BOOK REVIEWS Kevin J. Middlebrook, Conservative Parties, the Right

06 Book reviews (JB/D) 31/1/02 8:37 am Page 237 PARTY POLITICS VOL 8. No.2 pp. 237–249 Copyright © 2002 SAGE Publications London Thousand Oaks New Delhi BOOK REVIEWS Kevin J. Middlebrook, Conservative Parties, the Right and Democracy in Latin America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. $59.95 (hbk); $21.00 (pbk), xv + 391 pp. ISBN 0 8018 6385 6; 0 8018 6386 4. This edited volume fills a gap in the current literature on political parties in Latin America. While the significance of parties of the Right has long been known, no systematic study has been undertaken. Middlebrook has assembled an impres- sive set of experts on the given cases of Argentina (Borón), Brazil (Mainwaring, Menguello and Power), Chile (Garrretón), Colombia (Dugas), El Salvador (Wood), Peru (Conaghan) and Venezuela (Coppedge). The chapters are segmented into examining cases with established conservative parties (Chile, Colombia and Venezuela) and those with newer parties of the Right. In addition to the case-studies, a useful statistical appendix with electoral data from the 1980s and 1990s is included. The book has four main goals: to explain the variation in electoral performance of parties of the Right; to understand the importance of long-term conservative party success or failure to democratization in the 1980s and 1990s; to investigate the relative significance of party- based representation of the Right versus other types of institutional power; and to inquire as to the current state and ongoing evolution of conservative parties in the region. The project defines ‘conservative parties’ as ‘parties whose constituencies are upper social and economic strata but that mobilize multiclass support in a common political project’ (p. 3). As such, the definition is about who the parties represent rather than their specific programmatic agenda, and such an approach avoids complex comparative and country-specific classifications of a given party’s policy stances. Further, parties of the upper class have often supported progressive policies in the past, making a program-based classification scheme problematic. The issue at hand is really the degree to which the political Right have had their interests represented over time, especially in terms of how the entrenched economic elites in Latin America have managed to adapt to democratization. Democratization has often threatened the land-holding and indus- trial elites of the region, frequently occasioning military intervention on their behalf. A central thesis of the text is that where elite interests have been 1354-0688(200203)8:2;237–249;021396 06 Book reviews (JB/D) 31/1/02 8:37 am Page 238 PARTY POLITICS 8(2) protected by strong parties of the Right, democratization is easier. It further inquires as to how those interests were protected when strong conservative parties did not exist. There is no universal pattern of conservative party development and institutionalization identified in the text. However, there are four noteworthy trends. The first is the confirmation of the proposition that stable democratic development requires an outlet for elite interests. The second is that the parties of the Right throughout the region appear to be more supportive of the democratic enterprise than they were in past decades. Indeed, only the Chilean Right is specifically classified as maintaining explicit support for military political prerogatives (Garretón notes that the Chilean Right’s linkage to pinochetismo is one of their main weaknesses). Third is the fact that all of the parties of the Right in the region are trapped in minority status and none seem poised to expand their electoral base. Fourth is that the electoral minority status of the Right has not necessarily curtailed its success in achieving many of its policy goals. For example, despite the electoral weakness of the Argentine Right, their interests are nonetheless well addressed by the state (Borón dubs this the ‘Argentine paradox’). The adoption of the Right’s program by the Peronists via Menem directly illustrates this. A similar situation occurred in Peru with Fujimori’s post-election snap conversion to neo-liberalism. Among the more interesting studies are those by Coppedge on Venezuela and Mainwaring et al. on Brazil. Coppedge notes that there have not been any true parties of the Right in Venezuela in the post-1958 period, classifying the COPEI as centre–right. Rather he identifies an alternative route to the representation of the interests of the Right, which he terms ‘reverse clien- telism’. In this system, elites provide gifts to politicians who in turn provide their patrons with influence over policy and appointments. Such a system clearly diminishes the significance of electoral representation. Mainwaring et al.’s examination of Brazil is intriguing as a counter-example to the assump- tions that are made about parties of the Right. The clear assumption of the general literature (illustrated by the introductory chapter of the Middlebrook volume itself) is that conservative parties draw their electoral base from the economic upper