Conservative Party-Building in Latin America: Authoritarian Inheritance and Counterrevolutionary Struggle

James Loxton

ISBN 10: 0197537529 / ISBN 13: 9780197537527

Published by OUP USA 2021-07-29, 2021

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 6666-ING-9780197537527

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Conservative Party-Building in Latin America: Authoritarian Inheritance and Counterrevolutionary Struggle
• Publisher: OUP USA 2021-07-29
• Publication Date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0197537529
• ISBN 13: 9780197537527
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Where do strong conservative parties come from? While there is a growing scholarly awareness about the importance of such parties for democratic stability, much less is known about their origins. In this groundbreaking book, James Loxton takes up this question by examining new conservative parties formed in Latin America between 1978 and 2010. The most successful cases, he finds, shared a surprising characteristic: they had deep roots in former dictatorships.

Through a comparative analysis of failed and successful cases in Argentina, Chile, El Salvador, and Guatemala, Loxton argues that this was not a coincidence. The successes inherited a range of resources from outgoing authoritarian regimes that, paradoxically, gave them an advantage in democratic competition. He also highlights the role of intense counterrevolutionary struggle as a source of party cohesion.

In addition to making an empirical contribution to the study of the Latin American right and a theoretical contribution to the study of party-building, Loxton advances our understanding of the worldwide phenomenon of "authoritarian successor parties"―parties that emerge from authoritarian regimes but that operate after a transition to democracy. A major work, Conservative Party-Building in Latin America will reshape our understanding of politics in contemporary Latin America and the realities of democratic transitions everywhere.

About the Author

James Loxton is a Senior Lecturer in Comparative Politics at the University of Sydney. His research examines authoritarian regimes, democratization, and political parties, with a focus on Latin America. He is the co-editor of Life after Dictatorship: Authoritarian Successor Parties Worldwide and Challenges of Party-Building in Latin America. He holds a PhD in Government from Harvard University.