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OLD PARTIES and NEW DEMOCRACIES Do They Bring out the Best in One Another?

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OLD PARTIES and NEW DEMOCRACIES Do They Bring out the Best in One Another? 04 Taylor-Robinson (JB/D) 30/8/01 2:11 pm Page 581 PARTY POLITICS VOL 7. No.5 pp. 581–604 Copyright © 2001 SAGE Publications London Thousand Oaks New Delhi OLD PARTIES AND NEW DEMOCRACIES Do They Bring out the Best in One Another? Michelle M. Taylor-Robinson ABSTRACT The democratization literature suggests a country’s chances of success- fully democratizing are improved by having an institutionalized party system that evolved before the recent authoritarian period. However, the conditions under which old parties established in previous democratic, quasi-democratic or authoritarian periods will benefit a new democracy have not been explored. If a party engaged in undemocratic behavior in the past, such as military alliances, election rigging or internal procedures that denied rank-and-file members chances for meaningful participation, then it may bring these undemocratic behavior patterns into the new democratic regime. The traditional parties in Argentina, Honduras, Panama, Peru and Uruguay are used to explore when parties bring undemocratic past behavior patterns into a new democratic regime, thereby hindering consolidation. These cases show that parties which experienced harsh treatment under an authoritarian regime are unlikely to continue authoritarian tactics such as military alliances and election fraud. However, traditional parties resist changing closed internal procedures that they utilized in the past, and thus cannot be relied upon to provide the mass public with opportunities for political participation beyond voting. KEY WORDS Ⅲ democratic consolidation Ⅲ institutionalized parties Ⅲ Latin America Ⅲ party internal procedures Parties have become fundamental institutions of democracies by fulfilling essential functions such as structuring and simplifying elections, recruiting political leaders, helping make government accountable to the people and providing opportunities for political participation beyond voting. However, in third-wave democracies where traditional parties exist we should ask if they perform these functions, or hinder them. Our purpose here is to explore whether traditional parties in Latin America’s third-wave democracies 1354-0688(200109)7:5;581–604;018931 04 Taylor-Robinson (JB/D) 30/8/01 2:11 pm Page 582 PARTY POLITICS 7(5) perform such functions. Put more generally, when do traditional parties show off their best democratic traits in a new democracy, and when do they instead create obstacles to democratic consolidation? Theoretical Background The extant literature implies that a country’s chances of consolidating democracy are improved by having an institutionalized party system from before the recent authoritarian period (Mainwaring, 1988; Diamond and Linz, 1989: 20–2; Catterberg, 1991: 49; Dix, 1992: 489–90; Mainwaring and Scully, 1995: 21–3). Though Mainwaring and Scully (1995: 21) acknowledge that some institutionalized party systems ‘are more propitious for building democracies than others’, they also argue ‘that institutionaliz- ing a party system is important to the process of democratic consolidation’ (1, also 27–8). Since institutionalization cannot occur over-night,1 the impli- cation is that traditional parties and an established party system are advan- tages to the new democracy. But these ‘ready made’ parties may have used undemocratic tactics to obtain power in the past, and this legacy can impede elite acceptance of democratic rules of the game in the new regime. Also parties may not have democratic internal procedures that expand opportunities for political par- ticipation. While such traditional parties may fill a vacuum during the tran- sition, they may not aid the consolidation of democracy. This work developed from a concern that institutionalized traditional parties may not be democratic actors. Institutionalization means that a structure is adaptable, coherent, autonomous and complex (Huntington, 1968), but not that it is necessarily democratic. Institutionalization is con- cerned with order and stability, rather than democracy. It provides no guarantees that parties support democratic competition and popular input. For a party system, ‘institutionalized’ may mean ‘frozen’ (i.e. the parties are the same, they have the same support base and the number of actors is stable over time) rather than institutionalized in a democratic sense of including all groups in society and providing opportunities for popular participation beyond voting. Thus an institutionalized political party or party system, which is typically thought of as a democratic institution, may not promote democracy. Below I present propositions and hypotheses about when traditional