that relegated the PT to last place.”138 Yet, Lula placed a distant fourth, and Olívio Dutra, probably the second most important leader in the party, placed last in Rio Grande do Sul’s gubernatorial race. In a country with over four thousand municipalities, the PT won only two small mayoralties. The PT received a paltry 3.5 percent of the seats in the Brazilian congress. These results were a “profound shock and disappointment to the PT,” which “the PT experienced as a severe defeat,” and after which “deep disappointment and a kind of collective depression” set in.139 Nevertheless, the PT rebounded, first at the grassroots level, then electorally. In postelection internal dialogues, party leaders assessed that the 1982 campaigns had distanced the party from its civil society roots. The party thus initiated a “return to the base.”140 As noted earlier, in the years after the 1982 election, “social action” became the party leadership’s top priority.141 With no elected offices to occupy, top elites, including Lula, rededicated themselves to the new unionism, in particular. In 1983 they founded the umbrella new union confederation, the aforementioned CUT, beginning a successful effort to expand the autonomous labor movement. The PT also turned its focus to new civil society actors, particularly landless workers.142 Due in part to the strength of the PT’s grassroots leadership,143 Brazil’s 1983–1984 movement for direct elections became the largest mass mobilization in the country’s history. The PT’s street-level leadership during the movement for direct elections enhanced the party’s status in civil society. So, too, did the PT’s decision to boycott the (indirect) presidential election of January 1985.144

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The PT performed unexpectedly well145 in the mayoral elections of November 1985. The party ran campaigns in nearly every state capital, and PT candidates achieved breakout performances across the country. The PT won the mayoralty of Fortaleza (then Brazil’s fifth largest city), and unlike in 1982, PT candidates finished second or third in a number of other major municipal contests, including São Paulo’s. In part, the PT’s performance reflected its strengthened civil society ties, but it had also begun to develop a successful brand. The PT’s boycott of the indirect presidential election had consolidated its image as a party of principle, less willing to compromise for short-term political gain than the PMDB.146 This helped to attract and cement Brazil’s left-wing vote. By the second half of the 1980s, the PT dominated the left side of Brazil’s electoral spectrum147 and never again suffered a life-threatening electoral crisis.

LULA’S EXTERNAL APPEAL AND INTERNAL DOMINANCE As we have seen, the PT, from inception, was furiously expanding, first to achieve official status, then to prepare for the 1982 elections. During this process, the party prioritized territorial reach over internal coherence. Leaders sought to attract and incorporate as many societal actors as possible, from across the left spectrum. They openly welcomed and embraced internal difference. So as not to alienate any important groups on the radical or moderate left, the PT leadership consciously avoided endorsing any specific ideology.148 The PT succeeded in attracting a heterogeneous set of actors, who differed not only ideologically, but also regionally, socioeconomically, and even culturally. Early PT members and constituencies spanned numerous divides: radical and moderate, secular and religious, rural and urban, blue- and white-collar, lower and middle class, public and private sector, and uneducated and highly educated.149 The single greatest obstacle to internal cohesion lay in the division between PT moderates (primarily new unionists) and radicals (overwhelmingly Marxists). From inception, the PT, largely to attract the Marxist left, permitted the existence of formally organized tendencies. Moderate critiques of the radical tendencies “are as old as the tendencies themselves.”150 Very few new unionists subscribed to Marxism, especially its more revolutionary tenets.151 Workers’ discomfort with Marxists also stemmed from interpersonal barriers, including class and educational differences.152 “There was, in the PT, a kind of base-level, antiintellectual worker culture, even though [the party] had attracted many intellectuals since its founding.”153 Indeed, new unionists encouraged the formation of base-level nuclei in the early 1980s, in part, to create unionand church-based counterweights to the Marxist factions.154

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It was not obvious, ex ante, that the PT would cohere. Indeed, “it often appeared that the difficulties in resolving internal and environmental challenges would destroy the party.”155 In the words of Hamilton Pereira, the Marxist PT leader: Initially, [the PT was] very strong and very fragile. It [was] strong because it [was] the meeting place between the [Marxist] left . . . and a nascent workers’ movement. [It was] very fragile because it was . . . born from a break with both [communism] and social democracy. . . . Only the PT [was] more complex than that. It incorporate[d] people with a Church background and the unionists. . . . What was the result of this? The threat of low cohesion, of fragmentation. . . . The PT confronted enormous difficulties to become consolidated as a political pact in the 1980s.156

What factors enabled the PT to avoid fatal divisions? LULA’S EXTERNAL APPEAL

In the 1980s and 1990s, the PT’s national electoral clout came primarily from the popularity of the founding leader, Lula. Before the PT’s formation, Lula, as head of the São Bernardo Metalworkers’ Union, led the new union movement. Since the new unionism was “at the forefront of the democratic opposition forces,”157 Lula became the national face of Brazil’s grassroots democratizing movement. In the early PT, Lula’s coattails substituted for a strong brand. Like most new parties, the PT did not have a powerful, solid brand upon creation. It won less than 3 percent of the congressional vote in 1982, roughly 5 percent in 1986, and a little over 10 percent in 1990 (the year after Lula nearly won the presidential election). The PT’s shot at national power—and, for many PT politicians, the shot at lower-level office— did not come primarily from its brand or organization, but from Lula’s presence at the helm. On this point, party members and scholars leave little room for doubt. “It was recognized that the party had to include Lula to get off the ground.”158 Lula “enjoyed more societal support than the party,”159 and “all PT candidates depended on [his] electoral performance.”160 “Everyone knew [Lula] was the name with the greatest electoral appeal in the PT.”161 Lula’s coattails helped to generate cohesion. Because Lula enjoyed greater external popularity than the PT, his membership provided a strong electoral incentive for lower elites to remain in the party. Party members coordinated around the goals of electing Lula governor of São Paulo (1982) and president of Brazil (1989, 1994). According to the PT leader Hamilton Pereira, the PT’s “high standard of discipline and unity of action” was “in large part generated by the expectation to elect Lula

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president.”162 For PT radicals, the prospect of attaining national power via Lula’s coattails—and beginning to erode the “bourgeois state”—provided a strong electoral incentive to stay in the party, and helped to compensate for ideological differences with moderate PT members (including Lula).163 Lula recognized that his electoral indispensability gave him leverage and, especially in the 1990s, would use this leverage to push the party in a more moderate direction (about which more below).164 THE SOURCES OF LULA’S INTERNAL DOMINANCE

Lula was not merely electorally indispensable; he was also internally dominant.165 When asked to explain the early PT’s survival, the PT member and historian Lincoln Secco emphasized the role of Lula, who possessed—in Secco’s unprompted formulation—“internal charisma” in addition to external appeal.166 Lula’s internal dominance came from multiple sources. First, he had significant moral authority due to his humble origins, working-class status, and leadership role in the PT’s formative labor and democratizing struggles. “Lula was not the only leader with national credibility involved in the creation of the PT,” but he was the “key figure. As the labor leader primarily responsible for sparking the campaigns and strikes that increased the power of the whole Brazilian labor movement, his was the voice needed to give legitimacy to the formation of a party.”167 The São Paulo labor leaders incarnated the PT’s founding ideals of grassroots struggle and popular empowerment. They made these ideals tangible and credible and provided the higher cause that motivated early members. Lula, preeminent among these leaders, had a special mystique: he was the “working-class leader par excellence,”168 the fiery, proud, militant unionist who had lost a finger in a metalworking accident.169 “The Sao Paulo nucleus acted . . . as a symbolic amalgamation, providing the collective incentives fundamental to party building. In particular, the charismatic figure of Lula, the ‘maximum leader,’ was the party building project’s main source of identification and unity.”170 In one analyst’s formulation, Lula had such internal power “not only due to the electoral factor, but because he was the most authoritative historical voice of the party, the incarnation of PT history.”171 In the words of a present-day PT member, Lula “became a unifying force” in the PT “because he incarnated the myth” of the PT as an authentic expression of the popular sectors.172 Notably, even PT radicals, who often criticized Lula’s ideological moderation, held him in high esteem due to his background (e.g., Florestam Fernandes). “However much the left might criticize what it called his vacillation, it recognized that Lula was still the authentic work-

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ing-class leader par excellence.”173 One Marxist ex-PT member observed that although most Marxists considered Lula and the new unionists insufficiently radical, they admired and respected the PT leadership’s authentic working-class origins.174 Consequently, when they disagreed with Lula, they rarely publicized their critiques.175 Not only did Lula incarnate the PT’s founding ideals, he remained committed, throughout the PT’s formative period, to nurturing and expanding the party’s local branches and grassroots-level relationships. In the PT’s early years, he regularly visited local party organs.176 Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, he helped to bring new civil society leaders into the PT. Relatedly, on occasions, he publicly warned against electoralism and institutionalism within the PT. After a group of victorious PT candidates began to moderate their rhetoric in the late 1980s, for example, Lula rebuked them, sounding a note of skepticism about politicians who only knew “the red carpet of parliament” and had never “poured concrete” in the slums.177 In the PT’s First Congress (1991), Lula emphasized that PT members “must not let electoral concerns take over the party’s agenda.”178 Second, Lula had strong crossfactional ties. As the PT leader, “Lula was always one of the few ‘glues’ between the factions, above them all, unifying the party,”179 and he acted as the central negotiator and guarantor of agreements internally.180 Lula’s strong crossfactional ties were a function, largely, of his preexisting ties. Since the São Bernardo metalworkers’ union constituted “the principal hub of the new unionism,”181 and the new unionism constituted the hub of Brazil’s democratizing movement, Lula, as leader of the new unionism, had developed, by the end of the 1970s, collaborative relationships with a wide range of future PT leaders, from labor leaders in the industrial, service, and rural sectors to Catholic leftist and Marxist figures. As the PT leader, Lula cultivated and reinforced his crossfactional ties by means of an inclusive, nonconfrontational leadership style. Although “symbolically” the leader of the PT’s dominant moderate bloc,182 Lula “put himself above the factions in various ways” and refrained from explicitly “taking sides.”183 For more than a decade following the PT’s founding, he did not formally join or directly participate in any party faction,184 instead authorizing aides—primarily José Dirceu—to advance his agenda and “use the iron fist when necessary.”185 He consistently abstained from contentious internal votes. In contrast to Barrantes of Peru’s IU, he never supported the expulsion or silencing of opposing factions186 and rarely conflicted directly with opponents. Instead, he embraced the PT’s ideological diversity. One PT founder stated that Lula succeeded in creating a strong center without “squashing the minorities.”187 The

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radical PT leader Hamilton Pereira retrospectively extolled Lula for his inclusivity, and for defining the PT very clearly, at the outset, as a political rather than ideological pact.188 On several accounts, Lula’s personal warmth also facilitated relationship building across moderate and radical groups. The radical PT founder, Manoel de Conceição, leader of a once clandestine Maoist PT feeder party, Popular Action, recalled: “All my life I have had a good relationship with Lula. He has always been my friend, my brother.”189 Lincoln Secco summarized that “Lula is very sentimental. Despite not supporting the partisan left, he often praised . . . [their leaders].”190 Third and finally, Lula ideologically represented most of the PT membership. Lula, a new unionist and never a Marxist-Leninist, was widely known to be a relative moderate, despite his inclusive and indirect leadership style.191 The PT membership, from top to bottom, was also predominantly moderate, drawn from the union movement and, secondarily, the Catholic left.192 Marxist organizations constituted the bulk of the PT’s radical wing but, as already noted, were dwarfed in number by union members and left Catholics. Not surprisingly, then, moderate factions consistently won internal PT elections and controlled the national party apparatus during the party’s initial decades, save during one brief period (1993–1995). HOW LULA GENERATED COHESION IN THE EARLY PT

Lula’s electoral indispensability, ideological representativeness, crossfactional ties, and moral stature made him internally dominant. He thus acted as a fundamental source of unity in the early PT. Not only did he furnish electoral incentives against defection when the party brand was relatively weak, he (1) anchored the PT’s dominant bloc, (2) helped to push the PT in a more moderate direction while keeping it intact, and (3) secured the PT’s presidential nomination repeatedly with virtually no dissent or internal contestation. Let us discuss each item in turn. Anchoring the PT’s Dominant Coalitions

First, Lula anchored the PT’s dominant coalition, Articulação, from the early 1980s onward. The “main names of the period,”193 including Lula, created Articulação, a large centrist tendency, after the 1982 elections. Articulação proceeded to win every internal PT election from 1982 to 1993, and after a brief period of radical control (1993–1995), the core leadership of Articulação regained power in alliance with the Radical Democracy tendency, under the new Campo Majoritário label. Articulação’s internal dominance was predicated on, among other things, Lula’s tacit leadership. Without the backing of Lula, its “sym-

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bolic” leader,194 Articulação and its successor groups (e.g., Campo Majoritário) could not have dominated the PT. Notably, at the time of Articulação’s creation, its founders lacked resources and had just been chastened by the PT’s electoral drubbing in 1982—in particular, by Lula’s surprising and disappointing fourth-place finish in the São Paulo gubernatorial race. Nevertheless, Articulação promptly established itself as the PT’s dominant faction—even receiving support from several important Marxist groups despite their ideological differences. This overwhelming internal support demonstrated that the PT’s working-class leaders, above all Lula, had special, unrivaled internal legitimacy—“that despite the sectarian divisions . . . the core or essence of the PT was composed of people who brought to the party a wide range of experiences in popular struggles.”195 Successfully Moderating the PT

In addition to anchoring Articulação, Lula played an indispensable role in limiting the influence of the radical left and moderating the PT. Twice in the PT’s history—first, after the 1982 electoral debacle and, second, after the PT’s radical tendencies surged internally in the early to mid-1990s—Lula and his new unionist allies managed to impose a moderate shift on the PT’s radical wing. After the 1982 elections

From the PT’s inception, party members formally resolved their differences in a system of internal democracy. This system allowed the rank and file to assert control, both directly and indirectly, over internal dialogue and governance.196 While the PT’s flexible ideology fostered a sense among the PT’s internal groups, including the more radical minority groups, that they could influence the party’s direction, the party’s internal democracy provided channels for the bottom-up shaping of party policy and principle.197 The formal rules of the PT’s internal democracy went virtually unchanged from 1980 until 2001. These rules combined proportional representation (with a 10 percent minimum) for forming the national and subnational offices with winner-take-all majoritarianism for forming executive committees. Individuals typically voted as part of tendencies, which functioned as the “parties of the PT political system.”198 Numerous Marxist feeder organizations became tendencies immediately upon joining the PT (e.g., Causa Operária, Convergência Socialista, and O Trabalho). During the 1980–1982 period, these Marxist tendencies exerted disproportionate influence internally, both in organizing the party at the local level and in shaping the party program.199 Yet, after

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the electoral debacle of 1982, the moderate core of the PT leadership— symbolically led by Lula—assessed that, by underinvesting in the struggle for power within the PT, they had allowed radicals’ undue influence over the party message, thereby turning off many voters.200 Articulação, which Lula anchored, was created to “maintain [moderate] hegemony” and “restrain the activity” of the Marxist tendencies.201 While affirming socialism, Articulação, in its founding manifesto, defined itself in clear opposition to traditional Marxism and censured various features of the Marxist PT tendencies, including their treatment of the PT as a tactical front, and their interpretation of Brazilian democracy as a mere stage in the country’s development toward communism.202 Along similar lines, one of the motivations for forming the CUT in 1983 was to increase the internal leverage of PT moderates by strengthening the new unionism. 203 As noted above, Articulação quickly established a dominant position within the PT, and this internal dominance was predicated on, among other things, Lula’s implicit leadership of the faction. Articulação’s rise to dominant status, naturally, shifted the internal balance of power in favor of PT moderates. In its first internal election (1984), Articulação won two-thirds of the delegate seats to the Third National Meeting. Over the next two years, “Articulação began to impose on the entire party its critiques of the other tendencies’ behavior.”204 In particular, Articulação leaders insisted on a more inclusive and less strident campaign for the 1985 mayoral elections.205 After the PT’s unexpectedly strong performance in the 1985 elections, Articulação consolidated its dominance, winning nearly three-quarters of the delegate seats to the Fourth National Meeting (1986) and three-fifths of the delegate seats to the Fifth National Meeting (1987). As Articulação established its dominant status, the PT’s left tendencies came to fear irrelevance and eventually demanded that the PT allot all executive committee positions, including at the national level, proportionally rather than on a winner-take-all basis. 206 Articulação resolved that the PT would only approve proportionality in the national executive committee if radical tendencies first consented to the abolition of “double membership.” From inception, the PT, to attract Marxists, had tacitly permitted double membership, which allowed these tendencies to remain separate parties and, in that capacity, to pursue strategic objectives different from—and perhaps ultimately in conflict with—the PT’s. The general resolution passed, and in May 1990, the PT instituted proportionality for executive committees at all levels, national and subnational.207 The vast majority of left tendencies decided to remain in the PT, accepting the abolition of double membership and other factional regulations instituted during the 1990–1991 period. 208

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After the Radicals’ Internal Surge in the mid-1990s

From 1993 to 1995, the PT’s “extreme left” tendencies managed to wrest control of the PT, at least formally.209 The collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc created a fissure within Articulação that ultimately resulted in its breakup. Articulação’s moderate majority viewed the demise of these socialist regimes in a positive light, but the Marxist wings of Articulação, along with the PT’s Marxist tendencies, “refused to expressly condemn the socialist experiments that were collapsing.”210 Articulação formally split in 1993, and in that year’s Eighth National Meeting, Articulação’s left defectors, in alliance with a left tendency called Socialist Democracy, narrowly defeated an alliance that included the “core of the Articulação”211 and a tendency called Radical Democracy “definitively situated on the PT’s right wing.”212 Nevertheless, even during this period when the “extreme left” controlled the PT’s national executive committee (1993–1995), Lula managed to leverage his external appeal and internal power—his “electability” and “popularity among petistas [PT members]”—to force the PT to moderate.213 In a striking illustration of Lula’s unrivaled status within the PT, Lula ran for party president just months after the radical left’s internal takeover, at the peak of moderate/radical tensions within the PT, and won “with overwhelming internal consensus.”214 Subsequently, Lula and his closest associates (e.g., José Dirceu) “began to fear for the PT’s chances” in the upcoming 1994 presidential election and sought to impose a more pragmatic campaigning strategy and a more moderate platform on the national executive committee.215 They succeeded. Lula persuaded the party to moderate its “program, tone and tactics.”216 He also took the liberty of going outside formal party channels and building alliances to the PT’s right; notably, the radical PT leadership granted him this leeway.217 Nevertheless, Lula lost decisively to the PSDB’s Fernando Henrique Cardoso. Aside from the PT’s 1982 electoral debacle, this was the most devastating and challenging electoral loss in the PT’s history. Following the election, PT moderates assessed—as they had after the 1982 election—that the party’s continued association with radical leftism, in voters’ minds, had contributed to electoral defeat. Many came to believe, for the first time, that a left party was incapable of winning national power in Brazil.218 They concluded that a future presidential victory would require “a centrist ideological shift,” “the provision of concrete immediate material benefits,” less emphasis on program, and more emphasis on Lula’s charismatic personality.219 Moderates thus stepped up their efforts to defeat PT radicals internally. At the PT’s Tenth National Meeting in 1995—the most polarized

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TABLE 4.2 EXTERNAL APPEAL, INTERNAL DOMINANCE? (THE PT’S LULA DA SILVA)

External appeal

high

The PT’s lead candidate throughout the 1980s (and beyond); placed a relatively close second in the 1989 presidential election

Crossfactional ties

strong

Always the PT’s central node; led the PT’s dominant faction from the early 1980s onward

Moral authority

high

Authentic working-class origins; leader of the PT’s formative struggles (new unionism, mass mobilization against military regime)

Ideological representativeness

high

A moderate in a predominantly moderate party

yes

Never challenged as lead candidate; overwhelmingly won the PT presidency when radicals held an internal majority; helped to push the PT toward the ideological center

Internal dominance?

in PT history—Articulação narrowly prevailed in a new alliance with the aforementioned Radical Democracy (DR). 220 After this pivotal moderate victory, Articulação and the DR formalized their alliance under the new name, Campo Majoritário. Campo Majoritário was conceived as an instrument for institutionalizing moderate control of the PT.221 Campo Majoritário remained the PT’s dominant coalition into the new millennium and succeeded in transforming the PT into a center-left electoral-professional party.222 In summary, Lula, working through dominant factions, leveraged his internal power to moderate the PT. This occurred twice: first, in the 1980s, when he lent decisive weight to the formation of Articulação, which went on to dominate the PT’s internal affairs for a decade; and second, in the mid-1990s, when he won the party presidency, imposed a more moderate platform and alliance strategy during the 1994 presidential campaign, anchored the new dominant coalition (Campo Majoritário), and helped to engineer the PT’s long-term shift to center-left electoral-professionalism. 223 Securing the PT’s Presidential Nomination Repeatedly and Comfortably

In stark contrast to Barrantes of Peru’s IU, Lula never faced a serious challenge for the PT’s presidential nomination. Lula obtained the nomination by overwhelming internal consensus five times (1989, 1994, 1998, 2002, 2006), even when the radical left controlled the party in 1994, and even after Lula’s defeats in 1994 and 1998 had undermined his image of electoral prowess. Lula himself, especially after his loss in 1994, occasionally questioned whether he should continue to run for president. But

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throughout the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, no powerful faction or figure within the party challenged Lula or questioned the legitimacy of his continuing to run.224 Consequently, the PT, during its formative period and beyond, avoided divisive nomination battles, which, as we have seen, can trigger fatal schisms (e.g., in the case of Peru’s IU).

THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF THE PT The PT’s evolution since its formative period is well-known and widely studied.225 After 1982, the party never ran a serious risk of electoral collapse. Its national profile rose considerably in the late 1980s when Lula made a serious run for the presidency. Although Lula suffered presidential defeats in 1994 and 1998, dashing internal expectations, there was no question among members on either occasion that the PT would continue to function and contend for national power. Indeed, throughout this period, the PT made steady electoral gains. After winning only two (out of more than 4,000) mayoralties in 1982, the PT won thirty-six in 1988, fifty-four in 1992, one hundred fifteen in 1996, and one hundred eighty-seven in 2000. 226 In 1988 the PT won the mayoralties of São Paulo (one of Brazil’s most important offices) and Porto Alegre. In 1990, the PT crossed the 10 percent threshold in the lower house of congress and continued to gain in 1994 and 1998. In 1994 the PT won its first two governorships, in Espírito Santo and Brasília, and in 1998, it won three, in Acre, Mato Grosso do Sul, and, most importantly, Rio Grande do Sul. In short, while Lula was losing presidential elections, the PT was steadily growing and becoming institutionalized as a national contender. During the first two decades of the twenty-first century, the PT became Brazil’s most successful party. At the national level, the party “adapted” by embracing macroeconomic orthodoxy and modernizing its campaigns.227 These adaptations paved the way for Lula’s 2002 presidential victory and enabled the PT to follow Lula’s 2002 victory with repeat victories in 2006, 2010, and 2014. Since 1994, the PT has received 10–20 percent of the congressional vote share. Since Lula’s initial presidential victory, the PT has used legally guaranteed state resources to enlarge its territorial organization by penetrating the Brazilian interior, particularly the Northeastern region.228 The PT has faced its share of recent challenges. President Dilma Rousseff was impeached in 2016, having presided, simultaneously, over Brazil’s worst economic crisis since before the Great Depression and its largest ever corruption scandal. Lula was convicted of money laundering and imprisoned (before being released in 2021). The PT hemorrhaged partisans after 2013, initially in parallel with Rousseff’s precipitous de-

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cline in public approval. One-fifth of the PT’s sitting mayors defected in advance of the October 2016 municipal elections. In the 2018 congressional election, the PT barely stayed above the 10 percent threshold. Nevertheless, the PT remains, by far, Brazil’s most institutionalized party. In contrast to the PSDB, whose candidate, Geraldo Alckmin, received a paltry 5 percent of the 2018 presidential vote, the PT continues to vie for the presidency. Fernando Haddad, the PT’s presidential candidate in 2018, finished second (to the party system outsider Jair Bolsonaro) in both the first and second rounds. Lula may run for president in 2022 against a vulnerable Bolsonaro. Regardless, the PT still has much deeper organizational roots, a much larger core electorate, and a much more democratic internal political system than any other Brazilian party. The PT is poised to remain a contender, perhaps the main contender, in Brazilian politics for decades. What is critical, for our purposes, is that the PT survived its formative period. It did so because of its durable party organization, built under liberalizing military rule, and its electorally indispensable, internally dominant leader, Lula da Silva. The first of these assets equipped the party to survive early electoral crisis; the second prevented it from splitting apart. As we we will see in chapter 5, Mexico’s PRD survived its formative period due to broadly similar factors.

APPENDIX 3: EARLY PT FLIERS REQUESTING CONTRIBUTIONS OF MONEY AND LABOR “Our party is poor, just like Brazilian workers. It lives off small donations from its members and activists, who organize small parties and sell gifts. We don’t use paid campaigners (cabos eleitorais) and run a decent, honest campaign.” (Campaign booklet for a slate of PT candidates in Rio de Janeiro state, 1982)229 “We rely on the resources that we can create collectively. That’s why each person’s contribution is fundamental.” (Bulletin for Francisco “Chico” de Souza’s São Paulo state deputy campaign, 1986)230 “In contrast to the other parties, which have the wealth from exploiting millions of workers to invest in their candidates’ campaigns . . . the PT and the Frente Brasil Popular [the PT’s presidential electoral coalition in 1989] have as the only source of resources the voluntary contributions of its activists and of the millions who will vote for Lula on November 15.” (Special financial bulletin released by the PT’s state office in Minas Gerais during the 1989 presidential campaign)231 “This is a campaign with scarce economic resources because the PT is a poor party that depends on the contributions of its members, us, the workers. That’s why your support is fundamental—your desire to work

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and publicize the PT and Lula.” (PT newspaper for Lula’s presidential bid, 1989)232 “Every Lula supporter must be a fund-raising post. Imagination must be placed in the service of seeking power. Dinners, parties, individual fund-raising, lists, bazaars, barbecues, feijoadas must multiply across the country, to create a true pro-Lula current.” (PT presidential campaign bulletin no. 9 of 14, 1989)233 “The Pro-Lula Movement’s finances do not receive help from the wealthy and the speculators. . . . Raise money in all the activities you carry out, get contributions from friends, and send this kind, hardearned small sum to the account Lula 89 PT, no. 13.000- 1, Ag. 0300x, São Paulo, Banco do Brasil.” (PT newsletter titled “Brasil Urgente, Lula Presidente,” 1989).234

CHAPTER 5

THE SURVIVAL OF MEXICO’S PARTY OF THE DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION

Mexico’s Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) is another case of new party survival. This claim may seem counterintuitive, given that the PRD recently collapsed, and that, even before its collapse, scholars and observers often treated it as a failure. Kenneth Greene, for example, highlighted that left ideologues in the PRD leadership and base made electorally suboptimal choices, preventing the PRD from winning Mexico’s presidency.1 Kathleen Bruhn argued that, in contrast to Brazil’s PT, the early PRD did not “consolidate,” thus failing to coordinate its activists, build stable relations with interest groups, and construct a strong “ideological identity.”2 Tina Hilgers similarly claimed that, by engaging heavily in clientelism, the PRD failed to develop a strong programmatic identity.3 Tania Rodríguez and Dag Mossige characterized the PRD as internally dysfunctional, at least in comparative terms.4 Yet the PRD is an unmistakable case of new party survival. Like Brazil’s PT, it is one of a handful of new left contenders in Latin America that survived the formative period and took root for decades as a perennial electoral contender. The PRD consistently contested for national and subnational power from its founding (1989) until the late 2010s. It won over a dozen governorships and from 1997 until 2018 continuously held the important mayoralty of Mexico City. It elected at least 10 percent of Mexico’s federal deputies in every congressional election from 1994 to 2015. In 2006, it elected a quarter of Mexico’s federal deputies, and Andrés Manuel López Obrador (then the PRD’s leader) came very close to winning the presidency. Given Mexico’s size and significance, the PRD is one of the most important new parties to have emerged in Latin America over the past few decades. I will argue that the PRD followed a path to survival broadly similar to the PT’s. This is not to downplay differences between the two parties, which are many. First, the PRD had brighter electoral prospects at birth. At the time of the PRD’s formation, the party leader, Cuauhtémoc 138

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Cárdenas, had just finished second in Mexico’s 1988 presidential election, and he likely would have won if the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) had not committed fraud. By contrast, Lula, two years after the PT’s creation, finished fourth in São Paulo state’s 1982 gubernatorial race. The early PRD thus attracted a higher proportion of patronage seekers than the early PT and had weaker incentives to prioritize nonelectoral tasks such as social action and internal institution building. Second, the national PRD organization is, and has long been, more internally dysfunctional and impotent than the national PT organization, with a weaker capacity to provide collective incentives, to control and discipline subunits and members, and to manage factional relations.5 Relatedly, whereas over the past two decades, the PT’s central office—in an illustration of “territorial penetration”6 —has led the geographical expansion of the party organization into previously untouched locales,7 the PRD has not done the same. Instead, the PRD has heavily depended, for both organizational and electoral growth, on the co-optation of external elites along with their organizational machines and electoral bases. Third, in terms of internal divisions, whereas the early PT was almost uniformly opposed to negotiating with Brazil’s outgoing military dictatorship, the early PRD was split between factions that supported and opposed negotiating with Mexico’s PRI. Fourth and finally, whereas the PT won the presidency twenty-two years after its founding, the PRD, now three decades into its existence, has not (and very likely will not). Yet, for our purposes, these differences are secondary. Again, the PT and PRD both became consolidated for decades as perennial national contenders, and they took similar paths to survival. What factors, then, account for the PRD’s survival?

CASE SUMMARY Like Brazil’s PT, the PRD survived because of early adversity, not despite it. During the PRD’s formative decade, Mexico was under competitive authoritarian rule. The governing PRI held a vast resource advantage over its competitors and exerted near total control of broadcast media. Moreover, it specifically sought to undermine left parties. Thus, the only new left parties capable of growing electorally were those that built strong organizations. The PRD’s early leaders knew that they had to invest in organization both to build an electoral base and to mobilize mass prodemocracy protests. Drawing from social movements, traditional Marxist parties, and ex-PRI networks, the early PRD built one of the largest territorial party organizations in Mexico, with particular strength in Mexico City and southern Mexico.

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Although Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas’s strong performance in the 1988 presidential election gave pragmatists an electoral incentive to join, the adverse circumstances that the early PRD faced simultaneously gave pragmatists incentives not to join.8 Most activists worked without pay or expectations of patronage. Many faced repression in regional bastions; indeed, the PRD suffered more repression than the PT, as hundreds of pro-Cárdenas and PRD activists were killed, and thousands arrested, between 1988 and the mid-1990s. Given these conditions, the early PRD mainly attracted believers who were committed to defeating the hostile, authoritarian PRI, democratizing Mexico, and reversing the neoliberal reforms of the 1980s—all by electing Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, bearer of the Mexican Revolution’s legacy, to the presidency. The PRD survived early electoral crises because of these committed activists. After its disastrous performance in the 1991 midterm elections, the PRD rebounded, and three years later, following Cárdenas’s unexpectedly lopsided loss in the 1994 presidential election, it again survived. Despite factional infighting and weak internal institutions, the PRD did not suffer a debilitating schism during its formative decade. Its leader during this time, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, generated cohesion by combining extraordinary external appeal with internal dominance. He had a name and pedigree that simultaneously made him electorally potent and gave him immense moral authority and mystique on the left. He developed strong crossfactional ties as the PRD leader and ideologically represented the predominantly radical party base. Due to these various factors, he dominated the PRD’s internal affairs. Given the power of his electoral coattails, lower elites defected at their own peril. Strong crossfactional ties enabled him to connect the PRD’s otherwise disconnected parts. He played a “substituting role for the [PRD’s] lack of institutionalization” by regularly making key party decisions and adjudicating internal conflicts without debate or negotiation.9 He secured the PRD’s presidential candidacy in 1988, 1994, and 2000 with limited internal resistance. By the time he retired from electoral politics (circa 2000), the PRD had developed a reasonably effective brand, and new leaders had emerged (e.g., Andrés Manuel López Obrador), making the party less dependent on Cárdenas. In short, like the case of the PT, that of the PRD illustrates that adverse circumstances facilitate the creation of organizationally strong parties capable of surviving electoral crisis, and that externally appealing, internally dominant leaders generate cohesion in new partisan contenders.

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ADVERSITY AND ORGANIZATION BUILDING Public support for Mexico’s long-dominant PRI fell precipitously in the 1980s. The Latin American debt crisis of the early 1980s devastated Mexico, ushering in nearly a decade of stagnation. Like most Latin American governments, the administration of Miguel de la Madrid (PRI) reacted to the debt crisis by implementing austerity programs and free market reforms. Mexico’s recession, plus the more acute short- to medium-term social costs of inflation and austerity, led to a significant drop in the PRI’s public approval. Over the same period, the PRI’s core rural constituencies continued to shrink due to urbanization; highly publicized corruption scandals fed popular discontent; and the De la Madrid administration’s response to the catastrophic Mexico City earthquake of 1985 was widely perceived as incompetent and inadequate. This combination of factors generated the PRI’s most significant crisis of legitimacy since the late 1960s. In 1986 a group of dissident PRI leaders founded an anti-neoliberal faction within the PRI, the Democratic Current (CD). Led by the governor of the state of Michoacán, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas (1980–1986), the CD’s leaders first sought to advance their policy agenda within the PRI by democratizing their party. When the PRI failed to meet the CD’s demands for internal democratic reform, and Cárdenas did not receive consideration as the PRI’s 1988 presidential nominee, the CD defected from the PRI. Less than two weeks later, Cárdenas announced his presidential candidacy on a small party’s ticket. Cárdenas’s candidacy generated mass support in various regions of Mexico. Cárdenas had a powerful electoral brand, particularly among peasants and urban popular sectors. This brand followed from his unique lineage. As the only son of General Lázaro Cárdenas, Mexico’s president from 1934 to 1940, Cárdenas symbolically bore, for many Mexicans, the legacy of the Mexican Revolution. His first name, Cuauhtémoc, evoked Mexico’s preconquest Aztec history. The left opposition proposed, through Cárdenas, a return to the revolutionary nationalism practiced in the candidate’s political life and embodied in his name. Cárdenas’s electoral support came primarily from three constituencies: the traditional Marxist left, the extraparliamentary (or “social”) left, and Cardenistas. The traditional Marxist left included an array of Marxist parties that underwent a process of moderation following the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre, in which state authorities killed hundreds of protesting students and civilians. These parties subsequently committed to institutional politics and chose to advocate a gradual transition to democracy through elections and political reform. A long process of Marx-

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ist unification resulted in the creation, in 1988, of the umbrella party, the Mexican Socialist Party (PMS). At the time of the 1988 presidential election, the PMS was not only Mexico’s largest left party but the largest left party in Mexican history. In contrast to the traditional Marxist left, the extraparliamentary or social left consisted of movements and organizations, most of them Marxist, that continued to reject institutional politics and engage in social struggle during the 1970s and 1980s. Many social left groups had split from traditional Marxist parties or taken up parallel activities after the Tlatelolco massacre. For two decades before Cárdenas’s presidential bid, they had refrained from participating in electoral politics. The social left included small political parties, ex-guerrilla nuclei, rural unions, popular urban movements, teachers’ unions, radical blue-collar unions, student associations, nongovernmental organizations, environmental groups, gay rights advocacy networks, and more. Finally, Cardenistas—by far the largest of Cárdenas’s three main electoral constituencies during the 1988 campaign—were individuals and groups who supported Cárdenas but did not participate actively in separate left parties or organizations. Like Cárdenas, many were former members or supporters of the PRI. Despite facing a slew of disadvantages, including systematic media bias and state repression in the left’s regional strongholds, Cárdenas’s electoral vehicle, the Democratic National Front (FDN), mounted the most significant challenge to PRI hegemony in decades. In the lead-up to the election, millions of Mexicans marched in the streets in support of Cárdenas. Cárdenas officially lost the election by a wide margin, but the FDN subsequently presented evidence of widespread voting irregularities systematically favoring the PRI. After the election, Cárdenas supporters engaged in sustained mass protest, organizing mass marches, rallies, and public sit-ins. Pro-Cárdenas protesters disrupted long segments of highway and occupied city halls and government offices in various parts of Mexico. Seeking to create an institutional channel for this mass movement, Cárdenas and the FDN leadership, in late October 1988, proposed the creation of a new left political party. The CD, the PMS, more than twenty civil society organizations and social movements, and masses of voters pledged their support.10 The PRD was officially created in May 1989. THE EARLY PRD’S LOW ACCESS TO STATE RESOURCES

The PRD developed outside the state, with very few connections to the economic elite or well-financed organizations and in opposition to an extremely resource-rich PRI. It was born with no governors and a limited

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number of mayors in small, poor municipalities. During its first decade, and especially during the presidency of Carlos Salinas (PRI, 1988–1994), the PRI used an array of tactics to undermine the PRD and keep it out of power. While opening positions of power to the right-leaning National Action Party (PAN), national PRI leaders and subnational PRI authorities sought to neutralize the PRD by engaging in a “permanent campaign” against it.11 According to numerous analyses, the PRI repeatedly defrauded the early PRD in local and state elections.12 From the late 1980s to the mid-1990s, state authorities killed more left activists—estimates range from 150 to 60013—than were killed in Brazil under military rule.14 To a greater extent than repression or fraud, however, the PRI’s immense resource advantage hindered the PRD’s early electoral progress.15 The PRI had vast financial resources, both public and private, at its disposal.16 When the PRD was born, the PRI controlled the federal government, the governments of the Federal District and every Mexican state, and the vast majority of Mexico’s municipal governments. It “enjoyed virtually unlimited access to government funds,” siphoned billions of Mexican pesos from the public treasury, and received billions more from business supporters.17 The PRI invested huge sums in electoral campaigns, outspending the early PRD by overwhelming margins. The Salinas administration also implemented a large, nationwide poverty relief program, the National Solidarity Program (PRONASOL), which allocated federal funds to municipalities for various purposes. The PRI distributed PRONASOL’s vast resources in a timed, targeted, and clientelistic manner, with the specific goal of electorally undermining the PRD. PRONASOL was effective, helping the PRI to co-opt or divide many local electorates and civil society organizations previously sympathetic to Cárdenas.18 In contrast, the early PRD had virtually no access to state resources or finance. Its leaders, for the most part, lacked connections to the economic elite, and due to the various adverse conditions that the PRD faced—fraud, repression, the PRI’s lavish spending, and media blacklisting and hostility (about which more below)—the PRD did not win a single governorship or major mayoralty until the late 1990s, in contrast to the PAN. Especially in Mexico’s centralized, authoritarian political system, small mayoralties and minority legislative blocs at the state and federal levels, through the mid-1990s, did not give the PRD policy autonomy, control of large government agencies, or significant public financing. One party activist and scholar summarized that as late as the mid-1990s, “there was nothing [i.e., no patronage] to dole out.”19 From the beginning, PRD finances “fundamentally depended” on the public party fund, a small pittance until the passage of landmark

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electoral reforms in 1996.20 The PRD thus suffered from chronic “financial shortages” and a lack of “resources to invest in electoral campaigns . . . and professional cadres.”21 At the local level, early PRD candidates often financed and ran their own campaigns. As late as the mid-1990s, the national PRD organization could only afford fifty permanent staff. 22 THE EARLY PRD’S LOW ACCESS TO MEDIA

The early PRD also lacked access to mass media. Although some major newspapers (e.g., La Jornada) and regional radio stations faithfully reported PRD-related news and covered the party neutrally or favorably, most major newspapers and virtually all major broadcast networks—including Televisa, which held a monopoly in the all-important television sector—provided scant, biased coverage of the early PRD. At the time of the PRD’s birth, most Mexicans depended on television to acquire political information and even to form political views.23 During the final decades of single-party rule in Mexico, the PRI used bribes, subsidies, penalties, and the selective distribution of concessions to influence national broadcast media. These measures created a “docile,” “dependent,” and “captive media establishment that faithfully reflected the ruling party’s priorities.”24 In exchange for preferential treatment by the government, Mexico’s major broadcasting networks systematically set the public agenda in accordance with PRI priorities, omitted politically sensitive developments from news programming, favorably covered the PRI, and cast PRI opponents in a negative light. 25 At the center of Mexico’s PRI-dominated media establishment lay the Televisa conglomerate (est. 1973). From the 1950s onward, Televisa and its precursor, Telesistema Mexicano (est. 1953), received a series of important concessions from PRI governments, including the country’s original broadcasting licenses and, subsequently, licenses to broadcast cable, satellite, and high-definition television.26 These concessions and other forms of government favoritism enabled Televisa, much like Brazil’s Globo network, to establish monopoly status in the television sector. By the 1990s, Televisa commanded over 80 percent of Mexico’s television audience.27 Tellingly, in the mid-1990s, Televisa’s chief executive, Emilio Azcarragá Jr., called himself a “soldier of the PRI” and described Televisa as “part of the governmental system.”28 Televisa provided scant coverage of Cárdenas and the PRD, depriving them of the surest, easiest way to reach tens of millions of potential voters, and helping to create and reinforce perceptions of left marginality. During the 1988 presidential campaign, Cárdenas received less than nine hours of airtime on Televisa’s primetime cable news program, 24 Horas, while Salinas received more than 140 hours. 29 In the lead-up

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to the 1994 presidential campaign, the PRI candidate Ernest Zedillo received forty-six times more airtime than Cárdenas and the PAN’s Diego Fernández de Cevallos combined.30 In addition, the early PRD could not buy television advertising space.31 A single national television spot cost the equivalent of thousands of spots for small radio stations and newspapers.32 A founding PRD elite and popular movement leader summarized that the early PRD had no opportunities to disseminate a positive message via television. “There was no way to do anything. It was totally closed.”33 A party activist and scholar stated simply: “The PRD didn’t exist in the media.”34 Moreover, when there was coverage of the early PRD, mass media outlets tended to highlight “the violent, subversive, and dangerous character of Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas and the party he led.”35 Generally, mass media portrayed the PRI favorably while depicting Cárdenas and the PRD as threats to social order. One PRD scholar summed up the basic image of the PRD, as disseminated on television: “Being a PRD member was something really, really bad.”36 As left mobilizations deintensified in the late 1980s and early 1990s, news programs remained systematically critical of the PRD, but increasingly, instead of casting the PRD as a threat to social order, they structured their negative coverage around the party’s policy stances and initiatives. Although Mexican media started to become more competitive and state-independent in the early to mid-1990s, this process occurred slowly, and the mass media establishment continued to provide circumscribed, unassertive reporting past the mid-1990s. 37 The combination of low media access and media hostility cost the PRD in early elections, especially in 1991 and 1994.38 THE EARLY PRD’S INCENTIVES FOR TERRITORIAL ORGANIZATION

In this political ecosystem, any new left party, to succeed electorally, had to build a strong organization. PRD founders recognized this.39 They knew that the party had to reach voters on the ground, and many believed that only by deploying activists to voting booths could they ensure minimally clean elections.40 Thus, even though they did not face any legal organizational barriers to entry,41 one of their top priorities, from the party’s inception, was to “construct an organization of activists.”42 Party leaders emphasized the need for a “broad base”43 and were “very concerned with attracting activists and building [a] party [organization] that [was] robust against [PRI] co-optation.”44 To that end, they created a national secretary of organization and established an activist training institute.45 Seeking to ensure ideological commitment on the part of activists, the party informally made membership in feeder organizations

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(e.g., urban popular movements and ex-PRI activist networks) a near precondition for party membership.46 The PRD also chose to require early members to pay party dues.47 Early PRD campaigns were “based on direct contact with the people.”48 Flier distribution on subways and buses and from airplanes played central roles.49 To the extent possible, activists guarded voting booths. In 1994 Cárdenas did not have a mass media campaign, opting for a strategy of direct contact with ordinary citizens through rallies and local tours.50 In interviews with the author, as well as in early campaign speeches and pamphlets, party founders emphasized that volunteer foot soldiers played a fundamental role in these early elections.51 The early PRD also had extraelectoral incentives to invest in territorial organization. One of the PRD’s main tactics for combating PRI authoritarianism was postelection civil resistance. Mass antifraud protests and marches were part of the party’s DNA, as the PRD grew out of the mass movement that supported Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas’s 1988 presidential bid and subsequently protested his loss. From inception, the party continued these practices of postelection civil resistance at the local, state, and national levels. THE EARLY PRD’S ACCESS TO MOBILIZING STRUCTURES

Without access to civil society, the PRD would have lacked the means for organization building. Party leaders understood this and sought “to base the party on what already existed.”52 With contact and encouragement but little aid or oversight from the PRD’s national office, local civil society leaders took it upon themselves to organize local PRD branches and nuclei.53 These local leaders came primarily from three groups: the traditional Marxist left, the extraparliamentary or “social” left, and exPRI networks. The traditional Marxist left fed into the PRD mainly through the PMS. In late 1988, the PMS dissolved itself so that the PRD could adopt its registry and absorb its members and offices. During the late 1980s, the national PRD leadership contacted or visited PMS offices across the country to develop an initial territorial network of local PRD nuclei. The PMS’s most critical contribution lay in the provision of experienced, educated elites and cadres. The PRD inherited several thousand ex-PMS leaders and cadres, a disproportionate number of whom rose to positions of national leadership or won major offices.54 The PMS’s several thousand members, however, did not represent a significant share of the PRD’s mass base.55 To build a mass base, the PRD depended much more heavily on the social left and, to a lesser extent, the former PRI.

