Building Democratic Institutions

This volume fills the need for a comprehensive, up-to-date portrait of parties and party systems in Latin America. It includes chapters on all the large and medium-sized countries, as well as those smaller countries with older democratic traditions: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. The book is framed by an Introduction that provides a theoretical and comparative conceptual map for charting Latin American party systems and a Conclusion that looks ahead to the challenges and trends for party building in the 1990's.

The twelve country case studies address five analytical themes: the origins of party competition, the relative strength of parties as actors within the larger political system, the relationship between major parties and the state, the importance of different electoral regimes for shaping broader patterns of party competition, and the basic nature of the party system in each country.