Conservative Popular Appeals: the Electoral Strategies of Latin America’S Right Parties
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Conservative Popular Appeals: The Electoral Strategies of Latin America's Right Parties by Mar´ıaEugenia Giraudy A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Ruth B. Collier, Chair Professor Pradeep K. Chhibber Professor Jonah D. Levy Professor Peter B. Evans Fall 2015 Conservative Popular Appeals: The Electoral Strategies of Latin America's Right Parties Copyright 2015 by Mar´ıaEugenia Giraudy 1 Abstract Conservative Popular Appeals: The Electoral Strategies of Latin America's Right Parties By Mar´ıaEugenia Giraudy Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science University of California, Berkeley Professor Ruth Berins Collier, Chair How do elite conservative parties win mass support? Over time, political scientists have been puzzled by this question. In my dissertation, I analyze this question by investigating the strategies conservative parties use to attract these voters. In particular, my research shows that parties can choose from four possible strategies to build mass support: economic moderation, orthogonal appeals, grassroots activities, and neoliberalism. I use machine learning to analyze four right-wing parties in Argentina and Chile and demonstrate that parties have varied in the strategies they chose to attract new voters. To this end, I classify the text of 4800 press releases using topic models with Latent Dirichlet Allocation. This method classifies the topics parties choose to focus on. For instance, it can show if a party has focused on moral values (e.g., abortion, gay marriage) or on economic issues (role of the market, exports promotion). By understanding the topics parties focus on in their press releases, I can analyze which strategies they use to attract poor voters. The results of the classification show that for example, in Chile, one conservative party, Uni´onDemocr´aticaIndependiente (UDI), chose to create grassroots activi- ties in poor areas in order to attract the urban poor, while the other conservative party, Renovaci´onNacional (RN), chose to use orthogonal appeals on the value of democracy and human rights, as well as presenting a moderate economic platform. In Argentina, UCeDe opted to focus on neoliberal appeals to attract both rich and poor voters, while Propuesta Republicana (PRO) decided to moderate its economic appeals. To explain this variation I argue that the ties of conservative parties to conser- vative institutions constrain the strategies of conservative parties to expand their electoral coalitions. In particular, I analyze how the ties to the three most relevant 2 conservative institutions of Latin America's recent history, the Catholic Church, the Military, and business groups, affect the possible strategies of conservative party leaders. This analysis is based on qualitative evidence collected during 18 months of fieldwork in Argentina and Chile. I use an original database of the careers of party officials, as well as in-depth interviews with top conservative party leaders, to trace the ties of conservative institutions to the parties. I show that these institutions can influence party strategies through two different paths. First, conservative institutions may have external influence to the party and threaten to cut valuable resources in case the party chooses not to defend their policy interests. Second, conservative institutions might choose to affect party strategies through the path of internal influence. In this path, representatives of the conser- vative institution occupy key party positions and block policies that may affect the interests of the institution. My dissertation demonstrates that each party's strategic choices depend on the ties that party leaders have to these three conservative institutions. In the case of RN, the decision of party leaders to use orthogonal appeals as well as limited economic moderation is a consequence of the fact that RN leaders have moderate ties to export-oriented business groups, moderate ties to the Catholic Church, and weak ties to the military. In the case of UDI, its party leaders were able to build strong grassroots activities due to their strong ties to the military and business groups. These ties made it difficult for the party to use strategies of economic moderation or orthogonal appeals. Additionally, the strong ties of UDI to the Catholic Church made it difficult for the party to introduce progressive moral topics to attract new voters. In Argentina, UCeDe leaders in the 1980s chose a neoliberal strategy due to the strong ties