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The social left provided more activists than any other feeder category.56 It encompassed numerous movements and organizations that disdained electoral politics, detested the PRI, had “iron-willed activist bases,” and sometimes engaged in “warlike (including armed) forms of struggle.”57 These groups had either large social bases or strong ties to organizations with large social bases. Among them, rural unions in the southern states and urban popular movements in Mexico City, particularly the Neighborhood Assembly (Asamblea de Barrios), played leading roles. In addition to providing a large social base, the social left furnished leaders, intellectuals, and cadres who occupied important positions in national and subnational party organs. These individuals exerted a central influence on activist formation and discussions of party program and tactics.58 Finally, large networks of former PRI members fed into the PRD, particularly in Michoacán and Tabasco, the home states (respectively) of the PRD’s most prominent PRI defector, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, and the fellow PRI defector and future PRD leader and presidential candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.59 When Cárdenas defected, most of Michoacán’s PRI organization and electorate followed him. The early secretary of organization, Porfirio Muñoz Ledo, estimated that in Michoacán, “98 percent of our activists and cadres were from the PRI,” and that, of the 300 cadres who defected from the PRI in 1988, 250 were from Michoacán.60 Similarly, in Tabasco, López Obrador, in 1989, built a statewide network of precinct-level PRD committees based on a similar network of PRI committees that he had helped to develop in the early 1980s. In 1993 and 1994, he undertook a second organizational push, resulting in a new surge of PRD members and local nuclei. THE SIZE OF THE EARLY PRD’S TERRITORIAL ORGANIZATION

PRD organization building quickly resulted in a high degree of territorial diffusion. By the mid-1990s, the PRD had over one million members—constituting more than 1 percent of the population—and offices in over half of Mexico’s more than two thousand municipalities.61 Because growth was bottom-up, it was geographically uneven. Where civil society feeder organizations were concentrated, party branches proliferated. Elsewhere, few materialized. As of 1995, the majority of PRD members resided in Mexico City and the southern states of Michoacán, Tabasco, Veracruz, Oaxaca, and Guerrero. SELECTION EFFECTS AND MEMBER COMMITMENT IN THE EARLY PRD

Volunteers carried out the vast bulk of early PRD activism; they gave their time and labor for free and with little direction from above.62 Most

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paid invisible costs, having “to take time out of profitable work activities” and expend income on fuel, food, and travel lodging.63 Some put their own own safety at risk. “Being a victim of persecution and exclusion, experiencing electoral fraud, even losing one’s life were constant possibilities for party activists.”64 These conditions weeded out the uncommitted, selecting for ideologues. During Cárdenas’s 1988 presidential bid, for example, “the repression exercised by the government led . . . to . . . despondency and desertion” in “many cases.”65 Statistical analysis demonstrates that those who joined the PRD in the most adverse, repressive years held more extreme left-wing views on economic policy and democracy.66 According to one founder, the early PRD “couldn’t be a business”; people joined for other reasons, like ideological conviction.67 Another stated that the “psychological benefits” of participation drove the PRD’s “big volunteer army.”68 Numerous party founders made complementary statements in interviews with the author.69 Porfirio Muñoz Ledo deftly formulated in 1991, “We live by substituting good faith and enthusiasm for resources.” 70 THE EARLY PRD’S HIGHER CAUSE

When Cárdenas defected from the PRI to mount a presidential challenge, anti-PRI sentiment found an electoral outlet. Millions of Mexicans united around a single cause: to deliver Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas to the presidency. After Cárdenas’s defeat, PRD members united around the same cause. In making Cárdenas president, they would defeat the authoritarian PRI, reverse its neoliberal economic model, and restore revolutionary nationalism to preeminence. Early on, this vision was channeled more through the mystical figure of Cárdenas than through the PRD as such. The PRI regime’s repression and perceived fraudulence hardened the commitments of leftists and Cárdenas supporters. During Carlos Salinas’s presidency (1988–1994), the PRI, along with allies and supporters, stole governorships and mayoralties, killed hundreds of activists, manipulated the media establishment, and selectively channeled vast resources, all to cow and defeat the left. In these ways, from the perspective of PRD members, the regime went well beyond its original crime—that is, fraud in the 1988 presidential election—revealing that it would stop at nothing to retain power. As the PRI employed the full powers of the Mexican state to exclude the left from office, activist anger and defiance mounted, and mobilization increased. The resort to violence and repression, in particular, strengthened the PRD cause by galvanizing its base and motivating new entrants. PRI violence effectively transformed the PRD’s

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TABLE 5.1. TERRITORIAL ORGANIZATION WITH COMMITTED ACTIVISTS? (PRD) Access to the state

none

No presidential, gubernatorial, or major mayoral victory in the first five years

Access to mass media

none

Mass media, including the dominant Televisa network, not independent of the PRI regime during the PRD’s first five years (and beyond)

Mobilizing structures

high

Access to the traditional Marxist left, social left, and ex-PRI networks during the first five years

yes

More than 1 percent of Mexicans (over 1 million of under 100 million) were PRD members, and over half of Mexico’s municipalities had PRD offices, half a decade into its existence; overwhelmingly reliant on volunteer activism throughout its formative decade

Territorial organization with committed activists?

struggle into a war. Memorably, when asked why the PRD did not fold after disastrous elections in 1991 and 1994 (about which more below), a party founder replied, “We were at war.”71 The fraud and repression of the Salinas years remain salient for the PRD’s founders, continuing to shape their perspectives and collective identity.72 To this day, the party pays tribute to killed activists.73 SURVIVING CRISIS IN 1991 AND 1994

Organizational strength fortified the PRD amid early electoral crisis. The PRD suffered its first major electoral letdown in the 1991 congressional election. In the election’s lead-up, despite a highly uneven electoral playing field, “leaders and activists shared . . . a certainty” that the party would win “broad representation” in the congress.74 A strong performance, they believed, would allow PRD legislators to stymie President Salinas’s agenda, pass institutional reforms leveling the electoral playing field, and thus lay the groundwork for a Cárdenas victory in 1994. This optimism “represented the . . . point of convergence within the party organization.” 75 The party performed abysmally, though, unexpectedly losing seats and finishing a distant third with only 8 percent of the vote. The PRD also failed to elect a governor for the third consecutive year. The results dashed internal expectations and clearly threatened the party’s survival.76 Prominent social left leaders, in protest of PRI tactics, advocated that the PRD abstain from future elections. Porfirio Muñoz Ledo stated that the PRD’s continued electoral significance might hinge on an alliance with the conservative PAN—an unthinkable prospect for much of the PRD rank and file. Cárdenas retrospectively referred to the 1991 elections as “the PRD’s hardest electoral moment.” 77

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But the PRD rebounded. Party activists had a higher cause to fight for, embodied in Cárdenas, who “distributed the collective incentives necessary to maintain party activism and participation in spite of defeats.” 78 In fact, the 1991 electoral result seemed to harden the base. According to the PRD’s own official recounting, “[The year] 1991 represented for the PRD its first political setback but at the same time the consolidation of an iron-willed base.” 79 In interviews with the author, multiple party founders suggested that the loss played more of a motivating role than a demotivating one.80 The state election results of 1992 and 1993 reflected the PRD’s base-level durability, as the party made legislative gains and received above-average gubernatorial vote shares in territorial strongholds.81 Meanwhile, the PRD’s top leadership expressed a confrontational, defiant tone. In 1992 Porfirio Muñoz Ledo stated, “What irritates Salinas is the PRD’s position . . . the attitude of democratic intransigence. . . . It bothers him that we’re incorruptible. That’s what pains him the most. What most irritates him is that we can’t be bought, and don’t even feel afraid, to such a degree that we go looking for danger recklessly.”82 In 1992 Cárdenas remarked that Salinas “must be annoyed . . . because he has not been able, with all the state’s resources, to crush the PRD or its leaders.”83 Somewhat like Brazil’s PT following its electoral debacle in 1982, the PRD also initiated a return to the base after the 1991 election. In its internal diagnosis, the national office found that the party continued to suffer from “great shortcomings” in the organizational domain and resolved to prioritize territorial expansion and identify geographical areas of weakness with “X-ray” precision.84 Cárdenas proposed a “major organizational effort,” and Muñoz Ledo concurred.85 In the 1994 presidential election, the PRD suffered a second major setback. Contesting the presidency for a second time, Cárdenas lost in a landslide and placed third with less than one-fifth of the vote. The outcome’s lopsidedness was unanticipated; indeed, much of the base was “convinced [the PRD] would win.”86 Moreover, many party members believed that the PRD would not survive if Cárdenas lost.87 After all, the party’s main reason for existing—its sole reason, according to some— was to carry Cárdenas to the presidency in 1994.88 To be sure, the defeat dashed internal expectations and damaged the PRD’s credibility and self-conception as a serious contender. But again, the PRD rebounded. In particular, party activists, who were generally more radical than the moderate elites who blamed the defeat on Cárdenas’s intransigent leftism, remained committed. Almost all these activists considered the result illegitimate. Most viewed it as another lost battle in a continuing “war” with the PRI.89 They shifted their attention

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to upcoming subnational contests and postelection civil resistance.90 In the 1995 and 1996 state and local elections, the PRD performed well in territorial strongholds. In 1995, Andrés Manuel López Obrador led a huge march from Tabasco to Mexico City in protest of alleged fraud. In a 2010 interview, the party founder Carlos Navarrete usefully summarized the early PRD’s spirit of resistance and perseverance: “[PRD president Carlos Salinas’s 1988–1994 term] was a very hard time. . . . They were times of persecution, of hundreds of dead activists. They were times in which they stole elections from us, covering the width and depth of the country. They were times in which the government besieged us. They were times of resistance, fundamentally, of not giving up, of maintaining and raising our flags.”91

CUAUHTÉMOC CÁRDENAS’S EXTERNAL APPEAL AND INTERNAL DOMINANCE Organizational strength, while equipping the PRD to survive early crisis, increased the risk of fragmentation and schism. As noted, the PRD’s early joiners tended to be ideologues, which contributed to internal sectarianism. The early PRD was also heterogeneous, bringing together radical social movements, regional ex-PRI networks, and traditional Marxist parties. These groups differed in their ideologies, tactics, class makeups, regional subcultures, and personal loyalties.92 Within the traditional Marxist left alone, all the above differences existed, and the common denominator within this umbrella group—support for institutionalism over mobilization, and for negotiation over intransigence—set it apart from the social left. The social left, too, was internally heterogeneous, with groups differing along class, ideological, and regional lines. The party’s ex-PRI elements were also divided. Ex-PRI elites broke into two camps: those committed to mobilization and confrontation (e.g., Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas), and those focused on reform through institutional politics (e.g., Porfirio Muñoz Ledo). At the base level, ex-PRI members in Michoacán and Tabasco had personalistic attachments to different leaders (Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas and Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador, respectively). At the time of the PRD’s creation, horizontal linkages within and between feeder categories were often nonexistent. Where linkages did exist (e.g., between the constituent parties of the PMS), there was conflict, and institutions of conflict adjudication were weak. Much like Brazil’s PT, the PRD, from inception, was a party of factions, not with factions. Founding statutes structured the party organization as a presidential system mediated by “currents” (corrientes)—that is, formally recognized factions often described as the PRD’s “tribes” (tribus). To receive candidacies or ascend in the party apparatus, PRD

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members had to join a current. (This remains true at the time of this writing.) Except during national party congresses, power resided in the National Executive Committee (CEN) and the larger National Council (CN). The CEN consisted of numerous secretarías, the equivalent of “ministries” or departments. The party president was the party’s chief executive and head of the CEN. In the early PRD, horizontal linkages were weak between municipal organs and between state organs. Within the national office and subnational offices, there was division and conflict centering on questions of program, internal procedure, and, above all, the proper tactics and timeline for democratizing Mexico and combating neoliberalism. Leaders competed for external candidacies and control of the internal apparatus, both for personal gain and to advance ideological agendas. Importantly, internal procedures of decision making and conflict resolution were weakly institutionalized. Perhaps no single fact illustrates this more clearly than the frequency of national party congresses. Whereas Brazil’s PT held just one congress in its first twelve years, the PRD convoked six. Over this period, formal procedures for selecting candidates, selecting the party president, and distributing positions within the party apparatus did not become consolidated.93 National leaders regularly flouted formal rules such as the ban on running in consecutive PRD presidential elections. Procedures intended for long-term use rarely endured more than a few years.94 Through the second half of the 1990s, PRD leaders who competed with each other for external candidacies and internal posts repeatedly alleged electoral fraud and refused to recognize official results. Despite all these problems—sectarianism, conflict, and institutional weakness—the early PRD did not suffer a fatal or debilitating schism in the 1990s or first decade of the 2000s. Why? The answer, I argue, is that the PRD had an electorally indispensable, internally dominant leader who generated cohesion: Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas. CÁRDENAS’S EXTERNAL APPEAL

Cárdenas was electorally indispensable to the early PRD. He did not need media, or even campaigns, to attract mass support. Because of his last name, he “communicated just in virtue of existing. . . . The campaign was carried out every day in school.” 95 His personal brand was significantly more powerful than the PRD’s—a point universally recognized by party members and analysts. Comparing the PRD’s results in the 1991 midterm elections and the 1994 general election helps to illustrate the power of Cárdenas’s electoral coattails. In 1991 the PRD won 8 percent of the vote. In 1994 the PRD, riding Cárdenas’s coattails,

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more than doubled its congressional vote share (17 percent), even though Cárdenas’s performance was considered disastrous. Although the 1994 presidential defeat damaged Cárdenas’s electoral image, he remained the party’s most nationally electable figure, and his image received a boost a few years later when he won the 1997 Mexico City mayoral election. Cárdenas’s coattails helped to generate cohesion from the beginning. His strong showing in 1988 initially cemented the support of much of the left, including the PMS, and provided the central impetus for the PRD’s creation. No figure except Cárdenas “could . . . have united all the center-left opposition parties” or “[reached] the agreement with [the PMS] that gave the PRD institutional life.”96 Once the PRD formed, “there were few external incentives for the party’s intermediate leaders to split.”97 After the disastrous 1991 congressional elections, for example, a major factor keeping elites in the party was the recognition that Cárdenas would be a contender, and perhaps the favorite, in the 1994 presidential election. THE SOURCES OF CÁRDENAS’S INTERNAL DOMINANCE

In addition to attracting voters, Cárdenas attracted PRD members. Indeed, it was Cárdenas, not the PRD, who supplied most early PRD activists with a higher cause. Most PRD activists did not affiliate with a national current or hold public or party positions. They needed collective incentives “to remain connected to the PRD organization,” and Cárdenas had “an almost monopolistic capacity to produce” them.98 The loyalty of these activists “was fundamentally directed to [Cárdenas] and only in the second place to the party itself.” 99 Many activists identified the PRD with Cárdenas, considering the two inseparable. This loyalty followed from Cárdenas’s moral authority. Cárdenas had “the moral quality to be everyone’s leader.”100 This was due, in part, to his political record. As the governor of Michoacán (1980–1986), Cárdenas defied the neoliberalism of his copartisan, President De la Madrid (PRI, 1982–1988). He subsequently defected from the PRI, was likely defrauded of presidential victory in 1988, and afterward refused to be co-opted in rejecting President Salinas’s offer of Mexico City’s regency. To a much greater degree, though, Cárdenas gained moral authority from his lineage. While this lineage elevated him in the eyes of the electorate generally, it particularly raised his stature on the left. “Cárdenas” was the last name “most respected by the political left.”101 As Lázaro Cárdenas’s only son, Cárdenas bore, for leftists, the legacy of the Mexican Revolution. His pedigree, as suggested, gave him a mystical quality among left activists.102 These activists associated him with his father. He

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symbolized their aspirations. They attributed to him, more than to any other left figure, the authentic commitment and will necessary to usher in democratic change and combat neoliberalism, which many on the left regarded as an abdication of economic sovereignty. Cárdenas also ideologically represented the PRD base. Drawn from social movements and the former PRI, the PRD activists were predominantly radical in orientation.103 Despite his inclusive leadership style (see below), Cárdenas consistently stood for radical positions. He prioritized activist demands, supported the conception of the PRD as a movement, and took intransigent, even extreme positions at the expense of the PRD’s broader electoral appeal (e.g., opposing negotiation with the PRI; opposing NAFTA; and meeting with Subcomandante Marcos of the Zapatista National Liberation Army). Cárdenas’s steadfast radicalism helped to cement members’ loyalty and “obedience” to him.104 Although disproportionately represented at the base level, radicals also existed at the elite level. From the beginning, Cárdenas established alliances with the PRD’s radical elites, most of whom came from social movements, not the PRI. These alliances remained strong through the 1990s. Cárdenas did not have especially strong preexisting crossfactional ties, but as the PRD’s leader, he famously—notoriously, according to some—established himself as the hub of the PRD organization. Not any leader could have achieved this, but Cárdenas, due to his intense, often die-hard support at the base level, was able to do so. Leaders and activists from the social left and ex-PRI networks controlled most local and regional PRD offices, and they established “personal, direct linkages with [Cárdenas],” interfacing with the national party organization through him alone.105 The “tight links between Cárdenas and the PRD’s social left leaders meant that control . . . was shared and exercised almost completely by the group . . . headed by the charismatic leader.”106 The weakness of horizontal linkages across subnational organs—which, according to some, Cárdenas himself promoted—further strengthened Cárdenas’s position within the PRD organization.107 Cárdenas also established ties across leaders and currents in the national office. He “occupied the center” of this orbit.108 He was “the one responsible for building bridges,”109 the figure around whom “the distinct currents with their respective leaders converged.”110 Some national leaders, especially radical ones, supported Cárdenas out of genuine loyalty and ideological affinity. Others, especially traditional Marxists and reformist ex-PRI elites, supported Cárdenas for pragmatic reasons. They knew they benefited from his coattails, and that, given Cárdenas’s support at the base level, they would need his backing if they aspired to a

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prestigious public or party post (e.g., the party presidency). For all these reasons, “the establishment of direct contacts with [Cárdenas] became almost a rule” among national PRD leaders.111 To preserve his crossfactional ties, Cárdenas generally avoided taking sides in disputes and, where possible, synthesized opposing positions.112 In public, he did not dismiss or lord his power over internal opponents. Instead, he “insisted on presenting himself as just another party member.”113 HOW CÁRDENAS GENERATED COHESION IN THE EARLY PRD

Cárdenas’s electoral indispensability, moral authority, strong crossfactional ties, and ideological representativeness made him internally dominant. He “stood above the different leaders that converged and coexisted in the PRD.”114 To manage his responsibilities, he appointed a network of aides, to whom he delegated and entrusted different tasks, and who spoke for him. Although this nucleus never became a formal faction, it constituted the early PRD’s dominant coalition.115 In general terms, Cárdenas functioned as the PRD’s decision maker and arbiter. Key party decisions were made and conflicts adjudicated unilaterally by him, often without debate or negotiation116 and rarely through formal procedures, which remained weakly institutionalized throughout the 1990s117 and beyond.118 Cárdenas thus played a “substituting role for the lack of institutionalization.”119 Many PRD leaders, predominantly reformists, objected to the extreme and informal centralization of power in Cárdenas’s person.120 More specifically, Cárdenas dominated internal affairs in three main areas: candidate selection, the allocation of party offices, and program and tactics. Within each of these areas, a number of key processes and episodes illustrate Cárdenas’s enduring and near absolute control of the early PRD. Imposing the Line of Intransigence (1989–1993)

From 1989 to 1993, conflict within the PRD centered on whether the party should embrace mobilization and confrontation (the “rupturist” position) or seek change through reform in the institutional sphere (the “reformist” or “intransigent” position). Cárdenas imposed the rupturist position by informal means. In an instance of “dodging rules that would limit his leadership,” he personally staffed the early CENs121 so as to tilt the balance toward fellow rupturists. Where necessary, he dictated the line of intransigence to reformist elites at the subnational level (e.g., in Michoacán). His firm intransigence and base-level support led to the dominant performance of radicals at the PRD’s 1990 national congress

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and in the 1991 legislative elections. In all these ways, Cárdenas “gradually steered the ship” in the rupturist direction.122 Securing the 1994 Presidential Nomination

In early 1993, the Mexican public and PRD base overwhelmingly pressed for Cárdenas’s 1994 presidential candidacy. The PRD base did not demonstrate its support for Cárdenas through formal procedures. As would occur six years later, support for Cárdenas’s candidacy bubbled up outside formal party channels, from PRD members and nonmembers alike. Cárdenas used this internal and external support as leverage to secure the nomination through informal negotiations. In a late 1990s interview, Porfirio Muñoz Ledo stated that overwhelming internal demand for Cárdenas’s candidacy caused him, in these informal negotiations, not to compete for the nomination: “It’s clear that Cuauhtémoc’s leadership of the party was very broad. . . . Overwhelmingly, the majority of the party were for [Cárdenas]. . . . So I told him that I wouldn’t compete.”123 Making Muñoz Ledo the PRD President in 1993

The selection of the party president in 1993 was determined through a competition for delegate votes at the PRD’s second national congress in the same year. Cárdenas decided the outcome of this process by providing critical, if unspoken, support to Porfirio Muñoz Ledo, one of four candidates.124 Muñoz Ledo was the “unquestioned leader of the PRD’s legislative bloc” and had demonstrated a unique “capacity to reach deals outside of the party domain.”125 Given his reformist views and exceptional political skills, most of the PRD’s “historical figures” favored him (e.g., Ifigenia Martínez). Yet he “had abstained from establishing ties of loyalty to the bases.”126 Thus, to win a plurality of congressional delegate votes, Muñoz Ledo needed Cárdenas’s support. Although Cárdenas and Muñoz Ledo disagreed on fundamental questions, Cárdenas quietly lent favor to Muñoz Ledo. The party presidency constituted an implicit consolation prize for Muñoz Ledo, in exchange for Cárdenas’s having received the PRD’s 1994 presidential nomination. With Cárdenas’s considerable weight behind him, Muñoz Ledo won the party presidency comfortably. Cárdenas’s 1994 Presidential Defeat and Continued Dominance

Although reformists formally controlled the national office after the July 1993 party congress, internal debate remained “tilted toward the radicals given the [party’s] warlike relationship with Carlos Salinas and the strong leadership of Cárdenas.”127 Reformists thus had little choice but

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to accept Cárdenas’s decision, as the presidential candidate, to meet with Subcomandante Marcos of the Zapatista National Liberation Army, to oppose the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and to back out of negotiations on electoral reform. Cárdenas’s lopsided loss in 1994 significantly affected the internal debate between radicals and moderates. Moderate PRD leaders could, with reason, read the electoral outcome as a public verdict against Cárdenas and his line of intransigence. The ascendance of the reformist wing culminated in events at the PRD’s third congress, in late August 1995. The rupturists, led by Cárdenas, proposed that the PRD demand newly elected president Zedillo’s (PRI) resignation. The reformists, or dialoguistas, led by Muñoz Ledo, proposed that the PRD recognize Zedillo’s legitimacy and participate in a pacted transition to democracy.128 The congress resolved in the reformists’ favor. The 1995–1996 period marked the high point of Muñoz Ledo’s trajectory within the PRD. In addition to presiding over the reformists’ victory at the 1995 congress, he oversaw the passage of new internal procedural reforms and, in 1996, successfully negotiated for landmark electoral reforms in congress.129 Together, these reforms consolidated the PRD’s internal shift from “intransigence to limited cooperation.”130 Nevertheless, as of mid-1996, Muñoz Ledo remained in the “shadow” of Cárdenas, whose persistence in the radical line continued to sustain the loyalties of PRD activists.131 Making AMLO the PRD President

In mid-1996, over 300,000 PRD members, roughly a fourth of the party membership, voted in a closed primary election to elect Muñoz Ledo’s successor as PRD president. PRD members elected Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) by an overwhelming margin. AMLO’s rise within the party did not result from internal moral stature, as in the case of Cárdenas, or from decades of accumulated political capital and connections, as in the case of Muñoz Ledo.132 Instead, his rise resulted from short-term success at building a large coalition that cut across feeder categories and ideological perspectives. Importantly for our purposes, Cárdenas’s “backing” allowed AMLO to build this coalition “between otherwise opposing groups.”133 Winning the Mexico City Mayoral Nomination and Election

The electoral reforms of 1996 opened Mexico City to direct elections, raising the question of who in the PRD would run. Both Cárdenas and Muñoz Ledo sought the party’s nomination, and the party held a closed primary election to determine the victor. “In terms of leadership and

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TABLE 5.2 EXTERNAL APPEAL, INTERNAL DOMINANCE? (THE PRD’S CUAUHTÉMOC CÁRDENAS)

External appeal

high

The PRD’s lead candidate in the 1990s; placed second in one presidential election (1988) and third in two (1994, 2000); won the Mexico City mayoralty in 1997

Crossfactional ties

strong

Central node in the PRD network and leader of its informal dominant coalition

Moral authority

high

Bearer of the revolutionary legacy of his father, General Lázaro Cárdenas

Ideological representativeness

high

A radical in a predominantly radical party

yes

Was never seriously challenged as lead candidate and was the PRD’s central decider and adjudicator, substituting for institutions of decision making and conflict settlement

Internal dominance?

popular acceptance, the battle was lost in advance” for Muñoz Ledo,134 who therefore accepted a candidacy for federal deputy. Cárdenas won the Mexico City mayoral election in a landslide, elevating him to unprecedented heights internally.135 Not only did he benefit from the glow of victory, his performance restored confidence among PRD members that the party could win major elections. Moreover, he had refused to make ideological compromises during the campaign, instead remaining firmly committed to the line of intransigence. Consequently, “his leadership was never more complete” than at the PRD’s fourth congress in March 1998.136 Winning the 2000 Presidential Nomination

In late 1998, both Cárdenas and Muñoz Ledo announced their intention to seek the PRD’s nomination for the 2000 presidential election. “Everything depended on which side the activists favored, and Cárdenas and Muñoz Ledo knew well which side [the activists] would be on. Thus, as always, the moral leader of the PRD had the last word.”137 In early 1999, PRD elites and activists rallied around Cárdenas. First, in January, over one hundred PRD deputies penned an open letter in support of Cárdenas. Then, in April, Cárdenas admitted to meeting with president-elect Salinas after the 1988 election, whereupon Muñoz Ledo publicly lambasted him for inconsistency and duplicity. Muñoz Ledo’s offensive maneuver backfired. In response, PRD elites, including many longtime allies of Muñoz Ledo, closed ranks around Cárdenas. Under pressure to initiate his presidential campaign, Cárdenas imposed himself as the PRD’s presidential nominee in an unexpected manner. Without

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formally consulting the party, he accepted the nomination of the Labor Party (PT), correctly calculating that this would force the PRD to support his bid immediately. In response, Muñoz Ledo defected from the PRD and contested the 2000 presidential election, quite unsuccessfully, on a separate ticket. Many PRD elites and observers criticized Cárdenas’s leadership style during the party’s early years, citing “its negative consequences for routinization.”138 Cárdenas’s dominance, though, enabled the early PRD to act as one and speak in a single voice. Indeed, Tania Rodríguez suggests that given the PRD’s “unstable equilibrium,” if Cárdenas had not acted as the party’s decider, and instead had submitted to established procedures, the PRD might have fractured.139

THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF THE PRD The PRD’s development after the late 1990s is well-known and widely studied.140 Many scholars, between the mid-1990s and mid-2010s, treated the PRD as a failure or underachiever, citing repeated presidential defeats and internal dysfunction.141 These scholars had their reasons. Through the 2010s, the PRD remained weakly routinized and plagued by infighting.142 It did not win the presidency, arguably having paid a price for catering to its base.143 The PRD, like many parties, became less idealistic and more professionalized over time; a common lament among founding members is that, as the years progressed, the PRD attracted a much higher proportion of opportunists and patronage seekers than during the late 1980s and early 1990s.144 But the PRD’s achievements over this period received too little emphasis. As noted at the beginning of this chapter, the PRD won at least 10 percent of the congressional vote from 1994 to 2015, with a higher average vote share than Brazil’s PT; it won over a dozen governorships on its own and and an additional three in coalition with the PAN; it held the Mexico City mayoralty, one of Mexico’s most important offices, from 1997 to 2018; and it came close to winning the presidency in 2006 and 2012. In short, the PRD established itself as a perennial player and frequent contender for national power, something very few new parties in Latin America, left or otherwise, achieved. The PRD’s consistent electoral strength after the mid-1990s stemmed from several factors, including media liberalization145 and a set of controversial measures undertaken during AMLO’s tenure as PRD president. To improve the PRD’s electoral performance after the disappointment of 1994, and to expand the party base, AMLO’s PRD devised a new mass media strategy,146 and in an effort to remedy the PRD’s territorial unevenness in organizational and electoral terms, he initiated the large-

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scale use of paid activists and adopted the practice of co-opting non-PRI politicians.147 Due to these measures, the PRD’s membership and territorial presence increased considerably during the second half of 1990s.148 The PRD also developed a reasonably effective partisan brand during its formative years—not as strong as the PT’s, but solid nonetheless.149 Porfirio Muñoz Ledo stated in the mid-1990s that the PRD’s automatic vote provided a strong electoral incentive for him to remain in the party, despite his conflicts with Cárdenas.150 By the late 1990s, most Mexicans could locate the PRD symbol, an Aztec Sun, on the left–right spectrum.151 Cárdenas effectively retired from electoral politics after his 2000 presidential defeat, but by this time, due to the strengthening of the PRD brand and the rising profile of AMLO, the PRD was not as electorally dependent on Cárdenas as it had been in the early 1990s. Whereas in the 1991 congressional election, the PRD received only 8 percent of the vote with Cárdenas off the ballot, in the 2003 congressional election, the PRD’s first since 1991 with Cárdenas off the ballot, it received 18 percent of the vote. In the late 2000s and early 2010s, the PRD considerably diluted its brand by participating in strange bedfellow alliances with the center-right PAN. Such alliances, and other perceived violations of the PRD’s principles, led Cárdenas to exit the party in 2014. Brand dilution might have made the PRD more electorally dependent on Cárdenas’s externally appealing successor, AMLO, than it otherwise would have been. The PRD national committee gestured toward this dependence in a 2010 reflection: “In our party, Guevarists, pro-Castro groups, Christians, atheists, socialists, social democrats, liberals, and communists came together, and what kept them united? The strength and authority of Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas and Andrés Manuel López Obrador.”152 Electoral dependence on AMLO rendered the PRD vulnerable because AMLO—due to two factors—lacked Cárdenas’s internal dominance. First, he did not have a source of moral authority comparable to Cárdenas’s lineage. Second, the PRD moderated in the late 2000s, but AMLO did not, making him less ideologically representative of, and also less morally authoritative within, the party. After his 2006 presidential loss to the PAN’s Felipe Calderón, AMLO did not accept the legitimacy of the result; created and presided over an informal “legitimate government”; called for the revocation of Calderón’s mandate; referred to Calderón as part of the “power mafia”; and questioned the viability of the electoral path in Mexico.153 In 2008 moderate, institutionalist leader, Jesús “Chucho” Ortega, won internal elections against AMLO’s favored candidate.154 Ortega’s faction, the New Left (NI)—which, despite its

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name, mainly consisted of traditional left figures—was committed to seeking power through elections, and to reforming institutions by working within them. The NI also called for electoral alliances between the PRD and PAN to unseat the PRI in regional PRI strongholds. By contrast, AMLO opposed PRD-PAN alliances and, as noted, questioned the viability of the electoral path; denied the legitimacy of Mexico’s political institutions; and created his own parallel institutions such as the “legitimate government,” the Democratic National Convention (CND), and his own National Regeneration Movement (MORENA).155 Consequently, “conflict with AMLO and his backers was a constant of Ortega’s PRD presidency.”156 Ortega and the NI did not support— and at times impeded—AMLO’s efforts to protest the 2006 presidential election result, leading to allegations of “betrayal” on AMLO’s part.157 In some subnational elections in which the PRD allied with the PAN, AMLO campaigned for left parties like the Labor Party (PT) and the Convergence Party (PC) rather than the PRD. As Dag Mossige summarizes, “when AMLO could no longer fully control the PRD, he went to remarkable lengths to weaken it.”158 The NI retained the PRD’s presidency in 2011, following Ortega’s departure in March of that year. AMLO then narrowly secured the PRD’s 2012 presidential nomination over the internal rival and Mexico City mayor, Marcelo Ebrard. After losing the presidential contest to the PRI’s Enrique Peña Nieto, AMLO refused to accept the result. The PRD, under President Jesús Zambrano (NI), accepted Peña Nieto’s victory. AMLO defected from the PRD and turned MORENA into a party. The defection of AMLO, its most externally appealing leader, proved catastrophic for the PRD. In the late 2010s, Mexican voters turned against the entire party establishment, and AMLO and MORENA soared in popularity, siphoning masses of votes, members, cadres, and candidates from the PRD.159 In the 2018 presidential and congressional elections, MORENA won outright majorities, while the PRD did not even field its own presidential candidate and garnered a mere 5 percent of the congressional vote. MORENA also won the mayoralty of Mexico City, which the PRD had held since 1997. Today, only a rump PRD endures. Nevertheless, the PRD survived the formative years and took root for a generation as a perennial electoral contender in Mexico. In this respect, the PRD achieved something rare and significant. The PRD’s founders faced considerable early challenges: PRI hostility, electoral setbacks, and internal dysfunction. The party overcame them because of its electorally indispensable, internally dominant leader, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, and its strong organization, built under competitive authoritarian PRI rule.