classes. In Brazil the parties of the Right draw disproportion- ately from poorer social strata, raising questions as to the nature of their appeal. Both of these cases, along with the other chapters, serve to whet the intellectual appetite vis-à-vis the functioning and role of conservative parties in Latin America. The book concludes with a declaration of the need for further research into this untapped area of party study. Specifically, Middlebrook notes the need for additional work in four areas: the social bases of conservative party support; the organization of these parties; the relationship between electoral success and the significance of the political Right for civil society; and the degree to which these parties function as institutions for representing elite interest vis-à-vis other avenues of representation. While some of the chapters overly dwell on the early 20th-century histories of conservative parties in their respective cases, each chapter (and the book as a whole) contains a great deal of basic source material on the cases along with substantial analytical content. For those who study political parties in the region, this is a ‘must have’. It is also a useful reference 238 06 Book reviews (JB/D) 31/1/02 8:37 am Page 239 BOOK REVIEWS work for those who study democracy in general and would be an excellent text for courses on Latin American parties. Steven L. Taylor Troy State University Paul G. Lewis, Political Parties in Post-Communist Eastern Europe. London and New York: Routledge, 2000. £16.99 (pbk), xii + 202 pp. ISBN 0 415 20182 9. As the first single-authored comparative textbook to survey party development in the whole of post-communist Eastern Europe, this is an important and valuable addition to both the party studies and democratization literature. It begins with a brief historical introduction surveying the overall context of post- communist change before discussing the difficulties in the process of party- building created by the communist legacy. It moves on to provide a survey of how the electoral process has developed and played a key role in structuring the emerging party systems, together with an overview of the role of parties within the new East European parliaments. The section on party organizational development is probably the most empirically uneven. This is not surprising given the difficulties in obtaining solid comparative data in areas such as party funding, a problem that is also evident in the more extensive literature on party systems in established Western democracies. Finally, the author uses Western numerical classifications to examine the emerging party systems, while stressing the lack of ‘systemness’ of what still remain in every case ‘incipient’ party systems. A number of broad, overarching themes run throughout the book. Firstly, while the communist legacy left problems for party development throughout the region these have been transcended with varying degrees of success. East-central European states are the clear ‘leaders’, while some parts of the region, particu- larly in the successor states to the Soviet Union and the Yugoslav federation, continue to be characterized by very weak party development. In other words, Lewis posits a strong pattern of intra-regional differentiation to the extent that ‘any statement about parties in Eastern Europe as a whole . must be general to the point of superficiality’ (p. 150). These variations are, it is argued, based on history, the nature of communist rule and mode of transition to democracy in particular countries and, in some respects, correspond to the more general pattern of democratic development in the region. The latter point should not be overdrawn, however. The Baltic States are, for example, clearly among the regional ‘leaders’ in terms of democratic consolidation, but are also cases of relatively weak party development and institutionalization. A second broad theme, and one of the central dilemmas faced by researchers of political parties in the post-communist world, is the relatively fluid and unconsolidated nature of both the party systems and the individual parties that 239 06 Book reviews (JB/D) 31/1/02 8:37 am Page 240 PARTY POLITICS 8(2) comprise them. This makes it difficult to know how far to extrapolate broader trends from specific events or developments. Indeed, at one level it is question- able whether it is accurate to describe these as party ‘systems’ at all, given the lack of a relatively stable and predictable pattern of interaction between parties. While pointing out the dangers of reading too much into particular events or drawing too firm conclusions at this stage of party development, to his credit Lewis does attempt to draw out some (albeit tentative and preliminary) broad conclusions and comparative lessons. In doing so, he rightly points out that it is possible to exaggerate the apparent stability of Western party systems, given the significant changes that they have undergone in recent years, with the trans- formation of the Italian party system at the beginning of the 1990s being the most dramatic case in point.

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