of UCeDe to liberal economic groups. In addition, party leaders had medium ties to the military which made it difficult to use a strategy of orthogonal appeals on Human Rights issues, and the party did not use moral progressive topics in order to avoid an adverse reaction from the Catholic Church. Last, PRO leaders chose a strategy of economic moderation to attract new voters. Different to other parties, PRO was able to implement such a strategy because it had moderate ties to ISI business groups. In addition, the party's moderate ties to the Catholic Church was translated in mixed positions on moral values. PROs weak ties to the military makes it possible for them to utilize pro-democratic appeals. However, as the party was formed more than 30 years after the transition to democracy, its appeals are less about the role of the military, and more about the defense of republican institutions. i Contents Contents i List of Figures iv List of Tables vi 1 Introduction 1 1.1 The Logic of Conservative Parties . 5 1.1.1 Why Do Latin American Conservative Parties Need to Expand? 6 1.2 Which Strategies Do Parties Utilize to Expand Their Electoral Coali- tions? . 7 1.3 Explaining Party Strategies: the Military, the Catholic Church, and Business Groups . 10 1.3.1 Shaping Policy Positions . 11 1.3.1.1 Business . 13 1.3.1.2 Catholic Church . 15 1.3.1.3 Military . 18 1.3.2 Building Non-Programmatic Appeals . 21 1.4 Conservative Strategies in Argentina and Chile . 23 1.4.1 RN: Orthogonal Appeals and (Limited) Economic Moderation 23 1.4.2 UDI: Grassroots Activities With the Urban Poor . 26 1.4.3 UCeDe: Neoliberal Strategy . 29 1.4.4 PRO: economic moderation . 32 1.5 Methods . 34 1.6 Conclusion . 35 2 Electoral Strategies 37 2.1 What Strategies can Conservative Parties Use? . 37 2.2 Measurement . 39 ii 2.2.1 Methods . 40 2.2.1.1 What are Topic Models? . 41 2.2.1.2 Why Topic Models? . 42 2.2.1.3 Data and pre-Analysis Process . 42 2.3 Results . 43 2.3.1 Renovaci´onNacional . 43 2.3.1.1 From Topics to Strategies: RN . 47 2.3.1.2 Orthogonal Appeals . 48 2.3.1.3 Limited Economic Moderation . 51 2.3.2 Uni´onDemocr´aticaIndependiente . 54 2.3.2.1 From Topics to Strategies: UDI . 57 2.3.2.2 Grassroots Activities . 58 2.3.3 PRO . 62 2.3.3.1 From Topics to Strategies: PRO . 65 2.3.3.2 Economic Moderation . 66 2.3.3.3 Orthogonal Appeals . 68 2.3.3.4 Grassroots Activities . 68 2.3.4 UCeDe . 71 2.4 Conclusion . 73 3 Conservative Parties and Business Groups 75 3.1 Theoretical Analysis of the Alliance Between Business and Conserva- tive Parties . 76 3.2 Business Characteristics . 80 3.2.1 Chile . 80 3.2.2 Argentina . 82 3.3 Cases . 83 3.3.1 UDI . 83 3.3.2 RN . 96 3.3.3 PRO . 102 3.3.4 UCeDe . 111 3.4 Conclusion . 113 4 Conservative Parties and the Catholic Church 115 4.1 Theoretical Analysis of the Alliance between the Catholic Church and Conservative Parties . 116 4.1.1 Constraining Conservative Parties: the Catholic Church Ex- ternal and Internal Influence . 117 4.2 Historical Relationship . 122 iii 4.2.1 Chile . 123 4.2.2 Argentina . 124 4.3 Cases . 126 4.3.1 Chile . 126 4.3.2 Internal Influence of the Church: the Cases of UDI and RN . 129 4.3.3 Argentina . 131 4.3.4 Internal Influence of the Church: the Cases of UCeDe and PRO133 4.4 Conclusion . 135 5 Conservative Parties and the Military 137 5.1 Theoretical Analysis of the Alliance Between the Military and Con- servative Parties . 138 5.1.1 The military and Conservative Allies during the Military Regime138 5.1.2 The Military and Conservative Parties in the New Democratic Regime . 139 5.2 Historical Relationship . 141 5.2.1 Argentina . 141 5.2.2 Chile . 143 5.3 How does the Military Affect party Strategies? The Cases of UDI, RN, UCeDe, and PRO . 145 5.3.1 UDI . 145 5.3.1.1 Repression of the Left . 146 5.3.1.2 Appointed Mayors . 147 5.3.1.3 Social Policy . 149 5.3.1.4 Costs of the Alliance with the Military . 152 5.3.2 RN . 152 5.3.2.1 Ambiguous Relationship: the Military and RN in the Democratic Regime . 153 5.3.3 UCeDe . 156 5.3.4 PRO . 158 5.4 Conclusion . 158 6 Conclusion 162 6.1 Overview of Findings . 162 6.2 Further Research on Conservative Parties . 166 6.3 Final Thoughts . 167 Bibliography 168 iv List of Figures 1.1 Ideological Self-Identification of Low Educated Citizens . 3 1.2 Causal Argument . 12 1.3 Causal Argument for Business Groups . 14 1.4 Causal Argument for the Catholic Church . 17 1.5 Causal Argument for the Military during New Democratic Regime . 20 1.6 RN Ties to Conservative Institutions and Expected Outcome . 26 1.7 UDI Ties to Conservative Institutions and Expected Outcome . 28 1.8 UCeDe Ties to Conservative Institutions and Expected Outcome .