CHAPTER 6

SHADOW CASES

So far, I have illustrated my theoretical arguments at work in the cases of FREPASO, the IU, the PT, and the PRD. But do the arguments generalize beyond these four cases? In the introduction, I provided modest correlational evidence for my central argument, showing that Latin American new left contenders born under democracy collapsed at a much higher rate than those born under authoritarianism, civil war, or a major insurgency. In this short chapter, I go further, presenting brief narrative analyses of several shadow cases. I begin with four left parties of recent origin. Two lie within the book’s sample (El Salvador’s FMLN and Colombia’s AD M-19), and two are slightly older, having formed in 1971 (Uruguay’s FA and Venezuela’s LCR). Then I examine a few centrist and right-wing parties. Most of these are contemporary cases (i.e., the electoral vehicles of the Brazilian president, Fernando Collor, and of the Peruvian presidents, Alberto Fujimori and Alejandro Toledo). One is historical in origin: Mexico’s National Action Party, or PAN. These shadow cases vary on my dependent variable: some survived after their initial rise to electoral relevance (the FMLN, FA, and PAN), while others collapsed shortly after liftoff (the AD M-19 and LCR, the electoral vehicles of Collor and Toledo). They also illustrate different aspects of my theory at work. Ideologically diverse cases such as Colombia’s AD M-19 and the electoral vehicles of Collor, Fujimori, and Toledo show how high media access in democratic contexts weakens incentives for party organization building. Ideologically and temporally diverse cases such as Uruguay’s FA, El Salvador’s FMLN, and Mexico’s PAN demonstrate, in different ways, how authoritarian contexts facilitate the emergence of durable new partisan contenders. The case of Venezuela’s LCR illustrates that electorally indispensable, internally nondominant leaders leave new partisan contenders vulnerable to fatal schisms. 162

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URUGUAY’S BROAD FRONT Uruguay’s Broad Front (FA), like the PT and PRD, is a case of survival. Born in 1971, the FA spent roughly twelve of its first fourteen years under military dictatorship (1973–1984). After Uruguay democratized in 1984, the FA steadily grew and became Uruguay’s leading political party. The FA has held a plurality in congress since 1999, and it held the presidency and a majority in congress from 2004 to 2020. What factors account for the FA’s survival and institutionalization as a major national party? The FA, as noted, spent the bulk of its formative years under military dictatorship. In 1970–1971, Uruguay, like its Southern Cone neighbors, was polarized and unstable due to Marxist guerrilla activities and Cold War–fueled fears of communism.1 The Uruguayan president Jorge Pacheco Areco (1967–1972) thus moved to suppress leftist parties and enlarge the Uruguayan military. Facing these adverse conditions and seeking to make a strong showing in the November 1971 general elections, Uruguay’s diverse left-wing currents united to form the FA in February 1971.2 The FA fared well in the 1971 general election, garnering 18 percent of the national vote, but less than two years later, the Uruguayan military seized power in a bloodless coup and ruled until November 1984. Under military dictatorship, the FA had no access to the state and very little access to media. In addition to holding a near monopoly on public office, the military banned left parties (e.g., most of the FA’s constituent parties), forcing the FA underground. Like Brazil’s PT, the FA was a labor-based party, and the military banned trade union membership. The military denied left leaders access to offices reserved for civilians (e.g., the largely symbolic position of president). It severely curtailed left opponents’ freedom of speech, press, and association. It incarcerated more political prisoners, in per capita terms, than any other bureaucratic authoritarian regime. It exiled thousands of opponents and disappeared dozens more. In short, it expunged every surface trace of opposition. 3 These circumstances, paradoxically, benefited the FA in the long run. For much of the military period, the only strategy open to left leaders and activists was to bide time and organize, so that when opportunities to mobilize arose—either for protests or elections—they would be ready. Like the PT, the FA built a territorial organization by tapping into mobilizing structures within the labor movement. From inception, the FA had close ties to the national labor confederation, the National Workers Convention, or CNT (subsequently the Intersyndical Workers Plenary [PIN], then the PIN-CNT). Given the left’s lack of access to

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patronage and the pervasive threat of arrest, exile, or worse, only committed leftists participated in the FA and associated movements during the most repressive early stages of military rule. Moreover, the military’s persecution and repression generated solidarity among left forces and produced a higher cause that transcended the left’s factional divisions— namely, to topple Uruguay’s military dictatorship and restore Uruguayan democracy.4 In the final years of military rule, repression eased, but the left continued to lack access to the state and media. These conditions created an opening, and also a strong electoral incentive, for the FA to mobilize. In 1980 the military, increasingly unpopular due to a mixed economic record and years of repression, sought to legitimate itself by proposing a new constitution that would grant it tutelary privileges. Voters roundly rejected the constitution by plebiscite, despite the military’s use of media manipulation and other undemocratic tactics. Seriously undermined, the regime, over the next several years, became more permissive, and opposition forces began to mobilize. In 1983, protesters carried out street demonstrations, workers held a May Day Parade, opposition leaders entered into negotiations with the junta, and the military temporarily legalized PIT-CNT, the FA’s organizational backbone. Eventually, opposition forces pressured the regime to release imprisoned FA leaders and schedule elections.5 When Uruguay fully democratized in late 1984, the FA was a highly robust party. It had a large territorial organization, committed partisans, and, importantly, a powerful brand.6 The FA received over 20 percent of the congressional vote in Uruguay’s democratizing election of 1984. Its brand steadily strengthened thereafter. From the middle of the 1980s to the end of the 1990s, the FA’s congressional vote share rose from 20 percent to over 50 percent, where it stabilized. Notably, its brand did not depend on a particular leader. The FA has met the congressional 10 percent threshold in every general election since 1971 despite having had multiple leaders over this period (Liber Seregni, Tabaré Vásquez, and José Mujica). The brand also transcends ideology, to some extent. The FA’s electoral appeal has persisted and grown despite the party’s occasional rightward shifts in economic policy. While the FA brand has not prevented schisms—factions defected in 1989, 1993, and 20067—it has prevented these schisms from killing or even seriously weakening the party. For left-of-center office seekers in Uruguay, there is little electoral future outside the FA’s umbrella. The FA is therefore poised to remain a major party in Uruguayan politics for many decades to come.

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EL SALVADOR’S FARABUNDO MARTÍ LIBERATION FRONT (FMLN) El Salvador’s FMLN is another case of survival. It was born in 1979 as a guerrilla confederation and, in 1992, demobilized and converted into a political party. Today, it is one of El Salvador’s two leading parties (along with ARENA), and it held the presidency from 2009 to 2019. Why did the FMLN survive its formative years and become institutionalized? The original purpose of the FMLN was not to win elections or mobilize in protest, but to engage in armed combat with the Salvadoran military and paramilitary forces in the Salvadoran Civil War (1979–1992).8 To this end, the FMLN built an extensive territorial organization by drawing upon mobilizing structures in civil society, specifically peasant communities, unions, student and teacher associations, and ecclesial base communities (CEBs). In a country of under five million inhabitants, the FMLN recruited over ten thousand combatants and tens of thousands of active, often covert, supporters. It came to control one-fifth of El Salvador’s territory through military victories and the seizure of large rural estates. The FMLN’s early members were highly committed; it could not have been otherwise. The civil war was incredibly violent, and FMLN members and supporters faced extreme adversity. Fighting for the FMLN, providing logistical aid, or openly supporting the insurgency carried “extraordinarily high,” often “mortal,” risks.9 Approximately 75,000 individuals (i.e., roughly 2 percent of El Salvador’s population at the time) perished in the war, and the vast majority were individuals suspected of participation in, or support for, the insurgency.10 Naturally, only individuals with profound “emotional and moral” commitments to the FMLN joined or outwardly supported it.11 These individuals, by and large, believed they were fighting a system that sought—by force if necessary—to enslave and dehumanize El Salvador’s poor masses. This higher cause proved “essential to the emergence and consolidation of insurgent collective action” in El Salvador.12 Thus, when the FMLN demobilized and became a political party in 1992, it inherited an extensive territorial organization with a highly committed membership. Importantly, it also inherited a widely recognized and respected—if highly polarizing—brand. Thus, in rough resemblance to the FA, and in contrast to the main new left parties featured in this book (the PT, PRD, IU, and FREPASO), the FMLN did not depend on a popular leader’s coattails for early electoral relevance. In the lead-up to the FMLN’s first national election in 1994, national polls consistently showed that a quarter of respondents supported the FMLN,13 and the

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party has received at least 20 percent of the congressional vote in every election that it has contested to date. During the early years of Salvadoran democracy, the FMLN had limited access to state resources and was not media savvy. The FMLN took five years to win the mayoralty of San Salvador and seventeen years to win the presidency. During its formative decade, it “remained relatively resource-poor and depended heavily on its members for on-theground operations.”14 The party also failed to make effective media appeals, in contrast to Colombia’s insurgent successor party, the AD M-19 (about which more below).15 These conditions made the FMLN’s ground organization fundamental, in electoral terms, and the FMLN membership grew steadily. Today, the FMLN has one of the highest member/ population ratios of any political party in Latin America. Remarkably, it deploys nearly 2 percent of the national population for nationwide municipal election campaigns. The FMLN, like many new partisan contenders, suffered early setbacks. As with Brazil’s PT and Mexico’s PRD, these setbacks occurred, in large part, because the FMLN’s ideologically committed base “sacrificed electoral victory for purity.”16 As noted, the FMLN took five years to win a major executive post (the mayoralty of San Salvador) and lost its first three presidential elections (1994, 1999, and 2004), faring worse in 1999 and 2004 (Facundo Guardado and Schafik Handal) than in 1994 (Rubén Zamora).17 The FMLN also suffered multiple schisms. Yet neither its schisms nor its electoral disappointments proved fatal. The FMLN’s inherited brand and territorial organization made it robust from inception. Every faction that defected from the FMLN flopped, and, despite many early presidential losses, the FMLN always rebounded. Eventually, as noted, it won the presidency and held it for ten years (2009–2019). Despite finishing a distant second in the 2018 congressional election and placing third in the 2019 presidential election, the FMLN remains one of El Salvador’s two leading parties in congress and a prime contender for the presidency. It is likely to be a national electoral fixture for decades to come.

COLOMBIA’S APRIL 19TH MOVEMENT DEMOCRATIC ALLIANCE (AD M-19) Colombia’s AD M-19 is, like FREPASO, a case of electoral collapse. AD M-19 originated as a guerrilla organization, like the FMLN. After demobilizing and converting into a political party in the late 1980s, it quickly rose to national prominence, garnering 13 percent of the presidential vote in 1990 and 27 percent of the constituent assembly vote in 1991. Just as quickly, though, AD M-19 electorally collapsed. In the 1994 general election, its national vote share fell to below 5 percent, and

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over the next several years, it faded into oblivion. Why did AD M-19 collapse after its initial success?18 AD M-19 consistently lacked access to the state, but, “unlike the FMLN, [it was] always . . . a media-savvy organization,” even during its guerrilla phase.19 AD M-19’s guerrilla precursor, M-19, was born in 1973 as an attempt, through armed insurgency, to open Colombia’s two-party-dominated political system to new entrants.20 In contrast to the FMLN, though, which sought to defeat the Salvadoran state in armed conflict, M-19 sought to spread consciousness among the Colombian citizenry through “flashy acts of violence aimed to attract public attention” (e.g., raiding military supply posts, laying siege to the Palace of Justice, and stealing Simón Bolivar’s sword).21 M-19 members, in other words, were “armed propagandists,” not threats to state or military power.22 Thus, even while engaged in guerrilla operations, M-19 members did not have a strong incentive to invest in territorial organization building. Upon demobilization in 1988, M-19 had a mere 791 members—a vanishingly small percentage of the Colombian population at the time (roughly 35 million).23 M-19’s media-based strategy continued after its demobilization and conversion into a political party. M-19 had captured the public imagination as a guerrilla group, but as a party, AD M-19 moderated, positioning itself as a “social democratic, antiestablishment alternative” that would “break the traditional parties’ stranglehold on power.”24 “Party members believed that they could persuade voters by publicizing their moderate program,”25 and they were correct. In 1990, shortly after demobilizing, AD M-19 won 13 percent of the presidential vote, and a year and a half later, in late 1991, it garnered over a quarter of the national vote in constituent assembly elections, relegating the long-standing Conservative Party to third place. This “near immediate electoral success reinforced the perception that organizational investments were unnecessary.”26 Like FREPASO, then, AD M-19, when it attained national prominence, was little more than a brand. It had virtually no territorial organization. 27 Importantly, AD M-19 could have built a territorial organization. There were “four networks that it could have cultivated as a source of support”: “peace houses” dedicated to facilitating guerrilla combatants’ transition to civilian life; older city residents who supported the party, National Popular Alliance (ANAPO); civil society organizations that had not been absorbed into corporatist structures, including unions, indigenous associations, and evangelical groups; and urban neighborhoods.28 AD M-19’s lack of territorial organization proved fatal. Like many new parties, including FREPASO, AD M-19 suffered an early setback.

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In 1994 voters punished AD M-19 for its perceived ideological dilution and corruption, then for its intransigent opposition to the Gaviria administration’s (1990–1994) popular decision to resume state repression of guerrillas. In the 1994 general election, AD M-19’s vote share fell sharply, from over 10 percent to just under 5 percent. AD M-19 did not have subnational governments or extensive activist networks to fall back on. Some AD M-19 members retired; others continued their political careers under new or different party labels. The party rapidly disintegrated, illustrating the perils of its media-based, “shallow territorial strategy.”29

VENEZUELA’S RADICAL CAUSE Venezuela’s Radical Cause (LCR) is a case of collapse by schism.30 Born in 1971, the LCR was a small, regional party for nearly two decades before leaping to national prominence in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In the mid-1990s, its internal tensions debilitated its electoral performance and ultimately resulted in a fatal split. Why did the LCR suffer this fatal schism after attaining national electoral success? During its first two decades of existence, the LCR operated on the margins of Venezuela’s two-party system, which consisted of the historically center-left AD and center-right COPEI. It was a “movement of movements,”31 drawing its ranks from student activists, the urban poor, intellectuals, and, most centrally, iron and steel workers in the Greater Guyana region of Bolívar state.32 Andrés Velásquez, who became a nationally influential progressive figure as the leader of Venezuela’s largest steelworkers’ union in Guyana, was the LCR’s “most successful and well-known member.”33 After the death of the LCR founder Alfredo Maneiro in 1983, Velásquez became the “de facto party leader” due to his “charisma, electability and popularity.”34 He would go on to contest the presidency on the LCR label three times, in 1983, 1988, and 1993. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the LCR rose rapidly on Velásquez’s coattails. In 1989 Velásquez won the governorship of Bolívar state. In 1992 the LCR’s Aristóbulo Istúriz won the Caracas mayoralty. In 1993, in a context of dramatic economic decline, sociopolitical instability, and eroding support for the AD and COPEI, Velásquez won 22 percent of the presidential vote, turning the LCR into a national contender. Although widely acknowledged as the LCR’s most electable member, Velásquez was not an internally dominant figure. Like most left parties in Latin America during the 1970s and 1980s, the LCR consisted of moderate and radical elements, with moderates prioritizing the pursuit of electoral success, and radicals seeking to effect change through social mobilization, even armed rebellion. Moderate/radical tensions worsened

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during the late 1980s and early 1990s. After the congressional elections of 1988, amid profound, protracted economic crisis, eroding support for Venezuela’s traditional parties, and declining political participation, the LCR formally split into radical and moderate factions.35 Velásquez led the moderate faction, while Pablo Medina—an ex-guerrilla with little visibility or popularity outside radical left activist circles—was the LCR’s leading radical member.36 As Venezuela descended into extreme political instability—capped by two failed coup attempts and the impeachment of President Carlos Andrés Pérez (AD)—LCR moderates and radicals came to differ on “the wisdom of maintaining links to army coup plotters while simultaneously courting respectability through the democratic process.” Velásquez favored a categorical rejection of armed struggle and “was anxious to press home the party’s electoral advantage.” By contrast, “Medina continued to meet with [coup leader Hugo] Chávez” during the late 1980s and early 1990s.37 Crucially, the LCR’s radical bloc was larger and more mobilized than its moderate bloc.38 Consequently, Velásquez was not high in ideological representativeness; his moderate positions did not resonate with most of the LCR’s base. He also lacked the moral stature of a Lula or Cárdenas, which might have given him clout among LCR radicals. Instead of leading his party and functioning as a crossfactional broker or mediator, he—somewhat like Barrantes of Peru’s IU—became the leader of a moderate bloc engaged in bitter factional conflict with a larger, more mobilized, radical bloc. In the early 1990s, Velásquez blocked Medina’s attempts to organize a coup within the LCR, and after “Medina’s group played a small role in . . . two coup attempts . . . it was almost expelled from the party.” The fissure between Velásquez and the radical core of the LCR became especially nasty and public in the lead-up to and aftermath of the 1995 municipal elections. The LCR’s weak performance “brought the longstanding rivalry between Medina and Velásquez into the open with mutual recriminations over policy and tactics.”39 The LCR’s fatal schism followed shortly afterward. Before the 1997 general election, Velásquez and allied cadres, unable to impose a moderate party line on the LCR, “[expelled] those who didn’t follow their ideas.”40 Medina defected to form Fatherland for All (PPT), taking Aristóbulo Istúriz, the ex-mayor of Caracas (1993–1996); Alí Rodríguez Araque, another leading figure in the LCR; and the “bulk of the movement” with him.41 The schism electorally debilitated the LCR, turning it into a marginal (albeit enduring) force in Venezuelan politics.42

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FERNANDO COLLOR AND BRAZIL’S PRN Brazil’s Party of National Reconstruction (PRN), founded by expresident Fernando Collor (1990–1992), is a case of electoral collapse. In 1989, just a few years after the rebirth of Brazilian democracy, Brazil’s economy was anemic, and hyperinflation had set in. The transition from military to civilian rule had not brought a radical break with the past; the same elites led the government (e.g., José Sarney), and long-standing practices of corruption and clientelism had not abated.43 Brazilian voters were dissatisfied, desiring a stronger economy and an alternative to politics as usual. Collor, later dubbed the “tele-populist,”44 saw an electoral opportunity and seized it. The initial presidential front-runners in 1989 were well-known political figures associated with or supported by established parties.45 Collor was less well-known. When announcing his candidacy, he was just a couple of years into his first term as governor of the small Northeastern state of Alagoas (1987–1989). In ideological terms, he was a staunch conservative, having supported, for example, the 1985 presidential bid of Paulo Maluf, a member of the authoritarian successor Social Democratic Party (PDS).46 One of his most famous policies as governor of Alagoas had been to trim the bureaucracy by firing thousands of well-paid, allegedly unproductive civil servants. Collor marketed himself as an outsider and opponent of both bureaucratic bloat and the traditional elite and party establishment. His target constituency was Brazil’s vast population of uneducated, unorganized poor.47 As noted in chapter 4, when Brazilian voters went to the polls in 1989, nearly three-quarters of Brazilian homes had a television; almost nine in ten Brazilians identified television as their leading political information source; and Brazilians put more trust in television than in their political institutions. For Collor’s target constituency in particular—lower-income Brazilians with minimal education—television represented the central, if not the exclusive, point of contact with politics. It was through television that Brazilian voters came to know Collor, and at least initially, many liked what they saw. Collor was made for the television age. Not only was he handsome, well-groomed, and telegenic, he carefully cultivated and monitored his image to appeal to his target electorate.48 He spoke of policy and ideology relatively infrequently, except to promise a “new Brazil” and stronger economy, and to express opposition to corruption and the political establishment. Mainly, he practiced “low politics,” focusing on his extracurricular passions (e.g., sports).49 Also, as we saw in chapter 4, Brazilian

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mass media—particularly the Globo network, which held a near television monopoly—were biased in Collor’s favor. The upshot was that television benefited Collor tremendously.50 Initially a “media curiosity” and dark horse candidate, Collor “ascended from nowhere.”51 Between February and May of 1989, his standing in national polls rose from 5 percent to over 30 percent. At one point, a single television appearance led to a more than twofold increase in his national favorability ratings.52 In the presidential first round, Collor garnered just over 30 percent of the vote, a far higher share than the PT’s Lula, who finished in second place with 17 percent. In the second round, Collor narrowly defeated Lula, with massive support from Brazil’s unorganized poor.53 During the campaign, Collor did not minimally invest in constructing his own party or forging civil society linkages.54 He rejected partnerships with and endorsements from business organizations, including the powerful Industrial Federation of São Paulo State [FIESP]). Instead of constructing his own party, he adopted the registry of the electorally moribund Party of Youth (PJ) and renamed it the Party of National Reconstruction (PRN). The PRN itself was useless; neither the brand nor the organization contributed to Collor’s electoral success in any way. It “served merely as an electoral vehicle.”55 Those who joined the PRN did so opportunistically, to advance their careers. There was no higher cause binding members to each other or the party. Members had no shared experiences to draw upon, no special connection to Collor. In short, they were “a disparate group of politicians from varying backgrounds, who jumped on the Collor bandwagon as it gained momentum” and “lacked internal focus or cohesion.”56 Why did Collor pursue this strategy of bypassing organization building and appealing directly to voters? In part, he did so to maximize his freedom of action. He did not want to be slowed or constrained by a party or civil society. But he also made direct mass appeals because he could. As in the case of Argentina’s Chacho Álvarez, access to mass media— and to television in particular—made his rapid electoral ascent possible. In office, Collor continued not to invest in party building. To do so would have been exceedingly difficult, as “those who voted for him were so dispersed, heterogeneous in their interests, and lacking in resources that integrating them into a new party was practically out of the question.”57 His strategy of “going it alone” also continued and ultimately contributed to his undoing. As president, he did not build stable legislative coalitions and largely governed by decree. Consequently, he became isolated and vulnerable to impeachment once his popular appeal diminished. In 1992 the Brazilian congress removed Collor from office.

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Unsurprisingly, the PRN collapsed with him. By the time of Collor’s impeachment, he and the PRN had vanishingly little support from Brazilian citizens and no networks of activists or subnational governments to fall back on. The PRN was an elite club, and its members left for the same opportunistic reasons that they had joined. Their association with Collor and the PRN had become a political liability rather than an asset; thus, they affiliated with other parties or became independents. Collor’s vice president, Itamar Franco, for example, switched party affiliations in 1992, rejoining his old party, the PMDB, before assuming the presidency. Whereas the PRN had garnered over 8 percent of the vote in the 1990 congressional election, in the 1994 election, it garnered less than 1 percent and evaporated.

ELECTORAL VEHICLES IN PERU UNDER FUJIMORI AND TOLEDO As numerous scholars have noted, Peru’s Alberto Fujimori had much in common with Collor.58 Both were figures who “sprang to the top of the polls, thanks in good measure to television exposure”; who “essentially created [a party label] for the purpose of running for the presidency”; and for whom “party organizations . . . played [a secondary role].”59 The two figures won presidential elections within a half year of each other, Collor in December 1989, and Fujimori in June 1990. Like Collor, Fujimori was not a traditional or experienced politician. Rather, he was a “political novice and outsider.”60 In fact, Fujimori was more of an outsider than Collor, who, as noted above, served as governor of a small state for a couple of years before launching his presidential bid. By contrast, Fujimori had never participated in an election before the 1990 presidential contest. By 1990, Peru had been a democracy for a decade, and television had become an important electoral medium. A large majority of Peruvians—including in the lower-income strata—owned televisions, and most identified television as their primary and most trusted source of political news.61 Two features of the Peruvian political landscape compounded the electoral importance of mass media circa 1990. First, Peru’s party system had begun to collapse; thus, a high proportion of Peruvian voters were unattached and open to appeals from media-savvy outsiders. Second, the majority runoff system meant that a candidate might only need to obtain a third or fourth of the first-round presidential vote to reach the second round. Strikingly, Fujimori was “a virtual unknown a mere month before the first round of the April 1990 presidential election.”62 But in the weeks before the first round, a large segment of voters, especially in the lower-income strata, coalesced behind him; most of these voters had learned

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about him on television. He finished second with 29 percent of the vote (just behind Mario Vargas Llosa). Over the next two months, he received almost unlimited mass media exposure, and his profile skyrocketed, even though mainstream media networks demonstrated an overall pro-Vargas Llosa bias.63 Like Collor, Fujimori used television (in addition to significant onthe-ground campaigning) to appeal directly to Peru’s mass electorate. His campaign was personalistic and familiar, pitched to lower-income voters who had detached from Peru’s established parties.64 His ease with ordinary people distinguished him from the patrician Vargas Llosa. In a remarkable populist victory, Fujimori defeated Vargas Llosa—the candidate almost universally preferred by Peru’s mainstream political and media figures—in a landslide, garnering nearly two-thirds of the vote. Thus, like Collor, Fujimori rose meteorically, seemingly out of nowhere, and it was television exposure that made this rise possible. In office, he continued to rely on television.65 Importantly, he also manipulated the state for political purposes. It is noteworthy that Fujimori, in his political career, spent virtually no time out of office. Upon entering politics, he almost immediately became president of Peru and gained control of the national executive branch. Peru’s state institutions—compared to Brazil’s federal structures, for example—were relatively weak and subject to politicization. Thus, unlike Collor, Fujimori had the option, almost from the beginning, of using state resources, personnel, and infrastructure for his political ends. He took this option, relying in particular on Peru’s armed forces, which became “his principal base of institutional support.”66 Because he could use media and the state as party substitutes, Fujimori “invested little in party organization.”67 He did not have a political party until a few months before the 1990 election, when he created Change 90 (C-90). C-90 was a mere legal instrument for Fujimori’s presidential bid. Once in office, he “ignored” C-90 and “actively impeded its consolidation,” breaking with his initial copartisans from the business and evangelical communities.68 Fujimori governed for the next decade. During this time, Peru’s democracy eroded into competitive authoritarianism, and its party system collapsed completely.69 Fujimori created various, short-term personalistic vehicles in the lead-up to municipal and national elections. In advance of the 1992 municipal elections, for example, he created New Majority and used it “to subordinate [Change] 90 even further.” 70 Not one of Fujimori’s parties—C-90 (est. 1990), New Majority (est. 1992), Let’s Go Neighbor (est. 1997), or Peru 2000 (est. 2000)—developed a

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brand or internal life independent of Fujimori’s short-term electoral and political fortunes. A corruption scandal ended Fujimori’s presidency shortly after his 2000 presidential victory.71 Interestingly, despite Fujimori’s pattern of neglecting and even actively impeding the process of party building during his tenure, the populist movement that he spawned subsequently took on a life of its own. Fujimorista parties contested elections in the 2000s and 2010s, and over the past decade, the pro-Fujimori Popular Force (FP, est. 2010) has become an institutionalized, electorally competitive party. In the conclusion, I will return to this “paradox of populism”—that is, the seemingly incongruous fact that although populist leaders frequently ignore or actively impede party building, populist movements often spawn durable, electorally potent new parties. Fittingly, the first elected president of Peru after Fujimori’s removal, Alejandro Toledo, followed a path that was in many ways similar to Fujimori’s. Toledo had finished second to Fujimori in the first round of the 2000 election. At that time, he had never held public office and was not well-known. His second-place finish was almost “accidental,” as he became a contender only after several top candidates crashed out of the race. The votes he received mainly reflected anti-Fujimori rather than pro-Toledo sentiment.72 Toledo boycotted the runoff election due to the Fujimori government’s antidemocratic campaign tactics, and he led a mass street protest during Fujimori’s inauguration. Thus, after Fujimori’s presidency-ending corruption scandal, Toledo, at that point a famous political figure, was well-positioned for the next year’s presidential election. In his campaign, he appealed directly to the mass electorate through television and practiced a “highly personalistic” style of politics.73 This approach proved advantageous in Peru’s new electoral landscape. Fujimori’s similar model had proved effective, and television had only grown in importance over the ensuing decade.74 Further, with Fujimori gone, Peru was a democracy, and electoral competition was open. Thus, as of the early 2000s, the political environment “[selected] for candidates (such as Toledo) who [could] succeed at media-based, candidate-centered politics.” 75 Toledo did not seriously invest in party building, either during his campaigns or once in office. His party, Possible Peru (PP), was a “personalistic, candidate-centered [vehicle] that lacked national structures or even minimal links to civil society” and “had no raison d’etre other than Toledo’s presidential candidacy.”76 Unsurprisingly, PP lay dormant after Toledo’s 2001 victory. Toledo was not constitutionally permitted to run for reelection in 2006. Following the completion of his term, he spent

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several years abroad, and PP, without an effective national candidate at its helm, faded into oblivion. It became a contender again in 2011, when Toledo ran for the presidency again and finished fourth. After the 2011 election, though, the party quickly faded into marginality again. Toledo’s electoral clout has since diminished. In 2016 he ran for the presidency but received less than 5 percent of the vote. Correspondingly, PP elected a very small contingent of national legislators. Whether PP continues to exist will depend on whether (and how successfully) Toledo mounts future presidential bids, or whether a different media-based, personalistic candidate appropriates the PP label.

MEXICO’S NATIONAL ACTION PARTY Of all the institutionalized conservative parties in Latin America, Mexico’s National Action Party (PAN) may be the best illustration of one of the core arguments in this book: that adverse origins, paradoxically, facilitate the emergence of durable new partisan contenders. Today, the PAN is, along with the PRI, one of Mexico’s two most institutionalized national parties. It has competed in elections since the 1940s, and has held the presidency twice in the recent past (2000–2006 and 2006–12). It has a national organization and a large membership subject to rigorous entry criteria. It also has a distinct and potent brand, standing for principles of market economics and Catholic, socially conservative values. What conditions gave rise to this highly institutionalized party? During the twentieth century in Latin America, numerous left-wing parties were born and struggled for years or decades against right-wing authoritarian regimes. Mexico’s PAN is a rare case of the opposite: a conservative party born under the authoritarian (and initially left-wing) rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).77 The PAN was founded in 1939 and developed under significant adversity. The ruling PRI used elections to legitimate itself but systematically tilted the electoral playing field in its own favor, making it “virtually impossible” for the PAN (or any opposition force) to challenge the PRI.78 The early PAN had almost no capacity to generate support through mass media appeals, given the combination of authoritarian constraints on press freedom; the underdevelopment of mass media technologies in the mid-twentieth century; and Mexico’s relative economic backwardness during this period. The PAN developed without resources. It could not afford a large paid staff or basic equipment, nor could it purchase or rent party offices. The party relied instead on volunteerism and borrowed equipment and space (e.g., church locales, members’ homes).79 The PAN also faced repression. During the 1940s and 1950s, PAN activists and politicians suffered “selective and targeted repression,”

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which led to dozens of deaths, hundreds of arrests, and countless episodes of harassment.80 Among early PAN activists, fear of violence and persecution was widespread.81 These conditions “put prospective PAN activists on notice that there were potentially high costs to be paid for their participation.”82 Due to all the above factors, the early PAN did not win elections or gain access to resources. The PAN won its first small mayoralties—in Quiroga, Michoacán, and Huajuapán de León, Oaxaca—in 1947, nearly a decade after formation. It crossed the 10 percent congressional threshold more than ten years later, in the 1958 general election. It did not win its first gubernatorial race until 1989, fifty years after its founding. It did not win the presidency until 2000. The PAN’s adverse origins selected for highly committed early joiners who did not expect or even fundamentally value electoral success. In 1939, the year of the PAN’s founding, the party’s founder, Manuel Gómez Morín, stated that the party “does not hunger for a victory in the near term” and “is not even prepared for the responsibilities of such a triumph.”83 Early party leaders and activists took ideologically pure stances, knowing that these positions would make the PAN electorally marginal. “In its first twenty years of existence (1939–59), the party opted for a posture that condemned it . . . to marginality. . . . It exaggerated its role as critic and limited its activity to systematically drawing attention to fraud, corruption, violations of the constitutional order, human rights abuses, and bureaucratic monopoly.”84 The quality and commitment of the membership mattered to early party leaders. PAN’s founders designed rigorous formal entry criteria to weed out opportunists and nonexemplary citizens.85 What higher cause drove the PAN’s early leaders and activists? Broadly speaking, the PAN was founded by “groups who felt displaced by the [Mexican] Revolution” and viewed their new party as the “representative of [Mexico’s] most conservative sectors.”86 The PAN was born at the tail end of the most left-wing presidency in Mexican history—that of general Lázaro Cárdenas (PRI, 1934–1940). Cárdenas presided over one of the largest land redistribution schemes in Latin American history; the nationalization of Mexico’s oil industry; the mobilization of workers and peasants into corporatist structures; and the implementation of socialist education reforms.87 PAN founders “felt their interests were threatened” by these policies.88 Opposition to the PRI’s perceived hostility toward the Catholic Church, in particular, lay at the core of the PAN’s identity. During the second half of the 1920s, Mexico had been embroiled in armed conflict between state forces and a predominantly peasant rebel force that rose up

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in opposition to the anticlerical policies of the Plutarco Elías Calles government (PRI, 1924–1928).89 The conflict, sometimes called the Cristero War, was extremely bloody, producing hundreds of thousands of casualties and refugees. The following decade, the Cárdenas administration’s socialist educational reforms further inflamed Catholics, placing Cárdenas “in direct conflict with [the Mexican Autonomous National University] rector and future PAN founder Manuel Gómez Morín.” 90 After the Cárdenas presidency, the PRI shifted to the economic center under Presidents Manuel Ávila Camacho (1940–1946) and Miguel Alemán (1946–1952). Consequently, those PAN members motivated by opposition to Cárdenas’s economic leftism found accommodation with the PRI, and the PAN “was increasingly left with social conservatives as its core constituency.”91 More specifically, Catholic activists quickly came to dominate the PAN’s internal life, even though the PAN resisted the confessional label.92 Dozens of militant Catholic organizations emerged in the wake of the Church-state battles of the 1920s and 1930s, and many fed directly into the PAN.93 The PAN used these mobilizing structures to build a territorial organization with a large membership and broad national penetration. Organizational strength fortified the early PAN. As noted above, the PAN did not pass the 10 percent congressional threshold until twenty years after its birth or win its first governorship until fifty years after its birth. But this long period in the electoral wilderness did not threaten the party’s existence. Across the country, local networks of PAN activists were ideologically committed to the party. Their higher cause, often, was to preserve Catholic values in the face of an unsympathetic, at times antagonistic regime. For these activists, participation was a source of meaning and a labor of love. The PAN maintained this ethos for many decades. Even when it became more electoralist in the 1980s and 1990s, the party retained a commitment to “attracting activists and building [a party organization] that [was] robust against co-optation.”94 The case of the PAN thus demonstrates that adverse origins can facilitate successful party building, no matter where the party in question falls on the ideological spectrum. The purpose of this chapter has been to suggest that the two arguments in my explanatory model—(1) low access to state and media strengthen incentives for organization building; and (2) externally appealing, internally dominant leaders reduce the likelihood of fatal schisms—apply to cases beyond my four main ones, including nonleft (e.g., Fujimori and Collor) and historical ones (e.g., Mexico’s PAN). The purpose, in short, has been to provide evidence of my theory’s generalizability. While I

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have not applied the full model to each shadow case, the shadow cases, together, illustrate every aspect of the model. I turn now to the conclusion, in which I identify alternative paths to left-wing party building and discuss research implications as well as questions for future investigation.

CONCLUSION

ALTERNATIVE PATHS AND THEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS

The world has become much more democratic over the past half century—a development most of us celebrate. But as democracy has thrived, parties have suffered, and not just in Latin America. As noted in the introduction, established parties and party systems have weakened or collapsed in much of Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the former Soviet Union. At the same time, most (though, importantly, not all) attempts to build new parties and party systems have failed. The result is that institutionalized party systems have become relatively rare in electoral regimes across the contemporary developing world. In Latin America today, many party systems are inchoate or semi-institutionalized (e.g., Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Peru, and Venezuela), and few have high levels of party system institutionalization rivaling that of the United States (e.g., Uruguay and Chile). Allen Hicken and Rachel Riedl note similar phenomena in Asia and Africa, and in a review of recently published literature on parties in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, Scott Mainwaring summarizes that “institutionalized democratic party systems are the exception rather than the norm.”1 Indeed, the problem of party weakness extends beyond the developing world. Philippe Schmitter draws attention to the “paradox” that democracy, while spreading across the world, has “entered into crisis” in its birthplace, the West. A central “morbidity symptom” of contemporary Western democracy, he argues, is the growing tendency of citizens not to join or identify with political parties. 2 The decline of parties is a problem. A voluminous literature shows that parties play an indispensable role in representative democracy, reducing information costs for voters; extending politicians’ time horizons; socializing elites; channeling social grievances and conflict; facilitating legislative organization; and enhancing executive accountability. On the conventional political scientific account, parties make democracies high179

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er-quality and less likely to break down.3 Widespread party weakness should worry us. My central contribution has been to show that the spread of democracy and decline of parties are related. Conditions associated with contemporary democracy (i.e., access to mass media; potentially quick access to state resources; and the absence of repression) impede the formation of durable new partisan contenders, as illustrated in cases like Argentina’s FREPASO (chapter 2), Colombia’s AD M-19 (chapter 6), and the personalistic vehicles of Brazil’s Fernando Collor and Peru’s Alejandro Toledo (chapter 6). Conversely, conditions associated with competitive and liberalizing authoritarian rule—that is, a lack of access to mass media and state resources, and low to moderate repression—facilitate the emergence of durable new partisan contenders, as illustrated in cases like Brazil’s PT (chapter 4) and Mexico’s PRD (chapter 5) and PAN (chapter 6). In what follows, I want to go beyond the arguments that I have presented in this book. I will begin by identifying a few alternative paths to successful new left party building. Then I will discuss the theoretical implications of my arguments and raise questions and topics for future investigation.

