The Paradox of Adversity: New Left Party Survival and Collapse in Latin America The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Van Dyck, Brandon Philip. 2014. The Paradox of Adversity: New Left Party Survival and Collapse in Latin America. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:11744418 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA The Paradox of Adversity: New Left Party Survival and Collapse in Latin America A dissertation presented by Brandon Philip Van Dyck to The Department of Government in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of Political Science Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts June 2013 c 2013 Brandon Van Dyck All rights reserved. Dissertation Advisor: Jorge Dom´ınguez Brandon Van Dyck Dissertation Advisor: Steven Levitsky The Paradox of Adversity: New Left Party Survival and Collapse in Latin America Abstract Political parties are the basic building blocks of representative democracy. They reduce information costs for voters, enhance executive accountability, and contribute to democratic governability by facilitating legislative organization and aggregating the interests of powerful societal groups. Yet we continue to know relatively little about the conditions under which strong parties form. The dominant theories of party-building are mostly based on historical studies of the United States and Western European countries, almost all of which developed stable party systems. Drawing on this literature, a segment of the early scholarship on party-building in third-wave democracies optimistically took `party development' for granted, assuming that parties would follow from democracy, cleavages, or certain electoral rules. Yet party-building outcomes in third-wave democracies fell short of scholars' initial, optimistic expectations. In many third-wave polities, social cleavages, attempts at electoral engineering, and decades of democratic competition did not produce durable parties. On the other hand, in numerous third-wave democracies, new political parties did take root. What accounts for the variation in party-building outcomes observed across the developing world? More generally, under what conditions does party-building succeed? Drawing on evidence from fourteen months of interviews and archival research in Brazil, Mexico, Peru, and Argentina, this project provides the first systematic comparison of party- building success and failure on the Latin American new left. It argues that most new parties do not survive because they do not build strong organizations composed of committed iii activists. As a result, they do not withstand early crises. Paradoxically, parties with strong organizations and committed activists are more likely to form under conditions of adversity. Office-seekers with low access to state resources and mass media have an incentive to do the difficult work of organization-building. Intense polarization and conflict (e.g., civil war, populist mobilization) generate committed activists by producing the higher causes that spur individuals and groups to collective action. New party-builders are more likely to experience this cluster of adverse conditions under authoritarian rule. iv Table of Contents Tables and Figures vi Acknowledgments vii 1 The Paradox of Adversity: New Left Party Survival and Collapse in Latin America 1 2-3 The Survival of Brazil's Workers' Party 64 2 Building the PT: Adversity and Survival 66 3 Avoiding Schism in the Early PT: The Indispensability of Lula da Silva 140 4-5 The Survival of Mexico's Party of the Democratic Revolution 174 4 Building the PRD: Adversity and Survival 176 5 Avoiding Schism in the Early PRD: The Indispensability of Cuauht´emoc C´ardenas 237 6 Electoral Collapse: The Case of Argentina's FREPASO 288 7 Collapse by Schism: The Case of Peru's United Left 320 8 Conclusion 354 Bibliography 365 v Tables and Figures Table 1.1: New Left Party Survival and Collapse in Latin America 8 Table 1.2: Authoritarian Origins and New Left Survival 55 Table 1.3: Organization and Activist Commitment 58 Table 1.4: Survival and Collapse 58 Figure 1.1: Conditions for Organizational Strength 29 Figure 1.2: Coattails and Internal Authority 42 Figure 1.3: The Role of Authoritarianism 46 Figure 1.4: Electoral History in Chamber { PT, PRD, IU, FREPASO 50 Figure 2.1: The PT in the Chamber of Deputies (1982-present) 64 Figure 4.1: The PRD in the Chamber of Deputies (1991-present) 174 Figure 4.2: PRD Municipal Office Presence, 1990 216 Figure 4.3: PRD Municipal Office Presence, 1993 216 Figure 4.4: PRD Member/Population Ratio, 1995 217 Figure 6.1: FREPASO in the Chamber of Deputies 289 vi Acknowledgments I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to my advisers, Jorge Dom´ınguez,Steve Levitsky, Fran Hagopian, and Al Montero. They devoted many, many hours to this project and stuck with me through thick and thin (mostly thin). I am deeply grateful to all of them. I dedicate this dissertation to my parents, Madeline and Phil Van Dyck. vii Chapter 1 The Paradox of Adversity: New Left Party Party Survival and Collapse in Latin America Political scientists rarely agree, but on the importance of political parties, they speak in near unison. Parties play an indispensable role in representative democracy.1 They reduce information costs for voters,2 extend politicians' time horizons,3 and contribute to democratic governability and stability by socializing elites, aggregating the interests of powerful societal groups, facilitating legislative organization, and enhancing executive accountability.4 Yet parties remain weak in much of the developing world. Over the last two decades, es- tablished parties have declined or collapsed across Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the post-Soviet world. Moreover, despite decades of competitive elections and repeated efforts at electoral reform, relatively few new parties and party systems have taken root. Strong 1`[M]odern democracy', writes Schattschneider (1942), `is unthinkable save in terms of political parties' (1). 2By reducing information costs for voters, parties increase political participation, a central value within normative democratic theory. On Downs' (1957) classic account, voting exacts costs to the individual, not only in money and transportation time, but also in the time and effort required to form a preference between candidates. Because people are busy and/or relatively uninterested in politics, they are unlikely to acquire sufficient candidate information in the absence of information shortcuts. Downs argues that parties, by representing simple principles and policy stances, make it easier for ordinary citizens to form preferences between numerous candidates. Hence, parties increase the likelihood that ordinary citizens will vote and become politically active. 3By extending politicians' time horizons, parties improve long-term policy outcomes. Parties have instru- mental value for office-seekers, providing the money and organizational resources necessary to run successful campaigns, and in some cases delivering a significant portion of automatic votes from partisans in the elec- torate (Aldrich 1995: 24-5). Yet parties, viewed as unitary actors, are more likely than individual politicians to have long time horizons and national { as opposed to local or regional { goals, and hence to stake out positions in favor of policies and ideas with long-term, universal benefits for national populations (Levitsky and Cameron 2003: 3). 4Parties help protect the interests of powerful societal groups, whether elites (Gibson 1996) or mass-based civil society organizations (Collier and Collier 1991), reducing the likelihood of mass praetorianism (Hunt- ington 1968). Parties make legislative debate more simple and efficient, unite the positions of large groups of legislators, and sometimes unite the positions of presidents and groups of legislators, all of which increase democratic governability (Mainwaring and Scully 1995, Mainwaring 1999, Levitsky and Cameron 2003). They act as a check on presidential power, socialize elites, and { when firmly rooted in the electorate { reduce the likelihood that political independents will gain power. In all these ways, they help check or prevent the emergence of major politicians who lack governing experience and a strong commitment to democratic institutions. 1 new party systems have emerged in some countries,5 but in many others they have not,6 and in a few countries party systems have decomposed entirely.7 Party weakness has destabilized democracy. Where party systems have collapsed and not been rebuilt, democracies have often fallen into crisis (e.g., Russia).8 In contrast, where successful party-building has occurred, democracies have typically become consolidated (e.g., Brazil).9 Despite the clear importance of parties, we continue to know relatively little about the conditions under which strong parties form. The dominant theories of party-building are mostly based on historical studies of the United States and Western European countries, almost all of which developed stable party systems.10 These works explore how electoral institutions (Duverger 1954; Lijphart 1994), social cleavages (Lipset and Rokkan 1967), and