ABSTRACT
In successful democracies, two kinds of party have been central: the bourgeois party, and the party of labour. In Colombia, Liberal-Conservative rivalry led in the 1950s to a multi-faceted crisis marked by deep splits over reform and anti-reform options in each party. Colombia's Conservative and Liberal parties have maintained their hold by the practice of traditional clientelism 'utterly irreconcilable with the principle of political citizenship'. The key to Latin American politics in the half-century after the crash of 1929 lies in the enduring loss of dominant class hegemony. The political philosophy and practice of batllismo aimed at winning support from the middle classes, and from public employees. It lacked the capacity for dynamic response to changing circumstances. The southern cone republics of Argentina, Chile and Uruguay had extended participation in electoral politics. Peron's organization of the Argentine working class, initially from his position within the military regime of 1943, gave him an unassailable electoral majority vulnerable only to military intervention.