POPULISM AND AUTHORITARIAN INHERITANCE What are some alternative paths to party building, which may shed light within and beyond our population of Latin America’s new left contenders? Let us first return to our population. Three of nine survivors were born under democracy (e.g., Bolivia’s MAS and Venezuela’s PSUV). If, as I have argued, democracy impedes the formation of durable new partisan contenders, what explains the survival of these parties? The MAS is a clear case of survival. Born in 1995, the MAS became a national contender in the early aughts and a dominant electoral force in the mid-aughts. Since then, it has held the presidency almost without interruption.4 In many ways, the MAS, despite forming under democracy, took a path to survival similar to that taken by Brazil’s PT and Mexico’s PRD. The MAS did not win the Bolivian presidency—or a major mayoralty—until a decade after birth. The early MAS also had limited access to Bolivian media, despite the existence of a relatively free press. A “small group of corporations,” including the “vociferously anti-MAS Universal de Televisión” (UNITEL), “largely controlled” Bolivian private media.5 To grow electorally, the MAS had to build a territorial organization, and it did so by drawing upon the preexisting infrastructure of Bolivia’s peasant indigenous movement, particularly the coca workers’ union confederation led by Evo Morales.6 The nature of the MAS’s for-

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mative decade—electoral marginality, uncertainty about the feasibility of attaining power in the short to medium term—selected for ideologically committed early joiners. The MAS leader Evo Morales’s combination of long electoral coattails and internal dominance helped to generate cohesion; not only was he more popular than the MAS, he—in a manner similar to Lula—had tremendous internal clout due to his leadership role in the coca workers’ movement that gave rise to the MAS.7 Venezuela’s PSUV is another clear case of survival. Even if it collapses in the wake of President Maduro’s calamitous and repressive tenure,8 it has held power and sustained national electoral clout for a generation. But it does not fit my argument as well. In contrast to the MAS, which did not win a major executive post until a decade after birth, Hugo Chávez’s populist movement was born in the state. Chávez formed his party, the MVR, in late 1997 and won the Venezuelan presidency a year later. Thus, from inception, Chavismo—first the MVR (1997–2007), then the PSUV (2007–present)—had access to Venezuela’s vast state sector and received significant mass media coverage. Although leading private media outlets opposed the Chávez government during Chávez’s first decade in power, Chavismo, because it immediately won the presidency and gained all the associated free publicity, receives a “full” score on both state and media access (instead of “none” and “limited” scores, respectively, as in the MAS’s case).9 To make sense of Chavismo’s survival—and the MAS’s as well, to a degree—we must go beyond the theoretical arguments laid out in this book. A broader theoretical approach, articulated recently in Levitsky, Loxton, and Van Dyck (“Introduction”) and building on classic works such as Lipset and Rokkan (“Party Systems”) and Huntington (“Political Order”), posits that polarization and conflict furnish the raw materials for party building.10 Several mechanisms play a role in this account. First, polarization facilitates brand development by producing clear differentiation between political groups. Second, extraparliamentary conflict creates extraelectoral incentives for groups to develop ground organizations (e.g., for street protest and even for armed struggle). Third, because such struggles are costly and potentially dangerous for individual participants, group members tend to be ideologues, not careerists. Fourth, intergroup conflict produces intragroup solidarity and cohesion. Through these mechanisms, episodes of intense polarization and conflict birth durable parties. Polarization and conflict are broad categories. In this book, I have focused on one type of conflict (i.e., that between soft authoritarian regimes and their partisan opposition), and I have shown how the associated conditions facilitate successful party building on one side of the

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conflict (e.g., that of the partisan opposition). But conflicts have multiple sides, and there are multiple types of conflict, some of which can occur under democracy. This brings me to populism. THE PARADOX OF POPULISM

If we return to our three new left survivors born under democracy, two of them—the MAS and PSUV—grew out of successful populist movements. This is paradoxical, given that populist leaders, defined as personalistic political outsiders who electorally mobilize the popular classes against the political and/or economic elite,11 tend not to invest in party building.12 Most employ antiparty rhetoric in their rise to prominence, then discourage the formation of populist parties that might constrain them (e.g., Argentina’s Juan Perón, Peru’s Alberto Fujimori, and Ecuador’s Rafael Correa). Nevertheless, many populists unintentionally spark movements that produce durable parties. Take, for example, classic populists like Argentina’s Juan Perón and Peru’s Victor Raúl Haya de la Torre, founder of the APRA. Perón and Haya gained fervent support from workers and triggered passionate opposition from middle sectors and elites.13 Protracted, sometimes violent conflict between populist and antipopulist forces followed.14 These episodes generated effective (if personalistic) populist brands and populist movements with territorial reach and committed activists, forming the basis for strong party organizations.15 A similar dynamic helps to explain why Bolivia’s MAS and Venezuela’s PSUV—as well as the right-wing Fujimorismo in Peru—have taken root. The MAS solidified during a a massive wave of social protest in the early 2000s (e.g., the 2000 “Water War” and the 2003 “Gas War”). Morales’s historic populist victory in the 2005 presidential election triggered violent regional autonomy protests in 2007–2008 that “brought Bolivia to the verge of a civil war.”16 These episodes established clear political battle lines in Bolivia, and the MAS, by leading one side of the conflict—associated with indigenous identity, empowerment of the indigenous majority, and opposition to economic privatization and foreign exploitation—developed a distinct and effective partisan brand.17 These struggles also generated cohesion within the MAS; enhanced the MAS’s mobilization capacity, strengthening its organization; and furnished the higher causes (e.g., indigenous empowerment and anti-imperialism) that motivated MAS activists and underlay their common identity. Or take Chavismo. Following Chávez’s populist presidential victory in 1998, the intense elite resistance to President Chávez and the various measures taken to neutralize his movement (e.g., a short-lived coup in 2002 and large-scale mobilizations in late 2002 and 2003) cre-

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ated an atmosphere of adversity, persecution, and “acute conflict” within Chavismo.18 This atmosphere, in addition to generating cohesion among Chavistas and furnishing them with a higher cause, impelled Chávez and his followers to organize a mass base. To act “as a countervailing power to the concentrated economic or institutional resources of elite groups,” Chavismo had to be capable of mass mobilization and protest.19 For Chavismo as for the MAS, then, populist polarization and conflict drove successful party building. To be sure, successful populist movements do not always birth durable parties. Take, for example, Ecuador’s populist leader and expresident, Rafael Correa (2006–2017)—a figure often compared to Morales and Chávez. Correa’s policies, while unpopular with most of the Ecuadorean elite, were less radical and generated less elite resistance than Chávez’s sweeping economic reforms.20 Consequently, the polarization generated by Correa’s presidential tenure paled in comparison to that observed in Venezuela under Chávez, and PAIS partisans did not perceive a similar need to create a ground-level mobilizing force and line of defense. Whereas roughly 80,000 Bolivarian circles—pro-Chavista neighborhood-level cells—were created in Venezuela during the first half decade of the 2000s, PAIS never developed much of a territorial presence. Like FREPASO and AD M-19, it was a brand without an organization. Moreover, this brand was highly personalistic—to an even greater degree than the brands of the PSUV and the MAS. Whereas the MAS and Chavismo have managed to transcend the charisma of their founding leaders, it was never clear that PAIS would remain a major force if Correa exited the political stage. Correa’s presidency ended in 2017, and he quickly entered into public conflict with successor and co-partisan, Lenín Moreno (2017–2021), after Moreno shifted to the right in office. Although initially popular, Moreno suffered a precipitous decline in approval in 2019 and 2020. In the 2021 general election, he did not stand for reelection, and PAIS failed to retain a single congressional seat. Its collapse is likely permanent, although Correa might be able to resuscitate it if he makes a political comeback. AUTHORITARIAN SUCCESSOR PARTIES

Another alternative route to successful party building—with applications inside and outside our case universe of new left contenders—is the path of authoritarian inheritance.21 In recent work, James Loxton has demonstrated that since the onset of the third wave of democratization, authoritarian successor parties—“parties that emerge from authoritarian regimes, but that operate after transitions to democracy”22—have taken

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root across the former Third World. Although Loxton demonstrates his argument at work in the Latin American context, other scholars have shown that authoritarian ruling parties, or parties previously supportive of authoritarian regimes, have contributed significantly to party system institutionalization in new democracies in Africa 23 and Asia.24 Some authoritarian successor parties (henceforth ASPs) are former authoritarian ruling parties. Others are what Loxton calls “reactive ASPs”—that is, new parties created by high-level incumbents of former authoritarian regimes after (and in reaction to) democratic transitions. ASPs often take root, Loxton argues, because they inherit valuable resources from authoritarian regimes—that is, because of “authoritarian inheritance.” Authoritarian regimes cultivate numerous assets to ensure their own success, including territorial infrastructure, sources of cohesion, financial resources, clientele networks, and brands. Parties that emerge from authoritarian regimes can inherit all these resources, contributing to their success as political parties in new democracies. Importantly, ASPs span the left and right, and two of our new left survivors—Panama’s Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) and Nicaragua’s FSLN—qualify as ASPs. Because the FSLN owes its partybuilding success primarily to its insurgent (rather than authoritarian) origins, Panama’s Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), among the parties in my case universe, is probably a better illustration of Loxton’s argument. Panama’s de facto left-wing military dictator, Omar Torrijos (1968–1981), founded the PRD in the late 1970s, in preparation for upcoming elections. In contrast to other ASPs that emerged from authoritarian regimes, such as Chile’s Independent Democratic Union (UDI), the PRD was a charismatic, highly personalistic party, dependent for its external legitimacy and internal functioning and cohesion on Torrijos.25 Indeed, although he never contested elections, Torrijos exemplifies the combination of popular appeal and internal dominance. His popular appeal, for example, eclipsed that of his successor and former intelligence chief, Manuel Noriega. Torrijos pushed through unprecedented redistributive initiatives (e.g., massive land reform and labor mobilization). Most importantly, he secured, via treaty, the transfer of the Panama Canal—the engine of Panama’s economy and symbol of its national sovereignty—from American to Panamanian control. This action was extremely popular in Panama and, “in the eyes of many Panamanians, secured [Torrijos’s] place in the pantheon of national heroes.”26 In light of these achievements, a 1987 article in the New York Times described Torrijos as “the most important figure in modern Panamanian history.”27

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Torrijos’s achievements led to the emergence of a political identity in Panama, Torrijismo, that stood for national sovereignty and popular empowerment.28 Importantly, this brand “became bigger than Torrijos himself,” and the PRD, which Torrijos had created, was the “natural inheritor of this Torrijista brand.”29 Torrijos’s successor, the dictator Manuel Noriega, turned out to be far less popular than Torrijos, and consequently, PRD leaders, following Noriega’s ouster in 1989, scapegoated Noriega and used Torrijos’s legacy to resurrect the PRD brand in the 1990s.30 Torrijismo remains central to the PRD brand to this day. The PRD inherited other assets as well. First, it has used both the Panamanian military and peasant and labor groups to construct an extensive territorial organization.31 Second, the PRD, both during and after the Noriega era, used clientele networks developed under Torrijos. Third, and finally, since Torrijos’s death, “the cult of the founding leader” has been the PRD’s main source of cohesion.32 The FSLN is a less straightforward case because it was an insurgent successor party (like the FMLN) before it was an ASP. Moreover, the FSLN’s insurgent origins—more than its subsequent authoritarian experience—account for its durability and longevity. The FSLN developed an extensive territorial organization geared toward waging large-scale guerrilla war. This guerrilla organization became a platform for party organization building after demobilization. Participation in guerrilla war was, obviously, a risky endeavor, selecting for ideologues who later became FSLN party activists and leaders. Shared experiences of hardship and warfare generated cohesion within the FSLN, first as a guerrilla organization, then as a party. In these respects, the FSLN’s path to successful party building broadly resembles the FMLN’s. In contrast to the FMLN, however, the FSLN succeeded in toppling Nicaragua’s authoritarian regime (the sultanistic Somoza dictatorship) and seizing the reins of power. For the next decade (1979–1990), the FSLN was Nicaragua’s authoritarian ruling party. The Nicaraguan revolution was short-lived, and Nicaragua transited to democracy in 1990, when the FSLN lost control of the presidency and congress. The FSLN did not disappear, continuing to contest elections and ultimately returning to power (2006–present). Thus, from 1990 onward, the FSLN became—in addition to an insurgent successor party—an authoritarian successor party. As Loxton’s theory would suggest, the FSLN, as an authoritarian successor party, has inherited valuable resources from the single-party regime from which it emerged, including the potent FSLN brand, the ruling party’s internal cohesion, and the clientele networks that FSLN governments developed during the party’s decade in power.

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IMPLICATIONS AND FUTURE QUESTIONS Having discussed a couple of alternative paths to left party building, I will close by considering some theoretical implications of my arguments and a few related questions and topics for future party researchers. CONCEPTUALIZING THE NEW PARTY LANDSCAPE

Let us begin by returning to the observation with which I opened the chapter (and the book). Political parties across the world are reeling. Across the developing world, institutionalized political party systems have become the exception, not the norm.33 A broad, obvious implication is that the global party landscape has changed. Have we adequately conceptualized this new landscape? In 1995 Scott Mainwaring and Timothy Scully published their seminal volume, Building Democratic Institutions: Party Systems in Latin America. In it, they observed that Latin American party systems importantly differed from those in advanced Western democracies. Already in much of Latin America, parties were disposable, transient personalistic vehicles that did not structure the behavior of politicians and voters. Ordinary citizens lacked partisan identities, and politicians could win office without attaching themselves to existing parties. Mainwaring and Scully theorized that these Latin American party systems were not institutionalized, and argued that low party system institutionalization (or low “PSI”) made democracies less stable and functional. The term “PSI” caught on. Today, nearly all party scholars, Latin Americanist and otherwise, use it to conceptualize and distinguish national party systems. Recently, though, some scholars have argued that Mainwaring and Scully’s conceptual framework—according to which every country has a party system that can be placed on a spectrum from low to high PSI—fails to capture partisan dynamics in certain countries. Noting extreme party weakness in Andean democracies, for example, Omar Sánchez “makes a case for expansion of the conceptual framework for the classification of party universe types.”34 According to Sánchez, instead of treating certain countries (e.g., contemporary Guatemala and Peru) as having inchoate or weakly institutionalized party systems, one should treat them as not having party systems at all. All party systems, he argues, even those with extremely high electoral volatility, have a “core”—that is, a set of two to four parties that do not merely exist for the purpose of one or two elections, but instead exist across at least a few elections.35 Where democracies do not meet this minimal criterion, Sánchez asks, does it make sense to say that they have a party system? Sánchez’s answer is “no”; these are best seen as party “non-systems.”

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Steven Levitsky and Mauricio Zavaleta go a step further. Whereas Sánchez raises the question whether countries like Guatemala and Peru should be regarded as having party systems, Levitsky and Zavaleta raise the question whether the sorts of personalistic vehicles that have flooded the electoral landscape in these countries should be regarded as parties. Take Peru. Peru’s party system collapsed entirely in the 1990s, as President Alberto Fujimori’s political success from the early to mid-1990s influenced Peruvian politicians of all stripes—including, as we saw, Alejandro Toledo—to mimic Fujimori’s strategy of dissociating from institutionalized parties, mounting personalistic candidacies, and creating disposable parties for short-term electoral purposes. 36 Traditional elites abandoned institutionalized parties in droves, and ambitious newcomers did not join them. By the end of Fujimori’s tenure, there were no institutionalized parties of electoral significance in Peru. Since then, Peruvian politicians have adapted to electoral politics without parties and adopted alternative practices and strategies. These include partisan free agency and party switching, whereby at each election lower-tier politicians renegotiate for (and sometimes even purchase) positions on other politicians’ slates. As this practice has diffused widely, Peru’s “parties” increasingly take the form of “coalitions of independents”—that is, legal vehicles for a candidate for executive office (at the national, regional, or local level), which seek to fill their legislative slates with partisan free agents. 37 These coalitions of independents are not ideologically driven; partisan free agents are selected, typically, because they can help the lead candidate, either by delivering a constituency or helping to finance that candidate’s campaign.38 “Coalitions of independents have emerged as the predominant form of electoral organization in post-Fujimori Peru.”39 Are these coalitions of independents parties? On the one hand, they meet the classic, minimal definition of political party as a group of candidates seeking office via elections;40 “on election day, they are Downsian parties.”41 On the other hand, they are highly unstable—and designed to be so. “If teams of politicians must be even minimally stable to qualify as parties, then coalitions of independents should be viewed as an alternative form of electoral organization.”42 PROSPECTS FOR PARTY BUILDING IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD

Is the status quo of party weakness semipermanent, or might parties strengthen in the coming decades? As noted, my central argument gives reason for pessimism. The developing world is much more democratic than it used to be, and paradoxically, durable opposition parties tend to emerge in less-than-fully democratic contexts. As we have seen,

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three-quarters of Latin America’s surviving new left contenders originated under authoritarian rule, usually in electoral or armed opposition.43 To make matters worse, authoritarianism may facilitate successful party building in an additional way: through the aforementioned mechanism of authoritarian inheritance. James Loxton shows that every case of successful conservative party building in Latin America since the regional onset of the third wave is an authoritarian successor party.44 Thus, if we combine my argument and Loxton’s, we find that nearly every surviving new partisan contender in Latin America, from left to right, either originated in opposition to authoritarian rule (per my theory) or is an authoritarian successor party (per Loxton’s). There are several additional reasons for pessimism. First, scholars have recently begun to suggest that party weakness is natural, stable, even self-reinforcing.45 Noting how widespread party system deinstitutionalization has become in the developing world, for example, Hicken and Riedl question the assumption that such deinstitutionalization represents an out-of-equilibrium state that “should conclude with the realignment of . . . parties and voters in a new, stable pattern.”46 Inchoate party systems, they worryingly suggest, may be in equilibrium. Why might this be? Steven Levitsky and Mauricio Zavaleta provide a possible answer in their aforementioned work on Peru. As we saw, once Peruvian parties collapsed in the 1990s, politicians adapted to politics without parties, practicing partisan free agency and party switching and creating coalitions of independents.47 These adaptations proved effective and diffused quickly, eventually “[crystallizing] into informal institutions.”48 The shift away from parties was “reinforced” by the fact that politicians quickly learned to employ a range of party substitutes—that is, the recruitment of celebrities as a substitute for developing a partisan brand; and the use of mass media, corporate infrastructure, and hired ground campaigning services as substitutes for investing in party organization.49 Peru’s political environment has therefore changed drastically and now “appears to select for politicians who make effective use of these nonparty strategies and technologies. Hence, there may be a pathdependent logic to party system collapse.”50 Second, there is little evidence that designing the right electoral and party laws—something elites can actually do—will lead to successful party building in the developing world. Scholars have proposed various reforms intended to strengthen parties, including more robust public financing;51 higher organizational barriers to entry for parties seeking legal registry; and prohibition of independent candidacies for executive and legislative posts. While these forms of institutional engineering

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might have a marginally positive effect,52 they are far from sufficient to generate strong parties. As I have argued, parties need effective brands, strong organizations, and sources of cohesion (see chapter 1). Electoral and party rules do not generate any of these core ingredients of successful party building (see the introduction). Third, we have seen that successful parties, per Levitsky, Loxton, and Van Dyck, tend to emerge from episodes of intense polarization and conflict. Unfortunately for party building, such episodes are rare. Civil war and revolution almost never occur; periods of populist mobilization come along infrequently; and authoritarianism, as emphasized, has become less common as the world has democratized. If intense polarization and conflict are a near precondition for successful party building, we may have to hold our breath. Moreover, it is worth noting that when such episodes do occur, they bring many negative consequences (e.g., curtailment of civil liberties or loss of life), whatever their positive effects on party building may be. Fourth and finally, the most common type of polarization in the world today—populism—almost never gives rise to strong party systems. Take Latin America. Whereas civil wars have produced stable two-party systems in Uruguay, Colombia, and El Salvador, and bureaucratic authoritarianism has generated stable right and left parties in Brazil and Chile, populism tends to generate just one strong party: a populist, not an antipopulist, one. Several enduring parties have emerged from populist movements since the mid-twentieth century (e.g., Argentina’s PJ; Peru’s APRA; Bolivia’s MAS; Chavismo in Venezuela; and perhaps Fujimorismo in Peru). But no antipopulist partisan contender has taken root in these cases. Why? In recent work, I have argued that successful populists, by definition, tarnish elites and cripple established parties. Antipopulist politicians, who belong to the discredited elite and establishment, are therefore unpopular. Moreover, successful populists like Perón and Chávez discredit a wide spectrum of elites and organizations; thus, antipopulist forces are ideologically and socioeconomically heterogeneous, creating centrifugal tendencies within their ranks. Also, the breakdown of established parties allows populist leaders to dominate elections and concentrate power in the executive branch, weakening opponents’ incentive to invest in elections. Finally, to the extent that antipopulists do invest in elections, their frequent access to party substitutes (e.g., finance, media) weakens their electoral incentive to invest in parties. The upshot is that durable antipopulist parties rarely form.53 There are many reasons, then, to be pessimistic. Perhaps our best reason for optimism is that periods of intense polarization and conflict do

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occur. Again, take Latin America. Over the past half century, the region has experienced civil war (e.g., El Salvador), revolution (e.g., Nicaragua), periods of authoritarian repression (e.g., Brazil, Mexico, and Chile), and populist mobilization (e.g., Bolivia and Venezuela), and these episodes have led to the emergence of long-lasting party systems or parties. Moreover, competitive authoritarianism, like democracy, has been on the rise since the end of the Cold War, in Latin America and beyond.54 This has led to successful party building, or at least created more favorable conditions for party building, in many countries. Mexico, for example, became a competitive authoritarian regime in the 1980s and 1990s, and the resulting environment, as we saw, produced the PRD. DEMOCRACY WITHOUT PARTIES?

Elmer Eric Schattschneider famously claimed, generations ago, that “democracy is unthinkable save in terms of . . . parties.”55 To the extent that Schattschneider is correct, global democracy—especially democracy in the developing world—has a problem. But how true is Schattschneider’s claim? More precisely: given the degree of party weakness in democracies across the world, to what extent, and how, can democracies take root and/or perform well? This is a question that, going forward, scholars of parties and regimes must tackle. As suggested by Schmitter, it is also a question that, to a significant extent, we must apply to developing and developed democracies alike. It is almost certainly the case that weak parties increase the likelihood of democratic breakdown. Where parties are weak, political outsiders with questionable democratic commitments are more likely to win national executive office, and mechanisms of social and horizontal accountability are often too weak to prevent democratic breakdown via executive degradation. Party weakness has contributed to democratic breakdown in numerous countries over the past generation (e.g., Russia under Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin; Hungary under Viktor Orbán; Thailand under Thaksin Shinawatra; Peru under Fujimori; Venezuela under Chávez; and Bolivia under Morales). Interestingly, the central argument of this book implies that where such democratic breakdown occurs, the conditions for opposition party building should become more favorable, assuming that (1) elections continue; (2) repression is not too extreme, as it is, for example, in contemporary Russia and Venezuela; and (3) regime opponents cannot regain power by nonelectoral means, as they have, for example, in Thailand (since 2014) and Bolivia (briefly in 2019–20). But party weakness does not have to lead to democratic breakdown. Even countries with extremely weak parties can sustain democracy for

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decades. After President Fujimori’s ouster in 2001, for example, Peru became a “democracy without parties.”56 Rather than imploding, Peruvian democracy has remained intact over the past couple of decades, even as extreme party weakness has persisted. Nevertheless, where democracy survives amid party weakness, the quality of democracy, almost of necessity, erodes. A democracy without parties is a democracy in which presidents conflict with legislatures; professional, experienced, democratically socialized politicians are scarce; political outsiders and amateurs come to dominate governments, legislatures, and to some extent state structures; and masses of voters are detached and incapable of holding their government properly accountable. Under these conditions, the quality of public institutions (e.g., cabinets, legislatures, and bureaucracies) suffers, and public trust in and satisfaction with democracy declines. Peru, for example, while sustaining democracy since the early 2000s, has been “muddling through” as a low-quality, crisis-prone democracy.57 In short, we may need to nuance Schattschneider’s famous dictum: stable, high-quality democracy may be unthinkable save in terms of parties, but low-quality, unstable democracy is not. In recent work, Philippe Schmitter has suggested that we accept democracy’s current “morbidity symptoms” and contemplate how to redesign democracy accordingly.58 He and others have proposed dozens of possible reforms, including electronic and “smart” voting; participatory budgeting; increased use of referendums and citizen initiatives; even the random selection of citizens to deliberate and govern. Regardless of whether these particular proposals would bear fruit, Schmitter is asking the right question. We may have to accept a world without strong parties, in which low-quality, crisis-ridden democracy becomes more normal. How we improve and make the best of this situation will be a key issue, going forward.

NOTE ON REGIONAL SILOIZATION I close with a brief, final note. Research on party building would benefit greatly from more dialogue among scholars who focus on different regions. Why, for example, is there very little party competition along programmatic lines in Africa and Asia, whereas programmatic partisan competition is common (although not universal) in Latin America?59 Do prospects for successful party building differ from region to region? For example, are prospects brighter in Africa, where electoral authoritarianism is relatively common? Are they dimmer in Europe, where democracy is fairly solidly entrenched? These are just a few questions we might ask—among many others. My point is that although some scholars have

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broken out of their regional silos over the past decade,60 a greater emphasis on cross-regional comparisons would surely enrich our collective understanding of parties, party systems, and related topics.

NOTES

INTRODUCTION: WHY DO SOME NEW PARTIES SURVIVE, WHILE OTHERS COLLAPSE? With permission, portions of the text in this introduction are taken in paraphrased form or verbatim from passages in Brandon Van Dyck, “Why Party Organization Still Matters: The Workers’ Party in Northeastern Brazil,” Latin American Politics and Society 56, no. 2 (2014): 1–26; Brandon Van Dyck, “The Paradox of Adversity: New Left Party Survival and Collapse in Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina,” in Challenges of Party-Building in Latin America, ed. Steven Levitsky, James Loxton, Brandon Van Dyck, and Jorge Domínguez (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 133–58; Brandon Van Dyck, “The Paradox of Adversity: The Contrasting Fates of Latin America’s New Left Parties,” Comparative Politics 49, no. 2 (2017): 169–92; Brandon Van Dyck, “External Appeal, Internal Dominance: How Party Leaders Contribute to Successful Party Building,” Latin American Politics and Society 60, no. 1 (2018): 1–26; Brandon Van Dyck, “Why New Parties Split: The Schism of Peru’s United Left in Comparative Perspective,” Journal of Latin American Studies 50, no. 4 (2018): 889–918; and Steven Levitsky, James Loxton, and Brandon Van Dyck, “Introduction: Challenges of Party Building in Latin America,” in Challenges of Party-Building in Latin America, ed. Steven Levitsky, James Loxton, Brandon Van Dyck, and Jorge Domínguez (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 1–48. 1. Lieberman et al., “Trump Presidency and American Democracy,” 470–79; Levitsky, “Democratic Survival and Weakness,” 102–13; Levitsky and Ziblatt, How Democracies Die; Mounk, People vs. Democracy; Sunstein, Can It Happen Here?. See also “In Brazil, Nostalgia Grows for the Dictatorship—Not the Brutality, but the Law and Order,” Washington Post, March 15, 2018. 2. Roberts and Wibbels, “Party Systems and Electoral Volatility,” 575–90; Hale, Why Not Parties in Russia?; Hicken, “Stuck in the Mud,” 23–46; Seawright, Party-System Collapse; Riedl, Authoritarian Origins; Lupu, “Brand Dilution,” 561–602; Lupu, Party Brands in Crisis; Mainwaring, “Party System Institutionalization in Contemporary Latin America,” 34–70; Hicken and Riedl, “From the Outside Looking In,” 426–40. 193

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3. See Hale, Why Not Parties; Hicken, Building Party Systems in Developing Democracies; Mustillo, “Modeling New Party Performance,” 311–32; LeBas, From Protest to Parties; Riedl, Authoritarian Origins; Loxton, “Authoritarian Successor Parties,” 157–70; and Levitsky, Loxton, and Van Dyck, “Challenges of Party Building in Latin America.” 4. Larry Diamond, “Facing Up to the Democratic Recession,” Journal of Democracy 26, no. 1 (2015): 141–55; Hale, Why Not Parties; LeBas, From Protest to Parties; Riedl, Authoritarian Origins; Levitsky, Loxton, and Van Dyck, “Challenges of Party Building in Latin America.” 5. Mainwaring, “Party System Institutionalization in Contemporary Latin America,” 62. 6. Mainwaring and Scully, “Party Systems in Latin America,” 1–34. 7. Mainwaring, “Party System Institutionalization in Contemporary Latin America”; Mainwaring, Power, and Bizzarro, “Uneven Institutionalization of a Party System,” 164–200. 8. Mustillo, “Modeling New Party Performance”; Levitsky, Loxton, and Van Dyck, “Challenges of Party Building in Latin America.” 9. On party weakness and party system collapse in Latin America, see Roberts and Wibbels, “Party Systems and Electoral Volatility”; Sánchez, “Party Non-Systems,” 487–520; Morgan, Bankrupt Representation and Party System Collapse; Seawright, Party-System Collapse; Lupu, “Brand Dilution”; and Lupu, Party Brands in Crisis. 10. Indeed, according to Mainwaring, “Party System Institutionalization in Contemporary Latin America,” Latin American party systems since the mid1990s have not, on average, become less institutionalized. On his account, some party systems have become more institutionalized (Brazil, El Salvador, and Panama) and others less institutionalized (Venezuela, Argentina, and Colombia). Still others have remained stable at high (Chile and Uruguay) or low (Peru and Guatemala) levels of institutionalization. 11. See, e.g., Mustillo, “Modeling New Party Performance”; LeBas, From Protest to Parties; Riedl, Authoritarian Origins; Loxton, “Authoritarian Successor Parties”; Levitsky, Loxton, and Van Dyck, “Challenges of Party Building in Latin America”; and Van Dyck, “Contrasting Fates.” 12. See, e.g., LeBas, From Protest to Parties; Riedl, Authoritarian Origins; Levitsky, Loxton, and Van Dyck, “Challenges of Party Building in Latin America”; and Van Dyck, “Contrasting Fates.” 13. Bolivia’s Movement toward Socialism (MAS); Brazil’s Workers’ Party (PT) and Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB); Chile’s Independent Democratic Union (UDI) and Party for Democracy (PPD); Costa Rica’s Citizen Action Party (PAC); El Salvador’s Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) and Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA); Mexico’s Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD); Nicaragua’s Sandinista National Liberation

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Front (FSLN); Panama’s Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD). Fujimorista parties have had numerous names since 1990: Change 90, New Majority 1995, Peru 2000, Let’s Go Neighbor 2001, Alliance for the Future 2006, and Force 2011, and Popular Force (since 2011). Chavismo originated as the Fifth Republic Movement (MVR) and changed its name to the Unified Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) in 2007. 14. See Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming the Communist Past; Mustillo, “Modeling New Party Performance”; LeBas, From Protest to Parties; Tavits, PostCommunist Democracies; Hicken and Riedl, “From the Outside Looking In”; Loxton, “Authoritarian Successor Parties”; Levitsky, Loxton, and Van Dyck, “Challenges of Party Building in Latin America”; and Van Dyck, “Contrasting Fates.” 15. Huntington, Third Wave. 16. Aldrich, Origin and Transformation of Party Politics. 17. Ultimately, these elites opted to pursue their policy goals by mobilizing supporters into parties, not by trading votes and forging compromises at the elite level. 18. Converse, Dynamics of Party Support. 19. McPhee and Ferguson, “Political Immunization,” 155–79; David Butler and Donald Stoke, Political Change in Britain; Andersen, Mellemlagene I Danmark. 20. Campbell et al., American Voter; Lupu and Stokes, “Democracy, Interrupted,” 91–104; Dinas, “Does Choice Bring Loyalty?,” 449–65. 21. Shively, “Development of Party Identification among Adults,” 1039–54 and “Relationship between Age and Party Identification,” 437–46; Alwin and Krosnick, “Aging, Cohorts and the Stability,” 169–95; Carlsson and Karlsson, “Age, Cohorts and the Generation of Generations,” 710–18; Converse, Dynamics of Party Support; Claggett, “Partisan Acquisition versus Partisan Intensity,” 193–214; Jennings and Markus, “Partisan Orientations over the Long Haul,” 1000–1018; Cassel, “Testing the Converse Party Support Model,” 626–44; Stoker and Jennings, “Of Time and the Development,” 619–35. 22. Shively, “Development of Party Identification among Adults”; Cassel, “Testing the Converse Party Support Model”; Tilley, “Party Identification in Britain,” 332–44. 23. Campbell and Valen, “Party Identification in Norway and the United States,” 505–25. 24. E.g., Converse, “Of Time and Partisan Stability,” 139–71; Converse, Dynamics of Party Support; and Aldrich, Origin and Transformation of Party Politics. 25. Brader and Tucker, “Emergence of Mass Partisanship in Russia,” 69–83. 26. Mainwaring and Scully, “Parties and Democracy in Latin America,” 460.

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27. This assumption is important, as the advanced democracies on which earlier scholarship was based were highly stable after World War II. See Lupu and Stokes, “Democracy, Interrupted.” 28. Huntington, Third Wave dates the global third wave as beginning in the mid-1970s, but scholars conventionally designate the year 1978—when Ecuador transited from military rule to democracy—as the date of the third wave’s onset in Latin America ( Hagopian and Mainwaring, Third Wave of Democratization. 29. For an in-depth discussion of party substitutes, see Hale, Why Not Parties. Martin Shefter, in his seminal analysis of party building in America and Europe, argues that parties founded by non-officeholding opposition elites— that is, “externally mobilized” parties—must build mass organizations to “bludgeon their way into the . . . system” ( Shefter, Political Parties and the State, 5. My argument builds on Shefter’s. 30. The takeaway argument of Levitsky, Loxton, and Van Dyck, “Challenges of Party Building in Latin America”—that periods of extraordinary polarization and conflict facilitate successful party building—is broader and lower-resolution than my argument in this book. Here, I focus on one subcategory of conflict—that between authoritarian regimes and the opposition—and “drill down,” providing a high-resolution analysis of opposition incentives for party building under authoritarianism. The main explanatory variables that emerge from my analysis (i.e., access to mass media and state resources) feature much more prominently and receive much more attention and elaboration in this book than in Levitsky, Loxton, and Van Dyck, “Challenges of Party Building in Latin America .” 31. e.g., Schattschneider, Party Government; Diamond and Linz, “Politics, Society, and Democracy in Latin America,” 1–58; Dix, “Cleavage Structures and Party Systems,” 23–37; Dix, “Democratization and the Institutionalization,” 488–511; Aldrich, Origin and Transformation of Party Politics; Mainwaring and Scully, “Party Systems in Latin America”; Gibson, Class and Conservative Parties; Olson, “Party Formation and Party System Consolidation,” 432–64; Kitschelt et al., Post-Communist Party Systems; Roberts and Wibbels, “Party Systems and Electoral Volatility”; and Levitsky and Cameron, “Democracy without Parties?,” 1–33. 32. E.g., Katz, “Party as Linkage,” 143–61; Aldrich, Origin and Transformation of Party Politics; Mainwaring, Rethinking Party Systems; Schmitter, “Parties Are Not What They Once Were,” 67–89; and Levitsky and Cameron, “Democracy without Parties.” 33. Lupu, Party Brands in Crisis; Roberts, Changing Course; Roberts, “Historical Timing, Political Cleavages,” 51–75. 34. Kitschelt, Logics of Party Formation. 35. Tavits, Post-Communist Democracies. 36. Holland, “Insurgent Successor Parties,” 273–304.

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37. Tavits, Post-Communist Democracies. 38. Levitsky, Loxton, and Van Dyck, “Challenges of Party Building in Latin America.” 39. Ostrogorski, Democracy and the Organization of Political Parties; Michels, Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies; Key, Southern Politics in State and Nation; Duverger, Political Parties; Weber, Politics as a Vocation; Schlesinger, “On the Theory of Party Organization,” 369–400; Panebianco, Political Parties; Coppedge, Strong Parties and Lame Ducks; Roberts, Deepening Democracy?; Levitsky, Transforming Labor-Based Parties; Greene, Why Dominant Parties Lose; LeBas, From Protest to Parties; Tavits, Post-Communist Democracies; WillsOtero, Latin American Traditional Parties; Cyr, Fates of Political Parties. 40. Woodward, Management and Technology; Lawrence and Lorsch, “Differentiation and Integration in Complex Organizations,” 1–47; Pugh, Hickson, Hinings, and Turner, “Context of Organization Structures,” 91–114; Hatten, Schendel, and Cooper, “Strategic Model of the U.S. Brewing Industry,” 592–610; Schendel and Patton, “Simultaneous Equation Model of Corporate Strategy,” 1557–676; Lenz, “Environment, Strategy, Organization Structure and Performance,” 209–26; Pfeffer and Cohen, “Determinants of Internal Labor Markets in Organizations,” 550–72; Davis-Blake and Uzzi, “Determinants of Employment Externalization,” 195–223; Pfeffer, New Directions for Organization Theory; Scott, “Reflection on the Half-Century of Organizational Sociology,” 1–21. 41. Levitsky and Roberts, “Latin America’s ‘Left Turn,’” 1–28. 42. See Downs, Economic Theory of Democracy; Sartori, Parties and Party Systems; and Aldrich, Origin and Transformation of Party Politics. 43. Levitsky, Loxton, and Van Dyck, “Challenges of Party Building in Latin America,” for example, investigate new parties across the ideological spectrum in Latin America. 44. The left was proscribed in Peru in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s and Argentina in the 1950s and 1960s; likely defrauded in Mexico’s 1988 presidential election; repressed by the bureaucratic authoritarian regimes of the Southern Cone; and toppled in military coups in Guatemala in 1954, Argentina in 1955, the Dominican Republic in 1963, Brazil in 1964, and Chile in 1973. 45. Mustillo, “Modeling New Party Performance.” 46. A smaller number of countries were stably democratic both before, during, and at least initially after the third wave (e.g., Colombia, Venezuela, and Costa Rica). 47. Lupu, Party Brands in Crisis. See also Roberts, Changing Course and “Historical Timing, Political Cleavages.” 48. This process of renovation—especially the reformed left’s embrace of democracy—was reinforced in some cases by the experience of repression under bureaucratic authoritarianism. Roberts, Deepening Democracy.

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49. Roberts, Deepening Democracy. 50. De Soto, Other Path; Kurtz, “Dilemmas of Democracy,” 262–302; Portes and Haller, “Informal Economy,” 403–25; Levitsky and Roberts, “Latin America’s ‘Left Turn.’” 51. Luna, Segmented Representation; “Segmented Party-Voter Linkages in Latin America,” 325–56; and “Segmented Party-Voter Linkages,” 100–129. 52. Roberts, Deepening Democracy; Cross, Informal Politics; Levitsky and Roberts, “Latin America’s ‘Left Turn’”; Lust, Capitalism, Class, and Revolution in Peru. 53. Levitsky and Roberts, “Latin America’s ‘Left Turn.’” 54. I use 2005 as a cutoff point because no new left contender born after 2005—with one or two very recent exceptions (e.g., Ecuador’s Proud and Sovereign Fatherland [PAIS] Alliance; see concluding chapter)—has competed in five congressional elections. Thus, even those that today remain above the 10 percent threshold in the lower house of congress do not yet meet my criteria for survival. The 10 percent floor serves to exclude niche or regional parties, which do not seriously contend for national power. 55. These elections must be held at least two years apart from one another. If two legislative elections are held within two years of one another (e.g., Argentina), both elections count, but parties must win 10 percent or more of the vote in at least six consecutive elections to be considered cases of survival. A party must receive 10 percent or more on its own in at least one national legislative election; once it has done so, subsequent elections in which it participates in alliances that win at least 10 percent of the vote are treated as meeting the 10 percent threshold. 56. This operationalization is a reasonable middle ground between alternatives that would lead to counterintuitive scorings. For example, Middlebrook, Conservative Parties, the Right, and Democracy, operationalizes successful parties as those that receive a significant share of the national vote in two consecutive congressional or presidential elections. Yet, on this measure, Argentina’s thirdwave left party, FREPASO, would qualify as a success even though it collapsed just half a decade after rising to national prominence. 57. Lipset and Rokkan, Party Systems and Voter Alignments; Sartori, Parties and Party Systems; Mainwaring and Scully, “Party Systems in Latin America”; Roberts and Wibbels, “Party Systems and Electoral Volatility”; Kitschelt et al., Latin American Party Systems; Mainwaring, “Party System Institutionalization in Contemporary Latin America.” 58. E.g., Bartolini, Class Cleavage. Stefano Bartolini analyzes the sources of left strength in Europe from 1860 to 1980, but his unit of analysis is the national partisan left as a whole (i.e., the set of left-wing parties in a particular country at a particular time).