parties may bring undemocratic behavior from their past into a new democ- racy, and use the 12 traditional parties in Argentina, Honduras, Panama, Peru and Uruguay to explore how past party behavior correlates with progress consolidating new democracies. These countries were chosen because they have at least two traditional parties that have taken part in the third wave of democracy. The dependent variable throughout is the current democracy’s progress 582 04 Taylor-Robinson (JB/D) 30/8/01 2:11 pm Page 583 TAYLOR-ROBINSON: OLD PARTIES AND NEW DEMOCRACIES toward consolidation. Consolidation of democracy involves removing per- verse elements from the democratic regime, as well as deepening democracy. Perverse elements are vestiges of authoritarianism brought into the democ- racy, such as a lack of centrality of elections, or a tutelary role for the military in politics (Valenzuela, 1992; Schmitter and Karl, 1991: 81). Demo- cratic deepening refers to elites and masses learning that they can take part in political decision-making, and that thus it is in their interest to resolve conflicts through the ballot box rather than by challenging the regime (Rustow, 1970; Casper and Taylor, 1996: 10–14). The independent variable of interest is the past behavior of the parties during regimes that preceded the third-wave democracy.2 Before exploring the link between the past behavior of traditional parties and the consolidation of democracy we need to compare the progress these third-wave democracies have made toward consolidation. Freedom House scores provide a comparable evaluation of the level of democracy in a country. Table 1 presents countries’ Freedom House scores for the years since the third-wave democracies were installed. Political rights and civil liberties are each ranked on a seven-point scale, and the lowest possible score, ‘2’, is the most democratic combined score. In addition, the writings of country experts were consulted to determine the ongoing problems in a country’s democracy that may account for the scores it received from Freedom House.3 Peru appears the least democratic of the five cases,4 and Uruguay the most democratic, with Argentina, Honduras and Panama in between. In Argentina, the military’s power was greatly reduced, but democratic institutions are still quite fluid (Smith, 1990; McGuire, 1995: 221). The president often rules by decree, bypassing Congress, and the traditional parties are still characterized by ‘movimientismo’ and personalism (Manzetti, 1993: 98–100, 105–11, and 317). Honduras’s democracy was initially hampered by a strong military sup- ported by the two traditional parties (Posas, 1989: 74–5; Salomón, 1992: 114; Norsworthy and Barry, 1993: 35 and 40), but beginning in 1994 the military’s power has been legally diminished (Ruhl, 1996). Ongoing diffi- culties include the Congress’s lack of assertiveness in checking the executive, corruption and major parties that are accused of not representing popular interests (Acker, 1988: 124; Paz Aguilar, 1992: 167; Salomón, 1995). In Panama, though the military’s power has been limited, the party system is still fragmented, democratic checks and balances are underdeveloped (Smith, 1992: 214 and 230), and corruption is widespread. The rules of the game are also still fluid, exemplified by President Balladares’s attempts to amend the constitution so that he could serve a second term (Latin Ameri- can Weekly Report, 21 March 1996; 3 October 1996; 23 September 1997). The lack of democratic consolidation in Peru became obvious in April 1992 when President Fujimori staged a coup and closed the Congress. Though elections have been held since and a Congress restored, human-rights 583 04 Taylor-Robinson(JB/D)30/8/012:11pmPage584 PARTY POLITICS7(5) PARTY Table 1. Countries’ Freedom House rankings since the transition to democracy 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 584 Argentina – – – – 644333 344 55555565 Honduras – – 65655555 555 56666556 Panama ––––––––––1366 76555553 Peru 9555555555 6781110997999 Uruguay –––––94444 333 34443333 Source: Freedom House, Annual Survey of Freedom Country Ratings. 04 Taylor-Robinson (JB/D) 30/8/01 2:11 pm Page 585 TAYLOR-ROBINSON: OLD PARTIES AND NEW DEMOCRACIES violations are a problem as the government fights leftist insurgents (Cotler, 1995: 337; Palmer, 1996: 211). Peru’s traditional party system has broken down, presidents tend to control the Congress, thereby eroding institutional checks and balances (Graham, 1993: 207, 213 and 216–17; Cotler, 1995: 324 and 338–9), and there are charges of electoral irregularities. Uruguay’s democracy is generally evaluated as having made quick progress toward consolidation with the strongest democratic political culture in South America (Gonzalez, 1995: 139), though there are still con- cerns about the politicization of the military. Institutional
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