ABSTRACT
The global process of democratization during the 1980s and 1990s has brought political competition to societies previously characterized by one-party systems or by military regimes. With this new political competition comes the need to understand it. The authoritarian withdrawal in southern Europe and Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s, and the subsequent global process of democratization, transformed the political landscape in these regions. At the same time, the overall process of change inspired new approaches of analysis that focused on the problems of transition, the relevant actors, their interests, their choices, and their strategies. The chapter argues that during the process of democratic transition and in some elections during the process of democratic consolidation, party electorates in the new democracies polarize along a democratic authoritarian cleavage. Such a cleavage is defined by general attitudes toward democracy. However, as democracy consolidates, the democratic-authoritarian cleavage yields its centrality to other issue-oriented cleavages.
