Diminished Parties: Democratic Representation in Contemporary Latin America

Many contemporary party organizations are failing to fulfill their representational role in contemporary democracies. While political scientists tend to rely on a minimalist definition of political parties (groups of candidates that compete in elections), this volume argues that this misses how parties can differ not only in degree but also in kind. With a new typology of political parties, the authors provide a new analytical tool to address the role of political parties in democratic functioning and political representation. The empirical chapters apply the conceptual framework to analyze seventeen parties across Latin America. The authors are established scholars expert in comparative politics and in the cases included in the volume. The book sets an agenda for future research on parties and representation, and it will appeal to those concerned with the challenges of consolidating stable and programmatic party systems in developing democracies.

Juan Pablo Luna is Professor of Political Science at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. He is the author of Segmented Representation: Political Party Strategies in Unequal Democracies (2014) and co-author of Latin American Party Systems (Cambridge, 2010).

Rafael Piñeiro is Associate Professor at the Catholic University of Uruguay. With Verónica Pérez Bentancur and Fernando Rosenblatt, he has coauthored How Party Activism Survives: Uruguay´s Frente Amplio (Cambridge, 2020), which won the APA's Leon Epstein Outstanding Book Award.

Fernando Rosenblatt is Associate Professor of Political Science at the Diego Portales University, Chile. He is the author of Party Vibrancy and Democracy in Latin America (2018) and co-author with Verónica Pérez Bentancur and Rafael Piñeiro of How Party Activism Survives: Uruguay´s Frente Amplio (Cambridge, 2020).

Gabriel Vommaro is Full Professor at the Institute of Higher Social Studies, University of San Martín, Argentina, and researcher in the Argentinian National Research Council. His books include La larga marcha de Cambiemos (2017), Mundo PRO (2015; with S. Morresi and A. Bellotti) and Sociologie du clientélisme (2015; with H. Combes).