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59. E.g., Lupu, Party Brands in Crisis and Cyr, Fates of Political Parties. 60. Kitschelt, Logics of Party Formation; Mustillo, “Modeling New Party Performance”; Tavits, Post-Communist Democracies; Levitsky, Loxton, and Van Dyck, “Challenges of Party Building in Latin America.” 61. E.g., Greene, Why Dominant Parties Lose. 62. E.g., Tavits, Post-Communist Democracies. 63. E.g., Panebianco, Political Parties; Bruhn, Taking on Goliath; Mossige, Mexico’s Left. 64. E.g., Bartolini, Class Cleavage. 65. E.g., Mainwaring, Bizzarro, and Petrova, “Party System Institutionalization, Decay, and Collapse,” 17–33. 66. Kalyvas, Rise of Christian Democracy; Meguid, Party Competition between Unequals; Mustillo, “Modeling New Party Performance”; LeBas, From Protest to Parties; Levitsky and Way, “Beyond Patronage,” 869–89; Lupu, Party Brands in Crisis; and Cyr, Fates of Political Parties. 67. Duverger, Political Parties; Lijphart, Electoral Systems and Party Systems. 68. Bartolini, Class Cleavage. 69. Lipset and Rokkan, Party Systems and Voter Alignments. 70. Shefter, Political Parties. 71. Panebianco, Political Parties; and Bartolini, Class Cleavage. 72. E.g., Kitschelt, Logics of Party Formation. 73. Panebianco, Political Parties. 74. Panebianco, Political Parties. 75. For example, there are hundreds of books on new left survivors but only a handful on new left failures, and most of the latter group were published before the relevant parties had fully collapsed or even begun to collapse. Books on successful cases include, for example, Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization; Coppedge, Strong Parties and Lame Ducks; Bruhn, Taking on Goliath; Roberts, Deepening Democracy; Loaeza, El Partido Acción Nacional; Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática; Wood, Insurgent Collective Action and Civil War in El Salvador; Chavez and Goldfrank, Left in the City; Martínez González, Fisiones y fusiones; Van Cott, From Movements to Parties; Greene, Why Dominant Parties Lose; Ortega, Movilización y democracia; Wuhs, Savage Democracy; Hunter, Transformation of the Workers’ Party; Kitschelt et al., Latin American Party Systems; Levitsky and Roberts, “Latin America’s ‘Left Turn’”; Pedro Floriano Ribeiro, Dos sindicatos ao governo; Rodríguez, “Estrategias políticas”; Goldfrank, Deepening Local Democracy in Latin America; Secco, História do PT; and Mossige, Mexico’s Left. Retrospective analyses of unsuccessful cases include Herrera, Izquierda Unida y el Partido Comunista; Adrianzén, Apogeo y crisis; and Alberto Valenzuela, El progresismo pequeñoburgués. 76. For reasons of length, I do not address every possible alternative explanatory variable that arises in existing literature. Some such variables are not appli-

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cable to the contemporary era—for example, the timing of mass enfranchisement (Bartolini, Class Cleavage). Others concern why left parties rise to prominence, not why, among these, some take root while others collapse—for example, whether a strong welfare state already exists (Kitschelt, Logics of Party Formation ); whether the political left faces stiff conservative competition (Kitschelt, Logics of Party Formation ) or is entering an “already-saturated electoral market” (Tavits, Post-Communist Democracies, 11). Some concern why parties become autonomous vis-à-vis the environment—for example, whether parties are externally or internally legitimated during the formative period (Panebianco, Political Parties); whether left parties centralize before allied unions do (Bartolini, Class Cleavage). Finally, some concern why parties build centralized, routinized party organizations, which is not a criterion of organizational strength or a predictor of new party survival in my theoretical account (see chapter 1)—for example, whether the central party organization controls the party’s expansion during the formative period (Panebianco, Political Parties). 77. For a helpful review of some of the relevant academic literature, see Lupu and Stokes, “Democracy, Interrupted,” 91–93 and Dinas, “Does Choice Bring Loyalty?,” 449–52. 78. Levitsky, Loxton, and Van Dyck, “Challenges of Party Building in Latin America.” 79. Samuels and Shugart, Presidents, Parties, and Prime Ministers. 80. Chhibber and Kollman. “Party Aggregation,” 329–42; and Formation of National Party Systems; Mainwaring, Rethinking Party Systems; Ames, Deadlock of Democracy in Brazil; Hicken, “Stuck in the Mud” and Building Party Systems in Developing Democracies. 81. Moser, “Electoral Systems,” 359–84 and Unexpected Outcomes; Van Cott, From Movements to Parties. 82. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization. 83. Bruhn, “Money for Nothing,” 217–41. 84. Remmer, “Politics of Institutional Change,” 5–30 and Mustillo, “Modeling New Party Performance,” reach similar conclusions about Latin American parties and party systems generally (i.e., left and otherwise). 85. Mainwaring, Rethinking Party Systems. 86. Vergara, “El choque de los ideales”; Muñoz and Dargent, “Importance of Subnational Resources for Party Building,” 187–216. 87. Hunter, Transformation of the Workers’ Party; Nogueira-Budny, “From Marxist-Leninism” 88. Hunter, Transformation of the Workers’ Party; Nogueira-Budny, “From Marxist-Leninism”; Greene, Why Dominant Parties Lose and “Niche Party,” 159–86. 89. One might posit the reverse as well: if parties perform poorly, they become dependent on the integrity of their brand. Poor performance, or percep-

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tions thereof, can mean numerous things: a campaign gaffe, a corruption scandal, or (more damagingly) governing during a major national crisis. 90. Lupu, “Brand Dilution” and Party Brands in Crisis. See also Roberts, Changing Course and “Historical Timing.” 91. For example, economic and social conditions; voter preferences; programmatic choices; and linkage strategies. 92. See Levitsky, Loxton, and Van Dyck, “Challenges of Party Building in Latin America.” 93. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization. 94. Bartolini, Class Cleavage, for example, identifies cultural homogeneity within the industrial working class—a source of working-class cohesion and strength—as a key predictor of the left’s political strength in Europe from the mid-nineteenth century to the late twentieth century. 95. Murillo, Labor Unions, Partisan Coalitions. 96. Geddes, “What Do We Know,” 115–44 and “Why Parties and Elections,”; Brownlee, Durable Authoritarianism; Muñoz and Dargent, “Importance of Subnational Resources for Party Building.” 97. Levitsky and Way, “Beyond Patronage”; Levitsky, Loxton, and Van Dyck, “Challenges of Party Building in Latin America.” 98. Mainwaring, Rethinking Party Systems. 99. Levitsky and Way, “Beyond Patronage.” 100. LeBas, From Protest to Parties, 44–47; Levitsky and Way, “Beyond Patronage”; Levitsky, Loxton, and Van Dyck, “Challenges of Party Building in Latin America.” 101. For details, see Levitsky, Loxton, and Van Dyck, “Challenges of Party Building in Latin America.” 102. Kent Eaton, “Challenges of Party Building in the Bolivian East,” in Levitsky et al., Challenges of Party-Building in Latin America, 383–411; Brandon Van Dyck, “Why Not Anti-Populist Parties? Theory with Evidence from the Andes and Thailand,” Comparative Politics 51, no. 3 (2019): 361–83. 103. Roberts, Deepening Democracy, chap. 8. 104. See Deborah Yashar, Demanding Democracy: Reform and Reaction in Costa Rica and Guatemala, 1870s–1950s (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997), 88–90 and Sergio Alfaro Salas, “Sistema electoral y cambio organizativo en los partidos políticos : el caso de Costa Rica (1950–1998),” América Latina hoy: Revista de ciencias sociales 39 (2001): 15–45. According to Jorge Lanzaro, “El Frente Amplio: Un partido de coalición, entre la lógica de oposición y la lógica de gobierno.” Revista Uruguaya de Ciencia Política 12 (2000): 35–68, the FA began as a “coalition of parties” and evolved into a “coalition party” (partido de coalición). 105. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 18, 152–53, 156; Bruhn, Taking on Goliath, 250; Pereira, “Entrevista realizada,” 264; Ribeiro, Dos sindicatos

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ao governo, 186; Secco, História do PT, 48–49; Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 301, 450, 457–58, 518; Prud’homme, “El Partido de la Revolución Democrática,” 118, 118n4; Martínez, Fisiones y fusiones, 59. 106. Seawright and Gerring, “Case Selection Techniques,” 305. 107. Mill, System of Logic; Lijphart, “Comparative Politics and the Comparative Method,” 682–93; Lijphart, “Comparable-Cases Strategy,” 158–77; Meckstroth, “Most Different Systems’ and ‘Most Similar Systems,’” 132–57; Przeworski and Teune, Logic of Comparative Social Inquiry; Skocpol and Somers, “Uses of Comparative History in Macrosocial Inquiry,” 174–97; Seawright and Gerring, “Case Selection Techniques.” 108. See Eckstein, “Case Study and Theory in Political Science,” 79–138; King, Keohane, and Verba, Designing Social Inquiry; George and Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development; Hall, “Systematic Process Analysis,” 24–31; and Grzymala-Busse, “Time Will Tell?,” 1267–97. 109. E.g., De Moraes and Fortes, Muitos Caminhos and González Trujillo et al., 20 Años. 110. E.g., Herrera, Izquierda Unida y el Partido Comunista. 111. Novaro and Palermo, Los caminos de la centroizquierda; Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática; Jozami, Final sin gloria; Secco, História do PT. 112. These published firsthand accounts and expert secondary analyses include Meneguello, PT, Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, Hunter, Transformation of the Workers’ Party, Ribeiro, Dos sindicatos ao governo, Rodríguez, “Estrategias políticas,” and Secco, História do PT for the PT; Bruhn, Taking on Goliath, Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, Martínez, Fisiones y fusiones, and Rodríguez, “Estrategias políticas” for the PRD; Pazos and Camps, ¿Ladran, Chacho?, Novaro and Palermo, Los caminos de la centroizquierda, Jozami, Final sin gloria, and Abal Medina, “Rise and Fall,” 357–75, for FREPASO; and Cameron, Democracy and Authoritarianism in Peru, Roberts, Deepening Democracy, Tanaka, Los espejismos de la democracia, Herrera, Izquierda Unida y el Partido Comunista, and Adrianzén, Apogeo y crisis for the IU. I also drew on elite interviews to score variables (especially leadership-related variables). 113. As an illustration, in Mexico, PRI operatives and allies killed hundreds of PRD activists during the late 1980s and early to mid-1990s, and some, such as Greene, Why Dominant Parties Lose and Rodríguez, “Estrategias políticas,” have posited, with evidence, that these repressive conditions selected for ideological activists and elites. Yet, no existing studies explore the collective psychological effects of PRI violence on local networks of PRD activists. When asked to describe the PRD’s reaction to the electoral crises of 1991 and 1994, one party activist from San Luis Potosí, without any previous mention of PRI violence, stated, “We were at war.” This provided a small bit of evidence that, at the base level, PRI hostility and violence sharpened PRI/PRD boundaries and hardened PRD members’ collective identity.

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114. If, for example, only one ideologically radical interviewee had highlighted the toxic relationship between Alfonso Barrantes and IU radicals, in chapter 3, I could not, with justification, describe Barrantes’s crossfactional ties as weak. Yet, since nearly all interviewees offered the same assessment, and many of these were supporters of Barrantes, the description has a relatively solid basis. 115. Official PT archives from the 1980s, for example, provide in-themoment evidence that low access to resources and media created incentives for organization building, as party organizers, in their campaign manuals and pamphlets, exhorted activists to donate time and resources given the PT’s resource disadvantage and the opposition of mass media (see chapter 4). 116. All Proceso excerpts and articles were originally cited in Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática. CHAPTER 1: DEMOCRACY AGAINST PARTIES With permission, portions of the text in this chapter are taken in paraphrased form or verbatim from passages in Brandon Van Dyck, “Why Party Organization Still Matters: The Workers’ Party in Northeastern Brazil,” Latin American Politics and Society 56, no. 2 (2014): 1–26; Brandon Van Dyck, “The Paradox of Adversity: New Left Party Survival and Collapse in Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina,” in Challenges of Party-Building in Latin America, ed. Steven Levitsky, James Loxton, Brandon Van Dyck, and Jorge Domínguez (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 133–58; Brandon Van Dyck, “The Paradox of Adversity: The Contrasting Fates of Latin America’s New Left Parties,” Comparative Politics 49, no. 2 (2017): 169–92; Brandon Van Dyck, “External Appeal, Internal Dominance: How Party Leaders Contribute to Successful Party Building,” Latin American Politics and Society 60, no. 1 (2018): 1–26; Brandon Van Dyck, “Why New Parties Split: The Schism of Peru’s United Left in Comparative Perspective,” Journal of Latin American Studies 50, no. 4 (2018): 889–918; and Steven Levitsky, James Loxton, and Brandon Van Dyck, “Introduction: Challenges of Party Building in Latin America,” in Challenges of Party-Building in Latin America, ed. Steven Levitsky, James Loxton, Brandon Van Dyck, and Jorge Domínguez (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 1–48. 1. I operationalize electoral crisis as an election in which the party performs so poorly, relative to internal and external expectations, that respected, high-profile members and commentators openly question the party’s capacity to survive. As chapters 2 through 5 make clear, the setbacks faced by the PT in 1982, the PRD in 1991 and 1994, the IU in 1986, and FREPASO in 2000– 2001 qualify as electoral crises according to this operationalization. 2. Lupu, “Brand Dilution,” Party Brands in Crisis, and “Building Party Brands,” 76–99.

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3. Whereas Lupu, “Brand Dilution,” Party Brands in Crisis, and “Building Party Brands” defines the concept of party brand in programmatic terms, I define it more broadly. The bases of partisan identification vary. In Latin America, partisan attachments have been rooted in sociocultural and personalistic appeals, not just programmatic ones. Ostiguy, “High and the Low in Politics” and “Argentina’s Double Political Spectrum.” 4. A minority of new parties (e.g., authoritarian successor parties such as Chile’s UDI and insurgent successor parties such as El Salvador’s FMLN and Nicaragua’s FSLN) inherit strong national brands and electoral bases Loxton, “Authoritarian Successor Parties” and Holland, “Insurgent Successor Parties.” 5. Two prominent examples are Meguid, Party Competition between Unequals and Lupu, Party Brands in Crisis. Bonnie Meguid argues that new niche parties are more likely to decline electorally if mainstream rival parties use dismissive or accommodative (as distinct from adversarial) strategies against them. Noam Lupu argues that parties are more likely to suffer electorally if they dilute their brand by reversing earlier positions and/or failing to differentiate themselves from rival parties. 6. Although see Levitsky and Way, “Beyond Patronage” and Cyr, Fates of Political Parties. 7. In contrast to much scholarship, I do not include in my definition of organizational strength criteria such as the routinization of party procedures (Mossige, Mexico’s Left), the centralization of power within the national party organization (Panebianco, Political Parties), or the professionalism of the central party organization (Tavits, Post-Communist Democracies). My definition of organizational strength as territorial size plus member commitment corresponds to Stathis N. Kalyvas’s (Rise of Christian Democracy, 34) two-part definition, consisting of a quantitative element (territorial size, roughly) and a qualitative one (member commitment, roughly). 8. In a few historical cases, mass party organizations have encapsulated their bases, structuring members’ daily lives and personal identities through the sponsorship and organization of everyday activities and the development of distinctive party subcultures (e.g., Europe’s early labor and confessional parties). In the contemporary era, strong parties tend to build fewer base-level offices, recruit fewer activists, and play a smaller role in structuring members’ day-today lives. Farneti, Il sistema politico italiano; Sartori, Parties and Party Systems; Wellhofer, “Effectiveness of Party Organization 205–24; Katz, “Party as Linkage”; Kalyvas, Rise of Christian Democracy. Still, they continue to have substantial local infrastructures, large activist networks and memberships, and even medium-sized core electorates. Levitsky, Transforming Labor-Based Parties, 13. 9. Panebianco, Political Parties. See also Hanson, Post-imperial Democracies. Hanson argues that ideological commitments elongate party members’ time horizons.

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10. See Scarrow, Parties and Their Members; and Samuels and Zucco, “Crafting Mass Partisanship,” 755–75. 11. Levitsky, Transforming Labor-Based Parties; Stokes et al., Brokers, Voters and Clientelism; Luna, Segmented Representation. 12. Tavits, Post-Communist Democracies, 24–36. 13. Tavits, Post-Communist Democracies, 24–36. 14. See, e.g., Holland, “Insurgent Successor Parties.” 15. E.g., Meneguello, PT; Tavits, Post-Communist Democracies; and Cyr, Fates of Political Parties. 16. Tavits, Post-Communist Democracies, 2. 17. Cyr, Fates of Political Parties. See also Cyr, “Between Adaptation and Breakdown,” 125–45. 18. Hanson, Post-imperial Democracies. 19. If a party has no office or activist networks in a given locality, or few offices and members in a particular state, it will be much less likely—and may be legally forbidden—to contest or win elections there. 20. Cyr, Fates of Political Parties. 21. Levitsky and Way, “Beyond Patronage.” 22. Levitsky, Loxton, and Van Dyck, “Challenges of Party Building in Latin America.” 23. Tavits, Post-Communist Democracies, 251. 24. Kitschelt, Transformation of European Social Democracy, 225. 25. Hale, Why Not Parties? 26. Mainwaring and Zoco, “Historical Sequences,” 155–78. 27. These routes are not mutually exclusive; some politicians simultaneously use media appeals and state resources to build and maintain support (e.g., Peru’s Alberto Fujimori). 28. Hale, Why Not Parties? 29. Hale, Why Not Parties? See also Barndt, “Corporate Path to Durable Political Parties,” 356–80 on corporation-based parties in contemporary Latin America. 30. Katz, “Party as Linkage”; Levitsky and Cameron, “Democracy without Parties”; Mainwaring and Zoco, “Historical Sequences;” Landi, “Outsiders, nuevos caudillos y media politics,” 205–17. 31. Quoted in Mainwaring, Rethinking Party Systems, 50. 32. Argentina’s FREPASO provides a case in point. See chapter 2 for details. 33. Martin Shefter, Political Parties and the State argues that parties founded by regime outsiders (“externally mobilized” parties) build large territorial organizations based on ideological, programmatic appeals. 34. Kalyvas, Rise of Christian Democracy.

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35. Examples include Peru in the early 2000s, where mass media were systematically biased against Fujimorismo, or contemporary Peru, El Salvador, and Guatemala, where mass media are systematically biased against the left. 36. Cf. Mainwaring and Zoco, “Historical Sequences.” 37. Parties with strong ties to the economic elite (Luna, “Segmented PartyVoter Linkages in Latin America,” 325–56) and business-sponsored parties (Barndt, “Corporate Path to Durable Political Parties”) may be partial exceptions. 38. See Shefter, Political Parties and the State; Greene, Why Dominant Parties Lose and “Niche Party”; and Hanson, Post-imperial Democracies. 39. Panebianco, Political Parties, 24. 40. Hanson, Post-imperial Democracies, xxvi. 41. Levitsky, Loxton, and Van Dyck, “Challenges of Party Building in Latin America.” 42. E.g., Kitschelt, Logics of Party Formation; Greene, Why Dominant Parties Lose; Nogueira-Budny, “From Marxist-Leninism”; and Tavits, Post-Communist Democracies. Herbert Kitschelt argues that a high ratio of ideologues increases the likelihood that new parties will adopt a logic of constituency representation rather than one of electoral competition. Along similar lines, Kenneth Greene argues that the strong presence of ideologues turns parties into “niche” parties that do not moderate and have trouble winning national elections. Daniel Nogueira-Budny argues that radical new parties are more prone to electoral failure and debilitating schisms. Tavits argues that ideological party leaders lack skills and motivations necessary to build strong organizations. 43. Tarrow, Power in Movement; LeBas, From Protest to Parties. See also Levitsky, Loxton, and Van Dyck, “Challenges of Party Building in Latin America.” 44. See, for example, Shefter, Political Parties and the State, on internally mobilized parties. 45. Collier and Collier, Shaping the Political Arena; Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization. 46. Collier and Collier, Shaping the Political Arena. 47. Kitschelt, Logics of Party Formation; Bruhn, Taking on Goliath; Van Cott, From Movements to Parties; Vergara, “United by Discord,” 65–93; Madrid, “Obstacles to Ethnic Parties,” 305–30. 48. Kalyvas, Rise of Christian Democracy; Ziblatt, Conservative Political Parties. 49. Allison, “Leaving the Past Behind?” and “Transition from Armed Opposition,” 137–62; Holland, “Insurgent Successor Parties.” 50. Loxton, “Authoritarian Inheritance and Conservative Party-Building” and “Authoritarian Successor Parties.”

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51. Kitschelt, Logics of Party Formation; Kalyvas, Rise of Christian Democracy. 52. LeBas, From Protest to Parties. 53. Allison, “Leaving the Past Behind?” and “Transition from Armed Opposition”; Vergara, “United by Discord”; Barndt, “Corporate Path to Durable Political Parties”; Eaton, “Challenges of Party Building”; Holland, “Insurgent Successor Parties”; Levitsky, Loxton, and Van Dyck, “Challenges of Party Building in Latin America”; Madrid, “Obstacles to Ethnic Parties.” 54. The other, Panama’s PRD, is an authoritarian successor party and inherited its organization from the state. See the conclusion. 55. Levitsky and Way, Competitive Authoritarianism. One authoritarian tactic is to erect legal barriers to entry for new parties. But for reasons given in the introduction and chapters 4 and 5, I argue that legal barriers to entry, on their own, do not adequately account for variation in the trajectories of new partisan contenders, either theoretically or empirically. 56. Levitsky and Way, Competitive Authoritarianism. 57. Mainwaring, Rethinking Party Systems. 58. Greene, Why Dominant Parties Lose and “Niche Party.” 59. See, for example, chapter 3, in which a founder of Mexico’s PRD is quoted as saying, “We were at war,” in reference to the PRD’s early years. 60. Kalyvas, Rise of Christian Democracy; Cyr, Fates of Political Parties. 61. Panebianco, Political Parties; Shefter, Political Parties and the State. 62. Tavits, Post-Communist Democracies identifies organizational strength as critical for new parties’ survival (as well as for their electoral success and parliamentary cohesion). She also identifies “hostile electoral environments” as an important determinant of successful organization building. But there are key theoretical differences between our accounts. First, the conditions that I associate with adversity are distinct (and fewer in number). Tavits defines a “hostile electoral environment” as encompassing a number of conditions, including “perceived lack of legitimacy, pariah status, media attacks, hostile public opinion, and entry into an already-saturated electoral market” (11). I define adversity more sparsely—primarily as lack of access to state resources and mass media, secondarily as repression (within limits). Second, the mechanisms by which adversity contributes to organization building are distinct in our accounts. We converge in observing that adverse circumstances make organization building more electorally necessary. We diverge, however, in that, in my account, adversity also selects for committed party members and produces the higher causes that motivate them. Relatedly, a key difference between our analyses is that whereas Tavits emphasizes the negative effects of ideologues on new parties, I highlight the positive effects. More specifically, I argue that ideological foot soldiers help parties to recover from electoral crisis, while Tavits argues that pragmatic leaders, unlike ideological ones, have the skills and motivation necessary to build strong party organizations. Third, and perhaps most importantly, adversity is

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not associated with regime context in Tavits’s argument. In my argument, as we have seen, the adverse conditions conducive to organization building tend to arise in less-than-fully democratic contexts. 63. For example, see above, where I contrast my conception of an adverse environment with Tavits’s (Post-Communist Democracies) conception of a “hostile electoral environment.” 64. Duverger, Political Parties; Panebianco, Political Parties; Shefter, Political Parties and the State. 65. Panebianco, Political Parties, 49. More specifically, Shefter, Political Parties and the State argues that parties born in office—and before civil service reform—are more likely to become patronage-based instead of programmatic. Panebianco, Political Parties argues that external sponsorship and legitimation (e.g., from unions or from the Comintern) might render party loyalties indirect in the long term. Panebianco also analyzes the effect of (a) charismatic founding leadership and (b) territorial penetration versus diffusion on parties’ long-term internal structural coherence. 66. The US Democratic and Republican Parties were founded by officeholders (Shefter, Political Parties and the State), as was Chavismo in Venezuela. Chile’s PPD and Brazil’s PSDB developed with access to mass media and did not build territorial organizations but survived. 67. Greene, “Niche Party.” 68. Levitsky, Loxton, and Van Dyck, “Challenges of Party Building in Latin America.” 69. Adrienne LeBas, From Protest to Parties, 58 makes a similar point. 70. For a full list of Latin America’s surviving new partisan contenders— left and otherwise—see Levitsky, Loxton, and Van Dyck, “Challenges of Party Building in Latin America.” 71. Panebianco, Political Parties; Mainwaring and Scully, “Party Systems in Latin America”; Weyland, “Neo-Populism and Neo-Liberalism in Latin America,” 3–31 and “Neoliberal Populism in Latin America,” 379–401. 72. Panebianco, Political Parties, 53. See also 67, 147. 73. Panebianco 1988 acknowledges that charismatic leaders often play a useful role in the initial period of party development. His argument and emphasis, however, are that such leaders—unless their charisma is “routinized”—undermine the authority of their parties in the long term. 74. Although see Weber, Politics as a Vocation; Harmel and Svåsand, “Party Leadership and Party Institutionalisation,” 67–88; and Pedahzur and Brichta, “Institutionalization of Extreme Right-Wing Charismatic Parties,” 31–49. 75. Mustillo, “Modeling New Party Performance”; Levitsky, Loxton, and Van Dyck, “Challenges of Party Building in Latin America.” 76. Levitsky, Loxton, and Van Dyck, “Challenges of Party Building in Latin America.”

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77. Samuels and Shugart, Presidents, Parties, and Prime Ministers. See also Dix, “Cleavage Structures and Party Systems.” AP: Popular Action. APRA: American Revolutionary Popular Alliance. PLN: National Liberation Party. AD: Democratic Action. COPEI: Independent Electoral Political Organization Committee. PRD (Dominican Republic): Dominican Revolutionary Party. PLD: Dominican Liberation Party. ARENA: Nationalist Republican Alliance. PT: Workers’ Party. PSDB: Brazilian Social Democracy Party. PRD (Mexico): Party of the Democratic Revolution. 78. Cameron, Democracy and Authoritarianism in Peru; Roberts, Deepening Democracy; Nogueira-Budny, “From Marxist-Leninism.” 79. Loxton, “Authoritarian Inheritance and Conservative Party-Building.” 80. Buxton, Failure of Political Reform in Venezuela; López Maya, Del viernes negro; Nogueira-Budny, “Great Promise, but Poor Performance,” 109–36. 81. Ansell and Fish, “Art of Being Indispensable,” 283–312. See also Padgett and Ansell, “Robust Action and the Rise of the Medici,” 1259–319. 82. Ansell and Fish, “Art of Being Indispensable,” 283–312. 83. See Ansell and Fish, “Art of Being Indispensable,” 283–312, and Levitsky, Transforming Labor-Based Parties, 169–177. 84. On Kohl, see Ansell and Fish, “Art of Being Indispensable,” 283–312. 85. Weber, Politics as a Vocation; Panebianco, Political Parties. 86. See, e.g., Levitsky, Transforming Labor-Based Parties. 87. Some party brokers have cross-factional ties but lack moral authority (e.g., Helmut Kohl of Germany’s Christian Democrats; Ansell and Fish, “Art of Being Indispensable”, and Carlos Menem of Argentina’s Peronist Party; Levitsky, Transforming Labor-Based Parties ). Some leaders have moral authority but lack cross-factional ties (e.g., Cárdenas after retiring from active involvement in the PRD [see chapter 5]) or ideological/programmatic representativeness (e.g., Lula after moderating in the late 1990s and 2000s; Hunter, Transformation of the Workers’ Party ). And, of course, many party members align ideologically with the majority of rank-and-file members but lack moral authority and crossfactional ties and thus do not occupy leadership positions. 88. Ideological representativeness (and consistency) can contribute to a leader’s moral authority (e.g., Cárdenas vis-à-vis the PRD base [see chapter 5]). Both ideological representativeness and moral authority can make it easier for a leader to develop ties across party factions (e.g., Lula, Cárdenas [chapters 4 and 5]). 89. For example, the primary system in the major US parties. Many institutionalized parties, however, do not develop strong internal decision-making institutions. Examples include Argentina’s Peronists, Mexico’s PRD, El Salvador’s ARENA and FMLN, Chile’s Socialists, and entrenched clientelistic machines in Brazil, Colombia, and Honduras.

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90. Nogueira-Budny, “Great Promise, but Poor Performance”; Martínez, Fisiones y fusiones. See also Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática; and Rodríguez, “Estrategias políticas.” 91. Brazil’s PT is a rare exception (see chapter 4). 92. Panebianco, Political Parties; Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática; Ribeiro, Dos sindicatos ao governo. 93. See Hunter, Transformation of the Workers’ Party. 94. Hunter, Transformation of the Workers’ Party. 95. Lupu, “Building Party Brands.” 96. Cyr, Fates of Political Parties. 97. Slater, Ordering Power; LeBas, From Protest to Parties; Levitsky, Loxton, and Van Dyck, “Challenges of Party Building in Latin America.” 98. As noted, the PT, somewhat anomalously, did develop strong internal institutions in its initial years of existence. 99. In Argentina, congressional elections are held every two years. 100. In Peru, congressional elections are held every five years. 101. Greene and Sánchez-Talanquer, “Mexico’s Party System under Stress,” 31–42. CHAPTER 2: THE ELECTORAL COLLAPSE OF ARGENTINA’S FREPASO With permission, portions of the text in this chapter are taken in paraphrased form or verbatim from passages in Brandon Van Dyck, “The Paradox of Adversity: New Left Party Survival and Collapse in Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina,” in Challenges of Party-Building in Latin America, ed. Steven Levitsky, James Loxton, Brandon Van Dyck, and Jorge Domínguez (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 133–58; and Brandon Van Dyck, “The Paradox of Adversity: The Contrasting Fates of Latin America’s New Left Parties,” Comparative Politics 49, no. 2 (2017): 169–92. Epigraph: Conversation with author, July 12, 2012. 1. Novaro and Palermo, Los caminos de la centroizquierda, 11. 2. Abal Medina, “El final del bipartidismo argentino.” 3. Levitsky, “Normalization of Argentine Politics,” 56–69. 4. Novaro and Palermo, Los caminos de la centroizquierda, 37. 5. O’Donnell, “Delegative Democracy,” 55–69. 6. Chacho Álvarez, Germán Abdala, Juan Pablo Cafiero, Luis Brunati, Darío Alessandro Sr., Franco Caviglia, Moisés Fontela, and José Carlos Ramos. 7. See Abal Medina, “Rise and Fall.” 8. Jozami, Final sin gloria, 19, 56. 9. Novaro and Palermo, Los caminos de la centroizquierda, 195. 10. Jozami, Final sin gloria, 85.

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11. Pérez-Liñán, “Television News and Political Partisanship,” 571–88. 12. Smulovitz and Peruzzotti, “Social Accountability in Latin America,” 147–58. 13. For example, Argentina’s most widely read newspaper, Clarín, targeted the broadest middle-class audience possible, presenting information in a simple, accessible style and catering to middle-class interests and concerns. 14. Novaro and Palermo, Los caminos de la centroizquierda, 116. 15. Novaro and Palermo, Los caminos de la centroizquierda, 116. 16. See Pazos and Camps, ¿Ladran, Chacho?, 263; and Abal Medina, “Rise and Fall,” 369. 17. Jozami, Final sin gloria, 88. 18. Pazos and Camps, ¿Ladran, Chacho?, 180, 215. 19. Pazos and Camps, ¿Ladran, Chacho?, 179. 20. Pazos and Camps, ¿Ladran, Chacho?, 180. 21. Pazos and Camps, ¿Ladran, Chacho?, 184. 22. Pazos and Camps, ¿Ladran, Chacho?, 187. 23. Jozami, Final sin gloria, 61. 24. Pazos and Camps, ¿Ladran, Chacho?, 195. 25. Pazos and Camps, ¿Ladran, Chacho?, 195. 26. Pazos and Camps, ¿Ladran, Chacho?, 195, 205. 27. Abal Medina, “Rise and Fall,” 368. 28. Edgardo Mocca, conversation with author, August 6, 2012. 29. Abal Medina, “Rise and Fall,” 369. See also Plumb, “El Partido Por La Democracia,” 93–106, esp. 103. 30. Abal Medina, “Rise and Fall,” 366. 31. Pazos and Camps, ¿Ladran, Chacho?, 267; Jozami, Final sin gloria, 58, 63, 66, 105–22; Abal Medina, “Rise and Fall,” 360, 369; Lupu, “Building Party Brands.” 32. Novaro and Palermo, Los caminos de la centroizquierda, 111. 33. Eduardo Sigal, conversation with author, July 31, 2012. 34. Bordón had a personalistic vehicle, Open Politics for Social Integrity (PAIS), which formally allied with the FG to form FREPASO. FREPASO also included ex-UCR members, ex-Christian Democrats, and a small party, Socialist Unity (US). 35. Novaro and Palermo, Los caminos de la centroizquierda, 136. See also, Eduardo Sigal, conversation with author, July 31, 2012. 36. Novaro and Palermo, Los caminos de la centroizquierda, 127–28. 37. Abal Medina, “Rise and Fall,” 358. 38. Eduardo Sigal, conversation with author, July 31, 2012. 39. Aldo Gallotti, conversation with author, August 3, 2012. 40. By this point, FREPASO clearly qualified as a party according to my operationalization in the Introduction. Chacho Álvarez led FREPASO’s dom-

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inant faction (see below for details), and FREPASO’s brand—as distinct from the FG’s—had become immensely valuable to Álvarez and his allies. 41. Novaro and Palermo, Los caminos de la centroizquierda, 117. 42. Novaro and Palermo, Los caminos de la centroizquierda, 117, 150–51. 43. Marcos Novaro, conversation with author, July 17, 2012. 44. Abal Medina, “Rise and Fall,” 369. 45. Abal Medina, “Rise and Fall,” 369. 46. Abal Medina, “Rise and Fall,” 369. See also Abal Medina, “Los herederos del populismo,” 87–106 and Cheresky, “Las elecciones nacionales de 1999 y 2001,” 19–51. 47. Novaro and Palermo, Los caminos de la centroizquierda, 112–13; Jozami, Final sin gloria, 33, 72–73, 75, 79–80, 84–85, 91. 48. Gibson, Class and Conservative Parties. 49. McGuire, Peronism without Perón, 269; Murillo, Labor Unions, Partisan Coalitions; Levitsky, Transforming Labor-Based Parties. 50. Eduardo Sigal, conversation with author, July 31, 2012. 51. Jozami, Final sin gloria, 56. 52. Jozami, Final sin gloria, 29. See Godio, Los caminos del poder. 53. Eduardo Jozami, interview in “FREPASO: La alternativa que no fue, 2010,” YouTube video, 11:36, “ETER Escuela de Comunicación,” March 11, 2011; Héctor Polino, interview in “FREPASO: La alternativa.” 54. Jozami, Final sin gloria, 85–86. 55. Abal Medina, “Rise and Fall,” 363. 56. Abal Medina, “Rise and Fall,” 365. 57. Jozami, Final sin gloria, 91, 107. See also “FREPASO: La alternativa.” 58. Jozami, Final sin gloria, 33, 72–73, 79–80, 84–85, 91, 109. 59. Jozami, Final sin gloria, 56, 73, 84–85, 109. 60. Mario Wainfeld, conversation with author, July 18, 2012. 61. Jozami, Final sin gloria, 73. 62. Novaro and Palermo, Los caminos de la centroizquierda, 116. 63. Héctor Mazzei, conversation with author, July 12, 2012. 64. Héctor Mazzei, conversation with author, July 12, 2012. 65. Álvarez’s interview with Steven Levitsky, July 29, 1997. 66. Jozami, Final sin gloria, 251. 67. Pazos and Camps, ¿Ladran, Chacho?, 195–96. 68. Aldo Gallotti, conversation with author, August 3, 2012. 69. Aldo Gallotti, conversation with author, August 3, 2012. 70. Abal Medina, “Rise and Fall,” 360. 71. Jozami, interview in “FREPASO: La alternativa.” 72. Aldo Gallotti, conversation with author, August 3, 2012. 73. Jozami, Final sin gloria, 264. 74. Marcos Novaro, conversation with author, July 17, 2012.

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75. Abal Medina, “Rise and Fall,” 366. 76. Quoted in Jozami, Final sin gloria, 56. 77. Abal Medina, “Rise and Fall,” 362. 78. Marcos Novaro, conversation with author, July 17, 2012. See also Jozami, Final sin gloria, 149–50. 79. Marcos Novaro, conversation with author, July 17, 2012. 80. Abal Medina, “Rise and Fall,” 374n7. 81. Pazos and Camps, ¿Ladran, Chacho?, 263–64. 82. Graciela Fernández Meijide, interview in “FREPASO: La alternativa.” 83. Edgardo Mocca, conversation with author, August 6, 2012. 84. Jozami, Final sin gloria, 88–90. 85. Abal Medina, “Rise and Fall,” 361. 86. Pazos and Camps, ¿Ladran, Chacho?, 263. 87. Pazos and Camps, ¿Ladran, Chacho?, 263. 88. Mária Elena Naddeo, interview in “FREPASO: La alternativa.” 89. Héctor Polino, interview in “FREPASO: La alternativa.” 90. Jozami, Final sin gloria, 88, emphasis added. See also Sarlo, “Siete hipótesis sobre la videopolítica.” 91. Jozami, interview in “FREPASO: La alternativa.” 92. Naddeo, interview in “FREPASO: La alternativa.” 93. Gerardo Scherlis, conversation with author, August 2, 2012. 94. Eduardo Jozami, conversation with author, August 2, 2012. 95. Mario Wainfeld, conversation with author, July 18, 2012. 96. See Jozami, Final sin gloria, 135n17. 97. Mario Wainfeld, conversation with author, July 18, 2012. 98. Edgardo Mocca, conversation with author, August 6, 2012. 99. Novaro and Palermo, Los caminos de la centroizquierda, 150; Eduardo Jozami, conversation with author, August 2, 2012; Marcos Novaro, conversation with author, July 17, 2012. 100. Miguel de Luca, conversation with author, August 4, 2012; Eduardo Jozami, conversation with author, August 2, 2012; Edgardo Mocca, conversation with author, August 6, 2012; Mario Wainfeld, conversation with author, July 18, 2012. 101. Abal Medina, “Rise and Fall,” 364. See also Novaro and Palermo, Los caminos de la centroizquierda, 116, 127–28. 102. Also, Menem’s neoliberal reforms, like Carlos Salinas’s neoliberal reforms in Mexico, shrunk federal and subnational budgets and bureaucracies, such that by the late 1990s, Argentine parties across the spectrum had less patronage to dispense. 103. Pazos and Camps, ¿Ladran, Chacho?, 177, 276; “Carlos ‘Chacho’ Álvarez habla sobre la renuncia de Bordón al Frepaso,” YouTube video, 11:37, “archivodichiara,” February 12, 2011.

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104. Pazos and Camps, ¿Ladran, Chacho?, 177, 276; “Carlos ‘Chacho’ Álvarez.” 105. Abal Medina, “Rise and Fall,” 364. 106. Marcos Novaro, conversation with author, July 17, 2012. 107. Abal Medina, “Partido Frente Grande,” 107. 108. Abal Medina, “Partido Frente Grande,” 107. 109. Novaro and Palermo, Los caminos de la centroizquierda, 151; Sidicaro, La crisis del estado; Jozami, Final sin gloria, 85; Abal Medina, “Rise and Fall,” 151. 110. Abal Medina, “Rise and Fall,” 364. 111. Novaro and Palermo, Los caminos de la centroizquierda, 151. 112. Novaro and Palermo, Los caminos de la centroizquierda, 151. 113. Novaro and Palermo, Los caminos de la centroizquierda, 363. 114. Francisco de Santibañes, conversation with author, August 2, 2012. 115. Valenzuela, El progresismo pequeñoburgués, 45. 116. Jozami, Final sin gloria, 255. 117. Abal Medina, “Rise and Fall,” 367. 118. Abal Medina, “Rise and Fall,” 364. 119. Abal Medina, “Rise and Fall,” 364. 120. Pazos and Camps, ¿Ladran, Chacho?, 9. 121. “FREPASO: La alternativa” 122. Pazos and Camps, ¿Ladran, Chacho?, 198. 123. Pazos and Camps, ¿Ladran, Chacho?, 199. 124. Pazos and Camps, ¿Ladran, Chacho?, 200. 125. Pazos and Camps, ¿Ladran, Chacho?, 216. 126. Pazos and Camps, ¿Ladran, Chacho?, 118, 263. See also Valenzuela, El progresismo pequeñoburgués, 45. 127. Pazos and Camps, ¿Ladran, Chacho?, 199. 128. Jozami, Final sin gloria, 27. 129. Quoted in Pazos and Camps, ¿Ladran, Chacho?, 263. 130. Pazos and Camps, ¿Ladran, Chacho?, 131. 131. Abal Medina, “Rise and Fall,” 360. 132. Jozami, Final sin gloria, 117. 133. Jozami, Final sin gloria, 115. 134. Abal Medina, “Rise and Fall,” 360. 135. Abal Medina, “Rise and Fall,” 360. 136. Pazos and Camps, ¿Ladran, Chacho?, 158. 137. Novaro and Palermo, Los caminos de la centroizquierda, 40, 123. 138. Novaro and Palermo, Los caminos de la centroizquierda, 123. 139. One might ask: Why was Bordón selected as FREPASO’s presidential candidate in 1995, if Álvarez was the most electorally appealing figure in the front? Álvarez stated in interviews that he was not obsessed with holding power, but with building a viable alternative, regardless of who headed the ticket

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(Pazos and Camps, ¿Ladran, Chacho?, 273). Many in the FG lamented this, as they believed that Bordón was a weaker candidate with little chance of challenging Menem; that his political prime had passed; and that he only had a base in Cuyo province (Pazos and Camps, ¿Ladran, Chacho?, 273). Álvarez agreed to participate in an open primary to nominate FREPASO’s 1995 presidential candidate, and Bordón won a surprise victory largely due to his organizational base in Mendoza. In my view, it is likely that Álvarez would have outperformed Bordón in the presidential election, in which a much higher percentage of Argentine voters would have participated. 140. Novaro and Palermo, Los caminos de la centroizquierda, 118. 141. Abal Medina, “Rise and Fall,” 364. 142. Abal Medina, “Rise and Fall,” 362. 143. Abal Medina, “Rise and Fall,” 370. 144. Pazos and Camps, ¿Ladran, Chacho?, 9. 145. Polino, interview in “FREPASO: La alternativa.” 146. Fernández, interview in “FREPASO: La alternativa.” 147. Naddeo, interview in “FREPASO: La alternativa.” 148. Jozami, Final sin gloria, 87, 27. 149. Jozami, Final sin gloria, 87n13. 150. Jozami, Final sin gloria, 116. 151. Jozami, interview in “FREPASO: La alternativa.” 152. Abal Medina, “Rise and Fall,” 364. 153. Abal Medina, “Rise and Fall,” 364. 154. Abal Medina, “Rise and Fall,” 361, emphasis added. 155. Fernández, interview in “FREPASO: La alternativa.” 156. Polino, interview in “FREPASO: La alternativa.” 157. For a similar statement, see Pazos and Camps, ¿Ladran, Chacho?, 118. 158. “Carlos “Chacho” Álvarez.” 159. Novaro and Palermo, Los caminos de la centroizquierda, 129. 160. Novaro and Palermo, Los caminos de la centroizquierda, 137. 161. Abal Medina, “Partido,” 105. 162. Marcos Novaro, conversation with author, July 17, 2012. 163. Levitsky, “Normalization of Argentine Politics.” 164. Abal Medina, “Rise and Fall,” 370. 165. “Spreading Bribery Scandal Shakes Argentina’s Senate,” New York Times, September 19, 2000. 166. Lupu, “Building Party Brands.” 167. “Chacho Álvarez: ‘Estaba convencido de que los sobornos existieron,’” Página/12, September 13, 2012. 168. See, e.g., Beatriz Sarlo, “Siempre existen otros caminos,” La Nación, October 6, 2002.

