Political Parties and Democratization in Brazil and the Southern Cone

From the late 1960s until recently, political parties received only secondary attention among scholars writing on Latin America. There were three main reasons for this neglect. First, strong executives and the weakness of most congresses led to a situation in which parties were generally overshadowed by the personality of a strong leader. Throughout Latin America a presidential system with a powerful executive prevailed. Except for Chile, Costa Rica, and Uruguay, parliaments were generally circumscribed in their powers and activities, thus weakening the primary arena where parties are prominent in debating the public agenda and in formulating policy. Parties were viewed as institutions of dubious importance in many countries. Partisan politics was often seen as involving squabbles over minor fiefdoms, fought more to assure individual power than to further the “national interest.” ¹ This pervasive discrediting of parties had as a side effect the delegitimation of scholarly work on parties.