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169. “Chacho renunció con críticas y De la Rúa dice que no hay crisis,” Clarín, October 7, 2000. 170. Jozami, Final sin gloria, 156–57. 171. Tellingly, when Álvarez defected, FREPASO disappeared almost immediately. As a point of reference, when Barrantes defected from the IU (see chapter 3), the IU’s demise was slower. This is because FREPASO was more dependent on Álvarez than the IU was on Barrantes (see chapter 4) for votes and internal morale and functioning. Whereas the IU had masses of members and a reasonably strong, nonpersonalized electoral brand, FREPASO had very few members, and its electoral brand was more dependent on Álvarez’s membership. Further, whereas Barrantes’s exit decreased internal conflict by removing one of the IU’s two warring factions, Álvarez’s exit removed FREPASO’s de facto mechanism for decision making and conflict adjudication, leaving no procedure or comparable figure behind. 172. Fernández, interview in “FREPASO: La alternativa.” 173. Jozami, interview in “FREPASO: La alternativa.” 174. Jozami, Final sin gloria, 27. 175. “Argentina Unraveling,” New York Times, December 21, 2001. 176. Héctor Mazzei, conversation with author, July 12, 2012. 177. Héctor Mazzei, conversation with author, July 12, 2012. 178. Francisco de Santibañes, conversation with author, August 2, 2012. 179. Lupu, “Building Party Brands.” 180. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 18, 152–53, 156; Bruhn, Taking on Goliath, 250; Pereira, “Hamilton Pereira,” 264; Ribeiro, Dos sindicatos ao governo, 186; Secco, História do PT, 48–49. 181. Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 301, 450, 457–58, 518; Prud’homme, “El Partido de la Revolución Democrática,” 118, 118n4; Martínez, Fisiones y fusiones, 59. 182. Abal Medina, “Partido Frente Grande,” 107 and “Rise and Fall,” 372; Lupu, “Building Party Brands,” 85. 183. Cyr, Fates of Political Parties. 184. The UCR continues to elect one of Argentina’s largest federal legislative blocs and win numerous state and local governments. CHAPTER 3: THE FATAL SCHISM OF PERU’S UNITED LEFT With permission, portions of the text in this chapter are taken in paraphrased form or verbatim from passages in Brandon Van Dyck, “External Appeal, Internal Dominance: How Party Leaders Contribute to Successful Party Building,” Latin American Politics and Society 60, no. 1 (2018): 1–26 and Brandon Van Dyck, “Why New Parties Split: The Schism of Peru’s United Left in Comparative Perspective,” Journal of Latin American Studies 50, no. 4 (2018): 889–918.

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Epigraph: Conversation with the author, December 27, 2010. 1. Many previous IU supporters voted for nonleft candidates in 1990, such as the eventual victor, Alberto Fujimori. 2. Taylor, “One Step Forward,” 113; Cameron, Democracy and Authoritarianism in Peru, 93; Tanaka, Los espejismos de la democracia, 135. 3. Burt, “‘Quien habla es terrorista,’” 32–62. 4. Roberts, Deepening Democracy; Seawright, Party-System Collapse. 5. Roberts, Deepening Democracy. See also Alexander, Trotskyism in Latin America, chap. 8. 6. On the PCP’s birth and evolution, see Bernales, Socialismo y nación, part 1. 7. For more, see Tuesta Soldevilla, “Análisis del proceso electoral.” 8. Sinesio López, instant message to author, August 3, 2011. 9. Martín Tanaka, conversation with author, January 13, 2011. The significance of television as a political medium would increase over the course of the decade. See the section in chapter 6 titled “Electoral Vehicles in Peru under Fujimori and Toledo.” 10. Author’s interview with Martín Tanaka, January 13, 2011. 11. Tanaka, Los espejismos de la democracia, 135; Henry Pease, conversation with author, December 21, 2010. 12. Conversation with author, January 4, 2011. 13. Seawright, Party-System Collapse, 183, 192. 14. At the time of the IU’s founding, the PCP had recently supplanted APRA as Peru’s leading partisan representative of organized labor. 15. See Roberts, Deepening Democracy, chap. 7. 16. Herrera, Izquierda Unida y el Partido Comunista, 186. 17. The IU’s failure to retain the Lima mayoralty dashed internal expectations and led to bitter internal conflict, as detailed later in this chapter. To numerous members and observers, it was unclear whether the IU would survive. 18. Conversation with author, January 6, 2011. 19. Later, the IU’s internal decision-making structure was reformed so that each party also had two seats on the CDN. 20. Unanimity did not imply consensus. Sometimes, CDN members voted for a motion they opposed because they were in a minority. 21. In 1983, the IU shifted the requirement from consensus to 75 percent majority (Herrera, Izquierda Unida y el Partido Comunista, 293. 22. The PSR was not Marxist-Leninist, nor were leading left Christians such as Henry Pease and Rolando Ames. 23. Roberts, Deepening Democracy, 248. 24. Herrera, Izquierda Unida y el Partido Comunista, 311. 25. Fernando Tuesta, “IU: ¿Era Barrantes imprescindible?” La República, June 3, 1987; Roberts, Deepening Democracy, 248; Aldo Panfichi, conversation with author, December 27, 2010.

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26. These factors included, for example, the electoral appeal, however limited, of the IU’s constituent parties; the unity of Peru’s leading left parties; anti-austerity and anti-incumbent sentiment in the electorate; the IU’s ground organization; and, from 1983 onward, its governing track record and credibility. 27. Roberts, Deepening Democracy, 248. 28. Roberts, Deepening Democracy, 248; Cameron, Democracy and Authoritarianism in Peru, chap. 3. 29. Roberts, Deepening Democracy, 230. 30. Roberts, Deepening Democracy, 248. See also Cameron, Democracy and Authoritarianism in Peru, chap. 6. 31. Barrantes’s signature policy as Lima mayor in 1983–1986 guaranteed one glass of milk per day to every child in Lima. 32. Aldo Panfichi, conversation with author, December 27, 2010. 33. Martín Tanaka, conversation with author, January 13, 2011. 34. Roberts, Deepening Democracy, 223. 35. Roberts, Deepening Democracy, 225. 36. For more on the IU’s electoral success in poor urban districts, see Tuesta Soldevilla, Pobreza urbana. 37. Henry Pease, conversation with author, December 21, 2010. 38. Roberts, Deepening Democracy, 254, 324. See also Herrera, Izquierda Unida y el Partido Comunista, 359. 39. Cameron, Democracy and Authoritarianism in Peru, 80. 40. Cameron, Democracy and Authoritarianism in Peru, 248. 41. See Roberts, Deepening Democracy and Lust, Capitalism, Class, and Revolution in Peru. 42. For more on how Peru’s class structure changed during this period, see Lust, Capitalism, Class, and Revolution in Peru. 43. Herrera, Izquierda Unida y el Partido Comunista, 379–80, 444, 459; Gonzales, “La izquierda peruana,” 40. 44. Herrera, Izquierda Unida y el Partido Comunista, 345. 45. Herrera, Izquierda Unida y el Partido Comunista, 379. See also Tanaka, Los espejismos de la democracia, 137. 46. Fernando Tuesta publicly questioned Barrantes’s electoral indispensability in 1987, in “IU: ¿Era Barrantes imprescindible?” La República, June 3, 1987. He based his empirical argument, though, on the left’s impressive results in the 1978 constituent assembly election. As I argued earlier, the left’s strong performance in 1978 was anomalous due to several factors, such as near peak social mobilization and the AP’s boycott. 47. Conversation with author, January 6, 2011. 48. Conversation with author, December 21, 2010. 49. Sinesio López, instant message to author, August 3, 2011; Mario Munive, conversation with author, December 22, 2010.

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50. Aldo Panfichi, conversation with author, December 27, 2010. 51. Herrera, Izquierda Unida y el Partido Comunista, 282. 52. Javier Diez Canseco, conversation with author, January 6, 2011; Sinesio López, instant message to author, August 3, 2011; Aldo Panfichi, conversation with author, December 27, 2010; Henry Pease, conversation with author, December 21, 2010; Martín Tanaka, conversation with author, January 13, 2011. 53. Aldo Panfichi, conversation with author, December 27, 2010. 54. Fernando Tuesta, “IU: ¿Era Barrantes imprescindible?” La República, June 3, 1987. 55. Tanaka, Los espejismos de la democracia, 139. 56. Henry Pease, conversation with author, January 13, 2011. 57. Thirty-six radicals and twenty-six moderates were elected (see Herrera, Izquierda Unida y el Partido Comunista, 332–34). 58. The core of Peru’s Trotskyist movement, for example, joined the PUM around this time (Mario Munive, conversation with author, December 22, 2010). 59. Gonzales, “La izquierda peruana,” 39; Herrera, Izquierda Unida y el Partido Comunista, 456–57, 462–63. 60. Cameron, Democracy and Authoritarianism in Peru, 79. 61. Roberts, Deepening Democracy, 224. 62. Cameron, Democracy and Authoritarianism in Peru, 80; Roberts, Deepening Democracy, 230, 252–53. 63. Roberts, Deepening Democracy, 224, 230. 64. Roberts, Deepening Democracy, 251. 65. Roberts, Deepening Democracy, 231, 251. 66. Herrera, Izquierda Unida y el Partido Comunista, 441. 67. See Barrantes, “I neither sought nor expected,” 60. 68. Tanaka, Los espejismos de la democracia, 136. 69. Javier Diez Canseco, quoted in Herrera, Izquierda Unida y el Partido Comunista, 504. 70. In mid-1989, Jorge Hurtado, the UNIR leader, stated, “Elections should not be the priority; it is necessary to mobilize the struggle of the workers” (La República, June 29, 1989, cited in Cameron, Democracy and Authoritarianism in Peru, 93, 199n39). 71. Gonzales, “La izquierda peruana,” 39; Herrera, Izquierda Unida y el Partido Comunista, 456–57, 462–63. 72. Roberts, Deepening Democracy, 250. 73. For more on radical attitudes toward the Shining Path, see Pásara, “El doble sendero,” 58–72; Roberts, Deepening Democracy, 258; and Herrera, Izquierda Unida y el Partido Comunista, 308. 74. Herrera, Izquierda Unida y el Partido Comunista, 379. 75. Roberts, Deepening Democracy, 250.

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76. Cameron, Democracy and Authoritarianism in Peru, 80. 77. Cameron, Democracy and Authoritarianism in Peru, 80, 93; Roberts, Deepening Democracy, 252–54. 78. Roberts, Deepening Democracy, 248. 79. Marcial Rubio, paraphrased in Fernando Tuesta, “¿Era Barrantes imprescindible?” La República, June 3, 1987. 80. Quoted in Herrera, Izquierda Unida y el Partido Comunista, 119; original source not provided. 81. Fernando Tuesta, “¿Era Barrantes imprescindible?” La República, June 3, 1987; final ellipsis in the original. 82. Gonzales, La izquierda, 39. 83. Conversation with author, January 10, 2011. 84. Roberts, Deepening Democracy, 248. See also 256–57. 85. Letts, “Entrevista a Ricardo Letts,” 382. 86. Herrera, Izquierda Unida y el Partido Comunista, 360, 364. 87. Roberts, Deepening Democracy, 251. 88. Herrera, Izquierda Unida y el Partido Comunista, 460–62, 475; Feinstein, “How the Left Was Lost.” 89. Herrera, Izquierda Unida y el Partido Comunista, 332–34. 90. Fernando Tuesta, “¿Era Barrantes imprescindible?” La República, June 3, 1987. 91. Barrantes, ““I neither sought nor expected,” 59; Roberts, Deepening Democracy, 252; Herrera, Izquierda Unida y el Partido Comunista, 460–62, 475; Feinstein, “How the Left Was Lost.” 92. For more on both positions, see Cameron, Democracy and Authoritarianism in Peru, 81; Roberts, Deepening Democracy, 228, 252, 262; Herrera, Izquierda Unida y el Partido Comunista, 419, 424, 475; and Gonzales, “La izquierda peruana,” 40. 93. Roberts, Deepening Democracy, 248. 94. Within each party, there were some top leaders with whom Barrantes liked to interact, and others with whom he did not. He preferred Jorge del Prado to Guillermo Herrera (PCP), Alberto Moreno and Rolando Breña to Jorge Hurtado (UNIR), and Agustín Haya and Carlos Tapia to Javier Diez Canseco (UDP/PUM). 95. Roberts, Deepening Democracy, 324–25n60. 96. Herrera, Izquierda Unida y el Partido Comunista, 352. 97. Herrera, Izquierda Unida y el Partido Comunista, 370. 98. Roberts, Deepening Democracy. 99. Cameron, Democracy and Authoritarianism in Peru. 100. See Ibid., chap. 5; Roberts, Deepening Democracy, chap. 8; Herrera, Izquierda Unida y el Partido Comunista, 98, 378–79, 495, and passim; and Gonzales, “La izquierda peruana,” 39.

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101. Herrera, Izquierda Unida y el Partido Comunista, 92. 102. Herrera, Izquierda Unida y el Partido Comunista, 299–300. 103. During this period, the IU qualified as a party according to my operationalization in the Introduction. If Barrantes had not defected in 1989, about which more below, the neutral bloc’s effort to convert the IU into a party likely would have succeeded. Arguably, the IU qualified as a party earlier as well, during Barrantes’s tenure as Lima mayor 1983–1986. At that time, Barrantes was a more dominant figure within the IU, and he certainly valued it far above any of its constituent parties. 104. Herrera, Izquierda Unida y el Partido Comunista, 474. 105. Herrera, Izquierda Unida y el Partido Comunista, 255, 355, 379, 474. See also Tanaka, Los espejismos de la democracia, 137. 106. Herrera, Izquierda Unida y el Partido Comunista, 466. 107. Cameron, Democracy and Authoritarianism in Peru, 98. 108. Cameron, Democracy and Authoritarianism in Peru, chap. 5. 109. This small bloc consisted of the PSR and the PCR. Barrantes also organized nonpartisan supporters into a movement, the Non-Partisan Socialist Movement (MSNP). These three organizations the MSNP, PSR, and PCR formed the Socialist Agreement (AS) front toward the end of the 1980s. 110. Fernando Tuesta, “¿Era Barrantes imprescindible?” La República, June 3, 1987; Cameron, Democracy and Authoritarianism in Peru, 81; Herrera, Izquierda Unida y el Partido Comunista, 94, 164, 321; Aldo Panfichi, conversation with author, December 27, 2010. 111. Aldo Panfichi, conversation with author, December 27, 2010. 112. Herrera, Izquierda Unida y el Partido Comunista, 161–62, 175–76, 279, 309, 313, 318, 359. 113. Herrera, Izquierda Unida y el Partido Comunista, 357–58. 114. Rolando Ames, conversation with author, January 4, 2011. 115. Herrera, Izquierda Unida y el Partido Comunista, 154–56, 373, 380–81, 399–400, 406. 116. For an excellent discussion, see Cameron, Democracy and Authoritarianism in Peru, chap. 5. 117. Cameron, Democracy and Authoritarianism in Peru, 79; Herrera, Izquierda Unida y el Partido Comunista, 484. 118. See Ibid., chap. 5, for an in-depth discussion of the relevant issues. 119. Roberts, Deepening Democracy, 255; Tanaka, Los espejismos de la democracia, 139. 120. Cameron, Democracy and Authoritarianism in Peru, 78. 121. Wendy Hunter, Transformation, 194 draws a similar distinction between Barrantes and Lula. 122. Javier Diez Canseco, conversation with author, January 6, 2011; Juan Mendoza, conversation with author, January 12, 2011; Henry Pease, conversa-

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tion with author, January 13, 2011; Santiago Pedraglio, conversation with author, January 10, 2011; Martín Tanaka, conversation with author, January 13, 2011. 123. Conversation with author, January 13, 2011. 124. Conversation with author, January 6, 2011. 125. Herrera, Izquierda Unida y el Partido Comunista, 472. 126. Tanaka, Los espejismos de la democracia, 137; Herrera, Izquierda Unida y el Partido Comunista, 379. 127. See Levitsky, Loxton, and Van Dyck, “Challenges of Party Building in Latin America” and Roberts, Changing Course and “Historical Timing.” 128. Taylor, “One Step Forward,” 113; Cameron, Democracy and Authoritarianism in Peru, 93; Tanaka, Los espejismos de la democracia, 135. 129. Taylor, “One Step Forward,” 113; Cameron, Democracy and Authoritarianism in Peru, 78. 130. Roberts, Deepening Democracy. CHAPTER 4: THE SURVIVAL OF BRAZIL’S WORKERS’ PARTY With permission, portions of the text in this chapter are taken in paraphrased form or verbatim from passages in Brandon Van Dyck, “The Paradox of Adversity: New Left Party Survival and Collapse in Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina,” in Challenges of Party-Building in Latin America, ed. Steven Levitsky, James Loxton, Brandon Van Dyck, and Jorge Domínguez (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 133–58; Brandon Van Dyck, “The Paradox of Adversity: The Contrasting Fates of Latin America’s New Left Parties,” Comparative Politics 49, no. 2 (2017): 169–92; Brandon Van Dyck, “External Appeal, Internal Dominance: How Party Leaders Contribute to Successful Party Building,” Latin American Politics and Society 60, no. 1 (2018): 1–26; and Brandon Van Dyck, “Why New Parties Split: The Schism of Peru’s United Left in Comparative Perspective,” Journal of Latin American Studies 50, no. 4 (2018): 889–918. Epigraphs: From the PT’s Sérgio Buarque de Holanda Center’s archives in São Paulo; henceforth, CSBH archives. Conversation with author, April 23, 2010. 1. Samuels, “From Socialism to Social Democracy?,” 999–1024; Hunter, Transformation of the Workers’ Party; Ribeiro, Dos sindicatos ao governo. 2. Wampler, Participatory Budgeting in Brazil. 3. Zucco, “When Payouts Pay Off,” 810–22; Zucco and Power, “Bolsa Família,” 3–24. 4. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 13. 5. The ABC region is a cluster of three smaller cities south of São Paulo, Santo Amaro, São Bernardo do Campo, and São Caetano that housed Brazil’s

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booming automobile sector. With the addition of the city of Diadêma, formerly part of São Bernardo do Campo, some call it the ABCD region. 6. Sluyter-Beltrão, Rise and Decline. 7. Rodríguez, “Estrategias políticas,” 145. 8. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 79, 104. 9. For more on the progressive wing of Brazil’s Catholic Church and the oppositional role it played during the hard-line era of military rule, see Levine, Religion and Political Conflict; Mainwaring, Catholic Church and Politics; Skidmore, Politics of Military Rule; and Cavendish, “Christian Base Communities,” 179–95. 10. Skidmore, Politics of Military Rule. 11. Frei Betto (Carlos Alberto Libânio Christo) is a Catholic priest, Marxist, author, early PT supporter, and CEB enthusiast. 12. Frei Betto, conversation with author, March 3, 2010. See also Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 97 and Secco, História do PT, 45. 13. Brazilian Communist Party (PCB, est. 1922), Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB, est. 1962), Revolutionary Movement October 8th (MR-8, est. 1964). The PCB was pro-Soviet; PCdoB was Maoist; and MR-8 was a PCB splinter party. 14. Moreira Alves, State and Opposition in Military Brazil. 15. Sluyter-Beltrão, Rise and Decline, 4. 16. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 82, 95. 17. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 73, 83. 18. The national office formally required PT members to provide a small due to their municipal office, but in practice, few ever did (Secco, História do PT, 105). 19. Ribeiro, Dos sindicatos ao governo, 106. 20. Secco, História do PT, 75; Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 133. 21. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 111; Secco, História do PT, 105–7. 22. Ribeiro, Dos sindicatos ao governo, 109; Secco, História do PT, 107. 23. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 91. New unions informally gave money to PT politicians, especially those with new union origins (Lincoln Secco, conversation with author, April 23, 2010). These informal donations increased as the new unionism expanded in the 1980s, beginning with the creation of the Unified Workers’ Central (CUT) in 1982 (Ricardo Kotscho, conversation with author, April 21, 2010). 24. Ribeiro, Dos sindicatos ao governo, 111; dollar figures adjusted for 2010 inflation levels. 25. De Lima, Crise política e poder no Brasil, 171.

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26. Mainwaring and Scully, “Parties and Democracy in Latin America,” 471; Porto, “Mass Media and Politics,” 291; Boas, “Television and Neopopulism in Latin America.” 27. Porto, “Mass Media and Politics,”; Boas, “Television and Neopopulism in Latin America.” 28. Milton Tavares, interview in Simon Hartog, dir. Beyond Citizen Kane (London, UK: Channel 4, 1993); Rómulo Furtado, interview in Hartog, Beyond Citizen Kane. 29. Porto, “Mass Media and Politics,” 294; Boas, “Media Barons and Electoral Politics,” 3. 30. For more details, see Porto, “Mass Media and Politics,” 293–94; Porto, Media Power and Democratization, 63–64; and Boas, “Media Barons and Electoral Politics.” 31. Hartog, Beyond Citizen Kane. 32. Amaral and Guimarães, “Media Monopoly in Brazil,” 26–38. 33. Hagopian, Traditional Politics and Regime Change. 34. Porto, “Mass Media and Politics” and Media Power and Democratization; Boas, “Media Barons and Electoral Politics.” 35. Armando Rollemberg, interview in Hartog, Beyond Citizen Kane. 36. Lawson, Building the Fourth Estate, 200. 37. The Globo conglomerate, from inception, prioritized commercial interests over any particular ideological agenda (Hartog, Beyond Citizen Kane, especially Ferreiro, interview in Hartog, Beyond Citizen Kane). 38. Amaral and Guimarães (1994, 30). 39. The full name is Sistema Globo de Televisão. 40. Amaral and Guimarães, “Media Monopoly in Brazil.” 41. De Lima, Crise política e poder no Brasil, 80. 42. De Lima, Crise política e poder no Brasil, 80. 43. Porto, Media Power and Democratization, 64. See also Amaral and Guimarães, “Media Monopoly in Brazil,” 28, 32; Porto, “Mass Media and Politics,” 291; and Hartog, Beyond Citizen Kane. 44. Boas, “Media Barons and Electoral Politics.” See also Boas, “Television and Neopopulism in Latin America,” 40. 45. Paulo Ramos, interview in Hartog, Beyond Citizen Kane. 46. Porto, “Mass Media and Politics,” 291, 299. 47. Armando Falcão, interview in Hartog, Beyond Citizen Kane. 48. Lawson, Building the Fourth Estate, 184. 49. De Lima, Teoria e política, 157. 50. During the 1989 presidential campaign, the PT produced a television parody of the Globo network called the People’s Network (Rede Povo), “displaying, with great irony and creativity, facts . . . omitted by the mass media and al-

NOTES TO PAGES 115–117

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ternative perspectives on the big national issues” (De Moraes and Fortes, Muitos caminhos, 282). See also Lawson, Building the Fourth Estate, 184. 51. For example, while the military forbade any airing of music by the popular artist and regime opponent, Chico Buarque, TV Globo forbade mention of Chico Buarque’s name altogether (Hartog, Beyond Citizen Kane). 52. Hartog, Beyond Citizen Kane. 53. Lawson, Building the Fourth Estate, 199, also 210. 54. De Lima, Teoria e política, 149. 55. De Lima, Teoria e política, 150; Alan Riding, “Rio Journal: One Man’s Political Views Color Brazil’s TV Eye,” New York Times, January 12, 1987. 56. De Lima, Teoria e política, 150–54; Moreira Alves, State and Opposition in Military Brazil; Straubhaar, “Television and Video in the Transition,” 140–54; De Lima, Crise política e poder no Brasil, 73; Porto, Media Power and Democratization, 61–62. 57. De Lima, Teoria e política, 152, and Crise política e poder no Brasil, 73, 76–77. 58. De Lima, Teoria e política, 153, and Crise política e poder no Brasil, 86. On Roberto Marinho’s close relationship with José Sarney, see also Porto, Media Power and Democratization, 64. 59. See, e.g., Porto, “Mass Media and Politics,” 295. 60. De Lima, Crise política e poder no Brasil, 66; Boas, “Television and Neopopulism in Latin America” and “Media Barons and Electoral Politics”; Hunter, Transformation of the Workers’ Party; Porto, “Mass Media and Politics,” 296–99 and Media Power and Democratization. 61. De Lima, Crise política e poder no Brasil, 148 and Teoria e política, 269–339. 62. Porto, “Mass Media and Politics,” 296–99 and Media Power and Democratization; Secco, História do PT, 141; Boas, “Media Barons and Electoral Politics”; Vianey Pinheiro, interview in Hartog, Beyond Citizen Kane; Ricardo Kotscho, conversation with author, April 21, 2010. 63. Boas, “Media Barons and Electoral Politics.” See also Porto, “Mass Media and Politics,” 266–69. 64. Porto, Media Power and Democratization, 84. 65. “Meios de comunicação, balanço e compromisso,” late 1980s PT newspaper (CSBH archives, 2–3). 66. “Instruções sobre propaganda eleitoral for Eleições 92,” internal PT memo (CSBH archives). 67. Lula da Silva, interview in Hartog, Beyond Citizen Kane. 68. A representative 1986 campaign flier for Clara Ant, the PT candidate for state deputy in São Paulo, referred to the “anti-democratic division of free time on TV” as “one of many maneuvers against the PT” (CSBH archives). 69. See Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 238–39 and Hunter, Transformation of the Workers’ Party, 113.

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70. Conversation with author, June 24, 2010. 71. CSBH archives. 72. Edgar Leuenroth archives at the University of Campinas in Brazil; henceforth, EL archives. 73. CSBH archives. 74. CSBH archives. 75. Ibid. 76. Conversation with author, August 16, 2010. 77. Rocha, “Entrevista realizada em Belém,” 150–51. 78. CSBH archives. 79. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 197. 80. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 217. 81. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 235, 243. 82. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization; Secco, História do PT; “Sobre a construção partidária,” Raul Pont, June 1987 EL archives; Sérgio Alli, conversation with author, January 28, 2010. 83. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 77–79. 84. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 77–79; Secco, História do PT, 268. 85. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 190. 86. De Oliveira, “Comunidades eclesiais,” 48–49, and “Democracia, igreja e voto.” 87. Lincoln Secco, conversation with author, April 23, 2010. 88. Frei Betto, conversation with author, March 3, 2010; Lincoln Secco, conversation with author, April 23, 2010. 89. Pereira, “Entrevista realizada em São Paulo,” 262; Frei Betto, conversation with author, March 3, 2010; Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 78–79. 90. Carvalho, Socialismo em debate, 259; Secco, História do PT, 67, 69, 72; “Debate: História do PT com o Professor Lincoln Secco (Parte 1),” YouTube video, 10:20, “Tomás Marques,” April 19, 2012. 91. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 96. 92. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 96; Secco, História do PT, 47–49. 93. These organizations were small, vanguardist networks, many having engaged in “clandestine activity since the 1960s” (Ribeiro, Dos sindicatos ao governo, 186). 94. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 95; Secco, História do PT, 110; Sérgio Alli, conversation with author, January 28, 2010. 95. Ribeiro, Dos sindicatos ao governo, 251; Ricardo de Azevedo, conversation with author, August 16, 2010; staffer at Perseu Abramo Foundation, conversation with author, spring or summer 2010.

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96. Djalma Bom, conversation with author, June 24, 2010; staffer at Perseu Abramo Foundation, conversation with author, spring or summer 2010; De Moraes and Fontes, Muitos caminhos, 282. 97. Secco, História do PT, 48. 98. Secco, História do PT, 64; Ricardo de Azevedo, conversation with author, August 16, 2010. 99. Secco, História do PT, 49. 100. Secco, História do PT, 49. 101. Secco, História do PT, 159. 102. For example, a PT text from Belo Horizonte on electoral tactics, dated Christmas 1980, stressed “the urgent need for the party to adopt a policy of cadre formation, of political consciousness raising, so that in each municipality our comrades can walk on their own two feet without feeling disoriented” (CSBH archives). 103. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 94; Da Conceição, “Entrevista realizada em São Paulo,” 73–74; Ribeiro, Dos sindicatos ao governo, 251–52. 104. This matters analytically, as one might argue that the PT built a strong organization in order to satisfy legal requirements. The PT far surpassed the numerical requirements for membership and municipal office formation. The party also, as noted, required early members to pay party dues—an action not required by law. 105. For more on the PT’s base-level nuclei, see Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 104; Ribeiro, Dos sindicatos ao governo, 87; and Secco, História do PT, 78, 80, 84. 106. Rodríguez, “Estrategias políticas,” 231. 107. Secco, História do PT, 50. 108. Ribeiro, Dos sindicatos ao governo, 244. See also Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 110. 109. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 109, 188–89. 110. Secco, História do PT, 117. 111. Ribeiro, Dos sindicatos ao governo, 24. 112. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 238–39. 113. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 93; Djalma Bom, “Entrevista realizada em São Paulo,” 90; Rocha, “Entrevista realizada em Belém,” 148; Rodríguez, Estrategias políticas, 225. 114. Pont, “Entrevista realizada em Porto Alegre,” 226; “Eleições em debate: Uma tática eleitoral para o PT,” PT manual (CSBH archives); Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 121. A flier for Luiz Gushiken’s 1986 congressional campaign stressed that “it’s not enough just to elect our candidate. We seek to strengthen the PT, with the training of hundreds of PT leaders” (EL archives). 115. This was not always possible, especially in the first couple of years of the PT’s existence, when the party was furiously expanding to meet the military

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regime’s membership and infrastructural requirements requirements (Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 90, 120). 116. Military and police killed a relatively small number of urban new unionists from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s (e.g., Manoel Fiel Filho in January 1976 and two strikers in Leme, São Paulo, soon after the transition to civilian rule). In 1979 the Figueiredo government arrested dozens of top new union leaders, including Lula, and detained them for weeks in April/May 1980. In response, Lula and fellow new union leaders carried out a hunger strike, leading to their eventual release. 117. Petit, A Esperança Equilibrista, 142. See also Ganzer, “Entrevista realizada em Belém,” 170 and Pereira, “Entrevista realizada em São Paulo,” 266. 118. Secco, História do PT, 46. See also Petit, A Esperança Equilibrista. 119. One can find many such materials in the CSBH and EL archives. 120. Bom, “Entrevista realizada em São Paulo,” 95, 89–90, 90, emphasis in the original. 121. Irma Passoni, “Entrevista realizada em São Paulo,” 318–19, 321. 122. Sérgio Alli, conversation with author, January 28, 2010; Bruhn, Urban Protest in Mexico and Brazil, 165; Bom, “Entrevista realizada em São Paulo,” 95; Dutra, “Entrevista realizada no Rio de Janeiro,” 124. See also Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 111. 123. CSBH archive. See also Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 153; Dutra, “Entrevista realizada no Rio de Janeiro,” 124; Dulci, “Entrevista realizada em Brasília,” 204; and Hunter, Transformation of the Workers’ Party and Democratization, 112. 124. Sérgio Alli, conversation with author, January 28, 2010; staffer at Perseu Abramo Foundation, conversation with author, spring or summer 2010. 125. Pedro Ribeiro, email to author, April 18, 2012; staffer at Perseu Abramo Foundation, conversation with author, spring or summer 2010; Pont, “Entrevista realizada em Porto Alegre,” 225. 126. A 1982 campaign flier for Roberto Martins, the PT candidate from Bahia, stated that “at this electoral juncture, the PT distinguishes itself from the other opposition parties, calling all the people to organization and struggle” (CSBH archives). Early PT slogans included, “A worker votes for a worker,” and the Portuguese rhyme, “Vote number three [the PT’s ballot number], the rest is bourgeois” (CSBH archives). 127. A 1982 flier for a group of PT candidates from Rio de Janeiro, for example, described both the Social Democracy Party (PDS) and the PMDB as the parties of “the landowners and factory owners” (CSBH archives). 128. Dulci, “Entrevista realizada em Brasília,” 204. 129. Just as the PT’s organizational strength contributed to electoral success, election campaigns and electoral success contributed to the PT’s organizational strength (Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 109, 156, 123–66

NOTES TO PAGES 124–126

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generally; José Dirceu, “PT e as eleições de 1982,” internal party memo [EL archives]; “Campanha eleitoral do PT: Divulgação e propaganda—uma proposta de discussão,” a campaign strategy proposal from the São Paulo state office’s secretary of press and publicity [EL archives]; untitled support group manual for the 1986 congressional elections [CSBH archives]; Jorge Baptista, untitled letter to PT activists before the 1986 elections [EL archives]; untitled flier supporting João Antônio for state deputy in 1986 [EL archives]; untitled flier for Luiza Erundina’s 1988 São Paulo mayoral campaign [CSBH archives]). 130. Meneguello, PT. 131. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 152. 132. Sérgio Alli, conversation with author, January 28, 2010; Ricardo de Azevedo, conversation with author, August 16, 2010; José de Filippi, conversation with author, December 14, 2009; Gustavo Venturi, conversation with author, May 14, 2010. See also Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 152. 133. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 160. 134. See Van Dyck, “Why Party Organization Still Matters”; Samuels and Zucco, “Crafting Mass Partisanship”; and Van Dyck and Montero, “Eroding the Clientelist Monopoly,” 116–38. 135. Ricardo de Azevedo, conversation with author, August 16, 2010. 136. Antônio Donato, conversation with author, May 4, 2010. See also Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 141–44 and Bom, “Entrevista realizada em São Paulo,” 96. 137. Bom, “Entrevista realizada em São Paulo,” 96. 138. Quoted in Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 142. 139. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 149, 152–53, 156. 140. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 197. 141. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 197. 142. Pereira, “Entrevista realizada em São Paulo,” 266. 143. Secco, História do PT, 113; Sérgio Alli, conversation with author, January 28, 2010. 144. Secco, História do PT, 119. 145. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 154, 235. 146. Secco, História do PT, 119. 147. “Debate: História.” 148. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 120–21; Ribeiro, Dos sindicatos ao governo, 214; staffer at Perseu Abramo Foundation, conversation with author, spring or summer 2010. 149. “Debate: História”; De Carvalho, “Entrevista realizada no Rio de Janeiro,” 22. 150. Ribeiro, Dos sindicatos ao governo, 186. 151. De Carvalho, “Entrevista realizada no Rio de Janeiro,” 22, 24; Ganzer, “Entrevista realizada em Belém,” 171.

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152. De Carvalho, “Entrevista realizada no Rio de Janeiro,” 22; staffer at Perseu Abramo Foundation, conversation with author, spring or summer 2010. 153. Secco, História do PT, 94; Ana Maria Estevão, conversation with author, January 1, 2010. 154. Secco, História do PT, 78. 155. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 18. 156. Pereira, “Entrevista realizada em São Paulo,” 264, 270. 157. Sluyter-Beltrão, Rise and Decline, 4. 158. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 81. 159. Hunter, Transformation of the Workers’ Party, 3. 160. Lincoln Secco, conversation with author, April 23, 2010. 161. Pedro Ribeiro, email to author, April 18, 2012. 162. Pereira, “Entrevista realizada em São Paulo,” 270. 163. Raul Pont, “Sobre a construção partidária,” internal PT text, June 1987 (EL archives). 164. Hunter, Transformation of the Workers’ Party, 3, 6. 165. Hunter, Transformation of the Workers’ Party, 3, 36, 122. 166. Lincoln Secco, conversation with author, April 23, 2010. 167. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 77. See also 82. 168. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 81. 169. Lincoln Secco emphasized this detail in conversation with author, April 23, 2010. 170. Ribeiro, Dos sindicatos ao governo, 251. 171. Pedro Ribeiro, email to author, April 18, 2012. 172. Staffer at Perseu Abramo Foundation, conversation with author, spring or summer 2010. 173. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 81. 174. Pereira, “Entrevista realizada em São Paulo,” 268. 175. Frei Betto, conversation with author, March 3, 2010. 176. Secco, História do PT, 59. 177. Lincoln Secco, conversation with author, April 23, 2010. 178. Hunter, Transformation of the Workers’ Party, 25. 179. Pedro Ribeiro, email to author, April 18, 2012. 180. Rodríguez, “Estrategias políticas,” 208. 181. Sluyter-Beltrão, Rise and Decline, 3. 182. Secco, História do PT, 93. 183. Lincoln Secco, conversation with author, April 23, 2010. 184. De Azevedo, A estrela partida ao meio, 154. 185. Pedro Ribeiro, email to author, April 18, 2012. 186. Antônio Donato, conversation with author, May 4, 2010; Frei Betto, conversation with author, March 3, 2010. 187. Antônio Donato, conversation with author, May 4, 2010.

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188. Pereira, “Entrevista realizada em São Paulo,” 264. 189. Da Conceição, “Entrevista realizada em São Paulo,” 71. 190. Lincoln Secco, conversation with author, April 23, 2010. 191. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization; Hunter, Transformation of the Workers’ Party; Ribeiro, Dos sindicatos ao governo; Secco, História do PT. 192. Secco, História do PT, 49. 193. Ribeiro, Dos sindicatos ao governo, 187. 194. Secco, História do PT, 93. 195. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 116, emphasis added. 196. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 91; Secco, História do PT, 81. 197. Pedro Ribeiro, email to author, April 18, 2012; staffer at Perseu Abramo Foundation, conversation with author, spring or summer 2010. 198. Ribeiro, Dos sindicatos ao governo, 186. 199. In the initial rush to achieve registry and expand the ground organization in preparation for the 1982 elections, the national PT leadership devoted scarce energy to issues of programmatic coherence and internal discipline, partly due to lack of time (Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 121), and partly in order to avoid imposing on segments of the base. This state of affairs created opportunities for well-organized Marxist groups to control the PT’s message and program in their local bastions. 200. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 124; “Debate: História.” 201. Ribeiro, Dos sindicatos ao governo, 186–87. See also Hunter, Transformation of the Workers’ Party, 114, 118–19, 121 and Secco, História do PT, 123. 202. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 114; Ribeiro, Dos sindicatos ao governo, 186–87, 214; Secco, História do PT, 94, 123. 203. Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 153. 204. Ribeiro, Dos sindicatos ao governo, 188. 205. See Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 155, for more information on the PT’s 1985 campaigns. 206. This “was one of the main bones of contention between the Articulação and the leftist factions throughout the 1980s” (Ribeiro, Dos sindicatos ao governo, 188). 207. Ribeiro, Dos sindicatos ao governo, 189. 208. Ribeiro, Dos sindicatos ao governo, 190–93. See also Keck, Workers’ Party and Democratization, 117–20. 209. Hunter, Transformation of the Workers’ Party, 121. 210. Ribeiro, Dos sindicatos ao governo, 197. 211. Hunter, Transformation of the Workers’ Party, 125n33. 212. Ribeiro, Dos sindicatos ao governo, 204. 213. Hunter, Transformation of the Workers’ Party, 3, 6, 36, 120–26. 214. Hunter, Transformation of the Workers’ Party, 121, 122. 215. Hunter, Transformation of the Workers’ Party, 121.

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216. Hunter, Transformation of the Workers’ Party, 120. 217. Hunter, Transformation of the Workers’ Party, 121–22. 218. Hunter, Transformation of the Workers’ Party, 126. 219. Hunter, Transformation of the Workers’ Party, 126. See also Samuels, “From Socialism to Social Democracy.” 220. See the discussion of the Tenth National Meeting in Pereira, “Entrevista realizada em São Paulo,” 273. See also Ribeiro, Dos sindicatos ao governo, 207–8, who states that, at this moment, the PT came as close as it ever did to a major schism. 221. Hunter, Transformation of the Workers’ Party, 123. 222. Hunter, Transformation of the Workers’ Party, 122. See also Samuels, “From Socialism to Social Democracy.” 223. To be sure, Lula’s role as a party leader was not the only important factor at play in the PT’s moderate shift. David Samuels (“From Socialism to Social Democracy”) attributes this shift, in large part, to the growing strength of pragmatists among the PT’s rank-and-file membership, and, crucially, to the PT’s internally democratic institutions, which allowed members to shape the party’s ideological direction. 224. Pedro Ribeiro emphasized in an email to the author that the PT’s radical leaders never contested Lula’s leadership (April 18, 2012). 225. See, e.g., Samuels, “From Socialism to Social Democracy”; Hunter and Power, “Rewarding Lula,” 1–30; Hunter, Transformation of the Workers’ Party; Ribeiro, Dos sindicatos ao governo; Secco, História do PT; and Zucco, “When Payouts Pay Off.” 226. Hunter, Transformation of the Workers’ Party, 202. 227. Samuels, “From Socialism to Social Democracy”; Hunter, Transformation of the Workers’ Party. 228. Ribeiro, Dos sindicatos ao governo, 248–53; Amaral, “Ainda conectado,” 1–44; Van Dyck, “Why Party Organization Still Matters”; Van Dyck and Montero, “Eroding the Clientelist Monopoly”; Samuels and Zucco, “Bolsa Família.” 229. CSBH archives. 230. CSBH archives. 231. CSBH archives. 232. CSBH archives. 233. CSBH archives. 234. CSBH archives. CHAPTER 5: THE SURVIVAL OF MEXICO’S PARTY OF THE DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION With permission, portions of the text in this chapter are taken in paraphrased form or verbatim from passages in Brandon Van Dyck, “The Paradox of Adversity: New Left Party Survival and Collapse in Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina,” in Challenges of Party-Building in Latin America, ed. Steven Levitsky, James

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Loxton, Brandon Van Dyck, and Jorge Domínguez (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 133–58; Brandon Van Dyck, “The Paradox of Adversity: The Contrasting Fates of Latin America’s New Left Parties,” Comparative Politics 49, no. 2 (2017): 169–92; Brandon Van Dyck, “External Appeal, Internal Dominance: How Party Leaders Contribute to Successful Party Building,” Latin American Politics and Society 60, no. 1 (2018): 1–26; Brandon Van Dyck, “Why New Parties Split: The Schism of Peru’s United Left in Comparative Perspective,” Journal of Latin American Studies 50, no. 4 (2018): 889–918. 1. Greene, Why Dominant Parties Lose. 2. Bruhn, Taking on Goliath, 198. 3. Hilgers, “Causes and Consequences of Political Clientelism,” 123–53. 4. Rodríguez, “Estrategias políticas”; Mossige, Mexico’s Left. For additional critical accounts, see Sánchez, La élite en crisis and PRD, la izquierda ficticia; Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática; Martínez, Fisiones y fusiones; Rodríguez, Estrategias políticas; and Ortega, “Construir el Futuro.” 5. See, e.g., Bruhn, Taking on Goliath; Mossige, Mexico’s Left. 6. Panebianco, Political Parties. 7. Ribeiro, Dos sindicatos ao governo. 8. See Greene, Why Dominant Parties Lose. 9. Martínez, Fisiones y fusiones, 101. 10. Martínez, Fisiones y fusiones, 58; Rodríguez, “Estrategias políticas,” 244. 11. Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 1:515. 12. Gómez Tagle, “Electoral Violence and Negotiations,” 77–92 and De la alquimia al fraude; Crespo, Urnas de Pandora; Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 1:402–3; Eisenstadt, Courting Democracy in Mexico; Rodríguez, “Estrategias políticas,” 290–91. 13. Bruhn, Taking on Goliath, 202; Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 1:45, 341, 436; Eisenstadt, Courting Democracy in Mexico, 29; González et al., 20 Años, 66; Jesús Zambrano Grijalva, “‘En medio de la tragedia,’” 284; Rodríguez, “Estrategias políticas,” 284. 14. Rodríguez, “Estrategias políticas,” 297. 15. Greene, Why Dominant Parties Lose. 16. Greene, Why Dominant Parties Lose, 107–14. 17. Quotation from Cornelius, Mexican Politics in Transition, 58, cited in Levitsky and Way, Competitive Authoritarianism, 154. 18. Molinar and Weldon, “Electoral Determinants,” 124–41; Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática; Magaloni, Voting for Autocracy. 19. Adriana Borjas, conversation with author, July 11, 2011. 20. Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 1:297. 21. Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 1:297.

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22. Bruhn, Taking on Goliath, 189. 23. Lawson, Building the Fourth Estate, 29. 24. Lawson, Building the Fourth Estate, 8, 173, 29. 25. Lawson, Building the Fourth Estate, passim. 26. Lawson, Building the Fourth Estate, 29. 27. Lawson, Building the Fourth Estate, 29. 28. Quoted in Lawson, Building the Fourth Estate, 30. 29. Rodríguez, Estrategias políticas, 190. 30. Bruhn, Taking on Goliath, 280. 31. See, e.g., Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 1:486. 32. Marco Rascón, conversation with author, June 28, 2011. 33. Marco Rascón, conversation with author, June 28, 2011. 34. Adriana Borjas, conversation with author, July 11, 2011. 35. Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 1:246. 36. Tania Rodríguez, conversation with author, August 1, 2011. 37. Lawson, Building the Fourth Estate. 38. Gómez Tagle, La transición inconclusa; Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 1:430–31, 513–15, 571, 587. 39. The PRD’s various adversities rankled its founders. See, for example, Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 1:402–3, 486–87, 557; Proceso 773, August 26, 1991; and Proceso 776, September 6, 1991. 40. Guillermo “Memo” Flores Velasco, conversation with author, June 10 and June 15, 2011 41. To secure legal existence, the PRD merely adopted the PMS’s registry. 42. Bruhn, Taking on Goliath, 166. 43. Reynaldo Ortega, conversation with author, June 9, 2011. 44. Greene, “Opposition Party Strategy,” 768. 45. Greene, “Opposition Party Strategy,” 768. 46. Greene, “Opposition Party Strategy,” 769. 47. Greene, “Opposition Party Strategy,” 769. As in the case of Brazil’s PT, this rule was rarely followed in practice. 48. Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 1:486. 49. Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 1:486; Nicolás Córtez Nuñez, conversation with author, June 10, 2011. 50. Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 1:557–59. 51. Felix Gamundi, conversation with author, August 2 and August 10, 2011; Javier Hidalgo, conversation with author, August 4 and August 16, 2011; Francisco “Paco” Saucedo, conversation with author, July 9, 2011 52. Porfirio Muñoz Ledo, conversation with author, July 1, 2011. 53. Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 1:245. 54. Martínez, Fisiones y fusiones. 55. Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 2:410–11.

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56. Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 2:410–11. 57. Martínez, Fisiones y fusiones, 53, 55. 58. Bruhn, Taking on Goliath, 225; Felix Gamundi, conversation with author, August 2 and August 10, 2011; Marco Rascón, conversation with author, June 28, 2011. 59. Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 1:519, 2:74. 60. Porfirio Muñoz Ledo, conversation with author, July 1, 2011. See also De la Madrid Hurtado, Cambio de Rumbo. 61. Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 1:371. 62. Rafael Hernández Sorriano, conversation with author, June 15, 2011. 63. Bruhn, Taking on Goliath, 286. 64. Rodríguez, “Estrategias políticas,” 284. See also Eisenstadt, Courting Democracy in Mexico. 65. Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 1:341, 245. 66. E.g., Greene, Why Dominant Parties Lose, 158, 305. 67. Silvia Gómez Tagle, conversation with author, July 4, 2011. 68. Adriana Borjas, conversation with author, July 11, 2011. 69. Adriana Borjas, conversation with author, July 11, 2011; Rigoberto Ávila Ordóñez, conversation with author, July 12, 2011; Felix Gamundi, conversation with author, August 2 and August 10, 2011; Rafael Hernández Sorriano, conversation with author, June 15, 2011; Marco Rascón, conversation with author, June 28, 2011. 70. Proceso 757, May 6, 1991. 71. Salvador Nava Jr., conversation with author, July 7, 2011. 72. Jean François Prud’homme, conversation with author, June 9, 2011. 73. See, for example, the dedication in the PRD’s twenty-year commemorative volume (González et al., 20 Años). 74. Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 1:388. 75. Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 1:288. 76. Bruhn, Taking on Goliath, 250; Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 1:457–58. 77. Quoted in Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 2:408. 78. Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 1:455, emphasis added. 79. González et al., 20 Años, 66. 80. Salvador Nava Jr., conversation with author, July 7, 2011; Francisco “Paco” Saucedo, conversation with author, July 9, 2011. 81. Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 1:490–91. 82. Proceso 820, July 20, 1992. 83. Proceso 820, July 20, 1992. 84. Proceso 776, September 16, 1991. 85. Proceso 773, August 26, 1991; Proceso 776, September 6, 1991.

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86. González et al., 20 Años, 66. See also Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 1:507. 87. Kathleen Bruhn, conversation with author, June 15, June 21, and July 15, 2011. 88. Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 1:456, 507; Martínez, Fisiones y fusiones, 97; Rodríguez, “Estrategias políticas,” 257. Jesus Ortega stated in August 1995 that the PRD had had only one objective until that point: to elect Cárdenas president the previous year (Proceso 980, August 14, 1995). 89. Salvador Nava Jr., conversation with author, July 7, 2011. 90. Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 2:94, 599–600. 91. Carlos Navarrete, “Carlos Navarrete: ‘El PRD representa la voz de millones de mexicanos en el congreso,’” interview in González et al., 20 Años, 265. 92. Jean François Prud’homme, “El PRD: Su vida interna y sus elecciones estratégicas” (Working paper, México: CIDE, 1996), 12; Martínez, Fisiones y fusiones, 59. 93. Typically, national leaders depended on informal negotiations to distribute candidacies and internal posts. When they adhered to formal procedures, they often determined the specific procedure through informal negotiation and on a case-by-case basis. 94. The party’s procedure for electing its own president, for example, changed over the course of the 1990s, beginning as a congressional vote and shifting to a closed primary election. 95. Andrés Lajous, conversation with author, July 15, 2011. 96. Bruhn, Taking on Goliath, 102. 97. Rodríguez, “Estrategias políticas,” 257. 98. Rodríguez, “Estrategias políticas,” 255. See also Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 1:455. 99. Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 1:450–51. 100. Javier Hidalgo, conversation with author, August 4 and August 16, 2011. 101. Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 1:293. 102. Fernanda Somuano, conversation with author, June 9, 2011. 103. Greene, Why Dominant Parties Lose. 104. Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 1:303. 105. Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática 1:337. 106. Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática 1:303. 107. Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática 1: 448; Rodríguez, “Estrategias políticas,” 254, 263. 108. Prud’homme, “El Partido de la Revolución Democrática,” 118. 109. Martínez, Fisiones y fusiones, 99. 110. Prud’homme, “El Partido de la Revolución Democrática,” 118.

NOTES TO PAGES 155–159

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111. Prud’homme, “El PRD,” 12n30. 112. See Proceso 982, August 28, 1994. 113. Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 1:509. 114. Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 1:299. 115. Prud’homme, “El PRD”; Rodríguez, “Estrategias políticas,” 256. 116. Bruhn, Taking on Goliath, 190; Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 1:451, 516; Martínez, Fisiones y fusiones, 104–5. 117. Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 1:445–60; Prud’homme, “El Partido de la Revolución Democrática,” 104, 118; Martínez, Fisiones y fusiones, 97–101. 118. Mossige, Mexico’s Left. 119. Martínez, Fisiones y fusiones, 101. 120. These PRD leaders included, for example, Porfirio Muñoz Ledo, Heberto Castillo, Arnoldo Martínez Verdugo, and Jorge Alcocer. See Proceso 740, January 7, 1991 and Proceso 833, October 19, 1992. 121. Martinez, Fisiones y fusiones, 99. 122. Martinez, Fisiones y fusiones, 99. 123. Proceso 1155, December 20, 1998. 124. Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 1:522. 125. Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 1:530. 126. Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 1:530. 127. Martínez, Fisiones y fusiones, 70–71. 128. Martínez, Fisiones y fusiones, 73. 129. For more on these internal procedural reforms, see Martínez, Fisiones y fusiones, 74 and Wuhs, Savage Democracy, 56. 130. Prud’homme, “El Partido de la Revolución Democrática,” 103. 131. Heberto Castillo in Proceso, no. 1027, July 6, 1996. See also Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 2:64. 132. Martínez, Fisiones y fusiones, 200–201. 133. Martínez, Fisiones y fusiones 74. 134. Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 2:121. 135. Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 2:233. 136. Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 2:233. 137. Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 2:290. 138. Martínez, Fisiones y fusiones, 107. 139. Rodríguez, Estrategias políticas, 256–57, also 303. 140. Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática; Martínez, Fisiones y fusiones; Greene, Why Dominant Parties Lose; Rodríguez, Estrategias políticas; Mossige, Mexico’s Left. 141. Bruhn, Taking on Goliath; Martínez, Fisiones y fusiones; Greene, Why Dominant Parties Lose; Mossige, Mexico’s Left. 142. Mossige, Mexico’s Left.

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143. Greene, Why Dominant Parties Lose. 144. E.g., Adriana Borjas, conversation with author, July 11, 2011; Felix Gamundi, conversation with author, August 2 and August 10, 2011. 145. Lawson, Building the Fourth Estate; Navarrete, “‘El PRD representa la voz,’” 264. 146. Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 2:371. 147. Greene, “Opposition Party Strategy,” 769; Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 2:211. Cárdenas stressed the need to expand the PRD’s territorial organization at the party’s fourth national congress in March 1998 (Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 2:236). Aided by the influx of public funding in 1997, AMLO’s CEN financed the creation and development of the Sun Brigades, a large army of new campaigners activated during electoral seasons and—in contrast to the PRD’s early activists—remunerated for their services. The PRD allocated 30 percent of its 1997 campaign fund to the Sun Brigades. By the end of the year, the Brigades included 63,000 paid activists, one for every electoral precinct in Mexico (Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 2:124–25). 148. By 1998, the PRD had two million members, six thousand base-level committees, full municipal office penetration in the Federal District and six Mexican states, over 85 percent penetration in thirteen states, and nearly 64 percent penetration nationally (Borjas, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, 2:21). 149. Hilgers, “Causes and Consequences”; Bruhn, Taking on Goliath. 150. Kathleen Bruhn, conversation with author, June 15, June 21, and July 15, 2011. 151. 2000 Mexico Panel Study, accessed December 16, 2014, http://mexicopanelstudy.mit.edu. 152. Ortega, “Construir el Futuro,” 18, emphasis added. 153. Mossige, Mexico’s Left, 242. 154. Party rules prevented AMLO from contesting the PRD presidency a second time. 155. Mossige, Mexico’s Left, 15. 156. Mossige, Mexico’s Left, 275. 157. Mossige, Mexico’s Left, 246. 158. Mossige, Mexico’s Left, 300. 159. Greene and Sánchez-Talanquer, “Mexico’s Party System under Stress,” 39–40. CHAPTER 6: SHADOW CASES With permission, portions of the text in chapter 6 are taken in paraphrased form or verbatim from passages in Brandon Van Dyck, “External Appeal, Internal Dominance: How Party Leaders Contribute to Successful Party Building,” Latin American Politics and Society 60, no. 1 (2018): 1–26.

NOTES TO PAGES 163–168

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1. Cason, “Electoral Reform, Institutional Change,” 94. 2. See Lanzaro, “El Frente Amplio”; Yaffé, “Crecimiento y renovación,” 35–57. 3. See Collier, “Overview of the Bureaucratic Authoritarian Model,” 19–32 and Stepan, Rethinking Military Politics. 4. See Luna, “Frente Amplio,” 1–30, esp. 15. 5. For more on the transition, see Hudson and Meditz, Uruguay; and Gillespie, Negotiating Democracy. 6. See Luna, Segmented Representation, 225–38. 7. Allier, “Peace Commission,” 87–96. 8. Álvarez, “From Revolutionary War to Democratic Revolution,” 7. 9. Wood, Insurgent Collective Action, 3, 5. 10. Wood, Insurgent Collective Action, 5. 11. Wood, Insurgent Collective Action, xii. 12. Wood, Insurgent Collective Action, 2. 13. Instituto Universitario de Opinión Pública (IUDOP), Public Opinion Survey Series (San Salvador: IUDOP, 1994–2012), cited in Holland, “Insurgent Successor Parties,” 284. 14. Holland, “Insurgent Successor Parties,” 291. 15. Holland, “Insurgent Successor Parties,” 303. 16. Holland, “Insurgent Successor Parties,” 288. 17. Moreover, the 2004 loss came despite public frustration with the economic policies of the governing ARENA and wide predictions of an FMLN victory (Holland, “Insurgent Successor Parties,” 288). 18. The same question is posed in Boudon, “Colombia’s M-19 Democratic Alliance,” 73–92. 19. Holland, “Insurgent Successor Parties,” 303. 20. Boudon, “Colombia’s M-19 Democratic Alliance,” 75–76. 21. Holland, “Insurgent Successor Parties,” 296. 22. García Durán, Grabe, and Patiño, “M-19’s Journey,” cited in Holland, “Insurgent Successor Parties,” 296. 23. Rampf and Chavarro, “Entering the Political Stage,” 14n28. 24. Holland, “Insurgent Successor Parties,” 275, 298. See also Boudon, “Colombia’s M-19 Democratic Alliance,” 75–76. 25. Holland, “Insurgent Successor Parties,” 303. 26. Holland, “Insurgent Successor Parties,” 303. 27. Boudon, “Colombia’s M-19 Democratic Alliance,” 87–88; Holland, “Insurgent Successor Parties,” 296. 28. Holland, “Insurgent Successor Parties,” 300–302, 316. See also Boudon, “Colombia’s M-19 Democratic Alliance,” 87–88. 29. Holland, “Insurgent Successor Parties,” 303.

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30. This case study is reprinted almost verbatim, with permission, from Van Dyck, “External Appeal,” 20–21. 31. Nogueira-Budny, “Great Promise, but Poor Performance,” 113. 32. Nogueira-Budny, “Great Promise, but Poor Performance,” 114. See also Crisp and Levine, “Democratizing the Democracy?,” 27–61, cited in Nogueira-Budny, “Great Promise, but Poor Performance,” 113. 33. Nogueira-Budny, “Great Promise, but Poor Performance,” 114. 34. Nogueira-Budny, “Great Promise, but Poor Performance,” 114. 35. Buxton, Failure of Political Reform in Venezuela, 160–61. 36. McCaughan, Battle of Venezuela, 80–81; Nogueira-Budny, “Great Promise, but Poor Performance.” 37. All quotations from McCaughan, Battle of Venezuela, 81–82. 38. Buxton, Failure of Political Reform in Venezuela, 178–79; López Maya, Del viernes negro, 189. 39. McCaughan, Battle of Venezuela, 81–82. 40. López Maya, Del viernes negro, 189. 41. Buxton, Failure of Political Reform in Venezuela, 178–79. 42. Daniel Nogueira-Budny (“Great Promise, but Poor Performance”) attributes the LCR’s collapse to the absence of “a flexible party organization . . . with a disciplined structure and majority-based decision-making mechanisms” (112). This article has argued and provided evidence, however, that the absence of such internal institutions is normal, not exceptional, in new parties such as the early PRD and FREPASO. Internally dominant leaders are critical, in large measure, because they substitute for such institutions. That is, they facilitate unitary decision making, ideological compromise, and internal discipline by anchoring dominant factions, influencing internal debates, and unilaterally aggregating preferences, making party level decisions, and adjudicating conflicts. The presence of an internally dominant leader would have helped the LCR to survive, just as Cárdenas helped the early PRD to survive. 43. Mainwaring, “Politicians, Parties, and Electoral Systems,” 21–43; Weyland, “Rise and Fall,” 1–37. 44. Schneider, “Brazil under Collor,” 324. 45. Boas, “Television and Neopopulism in Latin America,” 33. 46. Schneider, “Brazil under Collor,” 323. 47. Boas, “Television and Neopopulism in Latin America,” 33. 48. He continued to cultivate and monitor his media image in office (Schneider, “Brazil under Collor,” 345). 49. Boas, “Television and Neopopulism in Latin America,” 33. See also Moises, “Elections, Political Parties and Political Culture,” 575–611; and Weyland, “Rise and Fall,” cited in Boas, “Television and Neopopulism in Latin America,” 33.

NOTES TO PAGES 171–174

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50. See Schneider, “Brazil under Collor”; Gibson, “Conservative Electoral Movements and Democratic Politics,” 13–42; Mainwaring and Scully, “Parties and Democracy in Latin America”; Castells, Power of Identity; Sartori, Comparative Constitutional Engineering; and Boas, “Television and Neopopulism in Latin America.” 51. Schneider, “Brazil under Collor,” 324. 52. Schneider, “Brazil under Collor,” 324. 53. Singer, “Collor na periferia,” 135–52. 54. Schneider, “Brazil under Collor,” 324; Weyland, “Rise and Fall,” 9. 55. Weyland, “Rise and Fall,” 8. 56. Weyland, “Rise and Fall,” 8. 57. Weyland, “Rise and Fall,” 9. 58. Perhaps the main difference between the two candidates was the ideological tenor of their campaigns. Collor, as discussed, campaigned as a conservative. Fujimori campaigned from the left, in opposition to the neoliberal shock program proposed by Vargas Llosa. Once in office, though, he implemented major neoliberal reforms. See Stokes, Mandates and Democracy; and Roberts, Changing Course. 59. Mainwaring and Scully, “Parties and Democracy in Latin America,” 471. 60. Roberts, “Neoliberalism and the Transformation of Populism,” 94. 61. Boas, “Television and Neopopulism in Latin America,” 35. See also Najar, “Aproximación cuantitativa,” 359–84, and Tanaka and Zárate, Valores democráticos, both cited in Boas, “Television and Neopopulism in Latin America,” 35. 62. Roberts, “Neoliberalism and the Transformation of Populism,” 92. 63. Boas, “Television and Neopopulism in Latin America,” 34. 64. Roberts, “Neoliberalism and the Transformation of Populism.” 65. Levitsky and Cameron, “Democracy without Parties,” 10. 66. Roberts, “Neoliberalism and the Transformation of Populism,” 100. 67. Levitsky and Cameron, “Democracy without Parties,” 10. 68. Levitsky and Cameron, “Democracy without Parties, 10. 69. Tanaka, Los espejismos de la democracia; Levitsky and Cameron, Democracy without Parties. 70. Roberts, “Neoliberalism and the Transformation of Populism,” 100. 71. Cameron, “Endogenous Regime Breakdown,” 268–93. 72. Levitsky and Cameron, “Democracy without Parties,” 22. 73. Levitsky and Cameron, “Democracy without Parties,” 22. 74. Boas, “Television and Neopopulism in Latin America,” 35. See also Najar, “Aproximación cuantitativa” and Tanaka and Zárate, Valores democráticos, both cited in Boas, “Television and Neopopulism in Latin America,” 35. 75. Levitsky and Cameron, “Democracy without Parties,” 25.

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76. Levitsky and Cameron, “Democracy without Parties, 12. 77. Shirk, Mexico’s New Politics, 57, cited in Loxton, “Authoritarian Inheritance.” 78. Mizrahi, From Martyrdom to Power, 51, cited in Loxton, “Authoritarian Inheritance.” 79. Shirk, Mexico’s New Politics, 53, cited in Loxton, “Authoritarian Inheritance.” 80. Greene, Why Dominant Parties Lose, 79. 81. Shirk, Mexico’s New Politics; Greene, Why Dominant Parties Lose. 82. Greene, Why Dominant Parties Lose, 79. 83. Quoted in Loaeza, “El Partido Acción Nacional,” 364. 84. Loaeza, “El Partido Acción Nacional,” 367. 85. Mizrahi, From Martyrdom to Power, 52–54, 56–57 and Greene, “Niche Party,” 168–69, both cited in Loxton, “Authoritarian Inheritance.” 86. Loaeza, “El Partido Acción Nacional,” 357. PAN’s founders were primarily drawn from urban sectors—that is, business owners, intellectuals, and educated Catholic activists—although landowners also participated in the party’s creation. 87. Knight, “Rise and Fall of Cardenismo,” 257–84. 88. Loaeza, “El Partido Acción Nacional,” 363. 89. The Calles administration placed limits on Church activity and tightened state regulation of the clergy. 90. Shirk, Mexico’s New Politics, 58, cited in Loxton, “Authoritarian Inheritance.” See also Mizrahi, From Martyrdom to Power, 17 and Magaloni and Moreno, “Catching All Souls,” 259, both cited in Loxton, “Authoritarian Inheritance.” 91. Greene, Why Dominant Parties Lose, 77. 92. Loaeza, “El Partido Acción Nacional,” 366–67; Greene, Why Dominant Parties Lose, 78. See also Mabry, Mexico’s Acción Nacional; Loaeza, El Partido Acción Nacional; and Mizrahi, From Martyrdom to Power. 93. Shirk, Mexico’s New Politics, 58–59, cited in Loxton, “Authoritarian Inheritance”; and Greene, Why Dominant Parties Lose, 78. 94. Greene, “Opposition Party Strategy,” 768. CONCLUSION: ALTERNATIVE PATHS, THEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS, AND FUTURE QUESTIONS With permission, portions of the text in the conclusion are taken in paraphrased form or verbatim from passages in Brandon Van Dyck, review of Party Systems in Latin America: Institutionalization, Decay, and Collapse, ed. Scott Mainwaring, Latin American Politics and Society 61, no. 1 (2019): 6–9, and Brandon Van Dyck, “Why Not Anti-populist Parties? Theory with Evidence from the Andes and Thailand,” Comparative Politics 51, no. 3 (2019): 361–83.

NOTES TO PAGES 179–182

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1. Hicken and Riedl, “From the Outside Looking In”; Mainwaring, “Party System Institutionalization, Party Collapse and Party Building,” 693. 2. Schmitter, “Future of ‘Real-Existing’ Democracy,” 400, 406. Other symptoms include decreasing participation in trade unions and professional associations, increasing voter abstention, and declining trust in political elites and institutions. 3. Downs, Economic Theory of Democracy; Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies; Collier and Collier, Shaping the Political Arena; Aldrich, Why Parties; Mainwaring and Scully, “Party Systems in Latin America”; Gibson, Class and Conservative Parties; Mainwaring, Rethinking Party Systems; Levitsky and Cameron, “Democracy without Parties”; Ziblatt, Conservative Political Parties. 4. The MAS did not hold the presidency for a one-year period between Evo Morales’s November 2019 resignation and Luis Arce’s November 2020 inauguration. 5. Joel Richards, “Bolivia Debates Media Law Reform,” NACLA, December 24, 2009. 6. Madrid, “Obstacles to Ethnic Parties.” 7. Santiago Pedraglio, conversation with author, January 10, 2011. 8. For a discussion of Chavismo’s survival prospects, see James Loxton and Javier Corrales, “Venezuelans Are Still Demonstrating. What Happens Next for the Dictatorship of President Nicolás Maduro?,” Washington Post, Monkey Cage, April 20, 2017. 9. See Conaghan and de la Torre, “Permanent Campaign of Rafael Correa,” 277–78; Hawkins, Venezuela’s Chavismo and Populism; Corrales and Penfold, Dragon in the Tropics. For operationalization details, see the introduction. 10. Levitsky, Loxton, and Van Dyck, “Challenges of Party Building in Latin America”; Lipset and Rokkan, Party Systems and Voter Alignments; Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies. 11. This is a minimalist, political definition, similar to those in Roberts, “Populist Mobilization, Socio-Political Conflict,” 127–48; Barr, “Populism, Outsiders, and Anti-Establishment Politics,” 29–48; and Levitsky and Loxton, “Populism and Competitive Authoritarianism,” 107–36. For alternative, ideological definitions, see Cas Mudde, “Populist Zeitgeist,” 541–63 and Hawkins, Venezuela’s Chavismo and Populism. 12. Mainwaring and Scully, “Party Systems in Latin America”; Weyland, “Neo-Populism and Neo-Liberalism in Latin America” and “Neoliberal Populism”; Hawkins, Venezuela’s Chavismo and Populism. 13. De la Torre, Populist Seduction in Latin America; Hawkins, Venezuela’s Chavismo and Populism. 14. On Argentine Peronism, see McGuire, Peronism without Perón; James, Resistance and Integration; and Levitsky, Transforming Labor-Based Parties.

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15. James, Resistance and Integration; Levitsky, Loxton, and Van Dyck, “Challenges of Party Building in Latin America”; Levitsky and Zavaleta, “Why No Party Building in Peru?,” 412–39. 16. Eaton, “Challenges of Party Building,” 385. See also Anria, “Social Movements, Party Organization, and Populism,” 19–46. 17. The MAS also expanded the reach of this brand by embracing “ethnopopulism” and appealing to sectors beyond its original indigenous peasant base. Madrid, “Rise of Ethnopopulism in Latin America,” 475–508. 18. Roberts, “Populist Mobilization, Socio-Political Conflict,” 145. 19. Roberts, “Populist Mobilization, Socio-Political Conflict,” 136. 20. Levitsky and Roberts, “Latin America’s ‘Left Turn.’” 21. The path of authoritarian inheritance and the path through successful populism are not mutually exclusive. Fujimorismo, for example, is a populist movement, and since the 2000s, it has been a set of authoritarian successor parties as well. 22. Loxton, “Authoritarian Successor Parties,” 158. 23. Riedl, Authoritarian Origins. 24. Hicken and Martinez Kuhonta, Party System Institutionalization in Asia. For a discussion, see Mainwaring, “Party System Institutionalization, Party Collapse and Party Building.” 25. Loxton and Levitsky, “Personalistic Authoritarian Successor Parties,” 113–41. 26. Loxton and Levitsky, “Personalistic Authoritarian Successor Parties,” 136. 27. See Stephen Kinzer, “Torrijos’s Legacy Lingers in Panama,” New York Times, August 2, 1987, cited in Loxton and Levitsky, “Personalistic Authoritarian Successor Parties,” 135. 28. García Diez, “Panamá,” 578; and Ford González, Un hombre, un partido, 21, both cited in Loxton and Levitsky, “Personalistic Authoritarian Successor Parties,” 126. 29. Loxton and Levitsky, “Personalistic Authoritarian Successor Parties,” 136. 30. Loxton and Levitsky, “Personalistic Authoritarian Successor Parties,” 136. 31. Pérez, “Past as Prologue,” 131. 32. García Diez, “Panamá,” 584, cited in Loxton and Levitsky, “Personalistic Authoritarian Successor Parties,” 134. 33. Mainwaring, “Party System Institutionalization, Party Collapse and Party Building”; Hicken and Riedl, “From the Outside Looking In.” 34. Sánchez, “Party Non-systems,” abstract. 35. Sánchez, “Party Non-systems,” 489. 36. Levitsky and Cameron, “Democracy without Parties”; Carrión, “Public Opinion, Market Reforms, and Democracy,” 126–49; Levitsky and Zavaleta, “Why No Party Building in Peru.” 37. Zavaleta, Coaliciones de independientes.

NOTES TO PAGES 187–192

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38. Levitsky and Zavaleta, “Why No Party Building in Peru,” 420–21. 39. Levitsky and Zavaleta, “Why No Party Building in Peru,” 421. 40. See Downs, Economic Theory of Democracy; Sartori, Parties and Party Systems; and Aldrich, Why Parties. 41. Levitsky and Zavaleta, “Why No Party Building in Peru,” 423. 42. Levitsky and Zavaleta, “Why No Party Building in Peru,” 423. 43. Panama’s authoritarian successor party, the PRD, is the lone exception. 44. Loxton, “Authoritarian Successor Parties.” 45. Levitsky and Cameron, “Democracy without Parties”; Sánchez, “Party Non-systems”; Levitsky and Zavaleta, “Why No Party Building in Peru”; Hicken and Riedl, “From the Outside Looking In.” 46. Hicken and Riedl, “From the Outside Looking In,” 427. 47. Levitsky and Zavaleta, “Why No Party Building in Peru”; Levitsky, “Peru,” 326–55. 48. Levitsky and Zavaleta, “Why No Party Building in Peru,” 426. For more on informal institutions, see Helmke and Levitsky, Informal Institutions and Democracy. 49. Levitsky and Zavaleta, “Why No Party Building in Peru,” 425–32. 50. Levitsky and Zavaleta, “Why No Party Building in Peru,” 413. 51. Bruhn, “Money for Nothing”; Schmitter, “Crisis and Transition, but Not Decline,” 38. 52. Although see Muñoz and Dargent, “Importance of Subnational Resources for Party Building,” who argue that such reforms have backfired in Peru. 53. For more, see Van Dyck, “Why Not Anti-Populist Parties.” 54. Levitsky and Way, Competitive Authoritarianism. 55. Schattschneider, Party Government, 1. 56. Levitsky and Zavaleta, “Why No Party Building in Peru.” 57. Levitsky and Zavaleta, “Why No Party Building in Peru”; Levitsky, “Peru.” 58. Schmitter, “Future of Democracy in Europe,” 15. See also Schmitter, “Future of ‘Real-Existing’ Democracy” and “Crisis and Transition, but Not Decline,” and Landemore, Democratic Reason. 59. Mainwaring, “Party System Institutionalization, Party Collapse, and Party Building,” 695–98. 60. Levitsky and Way, Competitive Authoritarianism; Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser, Populism in Europe and the Americas; Mainwaring, “Party System Institutionalization, Party Collapse, and Party Building”; Hicken and Riedl, “From the Outside Looking In.”

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INDEX

Note: Page numbers in italics refer to figures and tables Abal Medina, Juan Manuel, 55, 76 Abdala, Germán, 63 accountability, 30; demanding, 56; executive, 179; horizontal, 61, 190; social, 190 activists, 19, 23, 43, 66, 94, 117, 118, 122, 150, 202n113; accountability and, 56; antiauthoritarian, 36; committed, 28–38, 70, 86, 124, 149; elites and, 32; incentives for, 33; networks, 34, 79, 86, 120, 147; territorial organization and, 28–38 AD. See Democratic Action AD M–19. See April 19th Movement Democratic Alliance adversity, 6, 32, 37, 38, 109, 139, 165, 175, 183; organization building and, 83–87, 111–26, 141–51 African National Congress (ANC), 43 African National Union, 43 Aldrich, John, 5, 6 Alemán, Miguel, 177 Alessandro, Daro, 67, 71 Alfonsín, Raúl, 57, 58 Alliance for Work, Justice, and Education (Alliance), 61, 62, 70, 78; electoral triumph for, 69; founding of, 74; political crisis for, 76–77 Alternative for Germany, 3 Álvarez, Chacho, 60–61, 62, 82, 171, 214n139, 215n139, 216n171; assessment by, 65; Bordón and, 61; charisma of, 71–72; cohesion and, 74–75; decision making by, 67, 74; defection of, 49, 57; external appeal of, 70–75, 75; FG/FREPASO and, 66, 67, 68, 73, 74, 75, 211n40; Group of Eight and, 72; internal dominance of, 70–71, 72–74, 75, 75; leadership of, 65, 69, 75; media and, 54, 71; neoliberalism and, 61; political initiative of, 72; resignation of, 77–78; state access and, 54 Alves Leite, Olinto, 118 American Revolutionary Popular Alliance (APRA), 41, 45, 81, 85, 88, 90, 91, 98, 106, 172, 189; García and, 80; radicals and, 95; support for, 94 American Revolutionary Popular Alliance (APR A) Youth, 88 Ames, Rolando, 84, 85, 93, 100, 102, 106, 217n22 AMLO. See López Obrador, Andrés Manuel Ant, Clara, 118, 225n8 anti-neoliberalism, 59, 60, 106 antipopulism, 182, 189 AP. See Popular Action APRA. See American Revolutionary Popular Alliance April 19th Movement (M–19), 167 April 19th Movement Democratic Alliance (AD M-19), 15, 36, 162, 166–68, 180, 183; collapse

of, 12, 13, 166–67; lack of access for, 167; prominence for, 167; territorial organization and, 167–68; vote for, 168 APS. See Socialist Political Action Arce, Luis, 243n4 Areco, Jorge Pacheco, 163 ARENA. See Nationalist Republican Alliance Argentine Communist Party (PCA), 57 Argentine Dirty War, 57 Argentine Workers’ Confederation (CTA), 63, 64, 66 Articulação, 132, 133, 134; internal dominance of, 130–31 Arzú, Álvaro, 41 Association of State Workers (ATE), 63 authoritarian rule, 20, 22, 35, 180, 181, 184, 196n30; repression by, 190, 197n44; years under, 15 authoritarian successor parties (ASPs), 184, 185 authoritarianism, 10, 38, 162, 175, 180–85, 188; bureaucratic, 189, 197n48; competitive, 6, 173, 190; democracy and, 25; liberalizing, 6, 36; party building and, 36; repressive, 6 Auyero, Carlos, 74, 75 Auyero, Javier, 70 Azcarragá, Emilio, Jr., 144 Banco do Brasil, 137 Baptista, Jorge, 117 Barisan Nasional (BN), 32 Barrantes, Alfonso: campaigning by, 88–89; CDN and, 87, 88, 91, 99, 100, 102–3; criticism of, 54, 88, 98, 101; crossfactional ties and, 99–101; defection by, 41, 46, 49, 80, 101–8; electoral appeal of, 82, 104; external appeal of, 82, 87–101, 101; fraud and, 98; ideological representativeness of, 97–99; internal challenges and, 44; internal dominance of, 46, 95–101, 101; internal weakness of, 87­101; IU and, 42, 43, 80, 85, 86, 88, 90, 91–104, 107, 129, 134, 169; leadership of, 82–83, 86, 96, 97, 101–2; Maoism and, 88; moral authority and, 96–97, 101; PCP and, 88, 99; popular appeal of, 88, 89, 90–91; resignation of, 98, 99; social mobilization and, 105 Barroso, Claudio, 118 Bartolini, Stefano, 198n58 Belaúnde, Fernando, 94 Berger, Óscar, 41, 42 Bermúdez, Morales, 96 Berto, Frei, 111 Big Front (FG), 55, 57, 65; Álvarez and, 68, 73, 74, 75; autonomy for, 64, 73; campaign of, 60; cohesion in, 74–75; criticism of, 67–68; decision making/conflict resolution and, 71; electoral appeal of, 60, 69, 72; founding of, 56,

269

270 72; FREPASO and, 56, 58, 61, 62, 63, 66–67, 68, 70, 73; internal affairs of, 74; media access and, 69; media-fueled growth of, 58–62; rise of, 58–62; Solanas and, 73; state resources in, 69–70; territorial organization of, 69–70 Blanco, Hugo, 84, 88, 90, 10 Bolsa Família (Family Grant), 109 Bolsonaro, Jair, 3, 4, 136 Bordón, José Octavio, 70, 73–74, 211n34, 215n139; Álvarez and, 61; defeat of, 76; FREPASO and, 74, 214n139 Brader, Ted, 5 brands, 46, 104, 183, 204n3, 204n4; development of, 17, 27, 48, 181; dilution of, 17–18, 48; failure of, 29, 56; relying on, 30; strong, 28, 29, 39, 40, 47–48, 140; territorial organization and, 29 Brazilian Communist Party (PCB), 111, 112, 119, 223n13 Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB), 112, 119, 123 Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), 119, 123, 126, 228n127 Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), 4, 30, 41, 136, 194n13, 208n66, 209n77; victory for, 133 Breña, Rolando, 220n94 Broad Front (FA), 15, 22, 63, 64, 162, 163–64; adaptation by, 16; brand of, 164; as coalition of parties, 201n104; collapse of, 12; ideological divisions and, 21; institutionalization of, 163; military dictatorship and, 163; organizational backbone of, 164; robustness of, 164; schisms and, 164; survival of, 16, 21, 163 Bruhn, Kathleen, 138 Buarque, Chico, 225n51 Building Democratic Institutions: Party Systems in Latin America (Mainwaring and Scully), 186 Bukele, Nayib, 4 C–90. See Change 90 Calderón, Felipe, 160 Calles, Plutarco Elías, 177, 242n89 Camacho, Manuel Ávila, 177 Cameron, Maxwell, 90 Campo Majoritário, 130, 131, 134 Camps, Sibila, 74 Cárdenas, Cuauhtemoc, 45, 46, 47, 82, 106, 107–8, 169; candidacy of, 141, 142, 148, 149; cohesion and, 155; coverage for, 144; crossfactional ties and, 154, 155; decision making by, 74, 155; defeat of, 148, 150, 156–57; defection by, 49, 147, 148; economic leftism and, 177; external appeal of, 151–59, 158; internal dominance of, 151–59, 158, 161; leadership of, 156–57, 159; media and, 145, 146; moral authority of, 140, 153; Muñoz Ledo and, 157, 158–59, 160; neoliberalism and, 153; nomination of, 156, 158–59; party activism and, 150; performance of, 140, 153; PRD and, 43, 74, 97, 138–39, 146, 153–59; radicalism of, 154; state/media access and, 54; strength/authority of, 160; support for, 141–42, 148; victory for, 149 Cárdenas, Lazaro, 141, 153, 176, 177 Cardenistas, 141, 142 Cardoso, Fernando Henrique, 31, 116, 133 Castro, Alicia, 63 Catholic Church, 10, 110, 130; CEBs and, 119; progressive wing of, 223n9 Causa Operária, 131

INDEX CD. See Democratic Convergence; Democratic Current CDN. See National Leadership Committee CEBs. See ecclesial base communities CEN. See National Executive Committee Cevallos, Horacio, 96 Change 90 (C–90), 36, 107, 173, 195n13 Chávez, Hugo, 4, 169, 176, 189, 190; populist movement of, 181, 183; success for, 9, 182–83 Chavismo, 40, 181, 182–83, 189, 195n13, 208n66 Christian Democrats, 43, 63, 209n87, 322n34 Citizen Action Party (PAC), 4, 35, 194n13; survival of, 12 civil liberties, 3, 35, 189 civil society, 68, 81, 86, 91, 93, 103, 120, 123, 125, 126, 165, 167, 171, 174; access to, 147; mobilizing structures and, 19, 110; organizations, 34 civil war, 20, 25–26, 34, 162, 165, 182, 189, 190 Clarín, 24, 59, 62, 211n13 clientelism, 28, 138, 170 cohesion, 81, 82, 110, 127–28, 152, 155, 181, 185; erosion of, 70; generating, 18, 130–35, 140; importance of, 46; internal, 48, 49, 126; leadership and, 41; patronage-based, 20; sources of, 7, 20–21, 27, 38–47, 49, 72 Cold War, 9, 35, 163, 190 Collor, Fernando, 115, 162, 177, 180, 241n58; broadcasting concessions and, 114; portrayal of, 116; PRN and, 36, 170–72; removal of, 171–72; rise of, 173; television and, 118, 170–71, 173 communism, 34, 63, 64, 74, 127, 132; fall of, 10–11, 163 Communist Party, 43, 64, 83 Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB), 111, 112, 119, 223n13 Concertación, 8 Conservative Parties, the Right, and Democracy (Middlebrook), 198n56 Conservatives (Colombia), 9 Constituent Assembly, 116 Convergence Party (PC), 161 Convergência Socialista, 131 Converse, Philip, 5 COPEI. See Independent Electoral Political Organization Committee Correa, Rafael, 4, 9, 182, 183 corruption, 58, 59, 60, 72, 141; scandals, 77, 78, 170, 174, 201n89 Crisis, 66 Cristero War, 177 crossfactional ties, 7, 42–43, 46, 73, 99–101, 110, 129, 130, 154, 155, 169, 192 CTA. See Argentine Workers’ Confederation CTERA. See Teachers Confederation of the Argentine Republic CUT. See Unified Workers’ Central Cyr, Jennifer, 29, 48, 79 D’Aubisson, Roberto, 45 De Azevedo, Ricardo, 118 De Conceição, Manoel, 119, 130 De Gaulle, Charles, 43 De Gennaro, Victor, 63, 66 De la Madrid, Miguel, 141, 153 De la Rúa, Fernando, 62, 76, 77, 78, 79 De Santibañes, Fernando, 77 De Souza, Francisco “Chico,” 118, 136 debt crisis, 10, 11, 19, 141 decision making, 39, 42, 45, 66, 67, 71, 98, 152,

INDEX 155; collective, 46; informal, 74; institutionalized, 74; internal, 65, 87; undemocratic, 68 Del Castillo, Jorge, 97 Del Prado, Jorge, 91, 96, 100, 103, 106, 220n94 Dellamagna Sant’Ana, 118 democracy, 20, 25–26, 35–38, 166, 172, 196n27; authoritarianism and, 25; communication and, 117; developing, 6–7, 67, 170, 179, 180, 191; erosion of, 3, 191; establishment of, 4, 5; internal, 30, 45, 131; morbidity symptom of, 179; new left contenders and, 15; parties and, 6, 14–15, 36, 190­191; survival of, 190–91; transition to, 10, 83, 183, 196n28; years under, 15 Democratic Action (AD), 41, 86, 168, 169, 209n77 Democratic Convergence (CD), collapse of, 12 Democratic Current (CD), 141, 142 Democratic National Convention (CND), 161 Democratic National Front (FDN), 142 Democratic Party, 5 Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), 4, 19, 184, 195n13; assets of, 185; cohesion for, 185; survival of, 12 Diadêma, 112, 116, 223n5 Diez Canseco, Javier, 87, 91, 96, 99, 104, 106, 220n94 Dirceu, José, 129, 133 Dominican Liberation Party (PLD), 41, 209n77 Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD), 41, 2 0 9n77 Duhalde, Eduardo, 76 Dulci, Luiz, 123 Duterte, Rodrigo, 3 Dutra, Olívio, 125 Duverger, Maurice, 37 Ebrard, Marcelo, 161 ecclesial base communities (CEBs), 111, 119, 120, 165 economic crisis, 11, 19, 57, 94, 135–36, 169, 175 economic issues, 11, 76, 77, 78, 90, 122, 183 economic policy, 10, 11, 16, 65, 78, 164 Edgar Leuenroth Archive, 24 electoral bases, 27, 139, 204n4 electoral competition, 7, 36, 206n42 electoral crises, 6, 27, 47, 49, 52, 79, 80, 125, 126, 148; surviving, 17–18, 28, 29, 39, 111, 149–51 electoral rules, 7, 13, 188, 189 electoral success, 7, 8, 12, 48, 124; organizational strength and, 37; routes to, 31 electoral systems, 15, 93, 117, 172–75, 179 elites, 34, 87, 158, 159, 243n2; accountability for, 30; activists and, 32; coalition, 92; deal making by, 60; incentives for, 32; interviews with, 23; material incentives and, 42; party, 18–19, 23, 41; radical, 68 empirical overview, 49, 51–52, 54 “End of the Two-Party System and the Formation of the Big Front, The” (Abal Medina), 55 Erundina, Luiza, 110, 229n129 Espírito Santo, 113, 120, 135 external appeal, 70–75, 75, 82, 87–101, 101, 126– 35, 134, 151–59, 158; internal dominance and, 39–47, 44, 53, 110 extraelectoral incentives, 85–86, 110, 118–19, 181 FA. See Broad Front Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), 4, 15, 19, 33, 35, 36, 49, 64, 162, 185, 194n13; adaptation by, 16; ARENA and, 165;

271 civil war and, 165; cohesion and, 82; democracy and, 166; elections and, 165; ideological divisions and, 21, 22; presidential victory and, 16; purpose of, 165; state resources and, 167; survival of, 12, 13, 16, 30, 39, 165–66 Fatherland for All (PPT), 169 Federalist Party, 5 Fernandes, Florestam, 128 Fernández de Cevallos, Diego, 145 Fernández Meijide, Graciela, 57, 67, 70, 75, 77; appointment for, 69; FG and, 74 FG. See Big Front Fifth Republic Movement (MVR), 21, 181, 195n13 Figueiredo, President, 112, 115, 228n116 Filho, Manoel Fiel, 228n116 First Congress, 103, 129 Five-Star Movement, 3 Flamarique, Alberto, 69, 77 FMLN. See Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front FO. See Trotskyist Workers’ Faction FOCEP. See Trotskyist Worker, Peasant, Student, and Popular Front Fonteles, Paulo, 119 Force 2011, 195n13 formative period, 38, 43; survival after, 47–49 FP. See Popular Force Franco, Itamar: PMDB and, 172 fraud, 9, 33, 35, 98, 139, 143, 148, 149, 151, 152, 176 FREDEJUSO. See Front for Democracy and Social Justice Frente Brasil Popular, 136 FREPASO. See Front for a Country in Solidarity Front for a Country in Solidarity (FREPASO), 8, 9, 15, 22, 24, 36, 38, 49, 54­55, 62, 66, 73–74, 82, 107–8, 162, 165, 166, 167, 180, 183; Alliance and, 61; Álvarez and, 74; Bordón and, 74; as coalition partner, 79; cohesion in, 74–75; collapse of, 12, 13, 16, 23, 49, 51–52, 51, 55, 64, 76–79, 108; committed activists and, 70; criticism of, 67; decision making and, 71, 74; electoral crisis and, 17, 49, 52, 76–79; electoral triumph for, 62, 69; external appeal of, 53; FG and, 56, 58, 61, 62, 63, 66–67, 68, 70, 73; founding of, 56, 57, 74; internal dominance and, 53; media-fueled growth of, 57–70; mobilizing structures and, 20; organization and, 17, 78, 79, 82; organizational strength of, 51; organizational weakness of, 57–70; party rules and, 75; performance of, 50, 51; permanent campaign and, 64–65; rise of, 55, 58–62, 64; and Socialist Party compared, 65; state/media access and, 54; state resources and, 69–70; support for, 68, 69–70; territorial organization and, 52, 69– 70, 70; UCR and, 55, 56, 61, 67, 76, 78 Front for Democracy and Social Justice (FREDEJUSO), 57, 67 FSLN. See Sandinista National Liberation Front Fujimori, Alberto, 4, 32, 80­81, 104, 107, 162, 177, 182, 190; C–90 and, 36; campaign of, 241n58; corruption and, 174; electoral vehicles and, 172–75; ouster of, 191; presidential election and, 172– 173; success for, 9, 81, 173, 187; television and, 173 Fujimorismo, 40, 182, 189, 206n35, 244n21 Fujimorista parties, 4, 174, 195n13 Gallup, 125 García, Alan, 90, 94, 95; APRA and, 80, 97 “Gas War” (2003), 182

272 Gaviria, President, 168 Geisel military government, 111 General Confederation of Peruvian Workers (GCTP), 86 Genoino, José, 119 Gente, 60 Globo, 115, 117, 144, 224n37, 224n50 Globo, 125 Globo News Agency, 115 Godio, Julio, 63 Gómez Morín, Manuel, 176, 177 Gonzales, Osmar, 96 Great Depression, 135 Green Party (PVC), 21, 39, 41 Greene, Kenneth, 138, 206n42 Group of Eight, 59, 70, 71, 72; PJ and, 57, 63, 69 Group Rating, 72 Guardado, Facundo, 166 guerrilla organizations, 34, 35, 163, 165, 166, 167, 185 Guzmán, Jaime, 45 Haddad, Fernando, 136 Hale, Henry, 31 Hamilton, Alexander, 5 Handal, Schafik, 166 Hanson, Stephen, 33, 204n9 Haya, Agustín, 220n94 Haya de la Torre, Victor Raúl, 45, 182 Herrera, Guillermo, 86, 220n94 Hicken, Allen, 179 Hilgers, Tina, 138 human rights, 70, 95, 176 Huntington, Samuel, 181, 196n28 Hurtado, Jorge, 220n94 Ibarra, Aníbal, 62, 69, 75, 78 identity: collective, 149, 201n113; ideological, 70, 138; partisan, 186; political, 70; programmatic, 70 ideology, 21, 24, 43–44, 45–46, 49, 97–99, 145, 152 import substitution industrialization (ISI) model, 10, 11 Independent Democratic Union (UDI), 4, 30, 39, 45, 184, 194n13, 204n4 Independent Electoral Political Organization Committee (COPEI), 41, 168, 209n77 Independent Moralizing Front (FIM), collapse of, 12 Industrial Federation of São Paulo State (FIESP), 171 inequality, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 111 infrastructure, 5, 19, 31, 34, 63, 120, 173, 180, 184, 188, 204n8 Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), 19, 154, 161, 202n113; co-optation by, 145; crisis for, 141, 151; criticism of, 147; defections from, 147; financial resources of, 143; fraud by, 139; media access and, 144; negotiating with, 139; opposition to, 176–77; PAN and, 175; PRD and, 143, 146, 147, 148–49; repression by, 140, 148; violence by, 148–49 institutionalization, 3–4, 15­16, 28, 74, 99, 140, 163 insurgency, 20, 25–26, 162; years under, 15 internal dominance, 39–47, 70–74, 75, 75, 92, 95– 101, 101, 105, 126–35, 134, 140, 151–59, 158, 160, 181, 184; elements of, 42, 128–30; external appeal and, 44–47, 44, 53, 110 Intersyndical Workers Plenary (PIN-CNT), 163 – 6 4

INDEX Intransigent Party, 57, 63 Intransigents, 70 ISI. See import substitution industrialization model Istúriz, Aristóbulo, 168, 169 IU. See United Left Jefferson, Thomas, 5 Jornal Nacional, 115, 116 Journalists’ Union, 114 Jozami, Eduardo, 64, 65, 66, 67, 72, 77 Keck, Margaret, 18 Kitschelt, Herbert, 206n42 Kohl, Helmut, 43, 209n87 Kuchma, Leonid, 32 La Crónica, 24; on Olivos Pact, 59–60 La Jornada, 144 La Mirada, 66 La República, 24, 84, 85, 88 labor movement, 85, 111–12, 125, 128, 185 Labor Party (PT), 45, 136, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 165 Labour Party, 32, 113 Latinobarometer poll, 58 Law of Convertibility, 66 LCR. See Radical Cause leadership, 82–83, 86, 96, 97, 101–2, 105, 120, 122, 125, 126, 131, 132, 133, 138, 140, 150, 152, 156– 157, 159, 169; backgrounds of, 46; charismatic, 13, 40; cohesion and, 41; external appeal/internal dominance of, 39–47, 53; party building and, 40; popular, 47; success and, 40; working-class, 123 Ledesma, Genaro, 84 leftism, 10, 16, 133, 150, 177 Lei Falcão, 117 Let’s Go Neighbor, 173, 195n13 Levitsky, Steven, 181, 187, 188, 189; on normalization, 76; UCR/FREPASO and, 55 Liberals, 9 line of intransigence, imposing, 155–56 Lipset, Seymour Martin, 181 López Obrador, Andrés Manuel (AMLO), 3, 4, 147, 151; CEN of, 238n147; conflict with, 161; defection of, 161; leadership of, 138, 140; party brand and, 48; PRD and, 157, 159, 160, 161, 238n154 Loxton, James, 181, 183, 184, 185, 188, 189 Lozano, Claudio, 63 Lula da Silva, 45, 46, 82, 106, 107–8, 111, 123, 136, 139, 169; Articulação and, 130–31; cohesion and, 127–28, 130–35; cross-factional ties and, 129, 130; decision making by, 74; defeat of, 131, 133, 134; defection and, 49; external appeal of, 110, 126–35, 134; fundraising for, 137; on Globo, 117; hunger strike by, 228n116; internal dominance of, 110, 126–35, 134; leadership of, 105, 232n224; new unionism and, 119, 125, 129; nomination for, 134–35; popularity of, 124; portrayal of, 116, 130; power for, 128, 135; PT and, 43, 97, 108, 109, 129, 130, 133, 134–35; publicizing, 137; radicals and, 108; social mobilization and, 105; state/media access and, 54; vote for, 13, 171 Lupu, Noam, 6, 17, 29, 78, 204n5 M-19. See April 19th Movement Macaluse, Eduardo, 63 Maduro, President, 181

INDEX Mainwaring, Scott, 3, 179, 186 Maluf, Paulo, 170 Mandela, Nelson, 43 Maneiro, Alfredo, 168 Maoists, 84, 88 Marcos, Subcommandante, 154, 157 Mariateguist Unified Party (PUM), 84, 91, 92, 93, 95, 96, 98, 99, 100, 102, 103, 220n94; expulsion of, 99; Trotskyist movement and, 219n58; UDP and, 86 Marinho, Robert, 115, 117, 225n58 Martínez, Ifigenia, 156 Martins, Robert, 228n126 Marxism/Marxists, 21, 81, 83, 84, 87–88, 93, 107, 111, 119, 121, 126, 127, 129, 130, 132, 141–42, 147, 151, 154, 163 MAS. See Movement toward Socialism Mazzei, Héctor, 55 MDB. See Brazilian Democratic Movement media, 23, 27, 62, 69, 77, 146, 180; bias of, 173; coverage by, 181; establishment of, 56, 114–15; importance of, 36, 72, 172; independent, 58–59; liberalization of, 159; local/regional, 115; organizing against, 117; party building and, 33; as party substitute, 6, 173; support from, 35, 173; using, 31, 188 media access, 36, 52, 69, 144–45, 163, 171, 177; lack of, 32–33, 35, 38, 54, 85, 110, 114, 116, 117, 145 Médici military government, 111 Medina, Pablo, 41, 169 Meguid, Bonnie, 204n5 Mendoza province, 61, 62, 69 Meneguello, Rachel, 124 Menem, Carlos, 59, 209n87, 215n139; constitution and, 61; criticism of, 73; economic policies of, 57; labor flexibilization law and, 60; neoliberal reforms and, 57, 58, 60, 213n102; Olivos Pact and, 58; privatization by, 66; reforms by, 63 Menemism, 59, 68 Mexican Autonomous National University, 177 Mexican Revolution, 140, 141, 153, 176 Mexican Socialist Party (PMS), 142, 147, 151, 153; registry of, 234n41 Mexico City, 138, 139, 147, 151, 153, 158, 159, 161; electoral reforms in, 157 Michoacán, 141, 147, 151, 153, 155, 176 Middlebrook, Kevin, 198n56 Milhorem Neto, Gumercindo, 122 military rule, 63, 110, 111, 115, 143, 163, 164; collapse of, 9, 55; transition from, 83, 196n28 MIR. See Movement of the Revolutionary Left Mitterand, François, 42–43 mobilization, 81, 85, 184; extraelectoral forms of, 98; social, 99, 105, 218n46 mobilizing structures, 21, 36, 49, 62­63, 103, 119– 20; access to, 19–20, 56, 146–47; organization building and, 34–35 Mockus, Antanas, 41 moderates, 98, 99, 100, 102, 103, 105, 107, 132, 168, 169, 219n57; radicals and, 10–11, 21, 22, 23, 92–93, 94, 97, 110, 126, 133–34, 157 Mohme, Gustavo, 84 moral authority, 44, 45, 54, 110, 128, 140, 153, 155, 160, 209n88; establishing, 46; internal, 106; lack of, 43, 82, 97, 101, 209n87; low, 7, 73, 92, 96 Morales, Evo, 4, 180, 181, 182, 183, 190, 243n4 MORENA. See National Regeneration Movement Moreno, Lenin, 183 Mossige, Dag, 138, 161

273 Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR), 83, 84, 88, 92 Movement toward Socialism (MAS), 4, 15, 19, 20, 33, 35, 180–81, 189; ethnopopulism and, 244n17; founding of, 183; populist movement and, 182; rise of, 181; survival of, 12, 16, 21 MR-8. See Revolutionary Movement October 8th Mugabe, Robert, 43 Mujica, José, 164 Muñoz Ledo, Porfirio, 147, 151; Cárdenas and, 157, 158–59, 160; defection of, 159; on good faith/enthusiasm, 148; PRD and, 149, 156, 157, 160; on Salinas, 150 MVR. See Fifth Republic Movement Naddeo, María Elena, 67 NAF TA. See North American Free Trade A g reement National Action Party (PAN), 143, 145, 149, 159, 160, 162, 175–78, 180, 242n86; education reform and, 176; founding of, 176, 177; identity of, 176; leaders/activists of, 176; PRD and, 161; PRI and, 175; repression of, 175–76 National Advancement Party (PAN), 21, 39, 41, 42 National Council (CN), 152 National Encounter Party (PEN), 15; collapse of, 12 National Executive Committee (CEN), 152, 155, 238n147 National Front, 3 National Leadership Committee (CDN), 217n19, 217n20; Barrantes and, 87, 88, 91, 99, 100, 102–3 National Liberation Party (PLN), 41, 209n77 National Meetings, 69–70, 132, 133–34 National Popular Alliance (ANAPO), 167 National Regeneration Movement (MORENA), 161 National Solidarity Program (PRONASOL), 143 National Unity of Hope (UNE), collapse of, 12 National Workers Convention (CNT), 163 Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), 4, 45, 165; survival of, 30, 39 Nationals, 9 Navarrete, Carlos, 151 Neighborhood Assembly (Asamblea de Barrios), 147 neoliberalism, 10, 11, 19, 57, 59, 153; criticism of, 61; ideological, 152; opposition to, 66, 154; shift toward, 16 new left contenders, 162; birth environment of, 54; collapse of, 12, 16, 17–18; democracy and, 15; diverging fates for, 8–24; mobilizing structures of, 54; organizational strength of, 19; survival of, 12, 16, 22, 199n75 New Left (NI), 160-161 New Majority, 173, 195n13 new unionism, 111, 120, 125, 129; expanding, 112, 118, 119 New York Times, 24, 184 Ninth Congress (PCP), 98, 99 Nixon, Richard, 96 Noriega, Manuel, 184, 185 “Normalization” (Levitsky), 76 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), 154, 157 Northern League, 3 Novaro, Marcos, 55, 70, 76 O Estado de São Paulo, 125 O Trabalho, 131 “Of Time and Partisan Stability” (Converse), 5

274 Olivos Pact, 58, 59–60, 61 Open Politics for Social Integrity (PAIS), 183, 211n34 Orbán, Victor, 190 organization building, 19, 64, 65, 139, 154, 177; adversity and, 83–87, 111–26, 141–51; conditions for, 20, 27–38; importance of, 22; incentives/means for, 20, 30–34, 35; inhibiting, 48; investing in, 18, 31; media substitutes for, 36, 79; mobilizing structures and, 34–35; nimbleness/ autonomy and, 30–31; successful, 19, 38 organizational strength, 7, 19, 124, 151; electoral success and, 37; importance of, 48; role of, 28–29 organizations, 7, 8, 13, 19, 28, 32, 48; civil society, 81, 91, 93; failure of, 29; feeder, 20, 43, 119, 120, 121, 130, 131, 145, 147, 151, 157; incentives for, 117–19; legislative, 179; local, 124; popular, 81; strong, 17, 111 Ortega, Jesús “Chucho,” 160–61 PAC. See Citizen Action Party Pagina/12, 24, 59 PAIS. See Open Politics for Social Integrity; Proud and Sovereign Fatherland Alliance Palermo, Vicente, 55, 70, 76 PAN. See National Action Party; National Advancement Party Panebianco, Angelo, 28, 37, 40, 208n65, 208n73 Panfichi, Aldo, 80 parties: adaptation by, 16; authoritarian successor, 183–85; challenges for, 186; characteristics of, 7–8; coalitions versus, 21–22; collapse of, 6, 12, 38, 180; democracy and, 6, 190–91; with external origins, 37–38, 196n29, 205n33; financing of, 15; ideological, 39; institutionalization of, 6, 20, 27, 41, 44–45; labor-based, 32; mass confessional, 32; patronage-based, 20; revival of, 29; robust, 7; splits in, 79; strong, 15, 17, 36; survival of, 29, 30, 34; understanding, 192; weakness for, 187 partisan contenders, 12, 13, 21, 30, 38, 40, 41, 47, 49, 81; collapse of, 27; schisms and, 44 party building, 4, 5, 13, 30, 34, 56, 191; alternative paths to, 14–22, 24, 178, 180, 186; authoritarianism and, 36; conditions for, 190; conservative, 188; democracy and, 6, 14–15; developing world and, 187–90; leadership and, 40; media and, 33; outcomes for, 17; successful, 36, 40, 181–82 Party for Democracy (PPD), 4, 30, 34, 194n13, 208n66; survival of, 12 Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), 4, 12, 15, 19, 22, 24, 33, 35, 38, 42, 45, 46, 64, 86, 106, 162, 163, 165, 166, 180, 190; activism of, 147–48; activists and, 149, 154; AMLO and, 157, 159, 160, 238n154; brand of, 48, 140, 160; Cárdenas and, 43, 74, 97, 138–39, 146, 153–59; consolidation of, 138; credibility/self-conception of, 150; criticism of, 145; decision making by, 71, 152, 155; electoral appeal of, 143, 154; electoral crisis for, 17, 49, 76, 79, 149–51, 157; external appeal of, 53; founding of, 151, 153; growth of, 146, 147, 238n147; higher cause of, 148–49; institutionalization of, 140, 159–60; internal affairs of, 140, 151; internal dominance and, 53; internal shift for, 157; leadership of, 138, 150, 152; media access and, 54, 144–45; members of, 147–48, 160; mobilizing structures and, 146–47; Muñoz Ledo and, 156, 157, 160; organization and, 17, 18, 79, 82, 87, 144, 147, 154; organi-

INDEX zational strength of, 51; patronage seekers and, 139; performance of, 50, 51, 81, 140, 159–60; PRI and, 146, 147, 148–49, 153; professionalization of, 159; public party fund and, 143–44; radical faction of, 106; rebound by, 149–50; repression of, 140, 143; schisms and, 21, 22, 47, 140, 152; state resources and, 54, 142–44; support for, 41, 154; survival of, 12, 13, 16, 17, 21, 23, 30, 39, 47, 51, 79, 82, 104, 107, 108, 136, 138; territorial organization of, 52, 52, 145–46, 147, 149; transformation of, 148–49; volunteer army of, 148 party laws, 188, 189 Party of National Reconstruction (PRN), 36, 170–72 party substitutes, 189, 196n29; media/state and, 6, 173 party system institutionalization (PSI), 6, 179, 184, 186, 188 party systems, 7, 190; collapse of, 187, 194n9; erosion of, 3; fragmentation of, 4; spectrum of, 186; strong, 13, 189; understanding, 192 “Party Systems” (Lipset and Rokkan), 181 Party of Youth (PJ), 171 Patriotic Society Party (PSP), 16 patronage, 20, 28, 41, 48, 49; access to, 69; appointments, 33; lack of access to, 163–64; resources, 42–43; seekers, 30, 39, 139 Pazos, Luis, 74 PCB. See Brazilian Communist Party PCdoB. See Communist Party of Brazil PCP. See Peruvian Communist Party PCP-PR. See Red Fatherland PCP-SL. See Shining Path PCR. See Revolutionary Communist Party PDS. See Social Democratic Party Peace, Henry, 102, 105 peasant associations, 34, 81 Pease, Henry, 84, 85, 91, 93, 98, 99, 100, 106; Lula and, 105; vote for, 103–4 Pedraglio, Santiago, 97 PEN. See National Encounter Party Peña Nieto, Enrique, 161 People’s Network (Rede Povo), 224n50 Pereira, Hamilton, 127, 130 Pérez, Carlos Andrés, 169 Perón, Juan, 45, 182, 189 Peronist Party (PJ), 9, 12, 19, 45, 55, 56, 71, 76, 77, 78, 86; Alliance and, 62; defeat of, 61; electoral base of, 60; Group of Eight and, 57, 63, 69; Olivos Pact and, 58; UCR and, 58, 61 Peronists, 40, 66, 70, 209n89 Perseu Abramo Foundation, 24, 227n96 Peru 2000, 173, 195n13 Peruvian Communist Party (PCP), 83, 84, 86, 87, 88, 91, 93, 95, 96, 98, 100, 101, 102, 103, 107; birth/evolution of, 217n6; IU and, 99, 217n14; radicalization of, 99 Peruvian Communist Party (PCP) Youth, 98 Peruvian Nationalist Party (PNP), collapse of, 12 piqueteros, 63, 64 PJ. See Party of Youth; Peronist Party PLD. See Dominican Liberation Party PLN. See National Liberation Party PMDB. See Brazilian Democratic Movement Party PMS. See Mexican Socialist Party Podemos, 3 polarization, 20, 21, 34, 189; brand development and, 181; populist, 183 Polino, Héctor, 67

INDEX political issues, 36, 76–77, 90 political opposition, 35, 39, 46, 49, 112 “Political Order” (Huntington), 181 Popular Action (AP), 41, 80, 85, 94, 130, 209n77; boycott by, 84, 218n46 Popular Democratic Unity (UDP), 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 92, 93, 220n94 Popular Faction, 123 Popular Force (FP), 174, 195n13 populism, 3, 19, 66, 174, 180–85, 189 populists, 9, 19, 20, 34, 181, 183, 189; confrontation with, 182 Possible Peru (PP), 36, 174, 175 power, 128, 135; internal, 42, 43, 43, 44, 49, 95–101 PP. See Possible Peru PPD. See Party for Democracy PRD. See Democratic Revolutionary Party; Dominican Revolutionary Party; Party of the Democratic Revolution presidential systems, 10, 15, 40, 42, 46, 151 PRI. See Institutional Revolutionary Party PRN. See Party of National Reconstruction Proceso, 24, 203n116 PRONASOL. See National Solidarity Program Proud and Sovereign Fatherland (PAIS) Alliance, 198n54 PSDB. See Brazilian Social Democracy Party PSI. See party system institutionalization PSR. See Revolutionary Socialist Party PSUV. See Unified Socialist Party of Venezuela PT. See Labor Party; Workers’ Party public opinion, 7, 68, 91, 114, 207n62 Puiggros, Adriana, 63 PUM. See Mariateguist Unified Party PUSC. See Social Christian Unity Party Putin, Vladimir, 190 PVC. See Green Party Radical Cause (LCR), 21, 39, 41, 42, 44, 45, 46, 162, 240n42; adaptation and, 16; collapse of, 16, 168–69; schism for, 21, 168, 169 Radical Civic Union (UCR), 8, 49, 57, 62, 63, 70, 71, 74, 106; electoral crisis for, 61, 77, 79; FREPASO and, 55, 56, 61, 67, 76, 78; Menem and, 60; Olivos Pact and, 58; PJ and, 58, 61 Radical Democracy (DR), 130, 133, 134 radicals, 105; elections and, 95; moderates and, 10–11, 21, 22, 23, 92-93, 94, 97, 110, 126, 133–34, 157 radio, 114, 117, 144 Ramos, Paulo, 115 Red Fatherland (PCP-PR), 83, 84, 88 repression, 9, 33, 35, 121, 122, 140, 143, 148, 149, 164, 176–77, 197n48, 207n62; authoritarian, 20, 190; moderate, 36, 38, 180; extreme, 38; state, 36, 37, 42, 168 Republican Party, 5, 208n66 Republicanism, 33 Republicans (France), 43 Revolutionary Communist Party (PCR), 84, 85, 87, 93, 100, 102, 221n109 Revolutionary Movement October 8th (MR–8), 111, 112, 119, 223n13 Revolutionary Socialist Party (PSR), 84, 85, 87, 93, 100, 102 Revolutionary Vanguard (VR), 83, 84, 88, 92 Riedl, Rachel, 179, 188 Rio de Janeiro, 113, 116, 120 Roberts, Kenneth, 107

275 Rocha, Paulo, 118 Rodríguez, Tania, 138, 159 Rokkan, Stein, 181 Rollemberg, Armando, 114 Rousseff, Dilma, 135–36 Salinas, Carlos, 143, 151, 153, 156, 158; coverage for, 144; fraud/repression of, 149; neoliberal reforms and, 213n102; regime repression by, 148 Salvadoran Civil War (1979–1992), 165 Sampaio, Plinio Arruda, 116 Samuels, David, 40, 232n223 San Marcos Student Federation, 96 San Marcos University Federation, 87 Sánchez, María, 63 Sánchez, Omar, 186 Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), 4, 15, 19, 33, 35, 36, 49, 185; cohesion and, 82; survival of, 12, 39 Sanders, Bernie, 3 Santa Quitéria do Maranhão, 112 Santos, Jamie, 119 São Bernardo do Campo, 222n5, 223n5 São Bernardo Metalworkers’ Union, 111, 127, 129 São Paulo, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 118, 120, 121, 122, 124, 126, 127, 128; protests in, 116 Sarney, José, 114, 115, 116, 117, 170, 225n58 Schattschneider, Elmer Eric, 190, 191 schisms, 7, 45, 52, 77, 80, 104, 164, 166, 177; avoiding, 22, 39, 46–47, 108; fatal, 27, 38–39, 44, 46–47, 81–82, 87; likelihood of, 41, 162; partisan contenders and, 44; preventing, 44–47 Schmitter, Philippe, 179, 190, 191 Scully, Timothy, 3, 6, 186 Seawright, Jason, 86 Secco, Lincoln, 109, 128, 130 sectarianism, 39, 82, 151, 152 Señales, 66 Seregni, Liber, 164 Sérgio Buarque de Holanda Center, 24 shantytown associations, 81, 86 Shefter, Martin, 37–38 Shinawatra, Thaksin, 190 Shining Path (PCP-SL), 81, 83, 91, 94, 95, 99, 103, 106 Shugart, Matthew, 40 Siqueira, Geraldo, 116 social action, 118, 119, 125, 139 Social Christian Unity Party (PUSC), 21, 22 social democracy, 10, 16, 127 Social Democratic Party (Germany), 32 Social Democratic Party (PDS), 170, 228n127 Social Democrats (Sweden), 113 social movements, 19, 29, 34, 35, 46, 63, 139 Socialist Agreement (AS), 221n109 Socialist Democracy (DS), 133 Socialist Party, 65 Socialist Political Action (APS), 84, 85, 93, 100 Socialist Unity (US), 211n34 Socialists, 42­43, 63, 70, 105, 209n89 Solanas, Fernando “Pino,” 67, 70, 72, 73, 74 Somoza, Anastasio, 185 Southern Front, 57, 63, 64, 67, 73 Soviet Union, collapse of, 10, 31, 133 Stalin, Josef, 43 state, as party substitute, 6, 173 state resources, 31, 93, 94; access to, 32, 33, 35, 36, 38, 52, 54, 69–70, 85, 112–13, 142–44, 167, 177 Stokes, Susan, 6

276 student associations, 81, 85, 86, 142, 165 Sun Brigades, 238n147 Suplicy, Eduardo, 118 Syriza, 3 Tanaka, Martin, 92, 217n9 Tapia, Carlos, 220n94 Tavits, Margit, 37, 206n42, 208n63; organizational strength and, 28–29, 207n62 Teachers Confederation of the Argentine Republic (CTERA), 63, 66 Telesistema Mexicano, 144 Televisa, PRI and, 144 television, 72; access to, 117, 144, 170–71, 172; licenses for, 114 territorial organization, 39, 69–70, 79, 120–21, 145–46, 147; activists and, 28–38; brands and, 29; building, 30–34, 48, 49, 56; conditions for, 52; incentives against, 62–69; investing in, 18– 19, 31, 32–33, 54; nimbleness/autonomy and, 30; survival and, 48 Third Wave (Huntington), 196n28 Tlatelolco massacre (1968), 141 Toledo, Alejandro, 36, 162, 180; boycott by, 174; electoral vehicles and, 172–75; politics of, 174 Torrijismo, 185 Torrijos, Omar,184, 185 Trotskyist Worker, Peasant, Student, and Popular Front (FOCEP), 84, 85, 87, 92 Trotskyist Workers’ Faction (FO), 119 Trotskyists, 83, 219n58 Trump, Donald, 3 Tucker, Joshua A., 5 Tuesta, Fernando, 88, 96, 218n46 TV Globo, 115–16, 225n51 UCR. See Radical Civic Union UDI. See Independent Democratic Union UDP. See Popular Democratic Unity Unidos, 24, 66 Unified Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), 4, 15, 20, 180, 183, 194n13; populist movement and, 182; survival of, 12, 16, 21, 181 Unified Workers’ Central (CUT), 118, 125, 132, 223n23 Union of the Democratic Center (UCEDE), 39 Union of the Revolutionary Left (UNIR), 84, 85, 86, 87, 92, 93, 95, 98, 100, 102, 103; expulsion of, 99 unionism, 111, 112, 125, 127, 129, 132. See also new unionism unions, 19; anti-Menemist, 65, 66; peasant, 89; rural, 147; teachers’, 63, 81, 142, 165; trade, 34, 243n2 UNIR. See Union of the Revolutionary Left Unitary Union of Peruvian Education Workers (SUTEP), 86 United Left (IU), 8, 19, 21, 22, 24, 33, 39, 44, 45, 46, 79, 135, 162, 165; activists and, 86; adaptation and, 16; balance of power and, 97; Barrantes and, 42, 43, 80, 85, 86, 88, 90, 91–104, 129, 134, 169; brand of, 104; coalitions of, 87; collapse of, 12, 12, 16, 21, 23, 41, 49, 51–52, 51, 80, 81, 82, 104, 105, 108; decision making by, 98, 217n19; electoral performance of, 87, 88, 90, 95, 218n36; external appeal of, 53; founding of, 81, 82, 84, 85, 87, 97, 99; institutionalization of, 100; internal dom-

INDEX inance and, 53; leadership of, 83; moderates of, 82, 92–95, 97, 100, 107; organizational strength of, 51, 87; parties of, 84, 87–88, 89, 91, 95, 99; PCP and, 99, 217n14; performance of, 50, 51, 81, 86, 90, 107; polarization within, 100; PT and, 105; radicals of, 16, 82, 92–95, 97, 105, 106, 107; schism for, 21, 47, 52, 52, 54, 81, 81–82, 84–85, 86, 88, 94, 104, 107; territorial organization of, 86 Universal de Television (UNITEL), 180 US. See Socialist Unity Van Buren, Martin, 5 Vargas Llosa, Mario, 80, 106, 173, 241n58 Vásquez, Tabaré, 164 24 Horas, 144 Veja, 125 Velasco, Juan, 84, 96 Velásquez, Andrés, 41, 46; factionalism and, 44; LCR and, 42; leadership of, 168, 169 VR. See Revolutionary Vanguard “Water War” (2000), 182 Workers’ Party (PT), 4, 15, 19, 22, 24, 33, 35, 38, 41, 45, 46, 63, 64, 86, 106, 138, 150, 163, 166, 171, 180; activists and, 124; adaptation by, 16; adversity and, 140; base of, 121–22; boycott by, 126; campaign theory of, 117, 133; civil society and, 126; cohesion of, 127, 130–35; contributions/ labor for, 136–37; dominance of, 130–31, 134; electoral crisis for, 17, 49, 76, 79, 124–25, 131, 135; electoral gains for, 122, 124–25, 135; external appeal of, 53, 134; extraelectoral incentives for, 118–19; financial resources for, 121; founding of, 19, 109–10, 113, 114, 115, 119–23, 128, 138; higher cause of, 123–24; ideological diversity of, 21, 129; ideology of, 21, 119–20, 122, 131; institutionalization of, 135–36; internal dominance and, 53, 134; leadership of, 105, 120, 122, 125, 126, 131, 132, 133; Lula and, 43, 97, 108, 109, 129, 130, 133, 134–35; Marxists and, 119, 133; media access and, 54, 110, 114–17, 125; membership of, 120–21, 121–22, 232n223; moderating, 131–34; national executive committee of, 133; nonelectoral tasks and, 139; organization and, 17, 18, 82, 87, 111, 119, 121–22; organizational strength of, 51; party loyalists and, 48; party program of, 131–32; performance of, 50, 51, 81, 125– 26, 127; political system and, 123–24; radical tendencies of, 108, 128, 131, 133–34; repression of, 140; resource constraints for, 113–14; revenue for, 113–14; rise of, 56, 112; schisms and, 22, 47, 110, 127; state resources and, 54, 112–13; survival of, 12, 13, 16, 17, 21, 23, 30, 39, 47, 51, 51, 79, 82, 104, 107, 108, 125–26; territorial organization of, 52, 52, 120–21, 124–25, 124; vote-maximizing strategies and, 38 working class, 11, 19, 111, 201n94 World Bank, 111 Yeltsin, Boris, 190 Zambrano, Jesús, 161 Zamora, Rubén, 166 Zapatista National Liberation Army, 154, 157 Zavaleta, Mauricio, 187, 188 Zedillo, Ernest, 145, 157 Zhou Enlai, 96